PACIFICO M. BRAGANZA, PETITIONER, VS. THE COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS, THE COMMISSIONER OF CIVIL SERVICE AND BENJAMIN ABELLA, RESPONDENTS.

The object of the present petition for prohibition and mandamus,
with preliminary injunction, is to bar the res­pondent Benjamin Abella from the position of permanent election registrar of
Mabini, Pangasinan, and to
compel the respondent Commission on Elections (COMELEC) to annul his
appointment to said post and to extend, in lieu thereof, another appointment
thereto in favor of the petitioner Pacifico M. Braganza.

On November 2, 1964 provisional appointments as “Elec­tion
Registrar in the Commission on Elections”, without de­signation of any
specific official station, were extended by the COMELEC to the petitioner Pacifico M. Braganza (Item No.
178[816], page 2455, R.A. 4164) and to the respondent Benjamin Abella (Item No. 178[825], page 2455, R.A. 4161).  Both appointees were subsequently directed, in
identical telegrams dated November 9, 1964, to report and assume du­ties as
election registrars for Mabini, Pangasinan.  They thereafter duly qualified – the
petitioner on November 11, 1964, the respondent Abella
on November 19, 1964 – and forthwith complied with the telegram-directive
aforesaid.  On August 20, 1965 the
petitioner was designated officer­-in-charge of the election registrar’s office
at Mabini, Pangasinan, with
full administrative supervision over other registrars assigned thereto.

On September 7, 1966, however, the COMELEC appointed Abella as permanent “Election Registrar for Mabini, Panga­sinan” under
Item No. 179(997), page 2587, R.A. 4848. 
In due course, this appointment was certified by the Civil Service
Commission and, on November 8, 1966, the said res­pondent formally qualified
and commenced the discharge of the duties of his office as such.

The petitioner thereafter moved the COMELEC – to no avail – to
reconsider the aforesaid appointment of the res­pondent and to have himself retained as permanent election registrar in the said
municipality.

Hence, the present recourse.

The petitioner’s case hinges on the basic issue of whether or not
he has acquired a vested right to the of­fice of permanent election registrar
of Mabini, Pangasi­nan,
with the concomitant security of tenure therein.

In urging the affirmative side of this issue, the petitioner
proceeds from the premise that his provisional appointment was irregular in
that the COMELEC, at the time it extended such appointment, did not have any
discretion in the premises but to extend to him a permanent appoint­ment with a
specific designation of official station. 
Ac­cordingly, he contends that in extending to him, instead, a
provisional appointment without designation of official station, the COMELEC
acted illegally and with grave abuse of discretion, and therefore his
appointment should be re­garded as a permanent one which, supplemented by his
te­legraphic assignment to Mabini, Pangasinan, legally vested in him title to the office of
election registrar of that municipality. 
Upon the foregoing assumption, he argues that, inasmuch as the
guidelines adopted by the COMELEC on the matter accord him superior and
preferential right to be retained in that office as against the respondent Abella, the appointment of the latter thereto is illegal
and that, instead, that appointment should have been, and should now be,
extended to him.

Actually, if the petitioner’s thesis in assailing the regularity
of his provisional appointment is to be sustained, his claim to the office in
question will collapse like the proverbial house of cards.  Without deciding on the actual legal status
of that appointment – as, indeed, it is unnecessary to do so – it is quite evident
that the petitioner’s pose here is untenable. 
For one thing, it is too late for the petitioner to assail the validity
of his appointment.  Having accepted the
same, discharged the functions it im­posed, exercised the rights it conferred,
and reaped the benefits it afforded, the petitioner cannot now be heard to
impugn its validity.  Besides if that
appointment was indeed illegally extended, that illegality vitiated the
entirety thereof, and the appointment cannot, in the same breath, be denounced
as illegal and yet considered as a valid one of another category.  If it was void, to start with, it was void
thru and thru – there can be no middle ground. 
Since a void appointment confers no rights what­soever except, perhaps,
those recognized under the general de facto doctrine, then the
petitioner cannot predicate his claim to preference to the office involved upon
that ap­pointment.  Otherwise stated, the
petitioner’s argument car­ries its own refutation.

Prescinding from this flaw in the
petitioner’s stand, however, the resolution of the case at
bar must still have to reckon with the effects of that appointment,
assuming its validity.  We have already
spelled out with sufficient specificity our position on this matter in our
opinion in Ibañez, et al. vs. Commission on
Elections, et al., G.R. L-26558, April
27, 1967.  There, as here,
where the appoint­ments of election registrar relied upon did not indicate any
particular places to which the respective appointees were to be officially
stationed, but the appointees were subsequently merely detailed to particular
localities by means of appro­priate directives, we declined to give our
imprimatur to the therein petitioners’ pose that they acquired a right to the
offices claimed sufficient to shield them against unconsented
transfers therefrom. 
This is in consonance with the doctrine that only such officers as are appointed
– not merely assigned – to particular stations are entitled to seek
refuge under the aegis of the constitutional guaranty of security of tenure (Hojilla vs. Marino, et al., G.R.L-20574, February 26, 1965;
Miclat vs. Ganade, et al.,
G.R.L-14459, May 30, 1960; Jaro vs. Valencia, et al.,
G.R.L-18352, August 30, 1963).  Since the
Ibañez ruling afore-cited, we have had occasion to re­iterate
this doctrine in three cases (vide: 
Co vs. Commis­sion on Elections, et al., G.R.L-26956, July 21, 1967; Salazar, et al. vs.
Commission on Elections, et al., G.R.L-27121, July 21, 1967; Suarez, et al. vs. Commission on Elections,
et al., G.R.L-26605, July 27, 1967).  We do so once again.  Inasmuch as the appointments of both the
petitioner and the respondent Abella do not state
that they are appointed elect­ion registrars of Mabini,
Pangasinan, their detail thereto by subsequent
directives of the COMELEC does not entitle either one to assert as against the
other any right to be retained as permanent election registrar thereof.

Considering that –

“The power to appoint is in essence discretionary on the part
of the proper authority.  * * * The
appointing power has the right of choice which he may exercise freely according
to his judgment, deciding for himself who is best qualified for any competitive
position in the Civil Service * * *” (Jimenez vs. Francisco, G.R.L-9699,
February 1957), and

“What position should be deemed ‘most advantageous to the
government’ for the res­pondent to occupy is a question to be decided by the
representative of the government, and * * * the government cannot be denied the
right to determine, experimentally or otherwise, in what position it could make
use of respondent’s services to the best advantage of the service and of the
public * * *” (Gorospe vs. De Veyra, G.R.L-8408, February 17, 1955),

the
determination made by the COMELEC respecting the question of who between the
contenders should be retained in Mabini, Pangasinan as permanent election registrar must be
respected.

The petitioner’s reliance upon the so-called “Guide­lines In The Assignment Of Election Registrars” adopted by
the COMELEC in its session of February
17, 1966 is misplaced.  As
pointed out by the respondents and confirmed by the certi­fied copy of said
guidelines, the rules of preference therein provided were intended merely as
criteria for “the assignment of election registrars without making
new appointments“. 
Said guidelines, unmistakably, were not intended to control the
discretion of the COMELEC in making appointments of permanent
election registrars.

From what has been said, it is clear that the peti­tioner has not
made out a case calling for the exercise by this Court of its powers of
intervention.

ACCORDINGLY, the petition is denied, at petitioner’s cost.

Reyes, J.B.L., Makalintal, Bengzon, Zaldivar, Sanchez,
Angeles, and Fernando, JJ., concur.

Concepcion, C.J., and Dizon, J., did not take part.