MANILA ELECTRIC COMPANY, COMPLAINANT AND APPELLANT, VS. ORLANES & BANAAG TRANSPORTATION CO., RESPONDENT AND APPELLEE.

This is an appeal taken by the petitioner Manila Electric Company from
a decision of the Public Service Commission, the dispositive part of
which with which we are concerned reads as follows:

“At
any rate, it is a fact that the line has been abandoned, and although
it seems that the reason for so doing was that the bridge was not
completed, in order not to establish a dangerous precedent, we resolve
to impose a fine of P100 upon the Orlanes & Banaag Transportation
Co. which must, of course, be borne by the party last acquiring the
certificate issued in case No. 16667, as an inherent obligation
attached to it; and therefore, the Pasay Transportation Co., being the
latest assignee of the rights derived from the certificate issued in
case No. 16667, upon the San Felipe Neri-Manila line, must, if it
intends to continue such operation pay this fine of P100 within the
period of 30 days; otherwise we shall, much to our regret, be compelled
to suspend the effects of our resolution and order of February 26,
1932, whereby we authorized the Pasay Transportation Co. to operate
upon the aforementioned line between San Felipe Neri and Divisoria
Market, Manila, and with this ruling we believe we have decided
equitably the question raised in the petition filed by counsel for the
Manila Electric Company on February 11, 1932.

“This order shall take effect at once, and shall become final 30 days after the interested parties have been notified.”

In support of its appeal, the appellant assigns six alleged errors
committed by the Public Service Commission in the aforesaid decision,
which we shall take up in the course of this decision.

The following facts are relevant and necessary in order to decide the questions raised in the present appeal:

On
March 8, 1929 the Public Service Commission issued to the Orlanes &
Banaag Transportation Co. in case No. 16667 a certificate of public
convenience and necessity to furnish a transportation service from San
Felipe Neri, Rizal, to the Divisoria Market, Manila, passing through
Bacood, Lubiran, Buenavista, and Valenzuela Streets.

By
virtue of said certificate, the said company operated the line for a
month, until October 28, 1929 because its busses could not cross the
river, for lack of a bridge, and the people would not take them because
they had to get off at the river, ford it, and walk to the town. The
Orlanes & Banaag Transportation Co. applied for authority to
suspend its service along that line, but the record of case No. 16667
does not show that the commission took any action upon such
application, nor that the company sought to expedite the hearing
thereof.

When the bridge was completed, the property
belonging to the Orlanes & Banaag Transportation Co. had already
passed into the hands of a receiver.

On February 5, 1931,
the provincial sheriff of Tayabas, by virtue of a writ of execution
thereunto issued, sold said certificate and the rest of the property
belonging to the Orlanes & Banaag Transportation Co., at public
auction to Parsons Hardware Co., and the latter subsequently assigned
the certificate to the Laguna-Tayabas Bus Co., the transfer being
approved by the Public Service Commission in its order of November 20,
1931 in case No. 26298 in the presence of the petitioner’s counsel.

On November 25, 1931, the Laguna-Tayabas Bus Co. assigned its rights to
said certificate and property to the Pasay Transportation Co., Inc.,
both companies filing a joint application in case No. 26298 on the same
date, in which they prayed that authority be granted to the latter to
resume the service along the route in question.

On February
12, 1932, the petitioner and appellant herein, the Manila Electric
Company, holding a certificate of public convenience and necessity to
furnish land transportation service for passengers and freight from San
Felipe Neri, Rizal, to Santa Mesa Loop, Manila, filed a petition with
the Public Service Commission, registered under number 30418, asking
for the cancellation and revocation of the certificate of public
convenience and necessity mentioned above for the reason that the
Orlanes & Banaag Transportation Co. had violated the terms and
conditions of said certificate in suspending its service.

Under authority granted by the Public Service Commission in case No.
16667 on February 26, 1932, the Pasay Transportation Co., Inc., who had
acquired the rights of the Laguna-Tayabas Bus Co. to said certificate,
began to operate along the line from San Felipe Neri, Rizal, to the
Divisoria Market, passing through the Bacood, Lubiran, Valenzuela, and
Buenavista Streets.

On March 3, 1932, the respondent and
appellee was for the first time notified of the petition mentioned
above, filed by the Manila Electric Company on February 11, 1932. At
the same time notice was given to Parsons Hardware Co., and the
Laguna-Tayabas Bus Co.

