MILA MANALO, PETITIONER, VS. RICARDO GLORIA, IN HIS CAPACITY AS THE ACTING SECRETARY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, AND PATRICIA STO. TOMAS, IN HER CAPACITY AS THE CHAIRMAN OF THE C…

DISSENTING OPINION

KAPUNAN, J.:

Arizabal vs. Leviste
and the consolidated cases involving the reorganization of various government
departments and agencies, emphatically held:

We are constrained to set aside the reorganization embodied in
these consolidated petitions because the heads of departments and agencies
concerned have chosen to rely on their own concepts of unlimited discretion and
‘progressive’ ideas on reorganization instead of showing that they have
faithfully complied with the clear letter and spirit of the two constitutions
and the statutes governing reorganizations.^[1]

In dismissing the petition of the Secretary of the Department of
Science and Technology (DOST) and the Director and members of the
Reorganization Evaluation Committee of the Philippine Nuclear Research
Institute seeking annulment of the orders of the Regional Trial Court of Quezon
City restraining them from dismissing various employees of the PNRI under
Executive Order No. 128, we ordered the petitioners therein to retain the said
employees under the new staffing pattern with positions comparable or equivalent to their former ranks and salaries. Specifically, we ruled
that:

4) In G.R. No. 81495, the petition is
DISMISSED. Except in the cases of those
who have retired or opted to be phased out and who have received their
separation and retirement benefits, the petitioners are ordered to retain the
private respondents-employees in the reorganized department under the new
staffing pattern with positions and salaries comparable or equivalent to their
former positions but not lower than their former ranks and salaries.^[2]

The clear import of our decisions in these consolidated cases was
that without exception 1) all the reorganizations embodied in the
consolidated cases were set aside, and; 2) in cases where it was plainly
impossible and impracticable to comply with our holding in Mendoza, we
allowed a modification of our holding, provided those affected were restored to
positions of similar rank and
salary, if said employees did not opt for retirement or separation. Even assuming that petitioner
allowed to have her name placed in a manpower pool for purposes of being
assigned to another job, consistent with this Court’s holding in Arizabal vs
Leviste, equity demands that she should have been automatically reassigned to a
position both of comparable rank and salary.

A lot has been said about the fact that herein petitioner was not
among the original private respondents in G.R. No. 81495. Considering our decision in Arizabal and the subsequent case, De Guzman v. CSC, infra, her failure to join the petitioners
in Arizabal was not fatal to her petition for
reinstatement and back salaries. In Cristobal vs. Melchor^[3] where the doctrine of laches was
invoked to defeat the petitioner’s demand for reinstatement to his former
position with the Office of the President, this Court held the statute of
limitations (provided for in Section 16, Rule 66, of the Rules of Court)
inapplicable because there was no acquiescence or inaction on the part of
Cristobal which would amount to an abandonment of his right to
reinstatement. Addressing the
contention that he was not one of the parties to the civil case and could not
benefit from the lower court’s decision in the said civil case, we held that:

Cristobal was not one of the plaintiffs in the civil case, it is
true, but his non-participation is not fatal to his cause of action
(Emphasis ours). During the pendency of
the civil case Cristobal continued to press his request for reinstatement
together with the other employees who had filed the complaint and was in fact
promised reinstatement as will be shown more in detail later.

More importantly, Cristobal could be expected – without necessarily
spending time and money by going to court – to rely upon the outcome of the case filed by his co-employees
to protect his interests considering the similarity of his situation to that of
the plaintiffs therein and the identical relief being sought. On this point, We find a statement of
Justice Louis Brandeis of the United States Supreme Court in Southern
Pacific vs. Bogert, relevant and persuasive, and We quote:

The essence of laches is not merely lapse of time. It is essential that there be also
acquiescence in the alleged wrong or lack of diligence in seeking a
remedy. Here plaintiffs, or others
representing them, protested x x x and
ever since they have x x x persisted
in the diligent pursuit of a remedy x
x x. Where the cause of action
is of such a nature that a suit to enforce it would be brought on behalf, not
only of the plaintiff, but of all persons similarly situated, it is not
essential that each such person should intervened (sic) in the suit brought in
order that he be deemed thereafter free from the laches which bars those who
sleep on their rights. (250 U.S. 483, 39 S. Ct. 536, 63 L. Ed. 1099,
1106?1107; Italics supplied. See also Overfield vs. Pennroad Corpoation, et al. 42 Fed. Supp. 586,
613).^[4]

Significantly, in Cristobal,
the plaintiff filed his complaint for reinstatement on August 10, 1971
or more than nine (9) years after his services as private secretary in the
President’s Private Office were terminated.

