TEODORO MEDRANA, PETITIONER, VS. OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT AND SUPREME AGGREGATES CORPORATION, RESPONDENTS.

In this Special Civil
Action for Certiorari, petitioner Teodoro Medrana asks us to set aside
the decision of the Office of the President dated 20 September 1988 in O.P.
Case No. 2143. In that decision, the
Hon. Magdangal B. Elma, Deputy Executive Secretary, acting “by authority
of the President”, set aside a decision of the then Minister of Natural
Resources dated 7 May 1982 and reinstated a decision of the Director of Mines
dated 13 March 1981.

This controversy, which
began in 1979, relates to Mining Lease Contract (“MLC”) No. V-754
which the then Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources issued to private
respondent Supreme Aggregates Corporation (“Supreme Aggregates”) on 30
June 1969. This Mining Lease Contract
has a lifetime of twenty-five
(25) years and covers twenty-two (22) mining claims for volcanic cinder, etc.,
situated in Calamba, Laguna Province and Sto. Tomas, Batangas Province.

On 17 May 1974, P.D. No. 463 known as “The Mineral Resources
Development Decree of 1974” was promulgated. Sections 100 and 101 of P.D. No. 463 provided as follows:

“Sec. 100. Old
Valid Mining Rights May Come Under This Decree. — Holders of valid and subsisting mining locations and other rights under other laws, irrespective of the areas covered, may avail of rights and
privileges granted under this Decree by making the necessary application
therefor and approval thereof by the Director within a period of two (2)
years from the date of approval
of this Decrees.

Sec. 101. Recognition
and Survey of Old Subsisting Mining Claims. — All mining grants patents, locations, leases and permits
subsisting at the time of the approval of this Decree shall be recognized if registered
pursuant to Section 100 thereof: Provided,
That Spanish Royal Grants and unpatented mining claims located and registered
under the Act of the United States Congress of July 1, 1902, as amended, otherwise known as the
‘Philippine Bill’, shall be surveyed within one (1) year from the approval of
this Decree: Provided, further,
That no such mining rights shall be recognized if there is failure to comply
with the fundamental requirements of the respective grants. And provided, finally, That such grants,
patents, locations, leases or permits as may be recognized by the Director
after proper investigation shall comply with the applicable provisions of this
Decree, more particularly with the annual work obligations, submittal of
reports, fiscal provisions and other obligations.” (Under­scoring
supplied)

On 14 May 1976, within the period prescribed in Section 100
above, Supreme Aggregates filed with the Bureau of Mines an Application to
Avail of Rights and Privileges under P.D. No. 463 which application was
required by Sections 100 and 101, above, from all claimowners and lessees
desirous of maintaining their pre-existing rights under the regime inaugurated by that decree.

On 27 February 1979, the Director of the Bureau of Mines issued an order
denying Supreme Aggregates’ Application on the ground that Supreme Aggregates
had failed to submit Affidavits of Annual Work Obligations.

On 15 June 1979, the Director of Mines issued Quarry Temporary
Permits (“QTPs”) Nos. 85, 86 and 87 to petitioner Teodoro
Medrana. These permits covered areas within the territory leased to
Supreme Aggregates under MLC No. V-754.

Fourteen days later, on 29
June 1979, Supreme Aggregates filed a petition with the Director of Mines
praying for reinstatement of its rejected Application to Avail of Rights and
Privileges and for cancellation of Medrana’s QTPs Nos. 85, 86 and 87. Medrana filed an answer to this petition.

After investigation, the Director of Mines rendered a decision
dated 13 March 1981 ordering the
reinstatement of Supreme
Aggregates’ Application to Avail of Rights and Privileges and the cancellation
of Medrana’s QTPs Nos. 85, 86 and 87 since these covered areas within Supreme
Aggregates’ valid and subsisting MLC No. V-754.

