JOSÉ CASIA GARCES, RECURRENTE, CONTRA GERARDO BELLO, EL SECRETARIO DE JUSTICIA, Y EL JUEZ DE PRIMERA INSTACIA, TERCER DISTRITO JUDICIAL, RECURRIDOS.

Garces versus Bello

The Case

This is a petition for quo warranto — an action to try the right to a public office — brought by José Casia Garcés against Gerardo Bello, the Secretary of Justice, and the Judge of First Instance of the Third Judicial District. Garcés claims that he, and not Bello, is the lawful justice of the peace of the municipality of Baugen and the municipal district of Concepción, both in the province of Ilocos Sur. The case matters because it fixes the rule on what happens to a judicial officer's tenure when war interrupts it: a justice of the peace holding office in a permanent capacity when the Pacific war broke out did not lose his right to resume that office after the government of law was restored, so long as he never resigned, was never removed, and was never incapacitated in the manner the Constitution and the laws prescribe.

Procedural History

The action was commenced as an original petition for quo warranto in the Supreme Court itself, impleading the rival claimant Bello together with the Secretary of Justice and the Judge of First Instance who, according to the petition, were being used to install Bello under a later appointment. There were no intermediate appellate proceedings. The Supreme Court decided the controversy in the first instance, and it granted the remedy prayed for.

Facts

On the twenty ninth of September, 1924, Garcés was appointed justice of the peace of Baugen and the municipal district of Concepción by the then Governor General of the Philippines, and his appointment was confirmed by the Senate on the same day. He took the corresponding oath, assumed office at once, and served without interruption until the Japanese occupied the province of Ilocos Sur in January 1942. Throughout the enemy occupation he rendered no service, whether as justice of the peace or in any other capacity.

After the liberation, the military governor of Ilocos Sur, Pablo Fe Benito, wrote to Garcés on the third of April, 1945, advising him that the offices of the justice of the peace were being set up under a policy of restoring to their posts those who had held them during the Commonwealth regime, and asking him to come for an official interview. Responding to that invitation, Garcés reoccupied his office after taking the corresponding oath. On the eighth of February, 1946, President Sergio Osmeña appointed him justice of the peace ad interim of the same court, an appointment he says he did not seek and which appears to have issued as part of the outgoing administration's general policy of issuing new appointments even to justices of the peace in permanent capacity at the outbreak of the war. That appointment was disapproved by the Commission on Appointments on the ninth of July, 1946.

Then, on the fifth of December, 1946, the respondent Gerardo Bello was appointed justice of the peace ad interim for the same court of Baugen and Concepción. That is the appointment the respondents sought to make prevail over the better right Garcés claims, and that is why the petition for quo warranto was filed.

Issues

• Whether or not a justice of the peace in permanent capacity who held office when the Pacific war broke out lost his right to resume that office after the restoration of the government of law, where he never resigned, was never removed, and was never incapacitated under the Constitution and the laws.
• Whether or not the petitioner lost that right by accepting, after the liberation, first a designation from the military governor and then a new appointment from the President of the Philippines.
• Whether or not the petitioner's lack of a law degree disqualified him from continuing in the office.

Applicable Provisions

Section 9 of Article VIII of the Constitution of the Philippines, on the security of tenure of judges, provides:

Los miembros del Poder Judicial no podrán ser separados de sus cargos mientras observen buena conducta.

This is the guarantee on which the Court rests the petitioner's right to hold the office during good behavior, and therefore his right to resume it after the war.

Section 4 of Article XVI of the Constitution, on the effect of the inauguration of the Commonwealth upon officials appointed by the President, provides:

Todos los funcionarios cuyos nombramientos incumbe al Presidente hacer en virtud de la Constitución cesarán en sus respectivos cargos después de que hayan sido nombrados y se hayan cualificado sus sucesores, siempre que tales nombramientos se hubieran hecho dentro de un año después de la inauguración del Commonwealth de Filipinas.

