[CASE DIGEST] SARMIENTO v. MISON (G.R. No.

79974)
December 17, 1987 | 156 SCRA 549

Ulpiano P. Sarmiento III and Juanito G. Arcilla, petitioners

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

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. 

HELD: 

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. 

Section 16, Art. VII of the 1987 Constitution enumerates four groups of public
officers: 

 heads of the executive departments, ambassadors, other public ministers

and consuls, officers of the armed forces from the rank of colonel or naval
captain, and other officers whose appointments are vested in him in this
constitution;
 all other officers of the Government whose appointments are not otherwise
provided for by law;
 those whom the President may be authorized by law to appoint; and
 officers lower in rank whose appointments the Congress may by law vest in
the President alone.