NATIONAL POWER CORPORATION, PETITIONER, VS. HON. FRANCISCO ARCA, JUDGE OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE OF MANILA, PHILIPPINE POWER & DEVELOPMENT COMPANY AND DAGUPAN ELECTRIC CORP…

Original petition for certiorari filed by the National Power
Corporation directed against the orders of the Court of First Instance
of Manila, denying its motions to dismiss and to dissolve the writ of
preliminary injunction issued in Civil Case No. 55824 of said court.

On 26 December 1963, the
Philippine Power and Development Company^[1] and
the Dagupan Electric Corporation,^[2] in their own behalf and on that of all the
electric plant operators, who are members of the Philippine Electric Plant
Owners’ Association (PEPOA) filed an injunction suit in the Court of First
Instance of Manila (Civil Case No. 55824) to restrain enforcement by the
National Power Corporation of a revised rate of charges for the electric power
and energy sold by said defendant, which schedule of new rates would take
effect 1 January 1964.  The petition
alleged, inter alia, that the disputed
revised rates, which would increase the cost of electric power and energy being
purchased from defendant by plaintiff Philippine Power and Development Company
by 24% and that purchased by plaintiff Dagupan
Electric Corporation by 30%, are unreasonable, excessive and unnecessary; that
the said revised rates had not been previously approved by the Public Service
Commission; and that the unilateral revision by the defendant of the rate and
its imposition upon the plaintiffs of the amended contracts embodying said new
rates, without first submitting them to arbitration, was in gross violation of
the provisions of the current contracts between them.  Plaintiffs thus prayed the court for a
temporary restraining order to prevent the scheduled enforcement and
implementation of the revised rates and amended contracts; that, after hearing,
said injunction be made permanent; and that they be awarded attorneys’ fees and
costs.

Finding sufficient
reasons therefor, the court issued, on 27
December 1963, the
writ of preliminary injunction prayed for by the plaintiffs, upon their filing a bond for P5,000.00.

Defendant thereupon moved
to dissolve the injunction, claiming that the enforcement of the new rate
schedule will not violate any right of the plaintiffs; that it will not cause
them irreparable damage or injury; that there are other legal remedies
available to the plaintiffs; and that the court has no jurisdiction to pass
upon the reasonableness or necessity of the revised rates, the authority therefor allegedly belonging to the Public Service
Commission.  A motion to dismiss the
petition was also filed, based on the same ground of lack of jurisdiction by
the court.  Upon denial of this motion on
5 February 1964,
defendant filed its answer with counterclaims, traversing the allegations of
the petition and raising, as one of the special defenses, the issue of the
court’s jurisdiction over the subject matter of the action.

By order of 4 March 1964,
the court denied defendant’s motion to dissolve the injunction; and when its
motion for reconsideration of the aforesaid order was also denied on 10 June
1964, defendant National Power Corporation filed the present petition, charging
the respondent judge with grave abuse of discretion in not dis­missing the case
and in not dissolving the temporary restraining order issued therein.

In this proceeding,
petitioner does not deny that the lower court can take cognizance of some of
the issues raised by the parties in their pleadings.  It is petitioner’s theory, however, that for
a court to acquire jurisdiction over a case it is not enough that it should have jurisdiction “over a portion of the subject matter of the
complaint”, but upon all the issues brought up by the pleadings.  And since, according to petitioner, the court
below cannot determine the reason­ableness of the disputed revised rates, which
is one of the issues raised in the petition, because the matter allegedly
pertains to the Public Service Commission pursuant to Republic Act 2677, it is
contended that the respondent judge committed grave abuse of discretion in
refusing to dismiss the case and to dissolve the writ of preliminary injunction
involved in this controversy.

The contention is devoid
of merit.

In the first place,
contrary to petitioner’s assertion, the authority to inquire into the rates of
charges for services rendered by the National Power Cor­poration does not
devolve upon the Public Service Commission. 
Commonwealth Act No. 120, creating the National Power Corporation,
specifically provides:

“SEC. 2.  The powers,
functions, rights and activities of the said corporation shall be the
following:

xxxxx                        
xxxxx                          xxxxx

“(g)  . . . . . . to sell electric power and to fix
the rates and provide for the collection of the charges for any service
rendered:  Provided, That the rates of
charges shall not be subject to revision by the Public Service Commission.”
(Underlining supplied)

It
is true that under Sections 13 and 14 of Republic Act 2677,^[3] amending the Public Service Act and approved
on 18 June 1960,
the Public Service Commission was vested with jurisdiction to fix the rate of
charges by public utilities owned or operated by any instrumentality of the
National Government or by any govern­ment-owned or controlled corporation.  But the enactment of this later legisla­tion,
which is a general law, cannot be construed to have repealed or withdrawn the
exempting proviso of Section 2, paragraph (g), of the earlier Commonwealth Act
No. 120 abovequoted. 
For it is now the settled rule in this jurisdiction that “a special
statute, providing for a particular case or class of cases, is not repealed by
a subsequent statute, general in its terms, provisions and applica­tions,
unless the intent to repeal or alter is manifest, although the terms of the
general law are broad enough to include the cases embraced in the special
law” (Manila Railroad Co. vs. Rafferty, 40 Phil. 225).