This fixes the one year window within which a successor could have been appointed to replace the petitioner, and its lapse without such an appointment confirmed that he continued in office during good behavior.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court answered that the petitioner did not lose his right to the office. Applying its recent ruling in Tavora versus Gavina and Arciaga, also a quo warranto case, it held that under the principle of judicial security of tenure, justices of the peace in permanent capacity who held their posts when the Pacific war broke out did not lose the right to resume them after the restoration of the de jure government, the Commonwealth, provided they had not resigned, had not been removed, and had not become incapacitated for the reasons, in the modes, and through the proceedings fixed by the Constitution and the laws. The Court noted that this case is even stronger than Tavora, because Tavora had actually served during the Japanese occupation, whereas the petitioner here did not. It quoted its own holding in that earlier case:

The fact that the petitioner has performed the duties of Justice of the Peace of the municipality of San Fernando, La Union, during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, by virtue of appointment made by the Chairman of the Executive Commission, did not constitute an abandonment of his office held under the Commonwealth, because the government established in the Philippines during the Japanese occupation was not a foreign government, but a government established by the military occupant as an agency thereof to preserve order during the occupation.

On the second issue, the Court held that the argument was even more untenable. The designation by the military governor and the appointment by President Osmeña both fell on the very same court of the peace that the petitioner was holding when the war broke out, and under all the authorities one loses the right to an office only by accepting another office incompatible with it. There can be no incompatibility where it is precisely the same office. Neither the designation nor the appointment added to or subtracted from his constitutional right, which he could have asserted without them. At most there was a restitution of an office whose performance had been suspended by the unavoidable circumstances of the war. It would be absurd to say that one loses the right to an office precisely by accepting its return, and the petitioner was entitled to reoccupy the restored post unconditionally, and once restored could not be dislodged except for the reasons and in the modes expressed in the Constitution and the laws.

On the third issue, the Court held that the lack of a law degree did not matter. Had this been a new appointment, the respondent would be right, but it was not. Under Section 4 of Article XVI of the Constitution the President could have appointed another in substitution of the petitioner, but only within one year after the inauguration of the Commonwealth. No successor having been appointed within that year, the petitioner continued in his post until the war broke out. After the year had passed, he was entitled to continue in the office during good behavior, in the language of Section 9 of Article VIII of the Constitution, and the prewar Commonwealth government in fact respected that right, as the respondents themselves admitted in their answers. The postwar Commonwealth respected it as well, as shown by his restoration after the liberation.

Doctrine

Under the principle of security of tenure of judges, a justice of the peace in permanent capacity who was holding office when the Pacific war broke out did not lose the right to resume that office after the restoration of the de jure government, provided he did not resign, was not removed, and was not incapacitated in the manner the Constitution and the laws prescribe. Service in the same branch during the Japanese occupation does not by itself affect that right, because the government established during the occupation was not a foreign government but an agency of the military occupant; and where the officer rendered no service at all during the occupation, his claim is even stronger. Acceptance of a designation or a new appointment to the very same office does not work an abandonment, since the right to an office is lost only by accepting another office incompatible with it, and there is no incompatibility where the office is identical. Finally, the one year period under Section 4 of Article XVI of the Constitution is the outer limit for appointing a successor to such an official; once it lapses without a successor being appointed and qualified, the incumbent continues in office during good behavior under Section 9 of Article VIII.

Disposition

The Court granted the petition, declaring and recognizing the petitioner as justice of the peace of Baugen and Concepción, Ilocos Sur, by virtue of his appointment of the twenty ninth of September, 1924, with all the emoluments and privileges attached to the office, and holding that the appointment issued to Gerardo Bello for the same office could not adversely affect the petitioner's rights, with no express pronouncement as to costs.

Remember This

Memorize the line that a justice of the peace in permanent capacity who held his post at the outbreak of the war did not lose the right to resume it, because he could be separated only for the reasons and in the modes fixed by the Constitution and the laws. Examiners use this case on security of tenure and on the effect of war on public office, especially to test whether acceptance of a new appointment to the same office amounts to abandonment, and to test the one year rule of Section 4 of Article XVI.