G.R. No. L-27150. November 28, 1969
LUZ JALANDONI VDA. DE SERRA, AS JUDICIAL ADMINISTRATRIX OF THE ESTATE OF THE LATE ROSARIO JALANDONI, PETITIONER-APPELLEE, VS. HON. RAFAEL M. SALAS, AS EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, HON. …
SANCHEZ, J.:
Appeal from the November
2, 1966 judgment of the Court of First Instance of Manila – in a suit for
mandamus and prohibition[1] – directing respondents “to release the
sum of P1,000,000.00 with legal interest thereon from December 31, 1965 until
fully paid and the further sum of P775,000.00 with legal interest thereon from
June 30, 1966 until fully paid”,
the two sums representing the purchase price of two (2) parcels of land
situate in Iloilo City and occupied by the Iloilo Normal School, by virtue of a deed of sale of September 24, 1965
executed by petitioner, bearing
the conformity of respondent Director of
Public Schools, who signed in behalf of the government, and which was
approved on December 24, 1965 by then Executive Secretary Ramon A. Diaz, by
authority of the President.
The factual antecedents are:
Original owner of the two lots in question, Lots 3748 and 3860,
La Paz Cadastre, Iloilo City,
was Francisco Jalandoni who died on November 7, 1918. Since 1919, however, the government has been
in possession of said lots, devoted them to educational purposes – site of Iloilo
Normal School. The government’s occupation was, in the
beginning, thought to be based on a donation.
Pursuant to a decree of registration dated October 9, 1919, at a time when the government was
already in possession, Original Certificates of Title 15139 and 15188 were
issued, for Lots 3748 and 3860, respectively, in the name of the deceased
Francisco Jalandoni.
It was only thirty-five (35) years following the issuance of the decree of registration, or to be more
precise, on October 4, 1954, that Rosario T. Jalandoni,
daughter and sole heir of Francisco Jalandoni,
registered a petition in the Court of First Instance of Iloilo for the
issuance of a writ of possession to her over said lots. The Provincial Governor of Iloilo opposed.
After trial on the merits, the Iloilo court ruled that “Francisco Jalandoni ha dejado de ser dueño de dichos lotes“, and accordingly denied the writ of possession
prayed for. Rosario T. Jalandoni then went on to the Court of Appeals on appeal.[2] The appellate court, on October
18, 1961, reversed
and granted the writ of possession.
Thereafter, respondent Director of Public Schools attempted to
negotiate with petitioner to purchase said lots. For this reason, the writ of possession was
not immediately enforced.
Parenthetically, there is in the record an appraisal made by the
Iloilo Appraisal Committee (composed of the Assistant City Treasurer-Assessor,
City Auditor and City Engineer) fixing the fair and reasonable market value of
the lots at P297,272 as of January 30, 1964.
The negotiations failed.
Because of this, on March 15, 1965, the Republic of the Philippines, through the Solicitor General, instituted a
new case in the Iloilo Court of First Instance.[3] The judicial reliefs sought were to restrain
petitioner from enforcing the writ of possession; to constitute a board of
appraisers to fix the fair and reasonable value of said lots at the time the
same were taken for a public purpose; and to authorize the Republic to pay, and
to direct the defendant therein to accept, the value of said lots as determined
as of the time of the taking thereof with legal interest.
Defendant moved to dismiss.
The reasons given were that the petition stated no cause of action and
that the cause of action, if any, was barred by prior judgment. On August
31, 1965, the Iloilo
court granted the motion over the Republic’s opposition, Reconsideration having
been rejected, the Republic appealed.
But this appeal was thrown out by the lower court, on defendant’s motion
and over the Republic’s opposition, upon the given ground that the petition had
become moot and academic because of a negotiated contract of sale between the
parties over the same properties.
The Republic sought a writ of mandamus from this Court to compel
allowance of the appeal.[4]
On May 29, 1969, we granted
the writ and ordered the lower court to give due course to the appeal. That case on appeal is now before us.[5]
The negotiated contract of sale just mentioned came about in this
manner: Shortly after the Republic’s
case asking the Iloilo court to fix the price for the lots was filed, Congress
enacted Republic Act 4642, which took effect on July 1, 1965. It carried an appropriation of P1,775,000 for
the purchase and payment of the two lots here involved, P1 million to be
immediately available and P775,000 to be taken from the surplus at the end of
the fiscal year. On September 24, 1965, petitioner executed a
“deed of conveyance” over the two lots in favor of the Republic
represented by the Director of Public Schools, Vitaliano
Bernardino. By the contract, petitioner conveyed the title to
the lots “with all the improvements found
therein” for P1,775,000, the sum of P1 million being payable
“upon approval of this contract by the President of the Republic of the Philippines and the Court of
First Instance of Iloilo”, and the balance of P775,000 to be paid on or
before June 30, 1966. The Director of
Public Schools wrote on the face of the deed:
“Conforme” below which was his
signature. On December 24, 1965, Executive Secretary Ramon A. Diaz,
“[b]y authority of the President”, approved the contract, after clearance
thereto was given by the Undersecretary of Justice on December
23, 1965. The approval of the Court of First Instance
of Iloilo was obtained on December
31, 1965.
