ANDRES GARCES, REVEREND FATHER SERGIO MARILAO OSMEÑA, NICETAS DAGAR AND JESUS EDULLANTES, PETITIONERS, VS. HON. NUMERIANO G. ESTENZO, PRESIDING JUDGE OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTA…

This case is about the constitutionality of four resolu­tions of
the barangay council of Valencia,
Ormoc City,
regard­ing the acquisition of the wooden image of San Vicente Ferrer to be used in the celebration of his annual feast
day.  That issue was spawned by the
controversy as to whether the parish priest or a layman should have the custody
of the image.

On March 23, 1976,
the said barangay council adopted Resolution No. 5,
“reviving the traditional socio-religious celebration” every fifth
day of April “of the feast day of Señor San
Vicente Ferrer, the patron saint of Valencia”.

That resolution designated the members of nine com­mittees who
would take charge of the 1976 festivity. 
It pro­vided for (1) the acquisition of the image of San Vicente Ferrer and (2) the construction of a waiting shed as the barangay’s projects. 
Funds for the two projects would be obtained through the “selling
of tickets and cash donations” (Exh. A or 6).

On March 26, 1976, the barangay council
passed Reso­lution No. 6 which specified that, in accordance with the practice
in Eastern Leyte, Councilman Tomas Cabatingan, the chairman or hermano
mayor of the fiesta, would be the caretaker of the image of San Vicente Ferrer and that the image would remain in his residence for
one year and until the election of his successor as chairman of the next feast
day.

It was further provided in the resolution that the image would be
made available to the Catholic parish church during the celebration of the saint’ s feast day (Exh. B or 7).

Resolutions Nos. 5 and 6 were submitted to a plebiscite and were
duly ratified by the barangay general assembly on March 26, 1976.  Two hundred seventy-two voters ratified the
two resolutions (Exh. 2 and 5).

Funds were raised by means of solicitations and cash donations of
the barangay residents and those of the neighboring
places of Valencia.  With those funds, the waiting shed was
constructed and the wooden image of San Vicente Ferrer
was acquired in Cebu
City by the barangay
council for four hundred pesos (Exh. F-1, 3 and 4).

On April 5, 1976,
the image was temporarily placed in the altar of the Catholic church of Barangay Valencia
so that the devotees could worship the saint during the mass for the fiesta.

A controversy arose after the mass when the parish priest, Father
Sergio Marilao Osmeña,
refused to return that image to the barangay council
on the pretext that it was the property of the church because church funds were
used for its acquisition.

Several days after the fiesta or on April 11, 1976, on the occasion of his sermon during a
mass, Father Osmeña allegedly uttered defamatory
remarks against the barangay captain, Manuel C. Veloso, apparently in connection with the disputed
image.  That incident provoked Veloso to file against Father Osmeña
in the city court of Ormoc City a charge for grave
oral defamation.

Father Osmeña retaliated by filing
administrative com­plaints against Veloso with the
city mayor’s office and the De­partment of Local Government and Community
Development on the grounds of immorality, grave abuse of authority, acts
unbecoming a public official and ignorance of the law.

Meanwhile, the image of San Vicente Ferrer
remained in the Catholic church of Valencia.  Because Father Osmeña
did not accede to the request of Cabatingan to have
custody of the image and “maliciously ignored” the council’s
Resolution No. 6, the council enacted on May 12, 1976 Resolution No. 10,
authorizing the hiring of a lawyer to file a replevin
case against Father Osmeña for the recovery of the
image (Exh. C or 8).  On June
14, 1976, the barangay council passed
Resolution No. 12, appointing Veloso as its
representative in the replevin case (Exh. D or 9).

The replevin case was filed in the city
court of Ormoc City against Father Osmeña and Bishop Cipriano Urgel (Exh. F).  After the barangay
council had posted a cash bond of eight hun­dred pesos, Father Osmeña turned over the image to the coun­cil (p. 10, Rollo).  In his
answer to the complaint for replevin, he assailed the
constitutionality of the said resolutions (Exh. F-1).

