ILDEFONSO D. YAP AND PHILIPPINE HARVARDIAN COLLEGE, PLAINTIFFS AND APPELLANTS, VS. MANUEL L. CARREON, PERSONALLY IN HIS PRIVATE CAPACITY AND AS DIRECTOR OF PRIVATE SCHOOLS, DEFE…

This is an action to recover
actual, moral and exemplary damages aggregating P210,000, dismissed by the Court a quo and on appeal
certified to us by the Court of Appeals in view of the amount
claimed.

Appellant Ildefonso D. Yap was the president and operator of the
Philippine Harvardian College, an educational
institution with its main office in Manila and branches in the provinces. Two of
these were the San Fernando Branch in San
Fernando, Pampanga, and the St.
John’s College in Calumpit, Bulacan. At the time of
the act complained of appellee Manuel L. Carreon was the Director of Private
Schools.

In1950 appellants applied to the
Bureau of Private Schools for permission to offer the Elementary course (grade
school), a Junior Normal course (E. T. C.) and a Liberal Arts course (A.A.) in
the St. John’s College; and a law course and a one-year post-graduate course in
Education in the San Fernando branch. On June 29, 1951 Bureau supervisors found,
on inspection, that the latter branch had already opened the post-graduate
course which was still under application. On September 10, 1951 the Assistant
Director of Private Schools, Daniel M. Salcedo,
informed Yap by letter that in connection with the proposed course in the St
John’s College a representative of the Bureau had found a number of deficiencies
which, if not thoroughly corrected, would be cause for the denial of the
corresponding permit applied for. On October 16, 3951 Salcedo informed Yap, again by letter, that the petition to
offer a post-graduate course in the San Fernando branch was disapproved by
reason of deficiencies found in a general survey thereof. And on June 3, 1952
similar action was taken by Salcedo on the petition to
offer the three courses applied for in St. John’s College, the deficiencies previously pointed out not having been
corrected.

On June 30, 1952 Director Carreon sent to the Secretary of Education a partial list of
private school courses that had been disauthorized for
the school year 1952-1953, together with the names of the respective schools
offering them. The Secretary approved the list, which was then published the
next day in The Manila Chronicle, The Evening News and other
metropolitan papers. Among those included were:

“19. Philippine
Harvardian College,
San
Fernando, Pampanga: One Year Post-Graduate Course in
Education.

x x
x x x

“25. St. John’s College, Calumpit, Bulacan: Complete
Elementary, Two Year Junior Normal College and Liberal
Arts.”

Three months afterwards
appellants filed this suit Against Director Carreon in
the Court of First Instance of Manila, for damages allegedly suffered by them
because of aforementioned publication. Defendant filed his answer, with
counterclaim; and after trial the court rendered judgment dismissing both the
complaint and the counterclaim. Hence this
appeal.

Appellants maintain that appellee had no authority to issue the press release in
question. On the other hand appellee justifies his
action under Section 11, Act No. 2706, which provides:

“Section
11. The
Secretary of Public Instruction (now Secretary of Education) shall be authorized
to appoint a (Commissioner of Private Schools), who shall:

5. Under the direction of the
Secretary of Public Instruction, cause to be published from time to time, for
the information at the public, a list of the approved private schools or
colleges, setting forth what courses have been recognized in each school or
college.”

Appellant’s position is that the
abovequoted provision authorizes the Director of
Private Schools to issue for publication only lists of approved private
educational institutions and the courses they are authorized to offer, but not
of the courses that have been disapproved and the schools offering them. This
interpretation of the statute is much too literal and narrow, and at times
impractical for the purpose sought to be attained. Indeed there is no cogent
reason to hold that the authority therein given is restrictive in the sense of
prohibiting the publication of any other information relevant to the supervision
of private educational institutions. Even without statutory authority of any
kind, the issuance of press releases informative of official action is normal
procedure in our democratic system, and should generate no liability, civil or
criminal, unless clearly against some legal provision.

