THE MUNICIPALITY OF MAJAYJAY, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. TOMAS DIZON ET AL., DEFENDANTS AND APPELLANTS.

This
is an appeal taken by the provincial board of Laguna, the Chief of the
Executive Bureau, the Director of Public Works, the Secretary of
Commerce and Communications and the Secretary of the Interior, from the
judgment rendered by the Court of First Instance of the same province
declaring illegal the “General regulations governing the
administration, operation and maintenance of municipal and provincial
waterworks” promulgated by the Director of Public Works and the Chief
of the Executive Bureau on January 14, 1925, and later, approved by the
Secretary of Commerce and Communications, the Secretary of the Interior
and the Governor-General by Executive Orders Nos. 6 and 7, series of
1925 and 1926, respectively, and converting the preliminary injunction
issued therein into a final and permanent one, without special
pronouncement as to costs.

The relevant facts necessary for
a clear comprehension of the case are stated in the following
stipulation of facts submitted by the parties:

“STIPULATION OF FACTS

“1.
That the plaintiff in this case, the municipality of Majayjay, is a
municipal corporation duly organized and existing in accordance with
the laws of the Philippine Islands;

“2. That Tomas Dizon
is the provincial governor of the Province of Laguna and Cirilo
Villamin and Apolonio Elevado are members of the provincial board of
Laguna, and the three together compose and constitute the provincial
board of the Province of Laguna; that Vicente del Rosario has resigned
as Chief of the Executive Bureau, and he has been substituted by
Eulalio Suaco, who has been designated and is now acting as Chief of
the Executive Bureau; that A. D. Williams is the Director of Public
Works; that Honorio Ventura is the Secretary of the Interior; that
Filemon Perez is the Secretary of Commerce and Communications, and that
all these persons have been defendants, in view of the position which
they are thus holding;

“3. That there is now a waterworks
system in the municipality of Majayjay supplying water to the
inhabitants of the said municipality, which water system was
constructed in or before August, 1920;

“4. That the said waterworks system has been constructed with the following funds:

“(a)
The proceeds of bonds issued under the provisions of Act No. 2773,
approved by the Philippine Legislature, March 8, 1918, in the amount of
P16,686.06, duly guaranteed by the Insular Government;

“(b)
Insular aid taken from the ordinary public works funds provided for in
the general public works bills, in the amount of P22,000;

“5. That as Honorable Pedro Guevara, while Senator for the Fourth
Senatorial District, was the one responsible for the approval of Act
No. 2773, the waterworks system of Majayjay was named Guevara
Waterworks System, as shown by a resolution of the municipal council, a
copy of which is made a part hereof as Exhibit A;

“6.
That about one year after the waterworks system of Majayjay was
formally opened and in operation, the municipality of Magdalena, a
neighboring town of the municipality of Majayjay, has also constructed
a water system to supply water to its inhabitants, which was connected
with the aforesaid waterworks system of Majayjay by virtue of a
contract executed between the two named municipalities, copy of which
is made a part hereof and marked Exhibit B, and that said contract was
entered into without the knowledge of the Bureau of Public Works;

“7.
That the waterworks system of Majayjay and Magdalena have the same
source of water which is the ‘Sinabak’ spring, and both use the same
main pipe;

“8. That similar to the waterworks system of
the municipality of Majayjay, the waterworks system of the municipality
of Magdalena was also constructed partly with municipal funds and the
rest with insular aid taken from the ordinary public works funds
provided for in the general public works bills, in the same proportion
of one-third, more or less, of the total cost as municipal funds, and
the other two-thirds as insular aid, that is, P22,500 as municipal
funds and P42,400 as insular aid;

“9. That the
Governor-General issued Executive Order No. 6 on February 4, 1925,
which Executive Order was amended by Executive Order No. 7 issued March
7, 1926. Both Executive Orders are made part hereof as Exhibits C and D;

“10. That on January 14, 1925, the Chief of the Executive Bureau, the
Director of Public Works, the Secretary of the Interior and the
Secretary of Commerce and Communications, issued a joint circular, a
copy of which is made a part hereof as Exhibit E, wherein it is ordered
that all municipal and provincial waterworks systems in the Philippine
Islands shall be administered:

“(a) By the municipal council when the system furnishes water to one municipality alone;

“(b)
By the provincial board, when the system furnishes water to two or more
municipalities or is to be extended to supply two or more
municipalities of a province;

