MARIANO CALLEJA, PETITIONER, VS. COURT OF APPEALS, MUNICIPALITY OF IRIGA, JOSE VILLANUEVA AND MARCIANO TINO, RESPONDENTS.

Petitioner is one of the nineteen civil service eligible employees
of the Municipality of Iriga, who were separated
from the service when their positions were abolished by the municipal council
for lack of funds.  Believing that their
removal was without just cause, petitioner, in his behalf and in behalf of the
other dismissed employees, filed an action for mandamus before the Court of
First Instance of Camarines Sur
(Civil Case No. 5077) against the Municipality of Iriga,
the Members of the Municipal Council, and the Municipal Treasurer, praying for
their reinstatement and payment of their back salaries.

During the trial, respondent municipality and its officials, who
were sued in their official capacities, were represented by the Provincial
Fiscal of the Pro­vince of Camarines Sur,
collaborated by Atty. Silvestre Felix, the Municipal Attorney of the Municipality
of Iriga.  After a decision was rendered by the lower
court ordering the reinstatement of the dismissed em­ployees and the payment of
their back salaries, a copy thereof was furnished the Provincial Fiscal, who re­ceived
it on March 8, 1963.  The Provincial Fiscal did not file a notice of appeal from this
decision.  But on March 23, 1963, the last day for perfecting the
appeal, Municipal Atty. Felix, in behalf of the Muni­cipality
of Iriga
and the other respondents in the case, filed a notice of appeal and an appeal bond.  The res­pondent municipal officials also
signed the notice of appeal, with the statement, “With our authority and
consent:” over their signatures.

Before the record of the case was forwarded to the Court of
Appeals, petitioner filed a motion object­ing to the approval of the appeal by
the lower court upon the ground that the notice of appeal was not signed by the
Provincial Fiscal who is the only official who can legally represent the Municipality
of Iriga and its officers, and since in that case the
appeal was signed only by Atty. Silvestre Felix, as Municipal Attorney of Iriga, the appeal was not perfected and it should not be
given due course.  On April 17, 1963, the
trial court issued an order overruling petitioner’s object­ion and, finding
that the notice of appeal and appeal bond were filed within the reglementary period, gave due course to the appeal.  On April
25, 1963, petitioner filed a
motion to set aside the order of April
17, 1963, to which motion Municipal Atty. Silvestre Felix filed an
objection which was approved by
the Provincial Fis­cal.  After the denial
of petitioner’s motion, the case was forwarded to the Court of Appeals, where
it is docketed as CA-G.R. No. 33081-R, entitled “Mariano Calleja vs. Municipality
of Iriga,
et al.”

On January 1, 1964,
petitioner, thru counsel, filed in the Court of Appeals a motion to dismiss the
appeal in the above-mentioned case, CA-G.R. No. 33081, reiterating the same
grounds that he adduced in objecting to the approval of the appeal in the low­er
court.  This motion was again opposed by
Atty. Felix, with the approval of the Provincial Fiscal.  On January
29, 1964, the Court of Appeals denied petitioner’s
motion to dismiss.  Petitioner now comes
to this Court in a petition for certiorari, by way of an ap­peal from the order
of the Court of Appeals of Jan­uary 29, 1964 denying his motion to dismiss respond­ents’
appeal.

The main issue to be resolved in the present case is whether or not Atty. Silvestre Felix, in his capacity as Municipal Attorney for the
Municipality of Iriga, who appeared in collaboration
with the Pro­vincial Fiscal as counsel for respondent municipality and its
officials in Civil Case No. 5077
of the Court of First Instance of Camarines Sur, has the authority, under the law, to sign the notice of appeal in said case, without
the accompanying signature or conformity of the Provincial Fiscal.  The resolution of this issue will also decide
whether or not the Court of Appeals had correctly denied petitioner’s motion to
dismiss the appeal in case
CA-G.R. No. 33081-R.

