AMADO O. IBAÑEZ AND ESTHER A. RAFAEL-IBAÑEZ, PETITIONERS, VS. COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS; ABELARDO SUBIDO, AS COMMISSIONER OF CIVIL SERVICE; EDILBERTO REGALADO, ENRIQUE ROA, ERNEST…

Ibañez versus Commission on Elections

The Case

This is a special civil action brought by the spouses Amado Ibañez and Esther Rafael-Ibañez against the Commission on Elections, the Commissioner of Civil Service, and four rival election registrars. The petitioners ask the Supreme Court to declare them permanent election registrars of the City of Manila, to stop their transfer to the provinces, to annul the appointments of the four respondents, and to set aside their own relief, suspension, and administrative investigation. The case matters because it draws the line between an appointment and a mere assignment in the civil service, and explains when security of tenure may be invoked.

Procedural History

The petitioners filed a single multi-purpose petition in the Supreme Court, styled as one for certiorari, prohibition, mandamus, and quo warranto, with a prayer for a writ of preliminary injunction. Upon the filing of a bond approved by the Court, the preliminary injunction was issued. The Court thus acted on the petition as an original action, and decided it directly, noting that several other cases raising the same principal question had arisen from the same factual setting, so it chose to settle the principal issue once and for all.

Facts

Pursuant to Republic Act 3808, the Commission on Elections approved a reorganization plan in December 1963. The plan provided forty-three city registrars and one thousand three hundred twenty-six municipal registrars, and four of the city registrar positions were allotted to Manila. Because of a shortage of qualified personnel and the demands of the new registration system under Republic Act 3588, the Commission adopted a policy of appointing election registrars without naming a specific station, and shifting them from place to place as registration required. Under this policy, the petitioner Amado Ibañez was appointed in February 1964 as Election Registrar in the Commission on Elections, filling an item corresponding to a municipal registrar position, and was later assigned to the fourth district of Manila. His wife, the petitioner Esther Rafael-Ibañez, was similarly appointed in November 1964 to a municipal registrar item and assigned to Manila.

The four respondents, Regalado, Roa, Verdejo, and Bautista, were likewise appointed as Election Registrar in the Commission on Elections, each to a municipal registrar item, and were among the about fifty registrars assigned to Manila in the saturation drive. None of them, however, was then officially appointed as election registrar specifically for the City of Manila.

In April 1965, the Supreme Court ruled in the Puyat case that appointments of election registrars-at-large were void. Congress then passed Republic Act 4730, effective June 1966, requiring that every election registrar be appointed to a specific city, municipality, or municipal district, and that once appointed he may not be transferred or removed without cause or his consent. To comply, the Commission formed a screening committee, which recommended Roa, Regalado, Reyes, Verdejo, and Bautista. In August 1966, the Commission permanently appointed the four respondents as Election Registrars in the City of Manila, and their appointments were approved by the Civil Service Commissioner. The Commission then directed the forty-one other registrars detailed in Manila, including the petitioners, to turn over their accountabilities and assist the new permanent registrars. All forty-one refused. The Commission charged them with disobedience and conduct prejudicial to the service, and ordered their preventive suspension. The petitioners then came to the Supreme Court.

Issues

• Whether or not the action of the Commission in relieving the petitioners from their Manila assignments, and in suspending and investigating them, is illegal and void for violating the permanence of station and security of tenure under Republic Act 3588, as amended by Republic Act 4730.
• Whether or not the petitioners' appointments, which did not specify a station, were perfected and made permanent by their subsequent assignment to Manila.
• Whether or not the petitioners are entitled, in the alternative, to be appointed as permanent election registrars of Manila.

Applicable Provisions

Section 2 of Republic Act 3588, the original Permanent Registration Act, provided:

Section 2. There shall be in each city, municipality and municipal district at least one election registrar appointed by the Commission on Elections.

This provision, as the Court noted, did not categorically require that each registrar be appointed to a specific station, which is why the Commission adopted its policy of stationless appointments.

Section 3 of Republic Act 3588, as amended by Republic Act 4730, provides:

Every election registrar shall be appointed to a specific city, municipality or municipal district; and once appointed may not be transferred or removed to another city, municipality or municipal district without cause or his consent.

This amendment supplied the permanence of station that the petitioners invoke, and it is the standard against which their appointments are measured.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the Commission acted within its authority. Security of tenure is indeed constitutionally guaranteed, and unconsented transfers are tantamount to removals. But the availability of that security depends, in the first instance, on the nature of the appointment. The rule against unconsented transfers presupposes that the officer was appointed, not merely assigned, to a particular station. The petitioners' appointments stated only that they were Election Registrars in the Commission on Elections, and filled items corresponding to municipal registrars. They were therefore not appointed to, and not entitled to security of tenure in, any specific station. On general principles, they may be transferred as the exigencies of the service require.

On the second issue, the Court rejected the theory that the later assignment to Manila validated the appointments. The approval by the Civil Service Commissioner gave the appointments the stamp of finality, and the subsequent assignment did not detract from that perfection. The appointees were entitled only to such security of tenure as the appointment papers actually conferred, not in any place to which they were later assigned. The Court stressed the distinction it had repeatedly drawn:

A contrary rule will erase altogether the demarcation line we have repeatedly drawn between appointment and assignment as two distinct concepts in the law of public officers.

The Court added that even if the appointments were void for failing to state a station, the petitioners, having accepted them and reaped benefits, cannot now impugn their validity. And whichever way the validity question went, the petitioners would profit nothing: if valid, they involve mere assignment; if void, a void appointment confers no rights except perhaps under the de facto doctrine, never enough to shelter the incumbent under security of tenure.

On the third issue, the Court held that the petitioners have no preferred right to the Manila positions. Performing the duties of an office does not create a right to it. Only four city registrar positions are allotted to Manila, and the Commission cannot validly appoint forty-one permanent city registrars for Manila alone. The power to appoint is essentially discretionary, and the Court found no evidence of discrimination or favoritism in the choices made by the screening committee.

Doctrine

Security of tenure protects against removal without cause and against unconsented transfer, but it attaches only to an appointment to a specific station, not to a mere assignment. The nature of the appointment controls. A stationless appointment is complete upon approval by the Civil Service Commissioner, and a later assignment to a place does not convert it into an appointment to that place. A void appointment confers no rights except perhaps under the de facto doctrine, and never security of tenure. The power to appoint is discretionary with the proper authority, and performance of the duties of an office does not by itself create a right to it.

Disposition

The petition was dismissed, and the preliminary injunction previously issued was dissolved, with the result that the respondents prevailed and the appointments of the four respondent registrars stood.

Remember This

Memorize the line: appointment and assignment are two distinct concepts, and security of tenure flows only from the former. Examiners use this case to test the appointment-versus-assignment distinction and the limits of security of tenure in the civil service.