G.R. No. L-29658. February 27, 1969
ENRIQUE V. MORALES, PETITIONER, VS. ABELARDO SUBIDO, AS COMMISSIONER OF CIVIL SERVICE, RESPONDENT.
CASTRO, J.:
The petitioner’s motions for reconsideration are directed
specifically at the following portion of our decision:
“In the Senate, the Committee on Government Reorganization,
to which House Bill 6951 was referred, reported a substitute measure. It is to this substitute bill that section 10
of the Act owes its present form and substance.
… The provision of the substitute bill reads:
‘No person may be appointed chief of a city police agency unless he
holds a bachelor’s degree and has served either in the Armed Forces of the
Philippines or the National Bureau of Investigation or police department of
any city and has held the rank of captain or its equivalent therein for at
least three years or any high school graduate who has served the police
department of a city for at least 8 years with the rank of captain and/or
higher.’
“….
“At the behest of Senator Francisco Rodrigo, the phrase ‘has
served as officer in the Armed Forces’ was inserted so as to make the
provision read:
‘No person may be appointed chief of a city police agency unless he
holds a bachelor’s degree and has served either in the Armed Forces of the
Philippines or the National Bureau of Investigation or police department of
any city and has held the rank of captain or its equivalent therein for at
least three years or any high school graduate who has served the police
department of a city or who has served as officer of the Armed Forces for at
least 8 years with the rank of captain and/or higher.’
“It is to be noted that the Rodrigo amendment was in the
nature of an addition to the
phrase ‘who has served the police department of a city for at least 8 years
with the rank of captain and/ or higher,’ under which the petitioner herein,
who is at least a high school graduate (both parties agree that the petitioner
finished the second year of the law course) could possibly qualify. However, somewhere in the legislative process
the phrase [“who has served the police department of a city or”] was
dropped and only the Rodrigo amendment was retained.”
The present insistence of the petitioner is that the version of
the provision, as amended at the behest of Sen. Rodrigo, was the version
approved by the Senate on third reading, and that when the bill emerged from
the conference committee the only change made in the provision was the
insertion of the phrase “or has served as chief of police with exemplary
record.”
In support of this assertion, the petitioner submitted certified
photostatic copies of the different drafts of House
Bill 6951 showing the various changes made.
In what purport to be the page proofs of the bill as finally approved by
both Houses of Congress (annex G), the following provision appears:
“SEC. 10. Minimum qualifications for appointment as
Chief of a Police Agency. – No
person may be appointed chief of a city police agency unless he holds a
bachelor’s degree from a recognized institution of learning and has served
either the Armed Forces of the Philippines or has served as chief of police
with exemplary record or the National Bureau of Investigation or the police
department of any city and has held the rank of captain or its equivalent
therein for at least three years or any high school graduate who has served the
police department of a city or has served as officer in the Armed Forces for
at least eight years from the rank of captain and/ or higher.”
It is unmistakable up to this point that the phrase, “who
has served the police department of a city or,” was still part of the
provision, but according to the petitioner the House bill division deleted the
entire provision and substituted what now is section 10 of the Police Act of
1966, which section reads:
“Minimum qualification for appointment as Chief of Police Agency. – No person may be appointed chief of a city
police agency unless he holds a bachelor’s degree from a recognized institution
of learning and has served either in the Armed Forces of the Philippines or
the National Bureau of Investigation, or has served as chief of police with
exemplary record, or has served in the police department of any city with the
rank of captain or its equivalent therein for at least three years; or any high
school graduate who has served as officer in the Armed Forces for at least
eight years with the rank of captain and/ or higher.”
The petitioner also submitted a certified
photostatic copy of a memorandum which according to
him was signed by an employee in the Senate bill division, and can be found
attached to the page proofs of the bill, explaining the change in section 10,
thus:
“Section 10 was recast for
clarity. (with the consent of Sen. Ganzon & Congressman Montano).”
It would thus appear that the omission – whether deliberate or
unintended – of the phrase, “who has served the police department of a
city or,” was made not at any stage of the legislative proceedings but
only in the course of the engrossment of the bill, more specifically in the
proofreading thereof; that the change was made not by Congress but only by an
employee thereof; and that what purportedly was a rewriting to suit some
stylistic preferences was in truth an alteration of meaning. It is for this reason that the petitioner
would have us look searchingly into the matter.
The petitioner wholly misconceives the function of the judiciary
under our system of government. As we
observed explicitly in our decision, the enrolled Act in the office of the
legislative secretary of the President of the Philippines
shows that section 10 is exactly as it is in the statute as officially
published in slip form by the Bureau of Printing. We cannot go behind the enrolled Act to
discover what really happened.
The respect due to the other branches of the Government demands that we
act upon the faith and credit of what the officers of the said branches attest
to as the official acts of their respective departments. Otherwise we would be cast in the unenviable
and unwanted role of a sleuth trying to determine what actually did
happen in the labyrinth of lawmaking, with consequent impairment of the
integrity of the legislative process.
The investigation which the petitioner would like this Court to make can
be better done in Congress. After all,
House cleaning – the immediate and imperative need for which seems to be
suggested by the petitioner – can best be effected by the occupants thereof. Expressed elsewise,
this is a matter worthy of the attention not of an Oliver Wendell Holmes but
of a Sherlock Holmes.