On appeal by Medrana, the Ministry of Natural Resources
reinstated Medrana’s QTPs Nos. 85, 86 and 87, and declared that Supreme
Aggregates’ MLC No. V-754 had lapsed. In so deciding, former Minister of Natural Resources Teodoro Q. Peña
reasoned that the order of the Bureau of Mines which had rejected Supreme
Aggregates’ Application to Avail of Rights and Privileges had already become
final when Supreme Aggregates filed its petition for reinstatement of its
Application on 29 June 1979, that is, one hundred and twenty (120) days after
its receipt of the Bureau of Mines’ order of denial. Former Minister Peña further held that the failure of Supreme
Aggregates to file an Application to Avail of Rights and Privileges under P.D.
No. 463 caused its Mining Lease Contract to lapse and opened the leased area to
relocation.^[1]

Supreme Aggregates then filed an appeal with the Office of the
President. The Office of the President,
as already noted, in a decision dated 20 September 1988, reversed the decision
of the Minister of Natural Resources and in essence held that the failure to
submit Affidavits of Annual Work Obligations for two (2) consecutive years did
not, by itself and standing alone, result in the automatic cancellation of MLC
No. V-754.

In the instant Petition for Certiorari, petitioner Medrana
submits that the Office of the President acted with grave abuse of discretion,
amounting to lack of jurisdic­tion, in reinstating Supreme Aggregates’ MLC No.
V-754 and cancelling petitioner’s QTPs for the following reasons:

1. Private respondent Supreme Aggregates had
abandoned its Mining Lease Contract by failing to comply with the mandatory
requirements of Section 27 of P.D. No. 463.

2. The Bureau of Mines had declared the quarry
covered by MLC No. V-754 as open for relocation of claims by virtue of the
cancellation of that MLC. Moreover,
petitioner Medrana, being registered owner of much of the land covered by MLC
No. V-754, claims a preferential right to exploit the said quarry under Section
67 of P.D. No. 463.

3. Even before the issuance of QTPs Nos. 85, 86 and 87 to petitioner, the order of the
Director of Mines denying Supreme Aggregates’ Application had already become
final and executory five (5) days from receipt of that order by
private respondent Supreme Aggregates.

We consider below petitioner’s contentions seriatim. We note,
preliminarily, that under Section 5 of P.D. No. 309, from a decision of the
Secretary of Natural Resources in cases involving conflicting mining claims, an
appeal may be taken within five (5) days to the President “whose decision shall
be final and executory”. Clearly,
therefore, further appeal from or review of the decision of the Office of the
President is not available to
petitioner. To succeed, petitioner must
show that the Office of the President committed a grave abuse of discretion, or
acted without or in excess of its jurisdiction, in rendering the decision he
assails.

1.  In the form it existed at
the relevant time — i.e., February 1979 — Section 27 of P.D. No. 463, as amended by P.D. No. 1385, read as follows:

“Sec. 27. Proof of
Annual Work Obligations. The
claimowner/lessee shall submit proof of compliance with the annual work
obligations by filing an affidavit therefor and the statement of
expenditures and technical report in the prescribed form in support thereof
with the Mines Regional Officer within sixty (60) days from the end of the year
in which the work obligation is required: Provided, That failure
of to the claim-owner to comply therewith for two (2) consecutive
years shall constitute automatic abandonment of the mining claims: Provided, Further, That, if it is found upon
field verification that no such work was actually done on the mining claims, the claim­owner/lessee
shall likewise lose all his rights
thereto notwithstanding
submission aforesaid documents.”
(Underscoring supplied)

Careful reading of the above-quoted
Section 27 shows that abandonment of a mining claim or lease results from failure
to comply with the annual work obligations on the area covered by a mining
claim or lease for two (2) consecutive years. The precipitating event of the lapse of a mining claim or lease
contemplated in Section 27 is the failure to carry out actual work on a mining claim or lease, and not simply the failure
to submit in a timely manner
the Affidavit of Annual Work Obligations. That Affidavit constitutes simply proof of compliance with the
annual work obligations.^[2]
Execution and submission of an Affidavit of Annual Work Obligations creates a
presumption that the work obligation was indeed carried out. This presumption is by no means a conclusive
one, but is, on the contrary, merely a prima facie one since
Section 27 expressly prescribes that “if it is found upon field
verification that no such work was actually done on the mining claims,
the claimowner/lessee shall likewise lose his rights thereto notwithstanding
submission of the aforesaid documents“. It follows that, conversely, failure to submit the Affidavit of
Annual Work Obligations raises the presumption that no work was actually done,
but that this presumption too can be overturned by affirmative proof — e.g.,
by “field verification” — that the required annual work obligations
had in fact been carried out on the mining claim or leased area. To hold that the mere failure to submit the
Affidavits resulted in automatic abandonment of MLC No. V-754 notwithstanding
the actual performance of work obligations, would not only run counter to the
express language of Section 27, but would also be to exalt form over substance.

