G.R. No. L-6898. April 30, 1954

Petitioner Luis Manalang contests, by quo warranto proceedings, the
title of the incumbent Commissioner of the National Employment Service,
and seeks to take possession of said office as the person allegedly
entitled thereto.

The original respondent was Aurelio Quitoriano, who, at the time of
the filing of the petition (August 4, 1953), held said office, which he
assumed on July 1, 1953, by virtue of a designation made, in his favor,
as Acting Commissioner of the National Employment Service, by the
Office of the President of the Philippines. Subsequently, or on October
22, 1953, petitioner included, as respondents, Emiliano Morabe, who, on
September 11, 1953, was designated Acting Commissioner of National
Employment Service, and Zosimo G. Linato, the Collecting, Disbursing
and Property Officer of said National Employment Service—hereinafter
referred to, for the sake of brevity, as the Service—in order to
restrain him from paying, to respondent Morabe, the salary of the
Commissioner of said Service. Still later, or on January 21, 1954,
Mohamad de Venancio, who was designated Acting Commissioner of said
Service, and assumed said office, on January 11 and 13, respectively,
of the same year, was included as respondent.

It appears that, prior to July 1, 1953, and for some time prior
thereto, petitioner, Luis Manalang, was Director of the Placement
Bureau, an office created by Executive Order No. 392, dated December
31, 1950 (46 Off. Gaz., No. 12, pp. 5913, 5920-5921), avowedly pursuant
to the powers vested in the President by Republic Act No. 422. On June
20, 1952, Republic Act No. 761, entitled “An Act to Provide for the
Organization of a National Employment Service,” was approved and became
effective. Section 1 thereof partly provides:

” * * * In order to ensure the best possible
organization of the employment market as an integral part of the
national program for the achievement and maintenance of maximum
employment and the development and use of productive resources there is
hereby established a national system of free public employment offices
to be known as the National Employment Service, hereinafter referred to
as the Service. The Service shall be under the executive supervision
and control of the Department of Labor, and shall have a chief who
shall be known as the Commissioner of the National Employment Service
hereinafter referred to as Commissioner. Said Commissioner shall be
appointed by the President of the Philippines with the consent of the
Commission on Appointments and shall receive compensation at the rate
of nine thousand pesos per annum. A Deputy Commissioner shall also be
appointed by the President of the Philippines with the consent of the
Commission on Appointments and shall receive compensation at the rate
of seven thousand two hundred pesos per annum“

On June 1, 1953, the then Secretary of Labor, Jose Figueras,
recommended the appointment of petitioner Luis Manalang as Commissioner
of the Service. On June 29, 1953, respondent Aurelio Quitoriano, then
Acting Secretary of Labor, made a similar recommendation in favor of
Manalang, upon the ground that “he is best qualified” and “loyal to
service and administration.” Said Acting Secretary of Labor even
informed Manalang that he would probably be appointed to the office in
question. However, on July 1, 1953, Quitoriano was the one designated,
and sworn in, as Acting Commissioner of “the Service. Such designation
of Quitoriano—like the subsequent designation, first, of Emiliano
Morabe, and then, of Mohamad de Venancio—is now assailed by Manalang as
“illegal” and equivalent to removal of the petitioner from office
without cause.

This pretense can not be sustained. To begin with, petitioner has
never been Commissioner of the National Employment Service and, hence,
he could not have been, and has not been removed therefrom. Secondly,
to remove an officer is to oust him from office before the expiration
of his term. A removal implies that the office exists after the ouster.
Such is not the case of petitioner herein, for Republic Act No. 761 expressly abolished
the Placement Bureau, and, by implication, the office of director
thereof, which, obviously, cannot exist without said Bureau. By the
abolition of the latter and of said office, the right thereto of its
incumbent, petitioner herein, was necessarily extinguished thereby.
Accordingly, the constitutional mandate to the effect that “no officer
or employee in the civil service shall be removed or suspended except
for cause as provided by law” (Art. XII, Sec. 4, Phil. Const.), is not
in point, for there has been neither a removal nor a suspension of
petitioner Manalang, but an abolition of his former office of Director
of the Placement Bureau, which, admittedly, is within the power of
Congress to undertake by legislation.

It is argued, however, in petitioner’s memorandum, that

“* * * there is no abolition but only fading away of the title Placement Bureau and all
its functions are continued by the National Employment Service because
the two titles cannot coexist. The seemingly additional duties were
only brought about by the additional facilities like the district
offices, Employment Service Advisory Councils, etc.”

