MAGNO MANUEL, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT, VS. MARIANO VILLENA, THE DIRECTOR OF FORESTRY, THE SECRETARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND NATURAL RESOURCES, DEFENDANTS-APPELLEES.

This is an appeal from the order of the Court of First Instance
of Tarlac dismissing the complaint in Civil Case No.
4226 entitled “Magno Manuel vs. Mariano Villena, the Director of Forestry and the Secretary of
Agriculture and Natural Resources,” wherein the plaintiff sought annulment
of the decision of said public officials rejecting his application for a Tree
Farm Permit over a 20-hectare parcel of public land, which was included in a
66-hectare area covered by a similar application of private defendant Mariano Villena.

The main thrust of the complaint is that the administrative
decision sought to be set aside violated the plaintiff’s right to due
process.  The averments in support
thereof are substantially as follows: 
that the plaintiff had been in continuous possession of the land in
question since 1939; that being an ignorant farmer he did not file his Tree
Farm application (No. 13312) until June 1954; that the Director of Forestry
rejected the same because a prior application (No. 3852) had been filed by
Mariano Villena in November 1955; that two motions
for reconsidera­tion of the rejection order were turned down; that the
plaintiff thereafter appealed to the Secretary of Agricul­ture and Natural
Resources, but the appeal was dismissed by him; that on motion for
reconsideration the Secretary found that the previous investigation conducted
by the District Forester was not in accordance with the rules and regulations
of the Bureau, and so ordered another investiga­tion to be made; but that
before said investigation was terminated the Secretary rendered a decision
dismissing the appeal.

The complaint was filed on July 14, 1966.  The
defendants filed their respective answers alleging inter alia that the complaint averred no sufficient facts
to show the court’s jurisdiction.  On December 6, 1966 the court issued an
order finding the defendants objection meritorious, but allowing the plaintiff
to file an amended complaint within a period of ten days.  The pertinent portion of the said order reads
as follows:

“Section 1816 of the Administrative Code vests in the Director
of Forestry the ‘… jurisdiction and authority over the demarcation,
protection, management, reproduction, reforestation, occupancy, and use of all
public forests and forest reserves and over the granting of licenses for game
and fish, and for the taking of forest products, including stone and earth, therefrom.  The
decision of the Director of Forestry on the subject is not subject to judicial
review unless in the exercise of such jurisdiction he committed a grave abuse
of his discretion which amounts to a denial of due process of law to the party
adversely affected.  While the complaint
alleges that the Director of Forestry acted with ‘grave abuse of his discretion
and in violation of due process of law provision of the Constitution of the Philippines’
this allegation alone is insufficient for the court to intervene and review the
actuation of the Director of Forestry. 
Specific acts and instances from which the grave abuse of discretion
amount­ing to a denial of due process of law may be deduced, must be
alleged.  The complaint does not allege
any such fact.  On the contrary, the
complaint states that two motions for reconsideration were denied by the
Director of Forestry; that an appeal was made to the Secretary of Agri­culture
and Natural Resources, who likewise sustained the decision of the Director of
Forestry.  The fact that the Secretary of
Agriculture and Natural Resources decided the appeal without waiting for the
com­pletion of the reinvestigation that he ordered – does not constitute a vio­lation
of the due process of law provision of the Constitution as in the appeal the
Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources was only called upon to pass on
the sufficiency of the evidence before the Director of Forestry.  The Secretary of Agriculture and Natural
Resources was not required to conduct a new investigation of the case.  He and the Director of Forestry may have
committed an error in the appreciation of the evidence before them.  But such an error is not sufficient ground
for the intervention of the court who likewise may fall into a similar
mistake.  There is no allegation that the
plaintiff was not heard nor that the Director of Forestry decided the case
without taking evidence.  On the
contrary, reinvestiga­tions were even made after which the Director of Forestry
arrived at the conclusion subject of the present action.  Clearly the plaintiff was given due
process.”