The similarity in the circumstances of the petitioner and the
private respondents in Arizabal and our ruling in Cristobal militates against public respondents’ assertion that petitioner
herein could not benefit from our decision in the former case. Furthermore, we did not limit our holding in
the Mendoza and Arizabal cases only to the petitioners therein. The decision was obviously broad enough to include all of those employees affected
by the reorganizations we set aside in those consolidated cases such that 1) reinstatement should have been automatic, and; 2)
it was not essential that petitioner should have intervened in Arizabal or joined the other PNRI employees in assailing the legality of
their separation, for her to benefit from our holding.

Petitioner’s demotion to a mere Clerk II position with a salary
of P17,640.00 from that of Planning Assistant II with compensation of
P26,250.00 and the respondents’ failure to rectify this situation were clearly
in blatant contravention of both the letter and spirit of our orders in Mendoza and Arizabal.

With due respect, I cannot simply reconcile myself with the
majority’s rationalization that petitioner
was not compelled to accept the new position, that instead of
questioning the new position structure or taking the alternative of separation
or retirement, she expressed preference for the new position and voluntarily
accepted appointment thereto. On April
16, 1988 petitioner was removed from her earlier job as a result of the PNRI
reorganization. She was unemployed for
fourteen months. On June 15, 1989, she
accepted a Clerk II position with a salary considerably less than the one which
was abolished as result of the new staffing structure. From these circumstances, one can hardly assume that she accepted
the unconscionable demotion “voluntarily.” She did not have much
choice. It was an option between the
degradation of having to accept a lowly position with a salary reduced by more than
one third and the pangs of hunger out of joblessness, at a time when heads of
government departments and agencies were engaged in their orgy of throwing out
from office hordes of government workers in the guise of reorganization,
running roughshod on their rights of due process and security of tenure. In her unfortunate plight, petitioner, like
the dismissed clerk in Cristobal who did not have the luxury, time and
money to go to court to protect his rights, must also have relied on the
outcome of the case filed by her co-employees, given the similarity of her
situation to that of theirs.

As I see it, the majority opinion assumes that this case merely
involves the validity of final orders of the Civil Service Commission on the
separation, removal or termination of a public officer. I beg to disagree. The issue brought before us affects the extent to which DOST has
complied with our decision (in Mendoza) setting aside the
reorganizations involving these government agencies and our holding (in Arizabal)
directing petitioners in G.R. No. 81495 to reinstate their employees to
positions of similar rank and salary. Such being the case, it would be inappropriate, in my mind, to misdirect
our attention to petitioner’s failure to comply with procedural steps relating
to the the CSC’s order, rather than on the results of the abolition of the
office itself. That would be mistaking
the trees for the forest.

There is no disagreement on the proposition that a valid
abolition of an office is neither a separation nor a removal. Where, however, the abolition is void, the
incumbent is deemed never to have ceased to hold office.^[5] In Cruz vs. Primicias^[6] where the validity of the
reorganization of provincial departments in the Province of Pangasinan was
assailed by government employees terminated as a result of abolition of their
offices, the Court, said:

No removal or separation of petitioners from service is here
involved, but the validity of the abolition of their offices. This is a legal question that is for the
Courts to decide. It is a well-known
rule also that a valid abolition of offices is neither removal or separation of
the incumbents. And of course, if the abolition is
void the incumbent is deemed never to
have ceased to hold
office.

x x x                                                          x x x                                                     x
x x

As well settled is the rule that the abolition of an office does
not amount to an illegal removal of its incumbent is the principle that, in
order to be valid, the abolition must be made in good faith. Where the abolition is made in bad faith,
for political and personal reasons, or in order to circumvent the
constitutional security of tenure of civil service employees, it is null and
void.^[7]

One of the points raised by the respondents in Primicias to defeat the petitioners’ challenge against the validity of
the abolition of their offices was precisely a procedural point: their failure to exhaust administrative
remedies. In laying the question to
rest, the Court emphasized that the petitioners therein never actually ceased
to hold office if the abolition was null and void. Being null and void, their failure to exhaust available
administrative remedies was clearly beside the point.