Came the new
administration of President Ferdinand E. Marcos. On January 4, 1966, respondent Executive
Secretary wired the Director of Public Schools as follows: “Please stop payment of one million
seven hundred seventy five thousand pesos for Rosario T. Jalandoni
estate site Normal School Iloilo City previously approved Former Executive
Secretary Ramon Diaz on December 24, 1965 and return papers to Office of the
President for further study.”
On January 12, 1966,
petitioner, through her attorney-in-fact, Eduardo J. Jalandoni,
sought reconsideration from respondent Executive Secretary,
Then, on July 26, 1966, no action on the motion for reconsideration
having been handed down by respondent Executive Secretary, petitioner
commenced the present proceedings for mandamus and prohibition in the Court of
First Instance of Manila against respondents Executive Secretary Rafael Salas,
Director of Public Schools Vitaliano Bernardino and
Budget Commissioner Faustino Sychangco. Prohibition was prayed for to restrain
respondents from enforcing the stop-payment directive of respondent Executive
Secretary, and mandamus was sought to compel respondents to authorize the
payment for, and the release to petitioner of, the sum of P1,775,000.
At the pre-trial, the
parties agreed to submit the case for decision on the pleadings.
On November 2, 1966,
the trial judge rendered the judgment appealed from. He there stated that “[a]lthough in the beginning the lots seemed to have been
donated, later by a final decision of the Court of Appeals, no such donation
was proven.” The judgment thus ordered respondents to release the sums
heretofore at the beginning recited.
Projected in the Republic’s appeal direct to this Court is the
claimed error of the trial court in ruling that respondents’ obligation to pay
becomes ministerial.
It is upon the contract
of September 24, 1965 heretofore described that the petition for mandamus was made to
rest. As will hereinafter be explained,
such petition runs into legal difficulties.
A rule long familiar is
that mandamus never issues in doubtful cases.[6] It requires a showing of a complete and
clear legal right in the petitioner to the performance of ministerial acts.[7] In varying language, the principle echoed
and reechoed is that legal rights may be enforced by mandamus only if those
rights are well-defined, clear and certain.[8] Otherwise, the mandamus petition must be
dismissed.[9] This is not to say, of course, that we
should overlook the equally tested precept that where government contracts are
completely performed on the part of the private party, and there is
nothing more to do
but to effect payment, mandamus will avail to command the government’s proper officials to sign and issue the
corresponding warrants.[10]
The poser then is
this: Has petitioner established a clear
legal right in her and a clear legal duty on the part of respondents to compel
release of the sums sought?
In the solution of the
problem, there is no escaping from the full impact of Section 607 and Section
608, Revised. Administrative Code. They provide:
“SEC. 607. Certificate showing appropriation to meet
contract. – Except
in the case of a contract for personal service or for supplies to be carried in
stock, no contract involving an expenditure by the National Government of
three thousand pesos or more shall be entered into or authorized until the
Auditor General shall have certified to the officer entering into such obligation
that funds have been duly appropriated
for such purpose and that the amount necessary to
cover the proposed contract is available
for expenditure on account thereof. When application is made to the Auditor
General for the certificate herein required, a copy of the proposed contract
or agreement shall be submitted to him accompanied by a statement in writing
from the officer making the application showing all obligations not yet
presented for audit which have been incurred against the appropriation to which
the contract in question would be chargeable; and such certificate, when signed by
the Auditor, shall be attached to and
become a part of the proposed contract, and the sum so certified shall not thereafter be
available for expenditure for any other purpose until the Government is
discharged from the contract in question.
x x x
“SEC. 608. Void contract
– Liability of officer.
– A purported contract
entered into contrary to the requirements
of the next preceding section hereof shall
be wholly void, and the officer assuming to make such
contract shall be liable to the Government or other contracting party for any
consequent damage to the same extent as if the transaction had been wholly
between private parties.”[11]
Worth underscoring is
that the contract here involved calls for the disbursement of a big amount –
P1,775,000. It easily comes within the
compass of the legal provisions just quoted.
Section 607 is clear. The
injunction therein is imperative. No
contract, it says, “shall be entered into or authorized
until the Auditor General shall have certified to the officer entering into
such obligation that funds have been duly appropriated for such purpose and
that the amount necessary to cover the proposed contract is available for
expenditure on account thereof.” Section 607 exacts as an indispensable
requisite that such a certificate signed by the Auditor General “be
attached to and become a part of the proposed contract.” The plain,
unadulterated import of this is that a contract executed without the required
certificate of the Auditor General is no contract at all. And to make the statutory requirement more
emphatic, the following Section 608 gave the firm warning that “[a]
purported contract entered into contrary to the requirements of the next
preceding section hereof shall be wholly void.”
