PABLO D. SUAREZ, GUILLERMO C. LUCAS AND GERARDO I. BAUTISTA, PETITIONERS, VS. THE COMMISSION ON ELEC­TIONS, EDILBERTO REGALADO, ENRIQUE ROA, AND NESTORIO BAUTISTA, RESPONDENTS.

In its session on March 29, 1966, the respondent Com­mission on
Elections (COMELEC) “RESOLVED to appoint”, amongst others, the
petitioners Pablo D. Suarez, Guillermo C. Lucas and Gerardo I. Bautista–then
holding positions of “Election Registrar(s) of the Commission on
Elections” corresponding to items provided for “Municipal
Registrars”, under duly approved appointments dated February 1, 1964, but
actually detailed to and performing duties as such in Manila by virtue of
alleged verbal assignments made by the COMELEC–as permanent election
registrars for the first, second and fourth congressional districts of Manila,
respectively, and directed its Personnel Office “to prepare and issue the
corresponding appointment papers effective upon assumption of duty”.  Evidently, the COMELEC was motivated to so act
by its desire to rectify its erstwhile practice of appointing election
registrars without desig­nation of specific station having in view the new
Registration Law, Republic Act 3588, the ruling in Puyat
vs. Commission on Elections, G.R. L-24329, April 8, 1965, and moves in Congress
toward a more definitive expression of legisla­tive intent to make the offices
of election registrars permanent.

Before the resolution aforesaid could be implemented, however,
one Ernesto Verdejo, also an election registrar
detailed to the city of Manila, invited the attention of the COMELEC to an
unresolved letter-petition he had priorly addressed
to the latter praying for his retention as one of the four election registrars
to be permanently stationed in Manila. 
This trig­gered a restudy of the disposition of permanent appointments
of city registrars throughout the country. 
The permanent appointments of 33 city registrars were soon to be
approved by the COMELEC upon recommendation of the Chief of its Registry
Operations Division who conducted the restudy aforesaid.  But action on those of four permanent
registrars for Manila was deferred
pending a more thoroughgoing examination of the service records of all the
election registrars who have been detailed in Manila
with a view to determining who among them would best qualify for the said
positions.

Eventually, on August 24, 1966,
acting on the recommenda­tion of its screening committee, and after
evaluating the qua­lifications and service records of the several prospective
ap­pointees in accordance with specific guidelines it laid down, the COMELEC
“RESOLVED to permanently appoint * * * as Elec­tion Registrars in the City
of Manila” – instead of the peti­tioners – the respondents Enrique, Roa, Edilberto Regalado and Nestorio Bautista,
together with Ernesto Verdejo heretofore
mentioned.  Their appointment papers were
issued and were thereafter approved by the Civil Service Commission; they then
duly qualified as such.

Notified of this development and directed to yield their offices
and turn over their property and other accountabilities to the new permanent
appointees, the forty-one other election registrars (the petitioners included)
then detailed in Manila, to a man demurred and refused to heed the aforesaid
order.  For this disobedience, the
COMELEC forthwith charged them adminis­tratively and ordered their preventive
suspension.

Rebuffed in their efforts to obtain a reconsideration of the
directives of the COMELEC, the petitioners came to this Court in this
three-pronged action:  prohibition to
stop the COMELEC from relieving them from their present positions and from
proceeding with the administrative investigation; mandamus to compel the
COMELEC to issue their appointment papers pursuant to the reso­lution of March 29, 1966; and quo warranto
to declare them duly entitled to the offices of permanent election registrars
for the first, second and fourth districts of Manila.  Their ancillary prayer for preliminary
injunction was allowed and, upon bond duly filed and approved, the
corresponding writ was issued.

The original position taken by the petitioners has undergone a
substantial metamorphosis.  In their
petition, they staked their claim upon the COMELEC’s
resolution of.  March 29, 1966 which, they contended, amounted to a
final and completed exercise of appointing
power by the COMELEC and therefore vest­ed in them title to the respective
offices in question.  In their subsequent
memorandum, they stand solidly upon the propo­sition that their original appointments of February
1, 1964 vested in
them irrevocable titles to the offices of election registrars for the City of Manila, of which
they may not be divested against their will without doing violence to their
constitutional right to security of tenure. 
They now regard the March
29, 1966 resolution as
merely reappointing them to the same positions and net conferring
“new” appointments upon them.

Whichever stance they assume,
the petitioners can derive no comfort.