Later, he and three other persons, Andres Garces,
a member of the Aglipayan Church, and two Catholic
laymen, Jesus Edullantes and Nicetas
Dagar, filed against the barangay
council and its members (excluding two members) a complaint in the Court of
First Instance at Ormoc City, praying for the
annulment of the said resolutions (Civil Case No. 1680-0).

The lower court dismissed the complaint.  It upheld the validity of the
resolutions.  The petitioners appealed
under Republic Act No. 5440.

The petitioners contend that the barangay
council was not duly constituted because Isidoro M. Mañago, Jr., the chair­man of the kabataang
barangay, was not allowed to participate in its
sessions.

Barangays used to be known as citizens assemblies
(Presidential Decrees Nos. 86 and 86-A). 
Presidential Decree No. 557, which took effect on September 21, 1974, 70 O.G.
8450-L, directed that all barrios should be known as barangays
and adopted the Revised Barrio Charter as the Barangay
Charter.

“Barrios are units of municipalities or municipal districts
in which they are situated.  They are
quasi-municipal corporations en­dowed with such powers” as are provided by
law “for the per­formance of particular government functions, to be exercised
by and through their respective barrio governments in conformity with law”
(Sec. 2, Revised Barrio Charter, R.A. No. 3590).

The barrio assembly consists of all persons who are residents of
the barrio for at least six months, eighteen years of
age or over and Filipino citizens duly registered in the list kept by the
barrio secretary (Sec. 4, Ibid).

The barrio council, now barangay
council, is composed of the barangay captain and six
councilmen (Sec. 7, Ibid). 
Section 3 of Presidential Decree No. 684, which took effect on April 15,
1975, provides that “the barangay youth chairman
shall be an ex-officio member of the barangay
council”, having the same powers and functions as a barangay
councilman.

In this case, Mañago, the barangay youth chairman, was notified of the sessions of
the barangay council to be held on March 23 and 26,
1976 but he was not able to attend those sessions because he was working with a
construction company based at Ipil, Ormoc City (Par. 2[d], Exh. 1).

Mañago’s absence from the sessions of
the barangay council did not render the said
resolutions void.  There was a quorum
when the said resolutions were passed.

The other contention of the petitioners is that the reso­lutions
contravene the constitutional provisions that “no law shall be made respecting an establishment of
religion” and that “no public money or property shall ever be
appropriated, applied, paid, or used, directly or indirectly, for the use,
benefit, or support of any sect, church, denomination, sec­tarian institution,
or system of religion, or for the use, benefit, or support of any priest,
preacher, minister, or other religious teacher or dignitary as such, except
when such priest, preacher, minister, or dignitary is assigned to the armed
forces, or to any penal institution, or government orphanage or
leprosarium” (Sec. 8, Article IV and sec. 18[2], Article VIII,
Constitution).

That contention is glaringly devoid of merit.  The questioned resolutions do not directly or
indirectly establish any religion, nor abridge religious liberty, nor
appropriate public money or property for the benefit of any sect, priest or
clergyman.  The image was purchased with
private funds, not with tax money.  The
construction of a waiting shed is entirely a secular matter.

Manifestly puerile and flimsy is petitioners’ argu­ment that the barangay council favored the Catholic religion by using the
funds raised by solicitations and donations for the purchase of the patron
saint’s wooden image and making the image available to the Catholic church.

The preposterousness of that argument is rendered more evident by
the fact that counsel advanced that argument in behalf of the petitioner,
Father Osmeña, the parish priest.

The wooden image was purchased in connection with the celebration
of the barrio fiesta honoring the patron saint, San Vicente Ferrer,
and not for the purpose of favoring any religion nor
interfering with religious matters or the religious beliefs of the barrio
residents.  One of the highlights of the
fiesta was the mass.  Consequently, the
image of the patron saint had to be placed in the church when the mass was cele­brated.

