ELPIDIO LLARENA, PETITIONER AND APPELLANT, VS. HON. ARSENIO H. LACSON, IN HIS CAPACITY AS MAYOR OF THE CITY OF MANILA, RESPONDENT AND APPELLEE.

Llarena versus Lacson

The Case

This is the case of Llarena versus Lacson. Elpidio Llarena, a carpenter in the City of Manila, was dismissed from the service by the City Mayor. He went to court asking for certiorari and mandamus, but the real question the Supreme Court had to answer was simpler and more fundamental: did he first exhaust the administrative remedy the law gave him? The case matters because it is a clean, memorable illustration of the doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies, and of the wide removal power of a city mayor under the Revised Charter of the City of Manila.

Procedural History

Llarena filed a petition for certiorari and mandamus against the Mayor of Manila before the Court of First Instance of Manila. The trial court, presided over by Judge Bonifacio Ysip, dismissed the petition. Llarena appealed to the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals, in a resolution promulgated in June 1959, elevated the case to the Supreme Court for resolution of the questions of law involved. The case thus reached the Supreme Court on appeal, with the Court of Appeals declining to pass on the purely legal questions and certifying them upward.

Facts

Elpidio Llarena was employed as a carpenter in the Carpentry Shop of the Department of Public Services of the City of Manila. He had been duly appointed by the Mayor and had rendered service from October 1946 to September 1956.

Sometime in September 1955, a piano that had been under attachment in connection with a civil case before the war was found missing from the Quiricada bodega of the Department of Public Services. In October 1955, the City Mayor ordered an investigation by a committee composed of Jose M. Regala as chairman, with Gregorio Ejercito and Pedro C. de la Cruz as members. In April 1956, the committee filed its memorandum with the City Mayor and recommended that Llarena be fined an amount equivalent to fifteen days' pay and be warned that a repetition would be dealt with more drastically.

The City Mayor, in view of the committee's findings, rendered a decision in September 1956, and later that same month the Chief of the Division of Building and Transportation Service, through the Department of Public Services, dismissed Llarena from the service with prejudice to reinstatement. Llarena admitted at the hearing that he did not appeal from the order of dismissal to the Office of the President. He later claimed he was unaware of that right because he had completed only the fourth grade in primary school.

Issues

• Whether or not a petition for certiorari and mandamus may prosper when the petitioner failed to appeal his dismissal to the Office of the President, as the law requires.
• Whether or not the City Mayor abused his discretion in not following the recommendation of the investigating committee, and whether or not the petitioner was removed without cause.

Applicable Provisions

Section 22 of Republic Act Number 409, the Revised Charter of the City of Manila, provides:

The City Mayor is empowered to suspend and remove all city officers or employees not appointed by the President, subject to appeal to the Secretary of Interior, whose decisions should be final.

This is the provision that gave the Mayor the power to dismiss Llarena and gave Llarena the remedy of appeal to the Secretary of Interior, which he failed to use.

Civil Service Rule Thirteen, Number 6, provides:

Dishonesty, notoriously disgraceful or immoral conduct, may be considered reasons demanding proceedings to remove for cause.

This rule supplies the substantive ground for removal, which the Court found present in Llarena's conduct.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the petition could not prosper. The rule in this jurisdiction is that when an administrative remedy is provided by law, relief must be sought by exhausting that remedy before the courts will act, and failure to exhaust it is fatal. The Court quoted its earlier ruling in Cabanes versus Rodriguez, which applied the same principle of exhaustion of administrative remedies consistently adhered to by the Court, and dismissed the petition on that ground. Llarena's claim that he did not know of his right to appeal because he had completed only the fourth grade did not excuse him. The trial court was therefore correct in dismissing the petition.

On the second issue, the Court held that both claims of the petitioner lacked merit. The recommendation of the committee was only advisory in nature. The Mayor may or may not adopt it, may modify it, or may even create another committee to conduct another investigation, and he is given wide discretion under Republic Act Number 409 to impose administrative penalties. As to the claim of removal without cause, the Court found that Llarena bought the piano from the sheriff knowing the latter had no authority to sell it, and helped remove it from the government bodega. That is dishonesty, which under Civil Service Rule Thirteen, Number 6, is a sufficient cause for removal.

Doctrine

Two rules must be retained. First, the doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies: where the law provides an administrative remedy, such as the appeal to the Secretary of Interior under Section 22 of the Revised Charter of the City of Manila, the party must first avail of it before the courts will act, and failure to do so is fatal to the judicial action. Ignorance of the remedy, even by a person of limited schooling, does not excuse the failure.

Second, the recommendation of an investigating committee is merely advisory. The local chief executive may adopt, modify, or reject it, and enjoys wide discretion in imposing administrative penalties. Dishonesty is a sufficient cause for removal from the service.

Disposition

The Supreme Court affirmed the decision appealed from, dismissing Llarena's petition.

Remember This

Memorize the line that failure to exhaust an available administrative remedy is fatal, and that a committee's recommendation is only advisory. Examiners use this case to test exhaustion of administrative remedies and the removal powers of local executives under city charters.