As recently as March 11,
1994 in De Guzman vs. Civil
Service Commission^[8] where we clearly reiterated the fact that “we
nullified the reorganization of respondents DOST and PNRI,”^[9]
in Arizabal vs Leviste, we held,
citing Arizabal, that:

An abolition which is not bona fide but is merely a device
to circumvent the constitutional security of tenure of the civil service
employees is null and void.^[10]

In the case at bench, therefore, the effect of our decision in
the above-cited consolidated cases and in De Guzman was
to bring back those employees adversely affected by these reorganizations as
far as practicable to the status quo on the day their positions were
abolished. Consequently, as petitioner
is deemed never to have ceased to hold office, it follows that the appealed
decisions of the DOST and the Civil Service Commission have no practical force
and effect, to begin with. By operation
of law, she was entitled to all the rights and privileges which accrued to her
by virtue of the office she held. Her
failure to appeal the respondent Commission’s decision within the thirty-day
period required by the Constitution was, therefore, immaterial because in the
eyes of the law, her entitlement to the position of Planning Assistant (or to
an equivalent one) and to the emoluments and privileges attached to the same
had never actually ceased. From a practical
point of view, her initial request for reinstatement to the position of
Planning Assistant II, was in effect a request for compliance with our
earlier orders in the Mendoza
and Arizabal cases. The DOST’s refusal to comply with the said orders, its failure to
restore petitioner to the status quo, and the CSC’s Resolution of 29 August
1991 were therefore made in excess of respondents’ jurisdiction. Compliance with our decision ordering the
public officials concerned to restore employees affected by the reorganization
of the PNRI to the status quo as far as practicable in Arizabal vs. Leviste was not discretionary, but made
obligatory by our orders in the Mendoza and Arizabal.

The majority opinion has made much out of the petitioner’s
failure to comply with Article IX of the Constitution requiring that such
petitions be filed within thirty days from receipt of the assailed resolutions,
and Circular I-88 which requires a verified statement of material dates in
these petitions. As we had already made
a clear and unequivocal pronouncement in Arizabal to
restore the illegally dismissed employees to positions comparable or equivalent
to those they formerly held, “but not lower than their former ranks and
salaries” (except in the cases of those who have retired or opted to be
phased out and who have received their separation and retirement benefits), the
only thing left to do for DOST was to implement or execute the directive. Petitioner’s recourse to CSC from the
adverse ruling of DOST was a superfluity as petitioner could have come to this
Court to execute or implement its final orders. Hence, the prescriptive period mandated by Article IX of the 1987
Constitution could not have run. Moreover, the constitutional guarantee of security of tenure mandates
that, as in Mendoza vs. Quisumbing
and the Dario vs. Mison^[11] cases, we disregard the procedural
roadblocks erected by the public respondent in order to defeat what is
otherwise a valid claim. A much more
equitable result would have followed had we proceeded to treat the case at
bench essentially on its own merits, particularly when we consider that the
questioned delay in this case was
even far less than the
assailed delays in Dario vs. Mison and in the earlier case of Cristobal vs. Melchor.

In Dario, which we cited with favor in Mendoza
vs. Quisumbing, we stated
that:

The Court disregards the questions raised as to procedure… and
other technical objections, for two reasons, “[b]ecause of the demands of
public interest, including the need for stability in the public service… and
because of the serious implications of these cases on the administration of the
Philippine civil service and the rights of public servants.^[12]

The Constitution, no less, demands a
similar treatment of the procedural roadblocks that stand in the way of petitioner’s
valid claim.

I vote to grant due course to the petition and to enter judgment
as follows:

1. Declaring Resolution No. 91-1036 of
respondent Civil Service Commission as null and void for being issued in grave
abuse of discretion;

2. Ordering respondent Secretary of Science
and Technology to reinstate the petitioner to the position of Planning
Assistant, or if this is not possible, to another position of equivalent rank;
and

3. Ordering the Secretary of Science and
Technology to pay the backwages of petitioner for the period from April 16,
1988, the date she was illegally dismissed, to June 14, 1989, the date she was
reinstated.

^[1]
Mendoza v. Quisumbing, 186 SCRA 108 (1990). Arizabal was one of the companion cases decided in Mendoza.

^[2]
Id., at 155.

^[3]
78 SCRA 175 (1977).

^[4] Id., at 183.

^[5]
Cruz v. Primicias, 23 SCRA 998,
1003 (1968)

^[6]
Id.

^[7]
Id. (citations omitted).

^[8] G.R. No. 10105, March
11, 1994.

^[9]
Id. (Emphasis supplied)

^[10]
Citing Arizabal v.
Leviste, see supra, note
1.

^[11]
Cited in Mendoza, supra note 1 at 138-139.

^[12] Id.