ABELARDO C. RIVAS, PETITIONER, VS. JESUS C. SISON AND ARMIDA P. E. SIGUION REYNA, IN THEIR CAPACITY AS FORMER CHAIRMAN AND PRESENT CHAIRMAN OF THE MOVIE AND TELEVISION REVIEW AN…

Rivas versus Sison

The Case

This is a petition for review on certiorari brought by Abelardo C. Rivas against Jesus C. Sison and Armida P. E. Siguion Reyna, in their capacities as former Chairman and present Chairman of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board. Rivas, a Registration Officer of the Board, was administratively charged with conduct grossly prejudicial to the best interest of the service, after theater owners executed sworn statements claiming that he had collected registration fees from them without authority and had warned them of impending Board operations. The case matters because it is a compact lesson on two things every examinee must hold together: the minimum content of due process in administrative proceedings, and the narrow but real power of the Supreme Court, in a petition for review under Rule 45, to overturn factual findings that rest on hearsay and on evidence that offends human experience.

Procedural History

The Board's Investigating Committee recommended suspension, and the Board adopted that recommendation, denying reconsideration. Rivas appealed to the Civil Service Commission, which denied the appeal but modified the penalty by setting aside the permanent reassignment and ordering his reversion to his former assignment. The Commission likewise denied his motion for reconsideration. Rivas then went up to the Court of Appeals on a petition for review, which dismissed the petition and affirmed the Commission in full; his motion for reconsideration was also denied. He thus came to the Supreme Court by petition for review on certiorari, raising the sole ground that the Court of Appeals gravely abused its discretion in holding that he was afforded due process by the Board.

Facts

In 1996 the Board and the National Bureau of Investigation conducted a joint investigation into reports that unauthorized Board employees were visiting movie theaters and booking offices to collect, for a fee, the required annual registration fee. Agents were sent to Iloilo to monitor unregistered theaters. In the course of that investigation, sworn statements were taken from three theater owners or their representatives. Marcelina Concepcion, wife of the owner of Crown Theater in Bacolod City, stated that her husband had paid the annual registration fee of one thousand pesos to a person known as Boy Rivas, whom they took to be an authorized collector, and that every year this person would collect the fee at their booking office in Manila. Leonardo Ungoco, Jr., representative of Panay Cinema Corporation, stated that Rivas had telephoned him to advise him to pay his registration fees because Board people had been sent to Iloilo, and that he thereupon paid. Marvin Inigo, operator of Guimba Theater in Nueva Ecija, stated that in 1992 and 1993 Rivas, representing himself as a Board collector, collected one thousand two hundred pesos from him as registration fee, yet he never received the corresponding certificate.

On these sworn statements the Board filed an administrative case against Rivas for conduct grossly detrimental to the best interest of the service, and the Chairman ordered his temporary transfer to the Information Unit. The initial investigation was reset several times at his request. He submitted a counter-affidavit, appeared at hearings and answered clarificatory questions, and his motion for a bill of particulars was granted. He then filed a motion to dismiss, which was denied, and a motion for reconsideration, which was likewise denied with a reiterated order to file a verified answer. He moved to suspend proceedings pending the separate investigation of the National Bureau of Investigation, which was denied. He eventually filed an unverified answer denying the charges and claiming that he had only reminded theater owners to register or renew their registration as part of his duties.

The Investigating Committee recommended suspension for six months, and the Board adopted the recommendation. The Civil Service Commission affirmed the finding of guilt and the six-month suspension but set aside the permanent reassignment. The Court of Appeals affirmed in full, and the Supreme Court took the case on petition for review.

Issues

• Whether or not Rivas was denied due process in the administrative proceedings before the Board because he was not allowed to confront and cross-examine the affiants who executed the sworn statements against him.
• Whether or not the Supreme Court may review the factual findings of the Board and the Civil Service Commission in a petition for review on certiorari under Rule 45.
• Whether or not the evidence on record is sufficient to hold Rivas liable for conduct grossly prejudicial to the best interest of the service.