In the present case,
there appears no such legislative intent to repeal or abrogate the provisions
of the earlier special law.  From the
explanatory note to House Bill No. 4030, that later became Republic Act No.
2677, it was explicit that the jurisdiction conferred upon the Public Service
Commission over the public utilities operated by government-owned or controlled
corporations is to be confined to the fixing of rates of such public services,
“in order to avoid cutthroat or ruinous and unfair competition detrimental
to operators and to the public interests”.^[4] By the nature of the service being rendered
by the National Power Corporation, i.e., the harnessing and then distribution
and sale of electric power and energy to electric plant owners who, in turn,
resell them to the consuming public, the contingency intended to be met by the
legal provision under consideration would not exist.  No other conclusion appears possible,
therefore, than that the authority of the Public Service Commission under
Republic Act 2677, over the fixing of rate of charges of public utilities owned
or operated by government-owned or controlled corporations, can only be
exercised where the charter of the gov­ernment corporation concerned does not
contain any provision to the contrary.

“Where there are two statutes, the earlier special and the
later general — the terms of the general broad enough to include the matter
provided for in the special — the fact that one is special and the other is
general creates a presumption that the special is to be considered as remaining
an exception to the general, one as a general law of the land, the other as the
law of a particular case.” (Manila
Railroad Company vs. Rafferty, 40 Phil. 225, 228; City of Manila vs. Public Service Commission, 52 Phil. 515)

But
even if it were held that sections 13(a) and 14 of the Public Service Law, as
amended by Republic Act 2677, have overridden and impliedly repealed the
incompatible proviso of section 2(g) of the National Power Corporation charter,
and that the Public Service Commission had jurisdiction to fix its rates, the
posi­tion of this petitioner would not improve. 
For it is nowhere denied that the new schedule of rates that the
National Power Corporation was attempting to impose had not been previously
authorized by the Public Service Commission, hence the respondents power
companies were justified in contesting such new rates as illegal.  In doing so, they were entitled to apply to
respondent court of first instance for injunctive relief against the wrongful attempt
of petitioner to enforce such un­authorized rates, since that remedy is not
obtainable from the Public Service Com­mission itself (V. Commonwealth Act 146,
section 22; Ramos vs. Court of First Instance of Tayabas,
58 Phil. 374, 376).  Injunction is an
exercise of judicial power, while the Public Service Commission is but an
administrative body with limited functions.^[5]

Thus, whether or not the
Public Service Commission had authority to pass upon the petitioner’s revised
rates, it is undeniable that respondents companies had the right to resort to
the respondent court of first instance in quest of injunctive relief against
their enforcement which were claimed to be unauthorized by law and violative of respondents’ contracts; and it equally lay
within the lower court’s jurisdiction to entertain their action.  The grant of the injunction complained of was
merely incidental to the authority of the court to take cognizance of and
adjudicate the main controversy submitted to it.

Neither does the
petitioner make out a case of abuse of discretion.  Its side of the question was given due
consideration, through its motion to lift the preliminary injunction
issued.  Whatever error may have been
committed in denying that motion would be at most an error of judgment, not
correctible by prerogative writ but by seasonable appeal.  The argument that private respondents should
have first exhausted administrative remedies by appeal to the National Economic
Council and the President is without merit, for the petitioner itself claimed
that the revised rates had been already approved by said Council; furthermore,
neither that body nor the President could adjudicate whether or not there was a
violation of the contracts between petitioner and the private respondents, as
the latter averred.

As to the claim that the damages to be suffered by private
respondents are not irreparable, we believe that the same is untenable, for the losses to
be suffered by the said respondents would necessarily reduce their resources
and efficiency and prejudicially involve the services rendered by them to the
general public, to an extent that can not be determined in advance.

WHEREFORE, the petition for a writ of certiorari is denied, and the preliminary injunction heretofore
issued is dissolved.  Costs against
petitioner National Power Corporation.

Concepcion, C.J., Dizon,
Makalintal, Sanchez, Castro, Angeles, Fernando, and Capistrano, JJ., concur.

Zaldivar, J., on leave, did not take part.

^[1]
Owner of electric plants and
holder of franchises to maintain, operate, distribute and supply electric light
and power in the towns of Calamba, Los Baños, Bay, Rizal, Nagcarlan, Lilio, Majayjay, Magdalena,
Sta. Cruz and Pila, in the province
of Laguna.

^[2]
Owner and operator of the electric plant supplying electric light and power in Dagupan City.

^[3]
“SEC. 13. (a) The Commission shall have jurisdiction, supervision, and
control over all public services and their franchises, equipment, and other
properties, and in the exercise of its authority, it shall have the necessary
powers and the aid of public force: Provided, That public services owned
or operated by government entities or government-owned or controlled
corporations shall be regulated by the Commission in the same way as
privately-owned public services, but certificates of public convenience and
necessity shall not be required of such entities or corporations; . . . . .
.”

“SEC. 14. The following are
exempted from the provisions of the preceding section:

xxxxx                           xxxxx                           xxxxx                           xxxxx

“(e) Public services owned or operated by any
instrumentality of the National Government or by any government-owned or
controlled corporation, except with respect to the fixing of rates.”

^[4] House
Congressional Record, Vol. III, No. 63, page 2368.

^[5]
Dagdag vs. Public Service Commission, 104
Phil. 162; Hoc Lian Ho vs. Manila Electric
Co., 63 Phil. 104; Filipino Bus Co. vs. Phil. Railway Co., 57 Phil. 860; Manila
Electric Co. vs. Pasay Transportation Co., 57
Phil. 1016.