CESAR R. DE LEON, PETITIONER, VS. J. ANTONIO M. CARPIO, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, RESPONDENT.

These two cases have been consolidated because they involve the
same issue against the respondent Director of the National Bureau of
Investigation, who has refused to reinstate the petitioners in defiance of the
orders of the Civil Service Commission as referred to him by the Secretary of
Justice for implementation.

The services of Francisco R. Estavillo
as Agent III and of Cesar R. de Leon as Head Agent in the National Bureau of
Investigation were terminated by then Minister of Justice Neptali
A. Gonzales in separate Orders both dated January 27, 1987.^[1] Estavillo was notified of his dismissal on March 6, 1987, and De Leon
on February 6, 1987.^[2]
Both appealed to the Review Committee created under Executive Order No. 17, but
this body declined to act on their petitions for reconsideration on the ground
that it had lost jurisdiction with the ratification of the new Constitution on February 2, 1987.  They were advised instead to seek relief from
the Civil Service Commission.^[3]
They did.  In substantially similar
Orders,^[4]
they were sustained by the Merit Systems Protection Board of the said
Commission.  It was held that their
dismissals were invalid and unconstitutional, having been done in violation of
their security of tenure under the 1987 Constitution, which had already become
effective.  Accordingly, the Board
ordered their reinstatement with back salaries but without prejudice to the
filing of appropriate administrative charges against them.

On September 29, 1987,
Undersecretary of Justice Eduardo G. Montenegro referred the order reinstating Estavillo to the respondent as Director of the National
Bureau of Investigation “for his information and appropriate action.”^[5]
On March 14, 1988,
Undersecretary of Justice Silvestre H. Bello III
referred the order reinstating De Leon
to the respondent “for appropriate action” and “immediate
implementation.”^[6]

The reaction of the respondent was to return the said orders to
the Civil Service Commission “without action,” claiming that they
were null and void for having been rendered without jurisdiction.^[7]
This prompted the Board to issue another Order dated June 20, 1988, in which it rejected the
respondent’s contention and concluded that “it appearing that the reglementary period to appeal has long expired, the orders
dated August 27, 1987 and March 4, 1988, of this Board have
become final and executory and, therefore, should now
be implemented.”^[8]

On June  29, 1988, the Secretary of
Justice sent the following
memorandum^[9] to the respondent:

June
29, 1988

MEMORANDUM

TO:   NBI Director J. Antonio Carpio

RE: Order of the Merit Systems Protection Board of the Civil Service Commission, reiterating the reinstatement of Messrs. Cesario     de Leon and Francisco Estabillo
to their former positions.

Your
attention is invited to the enclosed Order
of the Merit Systems Protection Board, dated
June 20, 1988, particularly the last paragraph
thereof which reads as follows:

In view of the foregoing, and it
appearing that the reglementary period to
appeal has long expired, the orders dated August 27,
1987 and March 4, 1988 of this Board have become final and executory and, therefore,
should now be implemented.

You
are therefore directed to implement immediately
the aforecited Order of the Merit Systems Protection Board reiterating the reinstatement of Messrs. Cesario
de Leon and Francisco Estabillo to their former positions.

SEDFREY
A. ORDONEZ

Secretary
of Justice

Instead  of  complying, 
the respondent  issued the following memorandum:^[10]

1
July 1988

MEMORANDUM TO:            NBI Assistant Director

NBI Deputy Directors

Chief, Legal Division

Unit Chiefs of Agents
Concerned

OIC Personnel
Division

Cashier

1.  This refers to the attached
letter dated 21 June 1988 from the Merit Systems Protection Board of the Civil
Service Commission, Quezon City, received by this
Office on 28 June 1988,
transmitting an unauthenticated duplicate of an alleged order of the said Board
dated 20 June 1988
reiterating its orders of 27 August
1987 and March 4, 1988
requiring reinstatement of NBI Agents Francisco R. ESTABILLO and Cesar R. DE
LEON.

2.  As explicitly stated in
detail in the 2nd Indorsements by the undersigned to
the transmittal letters of the aforementioned orders of 27 August 1987 and 4
March 1988, the same are null and void ab initio for having been issued with want of
jurisdiction by said Board;

WHEREFORE, you are hereby directed TO DISREGARD and NOT to give any
faith and credence, or otherwise honor or give due course to said illegal and
void orders of the Merit Systems Protection Board, Civil Service Commission,
dated 20 June 1988, 27 August 1987 and 4 March 1988 ordering the reinstatement,
with payment of back salaries, of Agents Francisco R. ESTABILLO and Cesar R. DE
LEON.

J. ANTONIO CARPIO

Director

Unable to return to their respective positions, Estavillo and De Leon came to this Court in separate
petitions for mandamus. 
The respondent was required to comment. 
He again questioned the jurisdiction of the Board, contending inter
alia that it had no authority to review
dismissals made under the Freedom Constitution and that the petitioners’
dismissals were already final, not having been seasonably appealed.  The Solicitor General also filed a
Consolidated Comment to these and other cases involving the validity of the
various ongoing government reorganizations. 
However, he did not touch on the vital issue which we feel is
controlling in the two petitions before us.