If there is nothing unconstitutional or illegal in holding a
fiesta and having a patron saint for the barrio, then any activity intended to
facilitate the worship of the patron saint (such as the acquisition and display
of his image) cannot be branded as illegal.

As noted in the first resolution, the barrio fiesta is a
socio-religious affair.  Its celebration
is an ingrained tradition in rural communities. 
The fiesta relieves the monotony and drudgery of the lives of the
masses.

The barangay council designated a
layman as the custodian of the wooden image in order to forestall any suspicion
that it is favoring the Catholic church.  A more practical reason for that arrangement
would be that the image, if placed in a layman’s custody, could easily be made
available to any family desiring to borrow the image in connection with prayers
and novenas.

The contradictory positions of the petitioners are shown in their
affidavits.  Petitioner Garces swore that the said re­solutions favored the
Catholic church. 
On the other hand, petitioners Dagar and Edullantes swore that the resolutions prejudiced the
Catholics because they could see the image in the church only once a year
or during the fiesta (Exh. H and
J).

We find that the momentous issues of separation of church and
state, freedom of religion and the use of public money to favor any sect or
church are not involved at all in this case even remotely or indirectly.  It is not a microcosmic test case on those
issues.

This case is a petty quarrel over the custody of a saint’s
image.  It would never have arisen if the
parties had been more diplomatic and tactful and if Father Osmeña
had taken the trou­ble of causing contributions to be solicited from his own
pari­shioners for the purchase of another image of San Vicente Ferrer to be installed in his church.

There can be no question that the image in question belongs to
the barangay council. 
Father Osmeña’s claim that it belongs to his
church is wrong.  The barangay
council, as owner of the image, has the right to determine who should have
custody thereof.

If it chooses to change its mind and decides to give the image to
the Catholic church, that action would not violate the Constitution because
the image was acquired with private funds and is its private
property.

The council has the right to take measures to recover possession
of the image by enacting Resolutions Nos. 10 and 12.

Not every governmental activity which involves the expenditure of
public funds and which has some religious tint is violative
of the constitutional provisions regarding separa­tion of church and state,
freedom of worship and banning the use of public money or property.

In Aglipay vs. Ruiz, 64 Phil. 201, what
was involved was Act No. 4052 which appropriated sixty thousand pesos for the
cost of plates and the printing of postage stamps with new de­signs.

Under that law, the Director of Posts, with the approval of the
Department Head and the President of the Philippines,
issued in 1936 postage stamps to commemorate the celebration in Manila
of the 33rd International Eucharistic Congress spon­sored by the Catholic
Church.

The purpose of the stamps was to raise revenue and advertise the Philippines.  The design of the stamps showed a map of the Philippines
and nothing about the Catholic Church. 
No religious purpose was intended.

Monsignor Gregorio Aglipay, the founder
and head of the Philippine Independent Church, sought to enjoin the sale of
those commemorative postage stamps.

It was held that the issuance of the stamps, while linked
inseparably with an event of a religious character, was not de­signed as a propaganda for the Catholic Church.  Aglipay’s
prohibition suit was dismissed.

The instant case is easily distinguishable from Ver­zosa vs. Fernandez, 49 Phil. 627 and 55 Phil. 307,
where a religious brotherhood, La Archicofradia del Santisimo Sacramento, organized for the purpose of raising
funds to meet the expenses for the annual fiesta in honor of the Most Holy
Sacrament and the Virgin Lady of Guadalupe, was held accountable for the funds
which it held as trustee.

Finding that the petitioners have no cause of action for the
annulment of the barangay resolutions, the lower
court’s judgment dismissing their amended petition is affirmed.  No costs.

SO ORDERED.

Fernando, C.J., Barredo, Makasiar, Guerrero, De Castro, and Melencio-Herrera, JJ., concur.

Teehankee, J., in the result.

Fernandez and Concepcion, Jr., JJ., on official leave.

Abad Santos, J., see concurrence.