Applicable Provisions

The decision applies the constitutional guarantee of due process as construed in administrative proceedings, stating the minimum requirement in these words:

Due process, as a constitutional precept, does not always and in all situations require a trial-type proceeding. Due process is satisfied when a person is notified of the charge against him and given an opportunity to explain or defend himself. In administrative proceedings, the filing of charges and giving reasonable opportunity for the person so charged to answer the accusations against him constitute the minimum requirements of due process. As long as a party was given the opportunity to defend his interests in due course, he was not denied due process.

This governs the first issue, because it fixes what the Board had to give Rivas, and shows that a full trial-type confrontation is not indispensable.

The penalty imposed on Rivas rested on the following provision of the Omnibus Rules Implementing Book V of Executive Order Number 292:

Section 23, paragraph (t) of Rule XIV of the Omnibus Rules Implementing Book V of Executive Order No. 292.

This is the provision under which the Investigating Committee recommended suspension for conduct grossly prejudicial to the best interest of the service, and its elements frame the sufficiency inquiry.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that Rivas was not denied due process. The filing of charges and the giving of a reasonable opportunity to answer them are the minimum requirements, and Rivas received far more: he was apprised of the charges, he submitted a counter-affidavit and an answer with documentary evidence including his daily time record and official receipts, he appeared at several hearings and answered clarificatory questions, his motion for a bill of particulars was granted, his motions for reconsideration were passed upon, and his case was reviewed by the Civil Service Commission and the Court of Appeals. As long as a party was given the opportunity to defend his interests in due course, he was not denied due process.

On the second issue, the Court acknowledged that in a petition for review on certiorari under Rule 45 it is not its function to re-examine the evidence, but held that it may review factual findings when they are not supported by evidence on record or the judgment rests on a misapprehension of facts. The challenge to the credibility of the evidence here compelled that closer look.

On the third issue, the Court found the evidence insufficient. The sworn statement of Marcelina Concepcion was hearsay: she resided and worked in Bacolod City, yet purported to describe transactions at a booking office in Manila, with nothing to show she perceived them herself. The statement of Marvin Inigo stretched credulity, because it was contrary to human experience that he would again entrust registration money for 1993 to the very person who appeared to have misappropriated his payment a year earlier, and there was no proof that the person collected more than the fees or gained anything, making it hard to comprehend why Rivas would travel all the way to Nueva Ecija for one theater owner. As for the telephone call to Leonardo Ungoco, Jr., even if true, it could not make Rivas administratively liable, since the interest of the Board is to ensure that theater owners pay the required fees, and the call produced exactly that result; the Court could not consider reminding and encouraging a theater owner to pay his obligations as an act inimical to the service.

Doctrine

First, due process in administrative proceedings does not always require a trial-type proceeding; it is satisfied when the person is notified of the charge and given a reasonable opportunity to explain or defend himself, and a party who was given that opportunity in due course was not denied due process.

Second, although a petition for review under Rule 45 does not invite a re-examination of the evidence, the Supreme Court may review factual findings that are unsupported by the evidence on record or based on a misapprehension of facts.

Third, administrative liability for conduct grossly prejudicial to the best interest of the service cannot rest on hearsay or on statements that offend human experience, and an act that in fact advances the agency's own objective, such as reminding a theater owner to pay his fees, is not inimical to the service.

Disposition

The petition was granted; the decision and resolution of the Court of Appeals were reversed and set aside, the administrative complaint against Rivas was dismissed for lack of merit, and the Board was ordered to pay him backwages for the duration of his suspension and to revert him to his former assignment as Registration Officer II.

Remember This

Memorize the line that due process is satisfied when a person is notified of the charge against him and given an opportunity to explain or defend himself, for that is the whole first issue in one sentence. Examiners use this case to test the minimum requirements of administrative due process, and, less obviously, the exception allowing the Supreme Court to overturn factual findings that rest on hearsay or on evidence contrary to human experience.