The question whether or not Republic Act No. 761 abolished the
Placement Bureau is one of legislative intent, about which there can be
no controversy whatsoever, in view of the explicit declaration in the
second paragraph of section 1 of said Act reading:

“Upon the organization of the Service, the existing
Placement Bureau and the existing Employment Office in the Commission
of Social Welfare shall be abolished, and all the files,
records, supplies, equipment, qualified personnel and unexpended.
balances of appropriations of said Bureau and Commission pertaining to
said bureau or office shall thereupon be transferred to the Service.”(Italics supplied.)

Incidentally, this transfer connotes that the National Employment
Service is different and distinct from the Placement Bureau, for a
thing may be transferred only from one place to another, not
to the same place. Had Congress intended the National Employment
Service to be a mere amplification or enlargement of the Placement
Bureau, Republic Act No. 761 would have directed the retention of the “qualified personnel” of the latter, not their transfer
to the former. Indeed, the Service includes, not only the functions
pertaining to the former Placement Bureau, but also, those of the
former Employment Office in the Commission of Social Welfare, apart
from other powers, not pertaining to either office, enumerated in
section 4 of Republic Act No. 761.

Again, if the absorption by the Service of the duties of the
Placement Bureau, sufficed to justify the conclusion that the former
and the latter are identical, then the Employment Office in the
Commission of Social Welfare, would logically be entitled to make the
same claim. At any rate, any possible doubt, on this point, is
dispelled by the fact that, in his sponsorship speech, on the bill
which later became Republic Act No. 761, Senator Magalona said:

“Como ya he dicho al caballero de Rizal, esta es una nueva oficina que tiene su esfera de accion distinta
de la de cualquiera de las divisiones de la Oficina de Trabajo. Ademas,
como he dicho, es muy importante la creacion de esta oficina, porque
con ella se trata de buscar remedio para esos dos mi Hones de
desempleados filipinos que hay ahora.” (Vol. Ill, Congressional Record,
Senate, No. 56,April 23, 1952; italics supplied.)

It is next urged in petitioner’s memorandum “that the item of
National Employment Service Commissioner is not new and is occupied by
the petitioner” and that the petitioner is entitled to said office
“automatically by operation of law,” in view of the above quoted
provision of section 1 of Republic Act No. 761, relative to the
transfer to the service of the “qualified personnel” of the Placement
Bureau and of the Employment Office in the Commission of Social Welfare.

This contention is inconsistent with the very allegations of
petitioner’s pleadings. Thus, in paragraph 11 of his petition, it is
alleged “that increasing the item and elaborating the title of a civil
servant, although necessitating a new appointment,
does not mean the ousting of the incumbent or declaring the item
vacant.” In paragraph 12 of the same pleading, petitioner averred that
“on or about June 25, 1953, two days before the departure of President
Quirino to Baltimore, petitioner wrote a confidential memorandum to His
Excellency reminding him of the necessity of appointing anew the petitioner as head of the National Employment Service.”

Having thus admitted—and correctly—that he needed a new appointment
as Commissioner of the National Employment Service, it follows that
petitioner does not hold— or, in his own words, occupy—the latter’s
item, inasmuch as the right thereto may be acquired only by appointment
What is more, Republic Act No. 761 requires specifically that said
appointment be made by the President of the Philippines “with the
consent of the Commission on Appointments.” How could the President and
the Commission on Appointments perform these acts if the Director of
the Placement Bureau automatically became Commissioner of the National
Employment Service?

Neither may petitioner profit by the provision of the second
paragraph of section 1 of Republic Act No. 761, concerning the transfer
to the Service of the “qualified personnel” of the Placement Bureau and
of the Employment Office in the Commission of Social Welfare, because:

1. Said transfer shall be affected only “upon the
   organization” of the National Employment Service, which does not take
   place until after the appointment of, at least, the
   commissioner thereof. If the Director of the Placement Bureau were
   included in the phrase “qualified personnel” and, as a consequence, he
   automatically became Commissioner of the Service, the latter would have
   become organized simultaneously with the approval of Republic Act No.
   761, and the same would not have conditioned the aforementioned
   transfer “upon the organization of the Service,” which connotes that
   the new office would be established at some future time. Indeed, in
   common parlance, the word “personnel” is used generally to refer to the
   subordinate officials or clerical employees of an office or enterprise,
   not to the managers, directors or heads thereof.

