ZAMBALES CHROMITE MINING CO., GONZALO P. NAVA, VIOLA S. NAVA, FEDERICO S. NAVA, PERLA NAVA, HONORATO P. NAVA, ALEJANDRO S. NAVA, PURIFICACION SISON, A. TORDESILLAS, GUIDO ADVINC…

This is a mining case. The petitioners appealed from the second decision of the Court of
Appeals, reversing its first decision and holding that it was improper
for Benjamin M. Gozon, as Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources, to
affirm his own decision as Director of Mines.

The Court of Appeals further held that the trial court’s
judgment, confirming the Secretary’s decision, should be set aside and that the
Minister of Natural Resources should review anew the decision of the Director
of Mines “and, thereafter, further proceedings will be taken in the trial
court”. The ante­cedental
proceedings are as follows:

(1)  In Mines Administrative Case No. V-227,
Director Gozon issued an order dated October 5, 1960 wherein he dismissed the
case filed by the petitioners or pro­testants (Zambales Chromite Mining Co.,
Inc. or the group of Gonzalo P. Nava). In that case, they sought to be declared the rightful and prior locators
and possessors of sixty-nine mining claims located in Santa Cruz, Zambales.

On the basis of petitioners’ evidence (the private res­pondents
did not present any evidence and they filed a demurrer to the evidence or
motion to dismiss the protest), Director Gozon found that the petitioners did
not discover any mineral nor staked and located mining claims in accordance
with law.

In that same order, Director Gozon ruled that the mining claims
of the groups of Gregorio Martinez and Pablo Pabiloña, now the private
respondents-appellees, were duly located and registered (pp. 224-231, Record on
Appeal).

(2)  The petitioners appealed from that order to the Secretary of
Agriculture and Natural Resources. While the appeal was pending, Director Gozon was appointed Secretary of Agriculture and Natural
Resources. Instead of inhibiting
himself, he decided the appeal, DANR Case No. 2151, on August 16, 1963 as if he
was adjudicating the case for the first time. Thus, Secretary Gozon exercised appellate jurisdiction over a case which
he had decided as Director of Mines. He
acted as reviewing authority in the appeal from his own decision. Or, to use another analogy, he acted as
trial judge and appellate judge in the same case.

He ruled that the petitioners had abandoned the disputed mining
claims, while, on the other hand, the Martinez and Pabiloña groups had validly
located the said claims. Hence, he dis­missed
the appeal from his own decision (pp. 340-341, Record on Appeal).

(3)  On September 20, 1963, the petitioners filed a
com­plaint in the Court of First Instance of Zambales, assailing Secretary
Gozon’s decision and praying that they be declared the prior locators and
possessors of the sixty-nine mineral claims in question. Impleaded as defendants in the case were the
Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources, the Director of Mines and the
members of the Martinez and Pabiloña groups.

After hearing, the lower court sustained Secretary Gozon’s decision and dismissed the
case. It held that the disqualification
of a judge to review his own decision or ruling (Sec. 1, Rule 137, Rules of
Court) does not apply to administrative bodies; that there is no provision in
the Mining Law, disqualifying the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources
from deciding an appeal from a case which he had decided as Director of Mines;
that delicadeza is not a ground for disqualification; that the
petitioners did not seasonably seek to disqualify Secretary Gozon from deciding
their appeal, and that there was no evidence that the Secretary acted
arbitrarily and with bias, prejudice, animosity or hostility to the petitioners
(pp. 386-9, Record on Appeal).

(4)  The petitioners appealed to the Court of
Appeals. The Sixth Division of that
Court (Pascual, Agcaoili and Climaco, JJ.) in its decision dated
February 15, 1978 reversed the judg­ment of the trial court and declared that
the petitioners were the
rightful locators and possessors of the said sixty-nine mining claims and held as invalid the mining claims overlapping
the same.

That Division found that the petitioners (Nava group) had
discovered minerals and had validly located the said sixty-nine mining claims
and that there was no sufficient basis for Secretary Gozon’s finding that the
mining claims of the Martinez and Pabi­loña groups were validly located.