That issue, simply, is whether or not the Director of the
National Bureau of Investigation can disobey an explicit and direct order
issued to him by the Secretary of Justice.

To ascertain the present attitude of the Secretary of Justice on
this question, and on the possibility that he might have had a change of heart
in regard to his orders, the Court issued on July 4, 1989, the following resolution:

In G.R. No. 85442 (FRANCISCO R. ESTAVILLO v. J. ANTONIO CARPIO),
the Department of Justice issued the following directives to the respondent
requiring him to reinstate the herein petitioner:

1.     
First Indorsement
dated September 29, 1987
from the Undersecretary of Justice Eduardo G. Montenegro (Annex “D”;
p. 13 of Rollo).

2.     
Memorandum dated June 29, 1988 from Secretary of
Justice Sedfrey A. Ordoñez
(Annex “G”; p. 22 of Rollo).

In G.R. No. 85243 (CESAR DE
LEON v. J. ANTONIO M.
CARPIO), the Department of Justice issued the following directives to the
respondent requiring him to reinstate the herein petitioner:

1.     
First Indorsement
dated March 14, 1988
from the Undersecretary of Justice Silvestre Bello
III (Annex “D”, p. 14 of Rollo).

2.     
Memorandum dated June 29, 1988 from Secretary of
Justice Sedfrey Ordoñez
(Annex “G”; p. 24 of Rollo).

It appearing that the respondent NBI Director has not complied with
the said orders in both cases, the Court Resolved to REQUIRE the Secretary of
Justice to file a Consolidated Comment stating his position on the disregard of
the said orders.

On August 9, 1989,
Secretary Sedfrey A. Ordoñez
filed his Consolidated Comment through Undersecretary Eduardo G. Montenegro and
declared:

It is submitted that the Orders of the Merit Systems Protection
Board reinstating Messrs. Estavillo and de Leon are
valid and should be respected by the agency head concerned.  Dismissals pursuant to E.O. No. 17 are
summary and contemplate non-adversary proceedings.  They are not dismissals for cause within the
meaning of the security of tenure provisions of the Civil Service Law and of
the Constitution.  The dismissal from the
service of Messrs. Estavillo and de Leon was made
pursuant to E.O. No. 17; but as the Review Committee observed, the dismissal
was effective upon receipt by the petitioners of their respective notices of
termination on March 6, 1987 for Mr. Estavillo, and on
February 6, 1987, for Mr. de Leon, or several days after the ratification of
the 1987 Constitution.  Their dismissal
was, therefore, virtually a dismissal under the 1987 Constitution then already
in place; and because it was a summary dismissal as the intention really was to
dismiss them pursuant to E.O. No. 17, it did not conform with the requirements
of due process consistent with the security of tenure clause embodied in the
1987 Constitution.  The separate Orders
of the Merit Systems Protection Board directing their reinstatement in office
“but without prejudice to the filing of appropriate administrative charges
against (them) as evidence warrants, in accordance with the Civil Service Law
and Rules” (see Annexes “2” and “5”) are, therefore
consistent with the Constitutional mandate that “(n)o officer or employee
of the civil service shall be removed or suspended except for cause provided by
law” (Sec. 2[3], Art. IX-B, 1987 Constitution).

His conclusion read as follows:

The Secretary of Justice reiterates the directives of the
Department of Justice, namely, his Memorandum dated June 29, 1988, 1st Indorsement dated September 29, 1987 of Undersecretary of
Justice Eduardo G. Montenegro, and 1st Indorsement
dated March 14, 1988 of Undersecretary of Justice Silvestre Bello
III, all addressed to NBI Director J. Antonio Carpio,
to reinstate Messrs. Francisco Estavillo and Cesar de
Leon to their former positions in compliance with the Orders dated August 27,
1987, March 4, 1988 and June 20, 1988 of the Merit Systems Protection Board.

The Secretary of Justice finds no valid reasons why the aforesaid
Orders of the Merit Systems Protection Board regarding the reinstatement of
Messrs. Francisco Estavillo and Cesar de Leon, should
not be implemented.

On August 15, 1989,
the respondent filed a Reply without having previously been allowed or required
by the Court to do so.  He began by
insinuating that as the above consolidated cases had already been submitted for
decision, we should not have required additional pleadings.  We can disregard this temerity as an
unintentional insolence.  But it cannot
be as easily dismissed that in this Reply Director Carpio
has again manifested his defiance of Secretary Ordoñez.  More direct this time, the respondent insists
“that the Secretary of Justice had no power to declare invalid or
unconstitutional any Presidential proclamation, order, instruction or rule and
regulation.” “Neither could he ignore the final decision of the
former Minister of Justice” “nor (could he) compel compliance to
(sic) said order of the Civil Service Commission issued with want of
jurisdiction.”

One may well wonder how Secretary Ordoñez
would react to this new challenge to his authority.  Perhaps the forebearing
Secretary would prefer to be tactful again as when he opted not to make a
categorical statement in his Consolidated Comment on Director Carpio’s obvious intransigence.  At any rate, for all his restrained and
courteous language, the Secretary’s position is clear enough.  There is not the slightest indication that he
has relented on his memorandum of June
29, 1988, or that he now supports the Director’s belligerent stand.

