BIBIANO MADERAZO, JR., PETITIONER-APPELLEE, VS. RAFAEL BAYLON, IN HIS CAPACITY AS DISTRICT SUPERVISOR, MAURO SABOLBORO, IN HIS CAPACITY AS DIVISION SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, DI…

Maderazo versus Baylon

The Case

This is a quo warranto action, a proceeding to test the legality of a public officer's holding of office, brought by Bibiano Maderazo, a public schools district supervisor, against his superior officers in the Division of Leyte. Maderazo was ordered transferred from one district to another without his consent, and he refused the transfer as illegal. The case matters because it fixes the meaning of the consent requirement for the transfer of public school teachers under the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers, and because it settles when that law took effect.

Procedural History

Maderazo filed the action in the defunct Court of First Instance of Manila, which decided in his favor. The trial court applied the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers and held that his transfer without consent was contrary to law. The respondents, the district supervisor and the division superintendent of schools, appealed to the Supreme Court, asserting that the answer to the question presented should be in the affirmative, that is, that a district supervisor may be transferred regardless of consent. The appeal reached the Court as an ordinary appeal from the judgment of the trial court.

Facts

On the fifth of August, 1965, Bibiano Maderazo was appointed Public Schools District Supervisor. The appointment did not state the district of assignment, but the parties' stipulation of facts showed that he was originally assigned to the Caibiran District in Leyte.

In a letter dated the ninth of July, 1966, Mauro Sabolboro, Superintendent of Schools of Leyte Division Two, informed Maderazo of his transfer from the Caibiran District to the Biliran District as District Supervisor, effective immediately. Maderazo asked for reconsideration in no fewer than four letters to the Director of Public Schools, but the order was not reconsidered. On the seventh of March, 1967, Superintendent Sabolboro informed him that the Director of Public Schools had ordered the transfer implemented. Maderazo had not been charged administratively before the transfer. In his letter of the tenth of March, 1967, to the Secretary of Education, he stated that he was then sixty one years old and would retire in two years.

By the time the Court decided the case, Maderazo's prayer for restoration to Caibiran had become moot and academic, for he was well beyond retirement age. In a letter dated the twenty third of February, 1984, he asked for an early decision, saying he was seventy nine years old and ailing. What remained for resolution was his salary, which had been withheld because he refused the transfer on the ground that it was illegal for lack of his consent.

Issues

• Whether or not a public school district supervisor can be transferred from one district to another without his consent.
• Whether or not the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers was already in force at the time of the transfer, considering that its implementing rules and regulations had not yet been published.

Applicable Provisions

Section 6 of Republic Act Number 4670, the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers, provides:

Section 6. Consent for Transfer-Transportation Expenses. - Except for cause and as herein otherwise provided, no teacher shall be transferred without his consent from one station to another. Where the exigencies of the service require the transfer of a teacher from one station to another, such transfer may be effected by the school superintendent who shall previously notify the teacher concerned of the transfer and the reason or reasons therefor. If the teacher believes there is no justification for the transfer, he may appeal his case to the Director of Public Schools, or the Director of Vocational Education, as the case may be. Pending his appeal and the decision thereon, his transfer shall be held in abeyance: Provided, however, That no transfers whatever shall be made three months before any local or national election. Necessary transfer expenses of the teacher and his family shall be paid for by the Government if his transfer is finally approved.

This is the provision that makes consent indispensable to a transfer, and it is enforceable by itself.

Section 2 of the same law defines who is a teacher:

As used in this Act, the term 'teacher' shall mean all persons engaged in classroom teaching, in any level of instruction, on full-time basis, including guidance counselors, school librarians, industrial arts or vocational instructors, and all other persons performing supervisory and/or administrative functions in all schools, colleges and universities operated by the Government or its political subdivision; but shall not include school nurses, school physicians, school dentists, and other school employees.

This definition brings supervisory officials such as a district supervisor within the protection of the consent requirement.

Section 30 of the same law provides:

The Secretary of Education shall formulate and prepare the necessary rules and regulations to implement the provisions of this Act. Rules and regulations issued pursuant to this Section shall take effect thirty days after publication in a newspaper of general circulation and by such other means as the Secretary of Education deems reasonably sufficient to give interested parties general notice of such issuance.

This provision governs the effectivity of the rules and regulations, not of the law itself.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the transfer of Maderazo from Caibiran to Biliran was contrary to law because it was made without his consent and over his opposition. Section 6 is categorical: except for cause and as otherwise provided, no teacher shall be transferred without his consent from one station to another. Maderazo had not been charged administratively before the transfer, so there was no cause.

On the second issue, the Court rejected the argument that the law was not yet in force when the transfer was made. The law took effect upon its approval on the eighteenth of June, 1966, which was before Maderazo was ordered transferred. The Court explained that the Magna Carta covers many subjects needing elaboration by rules and regulations, but nothing in Section 30 makes promulgation of the rules a condition precedent to the effectivity of the Act. Section 6 requiring consent for transfer is enforceable without recourse to the rules and regulations.

Doctrine

A public school teacher, including one performing supervisory or administrative functions, cannot be transferred from one station to another without his consent, except for cause and as otherwise provided by the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers. The consent requirement is self executing and needs no implementing rules to be enforced. The effectivity of a statute is not suspended by the non publication of its implementing rules where the law itself provides that it takes effect upon approval and does not make the rules a condition precedent to its effectivity.

Disposition

The appeal was dismissed, and the respondents or their successors were ordered to pay Maderazo's salaries from the time of his illegal transfer to the time he had to retire compulsorily, with no costs.

Remember This

Memorize the line that a transfer without consent, absent cause, is illegal, and that the consent requirement of the Magna Carta is enforceable even without published implementing rules. Examiners use this case on the effectivity of statutes and their implementing rules, and on the protection of supervisory school officials under the Magna Carta.