TEODORO R. YANGCO, PETITIONER AND APPELLANT, VS. SIMPLICIO ESTEBAN, RESPONDENT AND APPELLEE.

This
is an appeal from orders of the Public Service Commission in which it
finally permitted respondent-appellee to operate one Ford truck once a
day between Subic and Olongapo, Philippine Islands. Both parties are
operators of trucks under certificates of public convenience and
necessity within the Province of Zambales. There is also another
operator between the points in question.

This question has
been repeatedly before the Public Service Commission. On a complaint of
petitioner-appellant, the Public Service Commission dismissed, the
complaint, in other words permitted the operation. Subsequently, the
Public Service Commission ordered respondent-appellee to stop operating
over these eleven kilometers, and that order became final.
Subsequently, he asked permission to operate one truck one trip a day
over this route, which was granted by the commission. On
reconsideration, the Public Service Commission denied it, and on
reconsideration, it regranted it.

That the Public Service
Commission should be confronted with the necessity of making six
decisions on the question whether, one Ford truck should be allowed to
make one trip a day over eleven kilometers, shows a most peculiar and
unjustified abuse of the privileges of litigation. The evidence clearly
shows that the two operators now on this territory often operate their
busses virtually empty. One of the operators, petitioner-appellant,
stands ready to increase his service should the Public Service
Commission decide that it is for the interests of the public so to do.

Where two operators are more than serving the public, there is no
reason to permit a third operator to engage in competition with them.
The fact that it is only one trip and of little consequence, is not a
sufficient reason to grant it.

There is a real public
interest in this matter which seems to have been lost sight of. The
Public Service Commission and the courts are maintained at considerable
expense to the public at large. Litigious and contentious applicants
for the right of using our highways for the purpose of carrying a few
passengers should not be permitted so to monopolize the time of the
Public Service Commission as to render it difficult for that body to
attend to the many important and complicated questions involving real
public interests presented to it for action.

The last orders
in this case are without real foundation in the evidence of record and
are contrary to the principles this court has enunciated in Batangas
Transportation Co. vs. Orlanes (52 Phil., 455), and Visayan Rapid Transit Company vs. Viajante Interino Co., G. R. No. 36262.^[1]

The orders appealed from are therefore reversed, with costs against the appellee. So ordered.

Avanceña, C. J., Malcolm, Villa-Real, and Imperial, JJ., concur.

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^[1] 57 Phil., 974.