VICENTE CABILING, ET AL., PETITIONERS AND APPELLEES, VS. EUSEBIO PABULAAN, ET AL., RESPONDENTS AND APPELLANTS. TEODORO M. PEPITO, ET AL., PETITIONERS AND APPELLEES, VS. LUCILO A…

On August 10, 1960 Teodoro N. Pepito and Ernesto
Garcia were designated by President Garcia, pursuant to Section 10 of Republic
Act 180 as Acting Mayor and Acting: Vice-Mayor, respectively, while Policarpio Valero, Jose Cajes,
Melecio Tilanduca, Marcelo
Salintao and Roberto Laoyan
were also appointed as Acting Municipal Councilors of the municipality of
Valencia, Bukidnon, then newly created under Executive
Order No. 360 dated October 11, 1959, and duly qualified thereafter. On May 19,
1961 they were extended new acting designations to the same positions and
qualified therefor on August 15 of the same year,
performing the functions of their respective offices uninterruptedly and
receiving from the Municipal Treasurer of Valencia their salaries and per diems
from November 6, 1960 to June 23, 1962.

On September 28, 1961, Vicente
Cabiling and Paulino
Gonzales were similarly designated as Acting Mayor and Acting Vice-Mayor,
respectively, and Ernesto Cayanong, Agapito Ayuban and Ramon Caspe as Acting Municipal Councilors, of the municipality of
Dangcagan likewise newly created under Executive Order
No. 444 issued by former President Garcia on August 29, 1961. On October 26 of
the same year they took the corresponding oath of office. Jose Galamiton, Lucio Sarajena and Pedro Leuterto were
likewise appointed as Acting Municipal Councilors of said municipality on
December 8, 1961, the latter two qualifying for the office on December 19 of the
same year. All of them, with the exception of Jose Galamiton, discharged their respective duties continuously,
and were paid their salaries and per diems by the Municipal Treasurer of Dangcagan up to June 23, 1962.

December 18, 1961 Benigno U. Aquino, officer in of
processing all presidential appointments, revived instructions from the
Executive Secretary to have all previous “Acting designations” converted into
“Ad-interim appointments” and have them antedated. On December 25, 1961,
President Garcia signed said ad-interim appointments, including those of the
aforementioned officers, which were antedated as of June 1, 1961, in the case of
the appointments of the municipal officials of Valencia, and December 8, 1961 in
that of the municipal officials of Dangcagan. The
following day, the appointments were forwarded to the Commission on Appointments
together with several hundred others, and in May, 1962, the Commission confirmed
the ones involved in the case now before Us.

On December 31, 1961, President
Macapagal issued Administrative Order No. 2,
withdrawing, recalling, and declaring without effect all ad-interim appointments
extended or released by President Garcia after December 13,
1961.

On June 6, 1962, President Macapagal extended acting appointments to Lucilo Alkuino, as Mayor, Solomon
Gaoay as Vice-Mayor, Hugo Limbo, Segundo Dumaguita, Emilio Ermio, Alfredo
Acasio and Escolastico Hugo
Ogario, as Councilors, of the municipality of
Valencia. On the same day, Eusebio Pabulaan and Emigdio Ofima were similarly appointed as Acting Mayor and Acting
Vice-Mayor, respectively, of the municipality of Dangcagan, while Nicanor R. Baticolon, Nicolas Paeste, Raymundo Salazar, Donato Pabulaan, Victor Ampuan and Conrado Tosem were appointed as
Acting Councilors thereof. All officials qualified for their respective office
in June, and were paid their respective salaries and per
diems.

On December 4, 1962 Vicente Cabiling and his co-appellees
filed a petition for quo warranto with the First
Instance of Bukidnon (Case No. 240) claiming the right
to hold the positions of Mayor, Vice-Mayor and Councilors of the municipality of
Dangcagan and assailing the validity of the
appointments of Eusebio Pabulaan, et al. to the same offices, with a prayer for the
issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction to restrain the Municipal Treasurer
of Dangcagan from paying the salaries diems of the
latter during the pendency of the
case.

A similar petition was filed by
Teodoro N. Pepito and his
co-appellees with the same court (Case No. 239)
assailing the validity of the appointments of Lucilo
Alkuino, et al., to the positions of Mayor, Vice-Mayor
and Councilors of the municipality of Valencia, with a prayer for the issuance
of a writ of preliminary injunction against the municipal treasurer of
Valencia.