The Municipal Council of Iriga, Camarines Sur, approved
Resolution No. 36, series of
1961, creating the office of Municipal Attorney for the Municipality of Iriga, pursuant to the provisions of Section 3, paragraph
3(a) of Republic Act 2264, entitled “An Act Amending the Laws Governing
Local Governments by Increasing their Autonomy and Reorganizing Provincial Governments” which
took effect on June 19, 1959.  The
pertinent provision of this law reads:

“Municipal councils of municipalities and regularly organized
municipal dis­tricts shall have authority:

“(a)  To create a legal division or office in their
respective municipalities to be headed by an
attorney-at-law ap­pointed by the mayor with the approval of the council
and whose compensation shall be fixed by
such council.  Such head of office shall
be known as the municipal attorney and shall act as legal counsel of the municipality and perform such duties and exercise such powers as may be
assigned to him by the council.  A member
of the council who is an attorney-at-law may
be appointed as such municipal attorney without any further compen­sation.”

Resolution
No. 36, series of 1961, approved by the Municipal Council of Iriga provides, among others, as follows:

“Sec. 2.  The Municipal
Attorney shall be the chief legal adviser of the munici­pality.  He shall have the following duties:

“(a)  He shall represent the munici­pality in all
cases wherein the municipality, or any officer thereof, in his official
capacity, is a party.”

It is by virtue of the foregoing provisions of law and the
resolution of the Municipal Council of Iriga that
Atty. Silvestre Felix, as the duly appointed
Municipal Attorney of Iriga, appeared
as counsel, and signed the notice of appeal, for the respondent Municipality of
Iriga and its officials in Civil Case No. 5079 of the
Court of First Instance of Camarines Sur.

Petitioner contends that the only official who can legally
represent in court respondent municipality
and its officers who are sued in their official capa­cities is the Provincial
Fiscal as provided in Sec­tions
1681 and 1683 of the Revised Administrative Code, and that Republic Act 2264
had not repealed or modified said provisions. 
He also contends that, inasmuch as the Provincial Fiscal is the officer
em­powered to appear for the respondents, the resolution of the Municipal
Council of Iriga authorizing Munici­pal Atty.
Silvestre Felix to represent the municipality in all cases wherein the municipality,
or any officer thereof, in his official capacity, is a party, was ultra vires.  Petitioner further contends that grant­ing
that said attorney may be allowed to appear in the case, his appearance should
be with the consent, con­trol and under the direction of the Provincial
Fiscal.  It is the stand of petitioner
that when the Provincial Fiscal himself did not appeal the decision of the
Court of First Instance of Camarines Sur in Civil Case No. 5077, nor did he sign along with
Municipal Atty. Felix the notice of appeal in said case, no notice of appeal
had been perfected in said case, so that respondents’ appeal was not properly
brought to the Court of Appeals, and, therefore, that appeal should be
dismissed pursuant to the provisions of Section 1, paragraph (b) of Rule 50 of
the Rules of Court.

We find petitioner’s stand untenable.  While it is true that, as provided in Section
1681 of the Re­vised Administrative Code, “the provincial fiscal shall be
the law officer of the province and as such shall therein discharge the duties
x x x it shall also be his
duty, consistently with other provisions of law, to represent in (the) courts the
Government of the Philippines and the officers and branches thereof in all
civil actions and special proceedings and generally to act in such province in
all matters where­in said Government, or any branch or officers thereof, shall
require the service of a lawyer”; and that under Section 1683 of the same Code
the “provincial fiscal shall represent the province and any municipality
or municipal district thereof in any court,”^[1]
except in those cases specified therein, or unless disqualified to do so, We
believe, nevertheless, that the afore-quoted, provisions of the Administrative
Code have been modified by Section 3, paragraph 3(a) of Republic Act 2264,
otherwise known as the Local Autonomy Act, which We have hereinbefore quoted.

