RODOLFO CARREON, ALFONSO ABAD, NICOLAS CARREON AND SEDRONIO CALALANG, PETITIONERS, VS. GERMANICO CARREON, HERMINIO ACAYLAR, JUSTINO SALDON AND BENJAMIN CARDINO, RESPONDENTS.

Petitioners have applied for a
writ of quo warranto seeking to have
respondents ousted as City Mayor and councilors of the City of
Dapitan, Zamboanga del Sur; to have the respondents’ appointments to said positions
declared null and void, and have petitioners declared legally entitled to the
post aforesaid.

It is undisputed that petitioner
Rodolfo Carreon was elected Municipal Mayor of Dapitan in the general elections of 1959 to hold office
until December 31,
1963.
With him the three other petitioners were coetaneously
elected municipal councilors of the town. They qualified and assumed office as
of January 1,
1960.

On June 22,
1963,
Republic Act No. 3811, creating the City of Dapitan, was
approved.

On September
5, 1963,
petitioner Rodolfo Carreon filed his certificate of
candidacy for the newly created office of City Mayor of Dapitan, and his co-petitioners, while acting as municipal
councilors, also filed certificates of candidacy for the positions of city
councilors.

On October
7, 1963,
the Secretary of Justice rendered an opinion that petitioners should be
considered resigned from their respective municipal offices, as of the date
their certificates of candidacy were filed; and advised that the city government
of Dapitan be immediately organized. otherwise the new political subdivision would not even have a
provisional government. Thereupon, the President of the
Philippines issued a proclamation (No. 179)
declaring November 8,
1963 as
the date for the formal organization of the City of
Dapitan, and appointed respondent Germanico Carreon as city mayor
and the other three respondents as city councilors for the City of
Dapitan. In the November 12, 1963
municipal elections, Germanico Carreon and respondents Herminio
Acaylar and Justino Saldon won and were duly proclaimed, on November 27, 1963,
City Mayor and’ city councilors elect for the City of Dapitan, for the terms starting on January 1,
1964.

After the proclamation, on
December 3,
1963,
these quo warranto proceedings were initiated
in this Court. On motion of petitioners, we issued a preliminary injunction; and
pursuant thereto payment of the corresponding salaries was stopped as of the
receipt of the Court’s writ of preliminary injunction of December 6,
1963
until the end of that month.

Petitioners predicate their claim
on section 86, Art. XI, of Republic Act No. 3811 (Charter of the City of
Dapitan)
providing:

The City Government provided for
in this Charter shall be organized upon the approval of this Act. The incumbent
municipal mayor, vice-mayor and the members of the municipal council of the
Municipality of Dapitan shall continue in office until
the expiration of their present terms of
office.”

Respondents, upon the other hand,
argue, in accord with the opinion of the Secretary of Justice, that the
petitioners, were holding office as mayor and councilors of the municipality of
Dapitan when they filed certificates of candidacy for
positions (city mayor and councilors of Dapitan City)
that they were not holding at the time, and they should be considered resigned
from the offices they were holding as of the time their said certificates were
filed (Sept. 5, 1963), pursuant to section 27 of the Election
Code:

“Sec.
27. Candidate
holding office.—Any elective provincial, municipal, or
city official running for an office, other than the one which he is actually
holding, shall be considered resigned from his office from the moment of the
filing of his certificate of candidacy.”

The issue, therefore, hinges on
what positions were Petitioners holding on September 5,
1963;
were they municipal or city officers on that date?

Due consideration of the terms of
section 86 of the charter of Dapitan City (R.A.3811),
previously quoted, is convincing that the petitioners were already city officers
on 5 September 1963, because, according to said section, the city government of
Dapitan shall be organized upon approval of its
charter (22 June 1963), and from that date it began to exist as a body
corporate; and that its coming into being is, in turn, incompatible with the
continued existence of the municipal government of Dapitan. It needs no special argument to show that the two
governments (municipality of Dapitan and
Dapitan City), having the same territory and
functions, could not coexist, nor is there anything in the law to indicate that
such was the legislative intent.

If then the municipality of Dapitan and its government ended and were superseded by
Dapitan City on the day the city charter was approved
and became law, it is unavoidable to conclude that the petitioners then and
there ceased to be municipal mayor and councilors of the municipality of Dapitan. On the other hand, the city government of Dapitan could not function without city officials. Hence,
the provisions of section 86 of the Dapitan charter
that “the incumbent municipal mayor, vice-mayor and the members of the municipal
council of the municipality of Dapitan shall continue
in office until the expiration of their present term of office” (December 31,
1963) movant, and can only mean, that said municipal
officials became city mayor and councilors of Dapitan
City upon approval of the city charter. They could not remain municipal mayor
and councilors of a non-existent municipality. They could only remain in office
as officials of the existing city of Dapitan.

The flaw in the position of the
respondents and in the ruling of the Secretary of Justice lay precisely in the
failure to observe that the city of Dapitan became
organized (and existing) upon the approval of its charter R.A. 8811. In
contrast, the charter of Dagupan City, section 88, R.
A. No. 170, dealt with in Mejia vs. Bololong,
81 Phil. 487, expressly provided that the city government of Dagupan “shall be organized on such a date as may be
fixed by the President of the Philippines and upon the qualification of
the City Mayor” and other city officials. This fundamental difference
between both charters renders the doctrine of Mejia vs. Bololong inapplicable to the present
case.

It follows that when the
petitioners filed their certificates of candidacy for city mayor and councilors
of Dapitan City, they already were such city
mayor and councilors. They, therefore, filed their candidacy to the same and
identical positions that they were respectively holding, and could not be
considered resigned therefrom under section 27 of the
Election Code.

PREMISES
CONSIDERED, the
writ of quo warranto applied for is granted,
and the respondents declared not entitled to hold the office of mayor and
councilors of the City of Dapitan prior to January 1,
1964. The
writ of injunction heretofore issued is dissolved, and the petitioners, herein
are declared entitled to the corresponding salaries withheld under said writ. No
costs.

Bengzon, C.J., Bautista Angelo, Concepcion, Barrera, Paredes,
Dizon, Regala, Makalintal, Bengzon,
J.P. and Zaldivar, JJ., concur.