It is an elementary principle of our republican government,
enshrined in the Constitution and honored not in the breach but in the observance,
that all executive departments, bureaus and offices are under the control of
the President of the Philippines.  This precept, first embodied in the
Commonwealth Constitution and11 reiterated in the 1973
Constitution12,
has been retained in Article VII, Section 17 of the present Constitution.

The President’s power of control is directly exercised by him
over the members of the Cabinet who, in turn and by his authority, control the
bureaus and other offices under their respective jurisdictions in the executive
department.  The constitutional vesture
of this power in the President is self-executing and does not require statutory
implementation, nor may its exercise be limited, much less withdrawn, by the
legislature.

Thus, in Lacson-Magallanes v. Paño,13 the
Court held that a statute making decisions of the department secretaries final
and unappealable would nevertheless not prevent the
President from reviewing and if necessary reversing such decisions by virtue of
his constitutional power of control over the members of his Cabinet.

Theoretically, the President has full control of all the members
of his Cabinet and may appoint them as he sees fit or shuffle them at pleasure,
subject only to confirmation by the Commission on Appointments, and replace
them in his discretion.  Once in place,
they are at all times under the disposition the President as their immediate
superior.  Justice Laurel put it aptly in
Villena v. Secretary of the Interior,14
when he said that “without minimizing the importance of the heads of the
various departments, their personality is in reality but the projection of that
of the President.” Hence, “their acts, performed and promulgated in
the regular course of business are, unless disapproved or reprobated by the
Chief Executive, presumptively the acts of the Chief Executive.”

It is recalled that in Noblejas v.
Salas,15
the fiscal who conducted the preliminary investigation recommended that no
criminal action be taken against the petitioner in view of the insufficiency of
evidence against him and the finding that he had acted in good faith.  This recommendation was expressly approved by
the Secretary of Justice.  Subsequently,
the new fiscal who had taken over the prosecution disregarded these acts and
included the petitioner among the accused in the same criminal case covered by
the Secretary’s directive.  The Court
granted certiorari and set aside the resolution of the trial
court denying the petitioner’s motion to quash. 
We held that the fiscal was bound to obey the order of the Secretary of
Justice, who was exercising over him the President’s constitutional power of
control.

In the case at bar, there is no question that when he directed
the respondent to reinstate the petitioners, Secretary Ordoñez
was acting in the regular discharge of his functions as an alter ego
of the President.  His acts should
therefore have been respected by the respondent Director of the National Bureau
of Investigation, which is in the Department of Justice under the direct
control of its Secretary.  As a subordinate
in this department, the respondent was (and is) bound to obey the Secretary’s
directives, which are presumptively the acts of the President of the Philippines.

It remains to observe that what the petitioners should have done
in the first place was to complain to Secretary Ordoñez
that his directives for their reinstatement had been disregarded by Director Carpio.  Thus
informed, the Secretary would have reiterated his orders and required immediate
compliance therewith by the respondent. 
This is not to say that the doctrine of exhaustion of administrative
remedies was strictly required in this case for the petitioners were raising a
pure question of law.  That is one of the
exceptions to the rule.  Even so,
compliance with the usual procedure could have easily obtained for the
petitioners the relief they now seek from this Court.

Our conclusion is that this regrettable controversy would not
have arisen at all if the respondent had had the humility to recognize the
limits of his authority and acted accordingly. 
Plainly put, Director Carpio should have
dutifully obeyed the orders of Secretary Ordoñez as
his immediate superior in the Department of Justice.  That is what we must now order the respondent
to do.

WHEREFORE, the petitions are GRANTED.  The respondent is hereby ORDERED to
immediately reinstate the petitioners as directed by the Secretary of Justice
in implementation of the challenged orders of the Merit Systems Protection
Board of the Civil Service Commission. 
No costs.

SO ORDERED.

Fernan, C.J., Narvasa,
Melencio-Herrera, Paras,
Feliciano, Gancayco, Padilla, Bidin,
Sarmiento, Cortes, Griño-Aquino,
Medialdea, and
Regalado, JJ., concur.

Gutierrez, Jr., J., on leave.

^[1] Rollo, p. 9, G.R. No. 85442; p. 9, G.R. No. 85243.

^[2] Ibid.,
pp. 2 and 232; p. 2.

^[3] Id.,
pp. 3, 10 and 233; pp. 3 and 10.

^[4] Id.,
p. 12; pp. 12-13.

^[5] Rollo, p. 13, G.R. No. 85442.

^[6] Rollo, p. 14, G.R. No. 85243.

^[7] Rollo, pp. 14-18, G.R. No. 85442; pp. 15-19, G.R.
No. 85243.

^[8] Ibid.,
pp. 19-21; pp. 21-23.

^[9] Id., P. 22; P. 24.

^[10] Id., p. 23; P. 25.

11 Article VII, Section 10, (1).

12 Article VII, Section 8.

13 21 SCRA 895.

14 67 Phil. 451.

15 67 SCRA 47.