SAN NICOLAS TRANSPORTATION COMPANY, PETITIONER, VS. THE PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION AND THE NORTHERN LUZON TRANSPORTATION COMPANY, INC., RESPONDENTS.

Original
application for certiorari to review the following order of the Public
Service Commission dated September 26, 1933, which reads:

“ORDER

“In
view of the failure of the herein respondent to pay the sum of P725,
which was imposed upon it by this commission as fine and costs of
investigation in this case, it is ordered, that the operation of the
auto-truck service of the respondent be, as it is hereby suspended. The
district engineer and provincial commander of Ilocos Norte are hereby
requested to recall all the TPU plates which may have been issued to
the respondent and to keep them in their possession until further
advice from this commission.

“Entered, Manila, September 26, 1933.

		“(Sgd.) ALEX REYES
	” (Judge, Court of First Instance)
			“Associate Commissioner”

The
petitioner is the holder of a certificate of public convenience and is
operating an auto-truck service in Northern Luzon. On November 7, 1931,
petitioner herein was held guilty of violations of orders of the Public
Service Commission, and a fine of P700 plus P25 as costs of
investigation was imposed on the company. Within due time a motion for
reconsideration and new hearing was filed, but no decision was entered
until July 31, 1933, when the Public Service Commission issued an order
denying the motion for reconsideration and sustaining its original
decision dated November 7, 1931.

Prior to that action of the Public Service Commission, this court in Filipino Bus Company vs.
Philippine Railway Company, respondent, and Public Service Commission,
intervenor, promulgated February 16, 1933 (57 Phil., 860), had held
that the Public Service Commission was without authority to impose such
fines. The last paragraph of that decision reads as follows:

“The
Public Service Commission, being a creature of the Legislature, and not
a court, it can exercise only such jurisdiction and powers as are
expressly, or by necessary implication, conferred upon it by statute.
As we do not find in section 30, or any other provision of the Public
Service Law, any delegation to the commission, in express words or by
necessary implication, of the authority and jurisdiction to determine
the guilt of the appellant, or the discretion to determine the amount
of the penalty, or the authority to ‘impose’ the penalty here in
question under pain of suspension of the appellant’s certificate of
public convenience and necessity, we must hold that the commission had
no jurisdiction to make the order herein complained of. The order must
be declared void and is hereby vacated, without prejudice to any other
proceedings that may be brought lawfully against the Filipino Bus
Company.”

The Public Service Commission
being without authority to impose such fines, its action in attempting
to enforce a fine of that character by taking away the plates on
petitioner’s busses and so preventing the company from using the public
highways, is illegal and arbitrary, and its orders predicated upon an
illegal fine cannot be upheld.

Its order of September 26, 1933, must be vacated and the writ granted. No expression as to costs. So ordered.

Malcolm, Villa-Real, Imperial, and Butte, JJ., concur.