On March 3, 1967
the plaintiff filed an amended complaint, incorporating the amendments in paragraphs
7 and 8 of the original complaint, as shown in the following underlined
recitals:

“7.    That on February 2, 1957, with grave abuse
of discretion and in violation of the due process of law provision of the
Constitution of the Philippines, in that from the very inception of this
case in the Bureau of Forestry up to the filing of his appeal in the Department
of Agricul­ture and Natural Resources appellant (Magno
Manuel) has not really been as­sisted or formally represented by counsel in any
of the proceedings therein; and that in the investigation conducted by the
District Forester concerned there was no showing that a notice has been sent to
him so as to have afforded him an opportunity to solicit for the services
of a lawyer.  x x
x“

“8.    That the legal staff of the said Department
began and conducted a formal investigation of the case, but the investigation
was not completed, thus, said in­vestigation, not being completed, was not
in accordance with the due process of law provision of the Constitution to
which constitutional right herein plaintiff is entitled and of which he was
deprived; that despite the incomplete investiga­tion, which was against the due
process provision of the Constitution and the Administrative circulars and
orders pertinent thereto, the defendant Secretary of Agriculture and
Natural Resources, with grave abuse of discretion and in violation of the ‘due
process’ provision of the Constitution rendered a decision on August 12, 1965,
arbitrarily, capriciously, and illegally dismissing the appeal of herein
plaintiff Magno Manuel, saying that there is no merit
in his appeal.”

On March 21, 1967 defendant Villena
moved to dismiss the amended complaint on the ground that it did not cure the
defects of the original one, and still con­tained no sufficient allegations to
make out a cause of action or to confer jurisdiction upon the court to set
aside or annul the administrative decision complained of.  The court found the motion meritorious and
hence dismissed the complaint in its order of June 24, 1967.  The
said order of dismissal is the subject of the present appeal.

The proceedings challenged in the complaint refer to the approval
or rejection of an application for a Tree Farm Permit.  Under Section 1838 of the Revised
Administrative Code, quoted below, this function falls within the jurisdiction
of the Director of Forestry with the approval of the Secretary of Agriculture
and Natural Resources.

“Section 1838.  Leasing
of forest land for special purposes. – The Director of Forestry with the
approval of the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources, may, upon such
terms as he may deem reasonable, lease or grant to any Filipino citizen or
associa­tion of persons duly incorporated and authorized by the Constitution to
acquire lands of the public domain, permits for the use of forest lands or
vacant public lands not declared agricultural land, for a period not exceeding
twenty-five years, for the establishment of sawmills, lumber yards, timber
depots, logging camps, rights-of-way and plantations for the raising of nipa and/or other palms, bacauan,
medicinal plants or trees of economic value. 
x x x“

The power thus conferred on the Director of Forestry with the
approval of the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources is basically
executive or adminis­trative in nature.^[1]
And courts, as a rule, refuse to interfere with proceedings undertaken by
administrative bodies or officials in the exercise of administrative func­tions.  This is so because such bodies are generally
better equipped technically to decide administrative questions and that
non-legal factors, such as government policy on the matter, are usually
involved in the decisions.

There are, of course, limits to the exercise of administrative
discretion.  Administrative proceedings
may be reviewed by the courts upon a showing that “the board or official
has gone beyond his statutory authority, exercised unconstitutional powers or
clearly acted arbitrarily and without regard to his duty or with grave abuse of
discretion”^[2]
or that the decision is vitiated by fraud, im­position or mistake.^[3]

The complaint here alleges denial of due process and grave abuse
of discretion, in that appellant was not formally represented by counsel at any
stage of the pro­ceedings before the Director of Forestry and the Secretary of
Agriculture and Natural Resources; that there was no showing that notice was
sent to him so as to afford him an opportunity to obtain the services of a
lawyer; and that the Secretary dismissed the appeal before the completion of
the reinvestigation he had ordered.