In the case at bar, the
publication authorized by Act No. 2706 is expressly “for the information of the
public.” It is obviously intended for the benefit of students and, of course, of
their parents. Without proper information and warning, students might enroll in
schools not duly authorized or take courses for which later on they might not be
duly credited. The resulting loss in time, money and effort would be
incalculable. The manner outlined in the law, if strictly and literally
construed, may easily prove inadequate to prevent such result. For the fact that
a school or course is not included in an approved list would not necessarily
lead a prospective student to conclude that it has been disapproved. Such lists
are published from time to time, and a check of all of them would be a task very
few would care to undertake. Indeed the procedure observed by appellee could be in certain instances the only effective
means of providing information to the public. It appears that a school may offer
a course even while its petition for permit is still pending in the Bureau of
Private Schools. If only lists of approved courses are published and lists of
disapproved ones are not, the public would not know whether the permit for a
given course is still pending approval or has been definitely disapproved. Again
a duly recognized private school may have been permitted to offer a certain
number of courses, which are then included for publication in the approved list.
Later on, however, the standard of the school deteriorates, or it so incurs
deficiencies in some of its courses that their corresponding permits are cancelled. If no list of such disapproved courses is
published the public would continue to believe that they are still valid. It is
true that a school may be penalized for maintaining courses that have been
disapproved; but the penalty would not redress the prejudice already caused to
the students.

In the particular case of
appellants, they applied for permits to offer four new courses. The
investigation conducted by supervisors of the Bureau of Private Schools revealed
certain deficiencies. They were brought to the attention of the appellants, but
the deficiencies were not corrected. When the applications were denied for that
reason, the Director of Private Schools acted within his authority in including
the said courses in the list released for publication.

Appellant Yap claims that prior
to the release of the list he sent letters to appellee
informing him (on November 11, 1951) that the post-graduate course in the San
Fernando branch had been discontinued and (on March 19, 1952) that the
elementary and collegiate courses in the St. John’s College would not be offered
for the coming school year Appellee denied having
received those alleged letters, Exhibits B and C, and there is no proof that he
had. It may be noted that the exhibits are not duplicates or carbon copies, but
appear to be unsigned originals—a circumstance which casts serious doubt on the
claim that the letters had actually been sent to appellee.

Appellants invoke the precept in
Article 19 of the Civil Code that every person must, in the exercise of his
rights and the performance of his duties, act with justice, give everyone his
due and observe honesty and good faith. The record shows that appellee acted in conformity therewith. It does not appear
that he sought to cause damage to appellants. He did not single out the schools
they were operating; they were only two in a list of 66 private educational
institutions whose applications for permits had been
disapproved.

Appellants say that appellee branded said schools as “diploma mills. Reference
is made to the following portion of the news item carried by The Evening
News of July 1, 1952:

“This was announced yesterday by
Private Schools Director Manuel Carreon who also
disclosed that the action taken by the bureau was the result of a six-month
survey by the bureau aimed at weeding cut ‘diploma
mills.’”

and the following news excerpt which
appeared in another paper:

“Basis for the order to close,
which was finally given after a long delay, were the
reports received from private school supervisors in the field as well as from
records available in the bureau. Screening of schools had been going on for the
past several months in line with the bureau of private schools drive against
‘diploma mills’”

There is no evidence that appellee himself applied the epithet objected to. What is
certain is that he made the list public. Whether the release thereof was
accompanied by a personal statement of his or whether he used the term “diploma
mills” has not been satisfactorily shown. He did not write the news stories; the
newspapermen did. The imputation was at best hearsay, or was merely the
reporters’ own interpretation of the action taken by the Bureau of Private
Schools.

Appellee, it is pointed out, issued no
denial of the statement attributed to him by The Evening News. From this
fact, however, no presumption arises that he did make such a statement. He was
not supposed to scan all the newspapers and deny statements therein that might
have been attributed to him. In the absence of more reliable evidence that appellee himself used the term “diploma mills,”
responsibility therefor cannot be laid at his
door.

The judgment appealed from is
affirmed, with costs against appellants.

Bengzon, C.J., Concepcion, Reyes, J. B. L., Barrera, Paredes, Dizon, and Bengzon, J. P., JJ.,
concur.