G.R. No.

79974 December 17, 1987

ULPIANO P. SARMIENTO III AND JUANITO G. ARCILLA, petitioners,

vs.
SALVADOR MISON, in his capacity as COMMISSIONER OF THE BUREAU OF CUSTOMS, AND
GUILLERMO CARAGUE, in his capacity as SECRETARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF BUDGET,
respondents, COMMISSION ON APPOINTMENTS, intervenor.

Ponente: PADILLA, J.:
Facts:
In 1987, then President Corazon Aquino appointed Salvador Mison as Commissioner of the
Bureau of Customs without submitting his nomination to the Commission on Appointments. Herein
petitioners, both of whom happened to be lawyers and professors of constitutional law, filed the instant
petition for prohibition on the ground that the aforementioned appointment violated Section 16, Art. VII
of the1987 Constitution. Petitioners argued that the appointment of a bureau head should be subject to the
approval of the Commission on Appointments. 

Issue:
Whether or not the appointment of bureau heads should be subject to the approval of the
Commission on Appointments?

Ruling:
NO, construing Section 16, Art. VII of the 1987 Constitution would show that the President is
well within her authority to appoint bureau heads without submitting such nominations before the
Commission on Appointments. In its ruling, the SC traced the history of the confirmatory powers of the
Commission on Appointments (which is part of the legislative department) vis-a-vis the appointment
powers of the President. 
Under Section 10, Art. VII of the 1935 Constitution, almost all presidential appointments
required the consent or confirmation of the Commission on Appointments. As a result, the Commission
became very powerful, eventually transforming into a venue for horse-trading and similar malpractices.
On the other hand, consistent with the authoritarian pattern in which it was molded and remolded by
successive amendments, the 1973 Constitution placed the absolute power of appointment in the President
with hardly any check on the part of the legislature.

Under the current constitution, the Court held that the framers intended to strike a "middle
ground" in order to reconcile the extreme set-ups in both the 1935 and 1973 Constitutions. As such, while
the President may make appointments to positions that require confirmation by the Commission on
Appointments, the 1987 Constitution also grants her the power to make appointments on her own without
the need for confirmation by the legislature. According to the Court, only the presidential appointments of
the first group of public officers are subject to the confirmation by the Commission on Appointments. A
review of the deliberations would show that bureau heads have been deleted from the first group,
precisely because they are lower in rank as compared to other officers enumerated in the same group. 

Therefore, Mison's appointment as Commissioner of the Bureau of Customs need not be confirmed by the
Commission on Appointments.