What the first Mr. Justice Harlan said in Harwood v. Wentworth[1]
might aptly be said in answer to the petitioner: “If there be danger, under the principles announced in Field v. Clark,
143 U.S. 649, 671, that the governor and the presiding officers of the two
houses of a territorial legislature may impose upon the people an act that was
never passed in the form in which it is preserved in the published statutes,
how much greater is the danger of permitting the validity of a legislative
enactment to be questioned by evidence furnished by the general indorsements made by clerks upon bills previous to their
final passage and enrolment, – indorsements usually
so expressed as not to be intelligible to any one except those who made them,
and the scope and effect of which cannot in many cases be understood unless
supplemented by the recollection of clerks as to what occurred in the hurry
and confusion often attendant upon legislative proceedings.”[2]
Indeed the course suggested to us by the petitioner would be
productive of nothing but mischief.
Both Marshall Field
& Co. v. Clark and Harwood v. Wentworth involved claims
similar to that made by the petitioner in this case. In both the claims were rejected. Thus, in Marshall Field & Co. it
was contended that the Tariff Act of October 1, 1890 was a nullity because
“it is shown by the congressional records of proceedings, reports of
committees of conference, and other papers printed by authority of Congress,
and having reference to House Bill 9416, that a section of the bill as it
finally passed, was not in the bill authenticated by the signatures of the
presiding officers of the respective houses of Congress, and approved by the
President.”[3]
In rejecting the contention, the United States Supreme Court held that the
signing by the Speaker of the House of Representatives and by the President of
the Senate of an enrolled bill is an official attestation by the two houses
that such bill is the one that has passed Congress. And when the bill thus attested is signed by
the President and deposited in the archives, its authentication as a bill that
has passed Congress should be deemed complete and unimpeachable.[4]
In Harwood the claim was that an act of the legislature of
Arizona “contained, at the
time of its final passage, provisions that were omitted from it without
authority of the council or the house, before it was presented to the governor
for his approval.[5]
The Court reiterated its ruling in Marshall
Field & Co.
It is contended, however, that in this jurisdiction the journals
of the legislature have been declared conclusive upon the courts, the
petitioner citing United States v. Pons.[6]
The case cited is inapposite as it does not involve a discrepancy between an
enrolled bill and the journal. Rather
the issue tendered was whether evidence could be received to show that,
contrary to the entries of the journals, the legislature did not adjourn at
midnight of February 28, 1914 but after, and that “the hands of the clock
were stayed in order to enable the legislature to effect an adjournment
apparently within the time fixed by the Governor’s proclamation for the
expiration of the special session.” In answering in the negative this
Court held that if the clock was in fact stopped, “the resultant evil
might be slight as compared with that of altering the probative force and
character of legislative records, and making the proof of legislative action
depend upon uncertain oral evidence, liable to loss by death or absence, and so
imperfect on account of the treachery of memory.”[7]
This Court “passed over the question” whether the enrolled bill was
conclusive as to its contents and mode of passage.
It was not until 1947 that the question was presented in Mabanag v. Lopez -Vito,[8]
and we there held that an enrolled bill “imports absolute verity and is
binding on the courts.” This Court held itself bound by an authenticated
resolution, despite the fact that the vote of three-fourths of the members of the Congress (as required
by the Constitution to approve proposals for constitutional amendments) was not
actually obtained on account of the suspension of some members of the House of
Representatives and of the Senate.
Thus in Mabanag the enrolled
bill theory was adopted. Whatever doubt
there might have been as to the status and force of the theory in the
Philippines, in view of the dissent of three Justices in Mabanag,[9]
was finally laid to rest by the unanimous decision in Casco Philippine
Chemical. Co. v. Gimenez,[10]
Speaking for the Court, the then Justice (now Chief Justice) Concepcion said:
“Furthermore, it is well settled that
the enrolled bill – which uses the term ‘urea formaldehyde’ instead of ‘urea
and formaldehyde’ – is conclusive upon the courts as regards the tenor of the
measure passed by Congress and approved by the President (Primicias
vs. Paredes, 61 Phil., 118, 120; Mabanag
vs. Lopez Vito, 78 Phil., 1; Macias vs. Comm. on Elections, G.R. No. L-18684, September 14, 1961). If there has been any mistake in the printing
of the bill before it was certified by the officers of Congress and approved by
the Executive – on which we cannot speculate, without jeopardizing the
principle of separation of powers and undermining one of the cornerstones of
our democratic system – the remedy is by amendment or curative legislation,
not by judicial decree.”
By what we have essayed above we are not of course to be
understood as holding that in all cases
the journals must yield to the enrolled bill.
To be sure there are certain matters which the Constitution[11]
expressly requires must be entered on the journal of each house. To what extent the validity of a legislative
act may be affected by a failure to have such matters entered on the journal,
is a question which we do not now decide.[12]
All we hold is that with respect to matters not expressly required to be
entered on the journal, the enrolled bill prevails in the event of any
discrepancy.
ACCORDINGLY, the motions for reconsideration are denied.
Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Dizon, Makalintal, Zaldivar, Sanchez, Fernando, and
Capistrano, JJ., concur.
[1]
162 U.S. 547
(1895).
[2]
Id. at 562.
[3]
Marshall Field & Co. v. Clark, 143 U.S.
649, 669 (1891).
[4]
Accord, Leser v. Garnett, 258 U.S.
130 (1921).
[5] Supra note 1, at 557-558.
[6]
34 Phil. 729 (1916).
[7]
Id. at 734.
[8]
78 Phil. 1 (1947).
[9]
The decision adopting for this jurisdiction the enrolled bill theory was 6 to 3, with Tuason,
Moran, Hontiveros, Pablo, Bengzon,
Padilla, JJ. voting for, and Perfecto, Briones
and Feria, JJ. against.
[10]
G.R. No. L-17931, Feb. 28, 1963.
[11]
Art, VI, secs. 10(4), 20(1), and 21(1).
[12]
Cf. e. g., Wilkes
County Comm’rs
v. Coler 180 U.S.
506 (1900).