(5)  The defendants, now the private
respondents-appellees, filed a motion for reconsideration based principally on
the ground that the Court of Appeals should have respected the factual findings
of the Director of Mines and the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources
on the theory that the facts found in administrative deci­sions cannot be
disturbed on appeal to the courts, citing Republic Act No. 4388 which amended
section 61 of the Mining Law effective June 19, 1965; Pajo vs. Ago, 108 Phil.
905; Palanan Lumber & Plywood Co., Inc. vs. Arranz, 65 O. G. 8473;
Timbancaya vs. Vicente, 119 Phil. 169; Ortua vs. Singson Encarnacion, 59 Phil.
440.

The defendants-movants prayed that the appeal be dismissed, meaning
that the decisions of the lower court and of Director and Secretary Gozon be
affirmed.

The petitioners opposed that motion for reconsideration. In their opposition, they reiterated the
contention in their brief that Secretary Gozon’s decision was void and,
therefore, the factual findings therein are not binding on the courts.

As already stated, the same Sixth Division (composed of Pascual,
Agrava and Climaco, JJ.) in its second decision of October 13, 1978, set
aside its first decision and granted the motion for reconsideration. Curiously enough, the first decision was
reconsidered not on the ground advanced by the movants­-defendants, now
the private respondents (Martinez and Pabiloña groups), which was that the factual findings of the
administrative officials should be upheld, but on the ground raised in
petitioners’ opposition, namely, that Secretary Gozon’s decision was void
because he was disqualified to review
his own decision as Director of Mines.

So, as already noted, the Court of Appeals in its second decision
remanded the case to the Minister of Natural Resources for another review of
Director Gozon’s decision. This was the
prayer of the petitioners in their brief but in their opposition to the motion
for reconsideration, they prayed that the first deci­sion of the Court of
Appeals in their favor be maintained.

(6) The second
decision did not satisfy the parties. They filed motions for reconsideration. The petitioners in their mo­tion reiterated their prayer that the first
decision be reinstated. They abandoned
their prayer that the ease be returned to the Minister of Natural Resources.

On the other hand, the private respondents in their motion
insisted that the trial court’s decision be affirmed on the basis of the
factual findings of the Director of Mines and the Secretary of Agriculture and
Natural Resources. The Court of Appeals
denied both motions in its resolutions of December 27, 1978 and January 15,
1979.

Only the petitioners appealed from the second decision of the
Court of Appeals. There is an arresting
and noteworthy peculiarity in the present posture of this case now on appeal to
this Court (as arresting and noteworthy as the peculiarity that Secretary Gozon
reviewed his own decision as Director of Mines).

That twist or peculiarity is that while the petitioners (Nava
group) in their appellants’ brief in the Court of Appeals prayed that Secretary
Gozon’s decision, alleged to be biased, be declared void and that the case
be returned to the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources for another
review of Director Gozon’s order, in their appellants’ brief in this Court,
they changed that relief and they now pray that the second decision of the
Court of Appeals, referring this case to the Minister of Natural Resources for
another review, be declared void and that its first decision be affirmed.

In contrast, the private respondents, who did not appeal from the
second decision of the Court of Appeals, instead of sustaining its holding that
this case be referred to the Minister of Natural Resources or instead of
defending that second deci­sion, they being appellees, pray for the affirmance
of the trial court’s judgment sustaining the decisions of Director and Secre­tary
Gozon.

The inconsistent positions of the parties, which were induced by
the contradictory decisions of the Court of Appeals, constitute the peculiar
twist of this case in this Court.

We hold that Secretary Gozon acted with grave abuse of discretion
in reviewing his decision as Director of Mines. The palpably flagrant anomaly of a Secretary of Agriculture and
Natural Resources reviewing his own decision as Director of Mines is a mockery
of administrative justice. The Mining
Law, Commonwealth Act No. 137, provides:

“SEC. 61. Conflicts
and disputes arising out of mining locations shall be submitted to the Director
of Mines for decision:

“Provided, That the decision or order of the Director
of Mines may be appealed to the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources
within thirty days from the date of its re­ceipt.