2. If
   “qualified personnel” included the heads of the offices affected by the
   establishment of the Service, the it would, also, include the chief of
   the Employment Office in the Commission of Social Welfare, who,
   following petitioner’s line of argument, would, like petitioner herein,
   be, also, a Commissioner of the National Employment Service. The result
   would be that we would have either two commissioners of said Service or
   a Commission thereof consisting of two persons—instead of a
   Commissioner— and neither alternative is countenanced by Republic Act
   No. 761.

3. Congress can not either appoint the
   Commissioner of the Service, or impose upon the President the duty to
   appoint any particular person to said office. The appointing power is
   the exclusive prerogative of the President, upon which no limitations
   may be imposed by Congress, except those resulting from the need of
   securing the concurrence of the Commission on Appointments and from the
   exercise of the limited legislative power to prescribe the
   qualifications to a given appointive office.

Petitioner alleges in paragraph 2 of his petition, which has been admitted by the respondents:

“That he started as clerk in 1918 in the Bureau of
Labor by reason of his civil service second grade eligibility that he
was appointed public defender, In-charge of the Pampanga Agency, in
1937 likewise, as a result of his civil service public defender
eligibility and has successively held the positions of Chief of Social
Improvement Division, Senior Assistant in the Office of the Secretary
of Labor, Chief of the Wage Claims Division, Attorney of Labor
(In-charge of the Civil Cases), Chief of the Administrative Division,
Chief of the Labor Inspection Division and Director of the Placement
Bureau, also under the Department of Labor.”

The many years spent by petitioner in the service of the Government
have not escaped the attention of the Court. For this reason, we have
even considered whether or not he should be held entitled to the
position of Deputy Commissioner of the National Employment Service,
which carries a compensation of P7,200.00 per annum,
identical to that of Director of the Placement Bureau. However, it is
our considered opinion that we can not make said finding, not only
because the office of Deputy Commissioner of the National Employment
Service is beyond the pale of the issues raised in this proceedings,
which are limited to the position of Commissioner of said Service, but,
also, because the reasons militating against petitioner’s claim to the
latter position, apply equally to that of Deputy Commissioner. At any
rate, petitioner’s record as a public servant—no matter how impressive
it may be as an argument in favor of his consideration for appointment
either as Commissioner or as Deputy Commissioner of the Service—is a
matter which should be addressed to the appointing power in the
exercise of its sound judgment and discretion, and does not suffice to
grant the Court, whose duty is merely to apply the law, the power to
vest in him a legal title which he does not have.

Wherefore, the petition is hereby dismissed and the writ prayed for denied, without costs.

Pablo, Bengzon, Reyes, Jugo, Bautista Angelo, and Labrador, JJ., concur.

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CONCURRING

MONTEMAYOR, J.,:

I fully concur in the learned opinion of Mr. Justice Concepcion. Its
legal considerations and conclusions are based on and supported by the
law which sometimes is harsh (dura lex), as it now has turned out to be
with respect to petitioner.

Considering all the circumstances surrounding this case, I am
convinced, and from what I could gather from the discussion during our
deliberations, even my respected colleagues or many of them, agree with
me that all the equities are with the petitioner. He fully and truly
deserved a high and important office in the National Employment
Service. Not only did he, for many years, prepare himself for the
special and technical service to direct or assist direct the functions
and activities of the National Employment Service, by his previous
training and experience, but the Government itself prepared him for
said service by sending him abroad to study and observe social
legislation and employment, and later on his return even had him assist
in the drafting of the very legislation that abolished his office of
Director of Placement Bureau, and created the National Employment
Service. There is every reason to believe that at the time, petitioner
was intended to head the new offices or at least, be one of its chief
officials, and he was given that understanding and expectation.
Unfortunately, however, through a quirk of Fate and at the last hour,
he was not appointed. Result—he lost his chance; and what is worse, he
lost his civil service post which was abolished, all through no fault
on his part.

This short concurring opinion is never intended to embarrass or
serve as a reflection on the appointing power, particularly the present
administration, which is not to blame. If a suitable post, preferably
in his line, could be found for petitioner, a wrong would be righted,
the harshness of the law softened and tempered, and the interests of
justice and equity served.

Paras, C. J. and Bautista Angelo, JJ., concur.