On the matter of their reliance
upon their original ap­pointments of February 1, 1964, our ruling in Ibañez,
et al. vs. Commission on Elections, et al., G.R. L-26558, April 27, 1967, controls.  There, where the therein petitioners relied
upon appointments which, like those
of the petitioners herein, did not specify a particular station, and the
assignment of the appointees to particular places was made by mere detail thereafter, we ruled
that the said appointments did not enti­tle the appointees to any security of
tenure or permanency in the places to which they were assigned.  This, because –

“* * * The subsequent assignment of the appoin­tees thereunder that the said respondent held in reserve to be
exercised as the needs of each
locality justified did not in any way detract from the per­fection attained by
the appointments beforehand.  And the
respective appointees were entitled only to such security of tenure as the
appointment papers concern­ed actually conferred – not in that of any place to which they may have been subsequently assigned. 
This is particularly true in the case at bar where the offices filled by the petitioners were
those of ‘munici­pal registrars’, whereas the assignments given to them were
stations corresponding to ‘city registrars’ – which they were not – covered by
item numbers in the current appropriations act which time altogether dif­ferent
from those stated in their respective appointments.  As things stand, in default of any particular
station stated in their respective appointments, no security of tenure can be asserted by the
petitioners on the basis of the mere assignments
which were given to them.  A
contrary rule will erase altogether the demarcation line we have repeatedly
drawn between appointment and assignment as two distinct concepts in the law of
public officers.” (Ibañez, et
al. vs. Commission on Elections, et al., supra.)

The final resolution of the COMELEC
against retaining the pe­titioners herein as election registrars with permanent
station in Manila cannot therefore
be denounced as an infringement of their right to security of tenure.

Nor may the petitioners find sanctuary in the COMELEC re­solution
of March 29, 1966.  Under either alternative in their shifting
view thereof – that is, as either an original appoint­ment or as a reappointment to
the same position – the said re­solution cannot be imbued with the character of
a completed exertion of appointing power which vested in the petitioners
irrevocable title to the offices concerned. 
Indubitable is the rule that an appointment attains finality, from the
standpoint of the appointing authority, upon the performance of the last act
required of it as such appointing authority; but the mere issuance of the
resolution aforesaid was not, in the case at bar, the last act which would take
the matter completely out of the control of the appointing authority.  We have hereto­fore ruled that, under existing
appointing machinery
in this jurisdiction –

“* * * an appointment made by an officer duly empowered to
make it is not final or complete until after the Commissioner of Civil Service has
certi­fied that such appointment may be made. 
Hence,
with­out such certification, the appointment may be re­called or
withdrawn by the appointing officer. * * *.” (Grospe
vs. Secretary of Public Works, et al., 56 O.G., No. 24, pp. 4097, 4100).

Here, there is not even an insinuation
that that certification was had; the appointment papers of the petitioners have
not even been issued.  It is true that in Villanueva vs. Balallo, G.R. L-17745, October 31, 1963, we held that when the appointee is
qualified, the certification of the appointment by the Commissioner of Civil Service
becomes ministerial.  Here, it can hardly
be averred that the petitioners’ qualifications and preferential right over all
others to the positions in ques­tion have been finally ascertained.  At the very least, it must be conceded that
the pending letter-petition of Ernesto Verdejo to
which the attention of the COMELEC was seasonably called cast serious doubts on
the correctness of the initial choices made by the COMELEC.  Which is why it was
impelled to order a restudy of the entire matter and to set more specific
guidelines for such restudy.  Nor
is there anything in the ruling adverted to which intimates that certification
by the Civil Service Commissioner can be dispensed with.  It still must be had as the ultimate act required to complete the ap­pointment.  Not until then does the appointee become
entitled to the protection of the law against unjust removal – a rule we
reiterated in Favis vs. Rupisan,
et al., G.R.L-22823, May 19, 1966, in which we quoted with approval the
pronouncements made in the earlier case of Grospe vs.
Secretary of Public Works, et al., heretofore cited.

As we look in retrospect at the developments contempo­raneous with
the issuance of the resolution of March 29,1966,
we are satisfied that the seasonable action of the COMELEC in ordering a
restudy of the disposition of the permanent appoint­ments for city election
registrars, including those for Manila now claimed by the petitioners –
evidently, due to doubts gen­erated by the letter-petition of Ernesto Verdejo — and its subsequent action of revising the
resolution of March 29, 1966 by
appointing the respondents, in lieu of the petitioners, were still well within
its power to take.  No question is here
raised as to the reasonableness of the criteria or guidelines relied upon by it
in making its final choices.  And we have been
shown no valid reason for substituting our own discretion for that it exercised
in the premises.

It follows ineluctably that the present petition must fall.

ACCORDINGLY, the petition is dismissed,
writ of preliminary injunction heretofore issued is dissolved, at peti­tioners’
cost.

Reyes, JBL, Makalintal, Bengzon, JP, Zaldivar, Sanchez,
Angeles, and Fernando, JJ., concur.

Concepcion, C.J., and Dizon, J., did not take part.