DAMASO ALIPIO, ET AL., PETITIONERS AND APPELLANTS, VS. JOSE V. RODRIGUEZ, ET AL., RESPONDENTS AND APPELLEES.

Petitioners have taken this appeal
from the decision of the Court of First Instance of Cebu dismissing their
petition for mandamus to compel respondents or their successors in office to
reinstate them to their positions in the office of Osmeña Waterworks System,
Cebu City; and to pay their back salaries from the date of their separation,
plus moral damages and costs. The Court of Appeals, to which the case was
originally elevated, certified it to this Court for the reason that only
questions of law are involved.

The essential facts are not
disputed. Appellants were laborers in the Osmeña Waterworks System receiving
daily wages. Most of them were appointed on January 1, 1951; two others on
April 23, 1951; and the rest on July 1, 1951. Their positions had been created
by the Municipal Board of Cebu City in connection with the reforestation
project being undertaken at the site of Buhisan Dam and their appointments were
noted by the Commissioner of Civil Service “as temporary pending report
from the Government Service Insurance System as to the appointee’s
insurability,” or “as temporary pending report from the Government
Service Insurance System as to the appointee’s physical and medical examination.”

On July 28, 1952 appellee
Candelario Almendras, Supervising Watermaster of the Osmeña Waterworks System,
advised petitioners in writing that their services would terminate on the 31st
day of said month by reason of the depletion of the waterworks funds, their item
in the plantilla not being “urgently necessary for the present time.”
As stated by the trial court in its decision, their services were no longer
needed because the Buhisan dam reservations had been sufficiently reforested.
After July 31, 1952 the City Auditor and City
Treasurer of Cebu City stopped paying the salaries of appellants.

On April 8,
1952 the
city municipal board approved the budget of the Osmeña Waterworks System for
the fiscal year 1952-1953 (Budget Ordinance No. 159). Although signed by the Acting
Mayor only on April 15, 1953, the ordinance provided in its
section 2 that the budget was effective as of July 1,
1952. In
that budget the positions of appellants, which appeared under the item
“Reforestation of Buhisan Watershed” in the one for the previous
fiscal year, were eliminated. Nor were they recreated in subsequent budgets.

The court a quo dismissed the
petition for mandamus on the grounds: (1) that the separation of appellants was
due to the abolition of their positions, which was within the power and
authority of the municipal board of Cebu City, it having created those
positions in the first place; (2) that the
appointments extended to appellants were temporary in character; (3) that
appellants were guilty of laches in filing their petition in the instant case.

That the municipal board of Cebu City had the power to abolish the
positions of appellants is not disputed. A recognized exception to the valid
exercise of such power is when the abolition of an office is done in bad faith,
as when the purpose is to discharge the incumbent in violation of the civil
service law. There is no pre- tension here that bad faith motivated the
suppression of appellants’ items in the budget. Not only were the funds to
cover their salaries insufficient, but the reforestation work for which they
had been employed was practically finished. The fact that the annual budget of
Osmeña Waterworks System for the fiscal year 1952-53 was approved only in April
1933, after appellants were notified of their separation, is of no material
importance as far as the instant petition for reinstatement is concerned. The
budget ordinance expressly provided that it would take effect retroactively,
that is, as of July 1, 1952, thereby ratifying the action previously taken by
respondent Almendras in the premises. Whether appellants’ appointments were
permanent or temporary in nature has no bearing on this case, since the
question does not involve removal from positions which continued to exist but
rather the validity of the abolition of those positions themselves.

On the question of laches, it
appears that appellants filed the instant petition only on August
17, 1955,
more than three years after they were separated from the service The delay is indeed inexcusable. The reason given by appellants
for such delay is that they tried to pursue some administrative remedy before
coming to court. There is, however, no precise administrative remedy which
appellants availed of. Nor, for that matter, do they point to any that is
available under the law. All they did was to ask a Senator to intercede for
them with the Secretary of Public Works and Communications. It was an
extra-legal remedy, and even that was done only on January
29, 1955,
two years and five months after appellants’ separation. In the
case of Unabia vs. City Mayor of Cebu, et al., G.R. No. L-8759 (May 25,
1956), we held that in view of the policy of the State contained in the law
fixing the period of one year within which actions for quo warranto may
be instituted, any person claiming right to a position in the civil service
should also be required to file his petition for reinstatement within the
period of one year, otherwise he is thereby considered as having abandoned his
office.” The defense of laches in the present case was therefore correctly
sustained by the lower court.

The judgment appealed from is
affirmed, without pronouncement as to costs.

Bengzon, C.J., Padilla, Bautista Angelo, Concepcion, Reyes, J.B.L., Barrera, Paredes, Dizon and Makalintal, JJ., concur.