GAUDENCIO RAYO, BIENVINIDO PASCUAL, TOMAS MANUEL, MARIANO CRUZ, PEDRO BARTOLOME, BERNARDINO CRUZ, JOSE PALAD, LUCIO FAJARDO, FRANCISCO RAYOS,  ANGEL TORRES, NORBERTO TORRES, ROD…

The relevant antecedents of this case are narrated in the
petition and have not been controverted, namely:

“3. At about
midnight on October 26, 1978, during the height of that infamous typhoon
“KADING”, the respondent corporation, acting through its plant
superintendent, Benjamin Chavez, opened or caused to be opened simultaneously
all the three floodgates of the Angat Dam. And as a direct and immediate result of the sudden, precipitate and
simultaneous opening of said floodgates several towns in Bulacan were
inundated. Hardest-hit was
Norzagaray. About a hundred of its
residents died or were re­ported to have died and properties worth million of
pesos destroyed or washed away. This
flood was unprecedented in Norzagaray.

“4.
Petitioners, who were among the many unfortunate victims of that man-caused
flood, filed with the respondent Court eleven complaints for damages against
the respondent corporation and the plant superintendent of Angat Dam, Benjamin
Chavez, docketed as Civil Cases Nos. SM-950, 951, 953, 958, 959, 964, 965, 966,
981, 982 and 983. These complaints
though separately filed have a common/ similar cause of action. x x x.

“5. Respondent
corporation filed separate answers to each of these eleven complaints. Apart from traversing the material averments
in the com­plaints and setting forth counterclaims for damages respondent
corporation invoked in each answer a special and affirmative defense that ‘in
the operation of the Angat Dam,’ it is ‘performing a purely govern­mental
function’, hence it ‘can not be sued without the express consent of the State.’
x x x.

“6. On motion
of the respondent corporation a preliminary hearing was held on its affirmative
defense as though a motion to dismiss were filed. Petitioners opposed the prayer for dismissal and contended that
respondent corporation is performing not governmental but merely proprietary
functions and that under its own organic act,, Section 3 (d) of Republic
Act No. 6395, it can ‘sue and be sued in any court.’ x x x.

“7. On July 29,
1980 petitioners received a copy of the questioned order of the respondent
Court dated December 21, 1979 dismissing all their com­plaints as against the
respondent corporation thereby leaving the superintendent of the Angat Dam,
Benjamin Chavez, as the sole party-defendant. x x x.

“8. On August
7, 1980 petitioners filed with the respondent Court a motion for
reconsideration of the questioned order of dismissal x x x.

“9. The
respondent Court denied petitioners’ motion for reconsideration in its order
dated October 3, 1980. x x x. Hence,
the present petition for re­view on certiorari under Republic Act No.
5440. ” (Rollo, pp. 3-6.)

The Order of dismissal dated December 12, 1979, reads as follows:

“Under consideration is a motion to dismiss embodied as a
special affirmative defense in the answer filed by defendant NPC on the grounds
that said defendant performs a purely governmental function in the operation of the Angat Dam and can not therefore be
sued for damages in the instant cases in connection therewith.

“Plaintiffs’ opposition to said motion to dis­miss, relying on
Sec. 3 (d) of Republic Act 6396 which imposes on the NPC the power and
liability to sue and be sued in any court, is not tenable since the same refer
to such matters only as are within the scope of the other corporate powers of
said defendant and not matters of tort as in the instant cases. It being an agency performing a purely governmental function in the operation of the
Angat Dam, said defendant was not given any right to commit wrongs upon
individuals. To sue said defendant for
tort may require the express consent of the State.

“WHEREFORE, the cases
against defendant NPC are hereby dismissed.” (Rollo, p. 60.)

The Order dated October 3, 1980, denying the motion for
reconsideration filed by the plaintiffs is pro forma; the motion
was simply denied for lack of merit. (Rollo, p. 74.)

The petition to review the two orders of the public respondent
was filed on October 16, 1980, and on October 27, 1980. We required the respondents to comment. It was only on April 13, 1981, after a
number of extensions, that the Solicitor General filed the required
comment. (Rollo, pp. 107-114.)

On May 27, 1980, We required the parties to file simultaneous
memoranda within twenty (20) days from notice. (Rollo, p. 115. ) Petitioners filed their memorandum on July 22,
1981. (Rollo, pp. 118-125.) The Solicitor
General filed a number of motions for exten­sion of time to file his
memorandum. We granted the seventh
extension with a warning that there would be no further extension. Despite the warning the Solicitor General
moved for an eighth extension which We denied on November 9, 1981. A motion for a ninth extension was similarly
denied on November 18, 1981. The
decision in this case is, therefore, without the memorandum of the Solicitor
General.

The parties are agreed that the Order dated December 21, 1979,
raises the following issues:

1.           
Whether respondent National Power Corporation performs a
governmental function with respect to the management and operation of the Angat
Dam; and

2.           
Whether the power of respondent National Power Corporation to sue and be sued under its organic
charter includes the power to be sued for tort.

The petition is highly impressed with merit.

It is not necessary to write an extended dissertation on whether
or not the NPC performs a governmental function with respect to the management
and operation of the Angat Dam. It is
sufficient to say that the government has organized a private corporation, put
money in it and has allowed it to sue and be sued in any court under its
charter. (R. A. No. 6395, Sec. 3 (d).)
As a government owned and controlled corporation, it has a personality of its
own, distinct and separate from that of the Government. (See National Shipyards and Steel Corp. vs.
CIR, et al., L-17874, August 31, 1963, 8 SCRA 781.) Moreover, the charter
provision that the NPC can “sue and be sued in any court” is without
qualification on the cause of action and accor­dingly it can include a tort
claim such as the one instituted by the peti­tioners.

WHEREFORE, the petition is hereby granted; the Orders of
the respondent court dated December 12, 1979 and October 3, 1980, are set
aside; and said court is ordered to reinstate the complaints of the
petitioners. Costs against the NPC.

SO ORDERED.

Barredo, (Chairman), Aquino, De Castro, Ericta, and Escolin, JJ., concur.

Concepcion, Jr., J., on leave.