In Teodoro v. Macaraeg,^[3] the
Court elaborated on the notion of abandonment in the following, quite definite,
terms:

” ‘The word “abandon”, in its ordinary sense, means
to forsake entirely; to forsake or renounce utterly. The dictionaries trace this word to the root idea of
“putting under a ban.” The emphasis is on the finality and the
publicity with which some thing or body is thus put in the control of another,
and hence the meaning of giving up absolutely, with intent never again to
resume or claim one’s rights or interests.’ In other words, the act of
abandonment constitutes actual, absolute and irrevocable
desertion of one’s right or property. In the case at bar, Macaraeg merely intended to vacate his leasehold
possession on the condition that a certain Claus be taken as his
successor. Hence, his act did not
constitute desertion of his leasehold as it was a mere intended surrender of
the same. And as correctly espoused by
the counsel for the respondent court, it is ‘only through the actual surrender
of the land that tenancy relation terminates; no amount of intention to
surrender severs the relationship’. Furthermore, the said act of Macaraeg was not an absolute
renunciation of his leasehold possession, as it was in fact clearly
conditional.”^[4]
(Under­scoring supplied)

Thus, abandonment may be said to result
where there is concurrence of two (2) elements: the first being the intent to abandon a right or claim and the
second being the external act by which that intention is expressed and carried
into effect. There must, moreover, be
an actual, as distinguished from a merely projected, relinquishment of a claim
or right; otherwise the right or claim is not vacated or waived so as to be
susceptible of being appropriated by the next owner. These two (2) requirements are clearly lacking in the case at
bar. The Director of Mines and public
respondent Office of the President had found that, in point of fact,
private respondent Supreme Aggregates had performed its annual work obligations. Supreme Aggregates could not therefore be
said to have intended to abandon its mining claim or lease, notwithstanding the
fact that it had failed to submit the normal documentary proof of performance
of annual work obligations — that is, the Affidavit of Annual Work
Obligations. We agree, therefore, with
the conclusion of the Office of the President that in the instant case, there
was no abandonment, whether automatic or voluntary, of MLC No. V-754.

2.  It is true that under
Section 67 of P.D. No. 463, petitioner Medrana, as registered owner of the superficies
of the land here involved, had a “preferential right to exploit the quarry
resources found therein”. That
right, however, was simply a preferential right, and that right was ineffective to dissolve the
pre-existing or subsisting right of private respondent Supreme Aggregates. The order of 27 February 1979 of the
Director of Mines, denying Supreme Aggregates’ Application to Avail of Rights
and Privileges, did not have, nor did it purport to have, the effect of
cancelling or declaring the automatic abandonment of MLC No. V-754: as noted above, there simply was no legal
basis for so cancelling or declaring it as abandoned. It follows that the 27 February 1979 order did not produce the
effect of opening up the areas leased
in MLC No. V-754 to location or new acquisition of rights by petitioner
Medrana, or by any other person for that matter.^[5] It follows, furthermore, that petitioner’s
QTPs Nos.
85, 86 and 87 were not validly
issued to begin with and that the express cancellation of the QTPs decreed in
the Director of Mines’ decision of 13 March 1981, which formally rectified his
error by reinstating Supreme Aggregates’ Application, was not even necessary
being mere confirmatory of the juridical situation.

3.  We turn to the question
of whether or not Supreme Aggregates’ petition dated 29 June 1979 for
reinstatement of its rejected Application to Avail of Rights and Privileges and
for cancellation of Medrana’s QTPs Nos. 85, 86 and 87, had been filed
seasonably. It is claimed by petitioner
Medrana that that order of the Director of Mines had ipso facto
cancelled Supreme Aggregates’ MLC No. V-754 and that in any case, that order of
the Director of Mines had already become final and executory by the time
Supreme Aggregates filed its petition for reinstatement of its Application to
Avail of Rights and Privileges.

