JOSE CONCEPCION, JR., PETITIONER, VS. COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS, RESPONDENT.

Concepcion versus Commission on Elections

The Case

This is a petition for certiorari filed by Jose Concepcion, Jr. against the Commission on Elections, asking the Supreme Court to set aside the Commission's resolution granting accreditation to the National Citizen's Movement for Free Elections, or NAMFREL, as a citizens' arm, and its later order denying a request for re-examination. Concepcion, then the incumbent Punong Barangay of Barangay Forbes Park in Makati City and the National Chairman of NAMFREL, was effectively removed from his own organization as a condition of that accreditation. The case matters because it is the Court's clean statement of who may file a petition for certiorari against a ruling of a constitutional commission, and of the difference between attacking an adjudicatory act and attacking the regulation behind it.

Procedural History

NAMFREL filed with the Commission on Elections a petition for accreditation to conduct the operation quick count. Concepcion was one of the signatories, in his capacity as NAMFREL's National Chairman. The Commission, sitting en banc, issued a resolution conditionally granting the accreditation, requiring that Concepcion first be removed as a member and as overall Chairman of NAMFREL. NAMFREL then filed a manifestation and request for re-examination, manifesting its acceptance of the conditional accreditation and asking the Commission to re-examine its ruling as it affected Concepcion. The Commission issued an order noting the information on NAMFREL's new officers and denying the request for re-examination. NAMFREL did not question that ruling. Instead, Concepcion went directly to the Supreme Court by an original petition for certiorari under Rule 65, ostensibly assailing the Commission's resolution and order but actually raising issues against the earlier Resolution 7798.

Facts

On the fifth of January 2007, NAMFREL filed its petition for accreditation with the Commission on Elections. On the same date, the Commission promulgated Resolution 7798, which prohibited barangay officials, including the Punong Barangay, from being appointed as chairman or member of the Boards of Election Inspectors or as official watcher, and extended that prohibition to barangay officials, employees, and tanods who are members of accredited citizens' arms. The Resolution also barred them from staying inside any polling place except to cast their vote, and was to take effect on the seventh day after publication in two newspapers of general circulation.

On the second of April 2007, the Commission granted NAMFREL's petition for accreditation, but subject to the condition that Concepcion must first be removed both as a member and as overall Chairman of NAMFREL, precisely because he was a barangay chairman covered by Resolution 7798. The accreditation was made subject to reorganization and to automatic revocation upon violation of the conditions.

NAMFREL accepted the conditional accreditation and asked for a re-examination of the ruling as it affected Concepcion, but the Commission denied the request in its order of the eighth of May 2007, finding its resolution clear. NAMFREL did not question that ruling. Concepcion then filed the present petition, nominally challenging the April 2 resolution but in substance attacking the validity of Resolution 7798 on the grounds that it had no statutory basis, that it was applied retroactively, and that he was denied due process.

Issues

• Whether or not Jose Concepcion, Jr. is an aggrieved party with the requisite personality to file an original petition for certiorari under Rule 65 against the adjudicatory resolution of the Commission on Elections in which he was not a party.
• Whether or not a petition that professes to challenge an adjudicatory resolution but actually attacks the validity of the underlying regulation is a proper use of Rule 65.

Applicable Provisions

Section 7 of Article IX of the Constitution provides:

A decision, order, or ruling of a constitutional commission may be brought to this Court on certiorari by the aggrieved party within thirty days from receipt of a copy thereof.

This fixes who may come to the Court and how, and it is the constitutional anchor of the standing requirement applied to Concepcion.

Section 1 of Rule 65 of the Rules of Court provides:

When any tribunal, board or officer exercising judicial or quasi-judicial functions has acted without or in excess of its or his jurisdiction, or with grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction, and there is no appeal, nor any plain, speedy, and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law, a person aggrieved thereby may file a verified petition in the proper court, alleging the facts with certainty and praying that judgment be rendered annulling or modifying the proceedings of such tribunal, board or officer, and granting such incidental reliefs as law and justice may require.

The phrase "person aggrieved" is the operative language, and the Court construes it to mean a party to the original proceedings.

Section 3 of Executive Order Number 94 provides:

No barangay official shall be appointed as member of the Board of Election Inspectors or as official watcher of each duly registered major political party or any socio-civic, religious, professional or any similar organization of which they may be members.

This is the statutory basis invoked for Resolution 7798, which Concepcion sought to attack through his petition.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that Concepcion was not an aggrieved party. An aggrieved party under Section 1 of Rule 65 is one who was a party to the original proceedings that gave rise to the action for certiorari. Concepcion was not a party to the accreditation case before the Commission; NAMFREL was, and NAMFREL accepted the ruling and did not question it. The Court quoted its earlier ruling in Tang versus Court of Appeals:

In a situation wherein the order or decision being questioned underwent adversarial proceedings before a trial court, the "person aggrieved" referred to under Section 1 of Rule 65 who can avail of the special civil action of certiorari pertains to one who was a party in the proceedings before the lower court.

The Court added that if Concepcion wished to be heard, he could have intervened before the Commission, or NAMFREL could have filed the petition with him as intervenor, or he could have asked the Court to suspend the rules on the unusual circumstances. He did none of these.

On the second issue, the Court held that the petition was fatally defective in its thrust. It opened as a challenge to the adjudicatory April 2 resolution, but its arguments solely attacked Resolution 7798, a rulemaking act. A party may challenge an adjudicatory action on the basis of the invalidity of the law or regulation behind it, but only if a valid challenge to the adjudicatory action exists and the petitioner has the requisite personality. Where that condition is absent, the challenge is unmasked for what it really is, a direct challenge to the underlying regulation masquerading as a challenge to an adjudicatory action. The Court noted that Concepcion had viable remedies: a petition for declaratory relief under Rule 63, or a petition for prohibition under Rule 65. The Court described the petition as a backdoor approach and dismissed it for blatant misuse of Rule 65.

Doctrine

First, under Section 7 of Article IX of the Constitution and Section 1 of Rule 65, only the aggrieved party may bring a decision, order, or ruling of a constitutional commission to the Supreme Court on certiorari, and an aggrieved party is one who was a party to the original proceedings before the commission.

Second, a party may attack an adjudicatory resolution on the ground that the law or regulation underlying it is invalid, but only if he has the personality to challenge the adjudicatory act itself. Absent that personality, the petition is a disguised direct attack on the regulation and is not a proper Rule 65 petition.

Third, a stand-alone challenge to a Commission on Elections regulation must be brought through the proper medium, such as a petition for declaratory relief under Rule 63 or a petition for prohibition under Rule 65, and not through an original certiorari petition dissociated from any quasi-judicial act of the Commission.

Disposition

The Court dismissed the petition for blatant misuse of Rule 65, and Concepcion did not obtain the relief he sought.

Remember This

The single line to memorize is that an aggrieved party under Rule 65 is one who was a party to the original proceedings, and a stranger to the case cannot use certiorari to attack the regulation behind it. Examiners like to use this case on the requisites of certiorari against constitutional commissions, on the distinction between quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial acts, and on the proper remedy against an invalid Commission on Elections regulation.