The above circumstances however do not necessarily constitute a
violation of due process or grave abuse of discretion.  Section 1838 of the Revised Administrative
Code does not require that the investigation be in the nature of a court
trial.  In deciding administrative
questions, administrative bodies or officials generally enjoy wide dis­cretion.  Technical rules of procedure are not strictly
en­forced, and due process of law in the strict judicial sense is not
indispensable.^[4]
It is sufficient that the substantive due process requirement of fairness and
reasonableness be observed.

Appellant does not allege that he was denied opportunity to be
heard-only that “there was no showing that a notice was sent to him so as
to afford him opportunity to solicit the services of a lawyer” to
represent him in all stages of the investigation.  Absence of previous notice is not of itself a
substantial defect; what the law abhors is the lack of opportunity to be heard.^[5] In
this case the plaintiff was not denied such opportunity, as it appears that he
filed two separate motions for reconsideration before the Director of Forestry
and then upon their denial appealed to the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural
Resources.

It was not essential, either, that appellant be represented by a
lawyer.  The investigation conducted by
the Bureau of Forestry under Section 1838 of the Revised Administrative Code
was purely fact-finding.  It was not
required to be in the form of a trial where both parties, each represented by
counsel, confront each other and their witnesses.  In any case, appellant does not allege that
the presence of a lawyer could have altered the result of the investigation.  He does not even cite any substantial error
in the findings of the Director of Forestry which could have been avoided, if a
lawyer had represented him.

It should be noted that in the order of the Acting Secretary of
Agriculture and Natural Resources dated March
15, 1960, a formal investigation of the case was ordered.  That the investigation was actually conducted
is not denied, and is borne out by the decision of the Secretary dismissing the
plaintiff’s appeal, in which it is stated:

“An investigation pursuant to the standing rules and
regulations was duly conducted by an attorney of the Legal Staff of this
Department and the pertinent portions of his report are hereunder quoted as fol­lows:”

Appellant says that the investigation was incomplete.  He does not, however, point out how
incomplete it was, or in what aspect it had not been completed, or in what
manner the incompleteness constituted grave abuse of discretion or violated the
requirement of due process.  We have
examined the documents and pleadings reproduced in the appellant’s record on
appeal, particularly the decision of the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural
Resources which is sought to be set aside, and we find that said decision is
based on a thorough analysis of the facts as revealed by the evidence.  Thus the Secretary concluded:

“We have thoroughly and carefully checked the findings of
facts enumerated above against the reverberating back­drop of the voluminous
proofs, oral, documentary, presented and adduced by the contending parties
herein, and we found that the said findings of facts are sufficiently and fully
sustained by the evidence of the record. 
We are also in complete accord with the evaluation and appreciation of
the evidence and the discussion and elucidation on the merits of the case contained
in the investigator’s Remarks and Comments.”

In order to justify a review of the aforesaid decision on the
ground that it was based on an investiga­tion which was incomplete, it is not
enough to make a bare allegation of incompleteness.  Was the appellant for instance, denied the
right to present his evidence?  If so,
what evidence was it, and how would it affect the result?  What vital phase of the hearing if any, was
omitted?  No facts of this or similar
nature are alleged in the complaint.  The
trial court consequently did not err in ruling as it did and issuing an order
of dismissal.

Wherefore, the order appealed from is affirmed, with costs
against appellant.

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Dizon, Zaldivar, Ruiz Castro, Teehankee, Barredo, Villamor, and Makasiar, JJ., concur.

Fernando, J., did not take
part.

^[1] Pajo vs. Ago 108 Phil. 906, 915.

^[2] Pajo vs. Ago, supra, at p. 916.

^[3] Castañeda vs. Court of Appeals, L-25874, Feb. 28, 1969, 27 SCRA 186, 188-189.

^[4]
Hernando vs. Francisco L-18138, May
19, 1966, 17 SCRA 82, 90.

^[5]
Aguilar vs. Tan L-23600 Jan. 30,
1970, 31 SCRA 205, 210.