Thus, Sections 1681 and 1683 of the Revised Ad­ministrative Code
provide that the Provincial Fiscal is the law officer, legal adviser, and legal
counsel of the province and its subdivisions, which necessarily include the
municipalities therein.  Likewise,
Section 3, paragraph 3(a) of Republic Act 2264 provides that the municipality
may create the office of Municipal At­torney who shall act as the legal counsel
of the municipality.  It is apparent,
therefore, that the two laws have one thing in common – that is, that they
provide for a
legal officer or counsel for the municipality.  Harmonizing, then, these seemingly
conflicting pro­visions, as We should do pursuant to well accepted rule of statutory
construction, the rational inter­pretation that must be arrived at is that both
offi­cials, i.e., the Provincial Fiscal and the Municipal Attorney, can act as the
legal officer and/or counsel of the municipality.  This interpretation is but an implementation of the
purpose for which Republic Act 2264 was enacted – that is, to increase the
powers of, and give more autonomy to, the local government which, in this
particular case, is the municipal government. 
To sustain the stand of the petitioner in the instant case is to render
useless and of no practical effect that provision of Republic Act 2264 which
empowers the municipal council to create the office of Muni­cipal Attorney
“who shall act as legal counsel of the municipality.” The work
of a legal counsel necessarily carries with it the duty of appearing in court
in be­half of the municipality.  The
enactment of Republic Act 2264 had the effect of modifying the provisions of
Sections 1681, 1682 and 1683 of the Revised Admi­nistrative Code insofar as
said sections may be ap­plied to municipalities that have duly appointed Muni­cipal
Attorneys.

It is true that
Section 1683 of the Revised Ad­ministrative Code specifically provides that the
Pro­vincial Fiscal shall represent a municipality in any court, and no similar
proviso appears in Section 3, paragraph 3(a) of Republic Act 2264 regarding the
representation by the Municipal Attorney
of the municipality in court.  We
believe, however, that there is no necessity for that specific provision in
said Sec­tion 3, paragraph 3(a) of Republic Act 2264, because the Municipal
Attorney is a municipal officer, and it is understood that his duties must be
devoted to the in­terests of the municipality.

The rulings of this Court in the cases of Muni­cipality
of Bocaue,
et al. v. Manotok, et al., (G.R. No. L-6528, May 25, 1953) and Enriquez v. Jimenez
(G.R. No. L-12617, April 29, 1960), which are invoked by petitioner, have no
application in the present case because in those two cases what was in issue
was the power of the municipality to employ private counsel, instead of
availing of the services of the Provincial Fiscal in cases in court where the
municipality was a party; and the facts of those cases had taken place before the
enactment of Republic Act 2264 (June 19, 1959). 
In other words, when those cases came up, the municipalities were not
yet empowered to create the office of Municipal Attorney.

We declare, therefore, that the Municipal At­torney of a
municipality, duly appointed in accord­ance with the provisions of Republic Act
2264, is the legal officer of a
municipality, and as such legal officer he may appear in court as counsel for the muni­cipality or
any municipal officer who is a party in a
case in his official capacity.  We
rule, therefore, that in the instant case Municipal Atty. Silvestre Felix had
authority under the law to sign the notice of appeal, as counsel for the respondents in Civil Case No. 5077 of the
Court of First Instance of Camarines Sur; and the notice of appeal, which he had thus sign­ed –
even if he had signed it alone, without being ac­companied by the Provincial
Fiscal – was valid and had
produced the legal effect of bringing the appeal, from the decision in said
civil case, properly to the Court of Appeals. 
The Court of Appeals, therefore, had jurisdiction to entertain that
appeal, and it did not commit error when it
denied petitioner’s motion to dis­miss the appeal of respondent Municipality
of Iriga
and the municipal officials of Iriga in the case,
CA-G.R. No. 33081-R, before said court.

WHEREFORE, the order of the Court of Appeals of June 29, 1964, in CA-G.R. No.
33081-R, denying peti­tioner’s petition to dismiss appeal, is affirmed; and the
instant petition is dismissed, with costs against the petitioner.  Let a copy of this decision be forwarded to
the Court of Appeals for its information in connection with CA-G.R. No.
33081-R.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

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

Concepcion, C.J., and Dizon, JJ., no part.

^[1]
Under Section 1682 of the same Code, the pro­vincial fiscal is also the legal
adviser of the pro­vince and provincial subdivisions.