On March 5, 1932, the respondent
Orlanes & Banaag Transportation Co., Inc., filed an answer to the
petition denying each and every one of the allegations thereof, and by
way of special defense, alleged that it had never intended to abandon
the route granted it in the certificate, and only suspended its
operation on October 28, 1929, because its busses could not cross the
river due to the lack of a bridge.

On the same date, March
5, 1932, the Parsons Hardware Co. and the Pasay Transportation Co.,
Inc., through their counsel, each filed an opposition to the petition
of the Manila Electric Company.

After hearing the parties
upon the application of the petitioner-appellant, the Manila Electric
Company, the Public Service Commission rendered on March 7, 1932 in
case No. 30418 its decision, the pertinent part of which we have quoted
above.

The Orlanes & Banaag Transportation Co. having
failed to pay the fine imposed upon it in the said order, the Pasay
Transportation Co., as its successor, paid it.

In view of
the foregoing facts, the following question arises: Parsons Hardware
Co. having attached and sold at public auction, through the sheriff,
the certificate of public convenience and the equipment of the Orlanes
& Banaag Transportation Co. in order to collect its credit, and
said creditor having acquired them, who, in turn, sold them to the
Laguna-Tayabas Bus Co., and the latter to the third-party appellee, the
Pasay Transportation Co., with the approval of the Public Service
Commission, can such certificate which is now in the name of the Pasay
Transportation Company who resumed the operation suspended by the
original operator, be cancelled by the said commission?

Notwithstanding the unauthorized suspension of its service after one
month’s operation, and its negligence in not urging the Public Service
Commission to take action upon its application for authority to-suspend
its service, the certificate of public convenience and necessity of the
Orlanes & Banaag Transportation Co. continues in force, because the
Public Service Law contains no provision of automatic revocation by
reason of suspension or abandonment, and because the commission has
issued no order cancelling or revoking said certificate. Furthermore,
when the commission approved the sale of the certificate of public
convenience belonging to the Orlanes & Banaag Transportation Co.
first to Parsons Hardware Co., then by the latter to Laguna-Tayabas Bus
Co., and finally by this transportation company to the third-party
appellee, the Pasay Transportation Co., said commission recognized the
existence of the certificate; and when on February 12, 1932, nearly a
year after the auction sale, the petitioner-appellant the Manila
Electric Co. filed its application to have the certificate of the
Orlanes & Banaag Transportation Co. cancelled, its acquisition by
Parsons Hardware Co., the Laguna-Tayabas Bus Co., and the Pasay
Transportation Co., successively, had already been approved. Inasmuch
as the certificate was in force when the companies mentioned acquired
it one after the other, the Public Service Commission having approved
the transfers, it is not fair to make the last purchaser, the Pasay
Transportation Co., suffer for the abandonment and negligence of the
original owner, by depriving it of said certificate.

There
is no doubt that the suspension and abandonment of its service by the
Orlanes and Banaag Transportation Co. has been to the prejudice of the
public for whose convenience and necessity it received its authority
from the Public Service Commission, which was created to protect and
enforce the public rights, to obtain adequate service at uniform and
reasonable rates, and to compel the performance by public utilities of
their public duties (51 Corpus Juris, p. 31, section 70). If this is
so, the commission is in duty bound to see to it by means of its agents
that public utilities holding certificates of public convenience
perform their duties, compelling them to render the service they have
been empowered to furnish for the good of the public within a
reasonable time, and not to permit them to suspend their operations
without prior authorization, or to delay the use of their certificates
for an indefinite time to the prejudice of the public. To permit a
person or company engaged in the business of public utility to obtain a
certificate of public convenience and then withhold it from operation,
without compelling the same to render within a reasonable time the
public service which they have been authorized to render, would be to
allow speculation upon said certificate to the detriment of the public.

In view of the foregoing, we are of opinion and so hold: (1) That a
certificate of public convenience to operate land transportation
service along a route, acquired at a public auction, while the same was
in force and with the approval of the Public Service Commission, cannot
be annulled even if the original operator suspended the service long
before the sale without authority to do so from the commission; and
(2), that the Public Service Commission is in duty bound to see to it
that persons or companies holding certificates of public convenience
render the public service, for which they have received authority
within a reasonable time for the benefit of the public.

Wherefore, finding no error in the decision appealed from, it is hereby affirmed in toto, with costs against the appellant. So ordered.

Villamor, Hull, Vickers, and Imperial, JJ., concur.