“11. That the Chief of the
Executive Bureau, the Director of Public Works and the provincial board
of Laguna transferred the administration of the Majayjay waterworks
system from the municipal council of Majayjay to the provincial board
of Laguna, effective January 1, 1926, and the said provincial board of
Laguna proceeded to approve and promulgate a tariff of charges as well
as regulations which should govern the administration of the system, as
shown by Resolution No. 2187 of the provincial board, a copy of which
is made a part hereof and marked Exhibit F;

“12. That the
provincial board of Laguna, thru the provincial treasurer, applied to
the Public Service Commission for the approval of its tariff of charges
and waterworks regulations, as shown by order of the Public Service
Commissioner, Hon. Mariano Cui, a copy of which is made a part hereof
as Exhibit G;

“13. That the municipality of Majayjay has
questioned and protested against such actions of the defendants in this
case as shown by Resolutions Nos. 118 series of 1925, and 42 series of
1926, approved by the municipal council of Majayjay, and by a
memorandum submitted to the Executive Bureau by Mr. Antonio de las
Alas, as attorney for the municipality of Majayjay, copies of which are
made part hereof and marked Exhibits H, I and J;

“14. That
the municipality of Majayjay has already exhausted all administrative
remedies to win back the control and administration of its waterworks
system.”

Nothing of interest or importance
can be added to the facts mentioned above except that the municipality
of Magdalena has not joined the appellee, the municipality of Majayjay.
The appellants assign the following alleged errors in the decision
appealed from:

“I. The court a quo
erred in declaring the ‘General regulations governing the
administration, operation and maintenance of municipal and provincial
waterworks’ illegal, on the ground that they deprive the municipality
of Majayjay of the control and administration of its waterworks system.

“II. The court a quo, therefore, erred in declaring the preliminary injunction issued in this case as final.

“III. The court a quo, likewise, erred in denying the motion for a new trial filed by the herein defendant-appellants.”

The solution of the case depends entirely on the meaning of section
2317 of the Revised Administrative Code, upon the provisions of which
the appellee herein bases all its rights to administer and regulate the
tariff to be paid by the consumers of the “Guevara Waterworks System.”
The aforementioned provision reads as follows:

“Sec. 2317. Municipal waterworks.—A
municipal council shall have authority to acquire, construct, and
maintain waterworks for the purpose of supplying the inhabitants of the
municipality with water; to regulate the supply and use of water
therefrom; and to fix and collect rents for water thus supplied.”

The terms of the section cited above are so clear that there is no need
of “lengthy arguments to demonstrate that it refers to waterworks
systems constructed by a municipality for the exclusive supply of its
inhabitants. The combined waterworks system which is the subject matter
of the present litigation is not within the scope of this legal
provision because, properly speaking, according to admitted facts, this
system does not exclusively belong to the municipality of Majayjay, for
the reason that both of said waterworks systems have the same source,
which is the “sinabak” spring, and are connected by a single main pipe.

In the absence of an express provision to that effect, we do not see
any good reason why the regulation in question, which provides for the
administration, operation and maintenance of said combined waterworks
system, should be null and void and illegal, specially in view of the
fact that the aforementioned regulation has been approved and
promulgated by the competent authorities of the Executive Branch of the
Government and in conformity with the provisions of Executive Orders
Nos. 6 end 7, series of 1925 and 1926.

On the other hand,
reasons of good government demand that said combined waterworks system
should be administered by the provincial board and the tariff regulated
by the same entity because, in this way, conflicts, which would
necessarily arise between the municipal entities in attempting to
defend the rights of their respective inhabitants, are avoided.
Undoubtedly, this was the idea which guided the authorities of the
Insular Government in promulgating the regulation which places
waterworks systems of this kind in the hands of the provincial board.
Neither is it strange, that the Central Government should intervene in
said activity inasmuch as two thirds of the total cost of both
waterworks were constructed with funds from the Insular Government.

The municipality of Majayjay has no reason to evade the consequences of
the combination of its system with that of the municipality of
Magdalena, for, according to the contract, Exhibit B, entered into by
said municipalities, the former voluntarily permitted the municipality
of Magdalena to connect its water system with the main pipe so that the
use and enjoyment of the combined water systems would be common to both
municipalities. To permit one of them to administer the combined water
system would expose the other to serious difficulties which, in the
long run, would result in frictions and conflicts that the higher
authorities alone would be in a position to solve, aside from the
possibility that unequal, disproportionate and unjust charges might be
assessed in the said localities. The regulation mentioned above has
evidently been issued to obviate all of these difficulties.

The judgment appealed from is hereby reversed; the aforementioned
regulation is declared valid, and the preliminary injunction heretofore
issued is set aside, with costs of both instances against the appellee.
So ordered.

Villamor, Villa-Real, Hull, and Vickers, JJ., concur.