Petitioner herein
concedes that this certification by the Auditor General is – by Section 607 of
the Revised Administrative Code – a necessity.
And yet, there is no certification attached to the contract herein, the
actionable document appended to the petition below. That contract, then, is not merely
incomplete, the certification being a part thereof; worse, by the very terms of
Section 608, it is wholly void.
But petitioner, in an effort to compel payment under the
contract, now falls back on the legal presumptions that official duty has been
regularly performed and that private transactions are regular. Further, petitioner argues that this question
has never been raised in the court below and can no longer be ventilated now
on appeal.
We cannot indulge in the presumptions pointed out by petitioner. And this, because the certification required
from the Auditor General is, by the law, to be attached to
the contract to become a part thereof. Rather, we say that failure to so attach
affects petitioner’s right to sue for mandamus.
Without the certification, petitioner is without prop to sustain her
case. For, compliance of a void contract
may not be exacted, And, the, petition for mandamus herein suffers from a lack
of cause of action.
Furthermore, we cannot read Sections 607 and 608 to give them a
meaning other than that so clearly conveyed by the plain, clear terms thereof.
To take a contrary view is to
invite misuse of the power to contract, to give a watered-down version
of the law, and to unwarrantedly invade the constitutional domain of Congress
to write down what the law should be.
We, accordingly, hold
that petitioner has not established a well-defined, clear and certain legal
right that would entitle her to
the issuance of a writ of mandamus. At
the very leash, the right to
mandamus which she claims is nebulous, In any event, mandamus will not issue.
Upon the view we take of
this case, the judgment of the lower court is hereby reversed, and the petition
for mandamus and prohibition is
hereby dismissed.
Costs against petitioner
Luz Jalandoni Vda. de Serra.
SO ORDERED.
Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Dizon, Castro, and Teehankee, JJ., concur.
Makalintal, Zaldivar,
Fernando, and Barredo,
JJ., did no take part.
[1]
Civil Case 66225, entitled “Luz Jalandoni Vda. de Serra, as Judicial Administratrix of the Estate of the late Rosario Jalandoni, Petitioner, versus Hon. Rafael M. Salas,
as Executive Secretary, Hon. Vitaliano Bernardino, as Director of Public Schools, and
Hon. Faustino Sychangco, as Budget Commissioner, Respondents.”
[2]
CA-G.R. 19920-R.
[3]
Civil Case 6738, entitled “Republic of the Philippines,
Plaintiff, versus Rosario T. Jalandoni,
represented by the Administratrix of her estate, Luz
Jalandoni Vda. de Serra, Defendant.”
[4]
G.R. L-26056, entitled “Republic
of the Philippines, Petitioner, versus Hon. Judge Jesus
S. Rodriguez, in his capacity as Judge of the Court of First Instance of
Iloilo, 11th Judicial District, Branch VI, and Rosario T. Jalandoni,
represented by the administratrix
of her estate, Luz T. Jalandoni Vda.
de Serra, Respondents.”
[5]
G.R. L-30981, “Republic of the Philippines, Petitioner, versus The Hon. Presiding Judge, Court of First Instance of Iloilo, and
Rosario T. Jalandoni, represented by the Administratrix of
her estate, Luz Jalandoni Vda.
de Serra, Respondents.”
[6]
Valdez vs. Gutierrez (1968),
23 SCRA 661, 664, citing Aprueba vs.
Ganzon (1966), 18 SCRA 8, 12.
[7]
Section 3, Rule 65, Rules of Court; Palileo vs.
Ruiz Castro, 85 Phil. 272, 275; Aquino vs.
General Manager (1968), 22 SCRA 415, 420, citing Zamora
vs. Wright, 53 Phil. 613, Palileo vs. Ruiz Castro, supra, Cochoco vs. Icasiano, L-599, March 20, 1954,
and Aprueba vs. Canzon,
supra. See also: Ramos vs.
Diaz (1967), 21 SCRA 1243, 1246.
[8]
JRS Business Corporation vs. Montesa (1968),
23 SCRA 190, 197-198, citing cases.
[9]
Id., citing 3 Moran, Comments on the Rules of
Court, 1963 ed., p. 172. See also: Viuda e Hijos de Crispulo Zamora vs. Wright,
53 Phil. 613, 621; Alzate vs. Aldana (1963), 8 SCRA 219, 223, citing Tabigne vs. Duvall,
16 Phil. 324.
[10]
Hoey vs. Baldwin, 1
Phil. 551, 558; Compañia General de Tabacos vs. French, 39 Phil. 34, 59; Quiogue vs. Romualdez, 46 Phil. 337,
341. See also:
Villegas vs; Auditor General (1966);18 SCRA 877,
888- 890, 893, citing
Hoey vs. Baldwin, supra, Ynchausti & Co. vs. Wright,
47 Phil, 866, 891, Radiowealth, Inc. vs. Agregado, 86 Phil. 429, 440, and Guevara vs. Gimenez (1962), 6 SCRA 807, 812-813.
[11]
Emphasis supplied.