EDUARDO G. BAUTISTA, PETITIONER, VS. GENERAL MACARIO PERALTA, JESUS C. PERLAS, OLEGARIO CANTOS, ET AL., RESPONDENTS.

Petitioner Eduardo G. Bautista, an employee of the National
Waterworks and Sewerage Authority (NWSA), was charged administratively
with dishonesty and violation of office regulations. He was suspended,
pending investigation, on May 30, 1958. On October 8, 1958, the Civil
Service Commission found him guilty of the charge and ordered his
dismissal, effective as of the date of his suspension. He appealed to
the Civil Service Board of Appeals, which rendered its decision on May
13, 1963, the dispositive portion of which reads as follows:

“In view of all the foregoing, the appealed decision
is hereby modified In the sense that respondent-appellant is suspended
for two months without pay, chargeable to his preventive suspension.”

On June 3, 1963 the NWSA filed a motion for reconsideration of the
Board’s decision, but the motion was denied on the following June 30.
On September 3, 1963 the NSWA reinstated petitioner but without back
wages, and three days later he reported for duty. He made
representations with the officials of the NWSA for the payment of back
salaries and other rights and privileges during the entire period he
was under suspension, and receiving no favorable action, filed the
instant petition for mandamus directly with this Court, praying that
“judgment be rendered commanding the respondents (as members of the
Board of Directors of NWSA) to pay the petitioner immediately the
following sums: (a) P14,708.56 as back wages, but deducting therefrom
the amount of P458.00, representing the penalty of suspension for two
months without pay imposed upon the petitioner, leaving a balance of
the sum of P14,250.56 as back wages still due him; P1,500.00 as living
allowance; P20,000.00 as damages; P3,000.00 as attorney’s fees; legal
interest from May 13, 1963 until fully paid; and the costs of this
suit.”

The issue is whether or not under the decision of the Civil Service
Board of Appeals payment of the abovementioned amounts to petitioner is
such a duty specifically enjoined upon respondents by law as to be
properly enforceable by means of the peremptory writ of mandamus. At
the very outset we rule out from the scope of this remedy the claims
for living allowance, damages, and attorney’s fees. There is nothing in
the petition itself, or in the decision of the Civil Service Board of
Appeals which is sought to be implemented, to show that petitioner is
so clearly entitled to these items claimed by him that mandamus should
issue for their payment. An ordinary civil action would be the
appropriate remedy, wherein not only the question of petitioner’s right
but also the extent of recovery, if any, may be litigated and proved.

We shall therefore consider only the claim to back salaries, as to
which there need be no evidence adduced, the only question being
whether or not the obligation to pay them is implicit in the decision
of the Civil Service Board of Appeals, an affirmative answer to which
question would make such payment a matter of legal duty on the part of
respondents. We find the said decision plain enough. It imposes the
penalty of suspension for two months without pay, and makes it
chargeable to the period of preventive suspension, which at the time
the decision was promulgated had already lasted almost five years.
Preventive suspension in administrative cases is not a penalty in
itself. It is designed merely as a measure of precaution so that the
employee who is charged may be separated for obvious reasons, from the
scene of his alleged misfeasance while the same is being investigated.
Thus if he is exonerated the law provides that he shall be restored to
his position with full pay for the period of his suspension. (Sec. 35,
R. A. 2260.) This provision of course does not mean that reinstatement
should not follow except In the event of exoneration. The penalty of
suspension – which necessarily is for a fixed period – also
contemplates the same result after the penalty has been served.

In the particular case of petitioner herein, the penalty Imposed by
the Civil Service Board of Appeals was in effect served by him during
the first two months of his preventive suspension. His reinstatement
during the rest of the period was no longer physically possible, but
there is no inherent obstacle to his receiving the back salaries
corresponding to such period. Denial of the back salaries would amount
to an amendment of the decision of the Civil Service Board of Appeals,
in effect increasing the two-month suspension meted out to him and
converting the preventive suspension into the penalty itself. It would
then make no difference, as far as petitioner is concerned, whether the
Board had suspended him for two months or for two years, or indeed for
any length of time provided it did not exceed the period of preventive
suspension already undergone. These implications cannot reasonably be
read into the Board’s decision in this case.

Respondents submit that mandamus is not the proper remedy even with
respect to the claim for back salaries. Ordinarily, to be sure, a money
claim does not lend itself to this kind of action, particularly if the
claim is of a contractual nature. However, aside from the fact that the
claim here does not arise from contract, certain events supervened
after the promulgation of the decision of the Civil Service Board of
Appeals, which further established petitioner’s clear legal right to
his back salaries. It appears that upon consultation by the General
Manager of the NWSA, the Government Corporate Counsel rendered an
opinion dated July 19, 1963, advising the former to implement the said
decision, the same having already become final; and that in successive
endorsements signed respectively by the Undersecretary of Public Works
and Communications (February 20, 1964), by the Commissioner of Civil
Service (May 6, 1964), and by the Deputy Auditor General (June 11,
1964), these officials ruled that under the decision of the Civil
Service Board of Appeals petitioner herein was entitled to his back
salaries pursuant to Section 260 of the Revised Administrative Code, as
amended. The final (8th) indorsement of the Undersecretary of Public
Works and Communications dated June 18, 1964, reads as follows:

“Respectfully returned to the General Manager,
National Waterworks and Sewerage Authority, Manila, hereby approving
the claim for payment of the salary of Mr. Eduardo D. Bautista,
Capataz-Timekeeper, Engineering Department, that Authority, during the
period he was out of the service from May 30, 1958, the day he was
dismissed from the service to September 15, 1963, the day immediately
preceding his reinstatement, minus the period of two months equivalent
to the punitive suspension imposed by the Civil Service Board of
Appeals in its decision, in view of the 6th indorsement of the
Commissioner of Civil Service and the next preceding indorsement by the
Deputy Auditor General.”

This last directive of the Undersecretary of Public Works and
Communications removes any doubt as to the character of the duty of
respondents in the premises and as to the propriety of the remedy
pursued by petitioner in this case.

WHEREFORE, the writ prayed for is granted insofar as the back
salaries claimed by petitioner are concerned, and respondents or their
successors now in office are ordered to pay the same, with interest at
the legal rate from the date of his reinstatement until actual payment,
and costs. The writ is denied with respect to the other claims.

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Dizon, Regala, Bengzon, J.P., Zaldivar, Sanchez, and Ruiz Castro, JJ., concur.