After a joint trial of the
petitions, the court, on June 7, 1963, rendered judgment as
follows:

Wherefore, judgment is hereby
rendered declaring the petitioners in all these cases to be the legal occupants
of the positions to which they were appointed with the right to the salaries and
emoluments thereof from the date of their removal until reinstatement, and the
respondents are hereby ousted and altogether excluded therefrom, with costs against the said
respondents.”

From the above decision
respondents interposed the present appeals.

Section 10 of Republic Act No.
180, provides as follows:

“When a new political division is
created the inhabitants of which are entitled to participate in the elections,
the elective officers thereof shall, unless otherwise provided, be chosen at the
next, regular election. In the interim, such offices shall, in the discretion of
the President, be filled by appointment by him or by a special election which he
may order.”

The trial court ruled that the
“acting appointments” extended to appellees were
permanent because all appointments made by the Chief Executive under the legal
provision quoted above are necessarily permanent, to last until the elective
officers of the newly created political subdivision are chosen at the next
regular election. This means that, in the opinion of the trial court, the
“acting” appointments extended in favor of appellees
were necessarily up to or until the general elections of 1963. We can not agree
with this view, there being nothing in the legal provision aforementioned to
justify it, directly or indirectly.

Generally, the power to appoint
vested in the Chief Executive includes the power to make temporary appointments,
unless he is otherwise specifically prohibited by law, or a temporary or acting
appointment is repugnant to the nature of the office to be filled. This is based
upon the theory that the whole includes and is greater than the part (Tañada and Carreon, Philippine
Political Law, 1961 Edition, pp. 316-317).

In the case of officials of newly
created municipalities, there is no law nor public
policy requiring that they must be filled by permanent appointees. The
applicable legal provision already quoted above—merely gives the Chief Executive
the option to fill the offices by appointment. Of course, if the appointment
made is permanent, it should last up to or until the elective officials of the
newly created municipality have been chosen at the next regular
election.

To the above We must add the circumstance that appellees are estopped from
claiming that their acting appointments were, in reality, permanent
appointments. As already stated, President Garcia extended in their favor acting
appointments twice. On the other hand, that they were so intended conclusively
shown by the fact that on December 18, 1961, the Office of the President gave
out the order to have all previous acting appointments converted into
“ad-interim” appointments. Appellees having accepted
the appointments thus extended to thorn without any protest or reservation, and
having acted thereunder for a considerable time it is
clear that they can not now be hear to say that such appointments were, in
reality, permanent and that, by reason of their being so, they could not be
removed, except for cause, before the end of the term for which they were
supposedly appointed.

It is not disputed that the
ad-interim appointments extended in favor of appellees
were signed by President Garcia only on December 25, 1961, and that they were
among the several hundred similar appointments forwarded by the Office of the
President to the Commission on Appointments on December 26, 1961. This being so,
appellees‘ appointments should be regarded as an
integral part of the so called “mid-night appointments” voided by our decision
in the Aytona case.

There is still another factor
that makes appellees‘ stand untenable. The
preponderance of evidence,—to say the least—shows that their ad-interim
appointments had never been released. As a consequence, the action taken thereon
by the Commission on Appointments must be deemed of no legal effect (Rosales
vs. Yenko G. R. No. L-20618, May 1965). It is
true that appellee Ramon Caspe (G. R. No. L-21764) produced in evidence a telegram
which purported to advise him of the signing of his ad-interim appointment, but
said telegram was received only in January 1962 after the issuance of the
Executive Order withdrawing and cancelling all
appointments made by the previous Chief Executive after December 13, 1961. In G. R. No. L-21765, a similar attempt was made by appellees Pepito and Cajes who presented as evidence the telegrams now marked as
Exhibits A and B. The fact is, however, that the telegram Exhibit A was sent
only on January 1, 1962, while the telegram Exhibit B was sent on December 31,
1961, and both were received on January 2, 1962, also after the recall of their
appointments. As a matter of fact, appellee Pepito testified that up to the time when he took the
witness stand, he had not received a copy of his ad-interim appointment, and he
also admitted that he had never taken his oath of office as ad-interim
Mayor.

In
view of all the foregoing, the decisions appealed from are
reversed, with the result that the petition for quo warranto under consideration are dismissed, with
costs.

Bengzon, C. J., Bautista Angelo, Reyes,
J. B. L., Paredes, Regala,
Makalintal, Bengzon, J.
P. and Zaldivar, JJ.,
concur..