“In case any one of the parties should disagree from the
decision or order of the Director of Mines or of the Secre­tary of Agriculture
and Natural Resources, the matter may be taken to the court of competent
jurisdiction within thirty days from the receipt of such decision or order;
otherwise the said decision or order shall be final and binding upon the
parties concerned.” (As amended by Republic Act No. 746 approved on June
18, 1952).*

Undoubtedly, the provision of section 61 that the decision of the
Director of Mines may be appealed to the Secretary of Agri­culture and Natural
Resources contemplates that the Secretary should be a person different from the
Director of Mines.

In order that the review of the decision of a subordinate officer
might not turn out to be a farce, the reviewing officer must perforce be other
than the officer whose decision is under re­view; otherwise, there could be no different
view or there would be no real review of the case. The decision of the reviewing officer would
be a biased view; inevitably, it would be the same view since being
human, he would not admit that he was mistaken in his first view of the case.

That is the obvious, elementary reason behind the
disqualification of a trial judge, who is promoted to the appellate court, to
sit in any case wherein his decision or ruling is the subject of review (Sec.
1, Rule 137, Rules of Court; secs. 9 and 27, Judiciary Law).

A sense of proportion and consideration for the fitness of things
should have deterred Secretary Gozon from reviewing his own decision as
Director of Mines. He should have asked
his Undersecretary to undertake the review.

Petitioners-appellants were deprived of due process, meaning
fundamental fairness, when Secretary Gozon reviewed his own decision as
Director of Mines. (See Amos Treat
& Co. vs. Securities and Exchange Commission, 306 F. 2nd 260, 267.)

WHEREFORE, we set aside the order of the Secretary of
Agriculture and Natural Resources dated August 16, 1963 as affirmed by the
trial court as well as the first decision of the Court of Appeals.

We affirm its second decision, returning the case to the Minister
of Natural Resources, with the directive that petitioners’ appeal to the
Minister be resolved de novo with the least delay as provided for
in Presidential Decree No. 309, “establishing rules and procedures for the
speedy disposition or settlement of conflicting mining claims”.

We reverse the second part of that second decision stating that
“thereafter, further proceedings will be taken in the trial
court”. That portion is
unwarranted because the trial court does not retain any jurisdiction over the
case once it is remanded to the Minister of Natural Resources. No costs.

SO ORDERED.

Antonio, Santos, and Abad
Santos, JJ., concur.

Barredo, J., (Chairman), concur
but wish to add that the reason why the undersecretary could ask is because
when the Secretary is disqualified, he should be deemed as absurd or
incapacitated to act, how’s the undersecretary should be correspondingly deemed
as the secretary for the purpose of the case in question. Needless to say, the Undersecretary should
act in such a way as to avoid every instruction that he has been dictated upon
actually by the secretary.

Concepcion, Jr., J., did not take part.

* Section 61 was further amended
by Republic Act No. 4388, which took effect on June 19, 1965 by changing the
“court of competent jurisdiction” to “Court of Appeals or the
Supreme Court, as the case may be”, and by providing that “findings
of facts in the decision or order of the Director of Mines, when affirmed by
the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources shall be final and
conclusive, and the aggrieved party or parties desiring to appeal from such
decision or order shall file in the Supreme Court a petition for review wherein
only questions of law may be raised.”

As to the
existing procedure for review, see sections 3, 4 and 5 of Presidential Decree
No. 309, dated October 10, 1973 which establishes rules and procedures for the
speedy disposi­tion or settlement of conflicting mining claims; sections 48 to
50 of the Mineral Resources Development Decree of 1974, Presi­dential Decree
No. 463, dated May 17, 1974, regarding protests, adverse claims and appeals,
involving the right to possession, lease, exploration or exploitation of any mining
claim, and sec­tion 7 of Presidential Decree No. 1281, dated January 16, 1978,
regarding review of the decisions of the Director of Mines in cases involving
mining agreements or contracts.