ABELARDO SUBIDO, PETITIONER AND APPELLANT, VS. CITY OF MANILA, ET AL., RESPONDENTS AND APPELLEES.

This is an appeal from a decision of the Court of First Instance of
Manila dismissing herein appellant’s petition for prohibition with
preliminary injunction.

On July 16, 1957, the proposed
budget of the City of Manila for the fiscal year 1957-1958, which later
became Ordinance No. 3993, was published by authority of the Municipal
Board of Manila in the Mabuhay and Philippines Herald
newspapers. On December 3, 1957, the said budget ordinance was enacted
by the Municipal Board and was sent to the Office of the City Mayor for
his approval. The same was disapproved by Mayor Lacson, and on December
19, 1957, it was returned to the Municipal Board. After the latter had
introduced amendments thereto to obviate the Mayor’s objections, the
proposed budget ordinance was taken up in an executive session on
February 26, 1958, and two days later, or on February 28, the same was
approved by the Board. The ordinance, as amended, was signed by Mayor
Lacson on March 14, 1958, and shortly thereafter, it was finally
published in the Herald and Mabuhay newspapers.

The petitioner-appellant is a lawyer, a resident of the City of Manila,
and formerly an employee of the City Major’s office. He has a claim for
gratuity, which, according to the record, is still pending approval.
The object of his petition is to contest the validity of said Ordinance
3993 on the grounds that (1) the said ordinance was never published in
two daily newspapers of general circulation in the city before it was
discussed and allegedly enacted by the Municipal Board in accordance
with Section 17, Republic Act No. 409, as amended, or, if published, it
was not done in full; (2) it was never actually put into a vote for
approval, and the yeas and nays were not taken and recorded as required
by Section 17, Republic Act No. 409; as amended; (3) on February 28,
1958, the said ordinance was signed by Jesus Marcos Roces as presiding
officer when his right to preside over the Municipal Board had ceased,
since he had already become Acting Mayor on November 13, 1957, by
operation of law, as a result of a vacancy which occurred in the office
of the Mayor of Manila following the resignation of Arsenio H. Lacson
on said date; (4) the said ordinance lacks the signature of Leonardo
Garcia as presiding officer; (5) it was approved on March 14, 1958 by
Arsenio H. Lacson when he was no longer a de jure or a de facto
officer, said Mr. Lacson having tendered his irrevocable resignation to
President Garcia on November 13, 1957; and (6) it lacks the signature
of Jesus Marcos Roces as Acting Mayor.

The prayer for the
issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction was, after due hearing at
the commencement of the action, denied by the lower court.

Answering the petition, the respondents denied the allegations of the
complaint and put up the following affirmative defenses: (1) the
proposed budget of the City of Manila for the fiscal year 1957-1958 was
published in toto in two daily newspapers of general
circulation in the city— the Philippines Herald and Mabuhay—in their
respective issues of July 16, 1957; (2) Ordinance No. 3993 was enacted
by the Municipal Board on February 28, 1958, substantially in
accordance with the requirements of Section 17 of Republic Act No. 409,
known as the Revised Charter of the City of Manila; (3) respondent
Arsenio H. Lacson, although he tendered his resignation on November 13,
1957, did not vacate or abandon his office as Mayor of the City of
Manila, but remained therein and continued performing the duties
thereof pending acceptance of his resignation by the President; (4) the
resignation tendered by Mayor Lacson was formally rejected by the
President in a letter dated April 11, 1958; and (5) the claim of the
petitioner for gratuity, being still pending action by the office of
the President as alleged in the petition has not as yet ripened into a
right.

After hearing, the lower court rendered judgment
dismissing the petition. The validity of an ordinance being the
question at issue, the case was appealed direct to us.

Without first going into the validity of the said Ordinance 3993 of the
City of Manila, we find that the petition for prohibition must fail on
the ground that the petitioner-appellant has no personality to maintain
the suit. Section 2, Rule 3 of the Rules of Court requires that actions
must be prosecuted for or against the real party in interest, and to be
considered a real party in interest, such party would be benefited or
injured by the judgment or that he is entitled to the avails of the
suit (Salonga vs. Warner, Barnes & Co., Ltd., 88 Phil., 125, cited in Subido vs. Sarmiento, et al., supra,
p. 150). In the present case, it has not been sufficiently shown that
the passage of the ordinance under question would be prejudicial to the
interests of the petitioner-appellant who is just one among the general
tax-paying public. While it may be true that he has a claim for
retirement gratuity, it appears, however, that the said claim has not
yet been approved. In other words, as correctly stated by the lower
court, petitioner-appellant’s right to the gratuity, if any, is merely
inchoate or provisional. And it has not been proved, nor even pretended
that with the passage of the contested ordinance, if appellant’s
gratuity claim is approved, the City of Manila would have no more funds
to meet its obligation/to pay that gratuity. Clearly, the
petitioner-appellant has no special standing different from the public
at large to entitle him to bring the action.