We
have already pointed out above that the denial order of the Director of
Mines did not have the effect of ipso facto cancelling MLC
No. V-754. It remains only therefore to
determine whether, as petitioner contends and as the former Minister of Natural
Resources held, the rejection order of the Director of Mines became final and
executory upon expiration of five (5) days from receipt thereof by Supreme
Aggregates, under Section 5 of P.D. No. 309. Section 5 of P.D. No. 309, entitled “Establishing Rules and
Procedures for the Speedy Disposition or Settlement of Conflicting Mining
Claims”, provides as follows:

“Sec. 5. Any party not
satisfied with the decision or order of the Director of Mines may, within five
(5) days from receipt thereof, appeal to the Secretary of Agriculture and
Natural Resources who shall render his decision within five (5) days from
receipt of the appeal or submission of the report of the Department panel of
investigators, as the case may be. From
the decision of the Secretary, an appeal may be taken within five (5) days to
the President whose decision shall be final and executory.”

We agree with the Office of the President that Section 5 of P.D.
No. 309 has no application to the case at bar. As its title clearly indicates, P.D. No. 309 applies only to cases
involving conflicting mining claims, that is to say, to orders or
decisions issued in adversarial or litigated proceedings involving mining
claims with conflicting or overlapping boundaries. Section 3 of P.D. No. 309 makes this clear -?

“Sec. 3. x x x

For the purpose of expediting the exploration and exploitation of
our mineral resources, the proceedings above-described will be so
conducted so that the case so heard by the Director of Mines and/or through the
Panel of Investigators shall be a final adjudication of rights over
mining claim or claims subject to litigations and conflicts
including the exploration and exploitation thereof.

x x x                          x x x                             x x x”

(Underscoring supplied)

Section 5 of P.D. No. 309 quoted above
and the five (5) days reglementary period can scarcely be made to apply to
situations where there are no opposing or contending parties, as in the case of
private respondent Supreme Aggregates’ Application to Avail of Rights and
Privileges with the Bureau of Mines. It
must also be recalled that when the Director of Mines on 27 February 1979
denied Supreme Aggregates’ Application to Avail of Rights and Privilege, there
were as yet no conflicting claims asserted in respect of Supreme Aggregates’
leased area. Petitioner Medrana’s QTPs
were issued only three (3) months after the Director of Mines had
initially denied Supreme Aggregates’ application.

We conclude that petitioner has entirely failed to show that
Deputy Executive Secretary Magdangal Elma had committed any error in rendering
the decision of the Office of the President dated 20 September 1988. But even if petitioner had succeeded in
showing that the Office of the President had indeed misconstrued some provision
of P.D. No. 463 as amended, or of the Rules and Regulations implementing P.D.
No. 463, or of P.D. No. 309, such error would still be merely an error of law
or an error of judgment and certainly not a grave abuse of discretion or an act
without or in excess of jurisdiction correctible by certiorari.

WHEREFORE, the Petition for Certiorari must be, as
it is hereby, DISMISSED for lack of merit and the Decision dated 20 September
1988 of the Office of the President AFFIRMED in toto. Costs against petitioner.

SO ORDERED.

Fernan, C.J., (Chairman), Gutierrez, Jr., Bidin, and Cortes, JJ., concur.

^[1]
Decision dated 7 May 1982, MNR Case No. 4809, Rollo, p. 60.

^[2]
In this connection, it is helpful to note that under Section 43 of the
“Rules and Regulations Implementing Presidential Decree No. 463, otherwise
known as the ‘Mineral Resources Development Decree of 1974’ as amended”:

“x x x a
mining lease may also be cancelled under any of the following causes:

(a) for failure of the lessee to perform the work obligations
required by Section 24 of the decree;

x x x                             x
x x                             x x
x”

(Underscoring
supplied) (Text of the Consolidated Mines Administrative Order Re: Rules and Regulations, in 71 Official
Gazette 3509 (approved on 17 May 1975)

Moreover, under Section 44 of the same
Rules and Regulations, a mining lease contract may be cancelled for any of the
causes specified in Section 43 only after notice and hearing.

^[3]
27 SCRA 7 (1969).

^[4]
27 SCRA at 19.

^[5]
The Rules and Regulations implementing Presidential Decree No. 463 as amended
provide, in Section 63 thereof, that:

“Areas
covered by valid and subsisting mining claims and existing mining leases
shall not be the subject of a quarry permit or license.”
(Under­scoring supplied)