In the very recent case of Subido vs. Sarmiento, et al., supra,
the same petitioner again brought an action against some city officials
of Manila contesting the reassignment of a detective captain in the
Manila Police Department and the payment of his salary during his
alleged illegal assignment. This Court there also ruled that appellant
Subido, as a mere taxpayer and private citizen, although having a
pending claim for gratuity, has no right to institute the proceedings.
The following authorities cited therein are also applicable in the case
at bar:

“Where nothing had been done or is
proposed to be done which will create any burden on the taxpayers of
the community, the mere fact that the defendant municipal officials
have done, or proposed to do, an authorized or illegal act confers on
his (taxpayer) no right to maintain a proceeding” (Shoemaker vs. Des Moines, 129 Iowa 244, 105 NW 520, 3 LRA (NS) 382; Mississippi Road Supply Co. vs. Hester, 185 Miss. 839, 188 So. 381, 124 ALR 574).

“Public
wrongs or neglect or breach of public duty cannot be redressed at a
suit in the name of the individual or individuals whose interest in the
right asserted does not differ from that of the public generally. * * *

“To
entitle a private individual to invoke the judicial power to determine
the” validity of executive or legislative action, he must show that he
has sustained or is in immediate danger of sustaining a direct injury
as a result of that action, and it is not sufficient that he has merely
a general interest common to all members of the public.” (Ex parte
Levitt, 302 US 633, 82 L ed. 493, 68 S Ct 1.).

Even granting that appellant has a legal standing to institute these
proceedings, his petition still cannot prosper.

It is first
contended by petitioner-appellant that the budget ordinance after its
veto by the City Mayor and subsequent amendment by the Municipal Board
of Manila, should have been published again before its discussion in
the executive session of February 26 and 28, 1958. We note from a
reading of Section 17, Republic Act No. 409, which provides for the
legislative procedure to be followed by the Municipal Board of Manila
that there really is a requirement to publish each and every proposed
ordinance, once before it is enacted by the Municipal Board, and again
after its approval by the Mayor. But nowhere in the section is it
provided that pre-discussion publication must take place after every
amendment or modification on the proposed ordinance during the process
of its enactment. Indeed, it is not the intendment of the law that
everytime an amendment is introduced the proposed ordinance has to be
published again, for this would incur tremendous expense and
unnecessary delays in the passage of municipal legislation.

The next point raised by petitioner-appellant is the legality of the
enactment of the ordinance on February 28, 1958, without having been
included in the agenda for that day. Again, there is nothing in the law
that requires that matters discussed by the Municipal Board be placed
in the agenda. If there is any such requirement it is wholly
parliamentary and procedural non-compliance with which does not affect
the validity of the ordinance (43 C. J. p. 527).

As to the
question of nominal voting, there is authority to the effect that
“where the council of a municipality is composed of a certain number of
members and it appears from the minutes of a meeting that such number
voted in favor of a resolution this is equivalent to stating that the
members voted “yes” and it is substantial and sufficient compliance
with a statute requiring yea and nay votes on any such resolution” (37
Am. Jur. pp. 756-757). It appears from the minutes of the Board meeting
of February 28, 1958 that the names of the members present as well as
those who were absent have been recorded, and that all those present
took active part in the debates and deliberations. At the end of the
session, when the presiding officer asked the members if there were any
objections to the approval of the proposed budget, only one councilor
raised an objection. The minutes, therefore, could readily show who of
the members present in the deliberations voted pro and who voted con.

“While
the mandatory prerequisites to enactment must be substantially
observed, exactness in the manner of enactment may not be required,
since non compliance with merely formal requirements in the manner of
enactment ordinarily is considered by the courts as no ground for
declaring an ordinance void. * * * (62 C. J. S. 798).

We agree with the trial court that petitioner-appellant should no
longer be heard to complain that Mayor Lacson was not the mayor when
the budget ordinance was signed by him on March 14, 1958, due to his
resignation on November 13, 1957, because previous to these
proceedings, petitioner-appellant had filed two other petitions for
prohibition raising the same question on the continuance of Mayor
Lacson in office, which petitions were dismissed. The decision in both
cases should bind the petitioner, following the principle of res judicata.

In view whereof, the judgment of dismissal is hereby sustained. No costs.

Paras, C. J., Bengzon, Bautista Angelo, Labrador, and Barrera, JJ., concur.

Concepcion, J., concurs in the result.