RAMON P. BINAMIRA, PETITIONER, VS. PETER D. GARRUCHO, JR., RESPONDENT.

In this petition for quo warranto,
Ramon P. Binamira seeks reinstatement to the office
of General Manager of the Philippine Tourism Authority from which he claims to
have been removed without just cause in violation of his security of tenure.

The petitioner bases his claim on the following communication
addressed to him by the Minister of Tourism on April 7, 1986:

MEMORANDUM TO:  MR. RAMON P.
BINAMIRA

You are hereby designated General Manager of the Philippine Tourism
Authority, effective immediately.

By virtue hereof, you may qualify and enter upon the performance of
the duties of the office.

(Sgd.)
JOSE ANTONIO GONZALES

Minister of Tourism
and

Chairman, P.T.A.
Board

Pursuant thereto, the petitioner assumed office on the same date.

On April 10, 1986,
Minister Gonzales sought approval from President Aquino
of the composition of the Board of Directors of the PTA, which included Binamira as Vice-Chairman in his capacity as General
Manager.  This approval was given by the
President on the same date. ^[1]

Binamira claims that since assuming
office, he had discharged the duties of PTA General Manager and Vice-Chairman
of its Board of Directors and had been acknowledged as such by various
government offices, including the Office of the President.

He complains, though, that on January 2, 1990, his resignation was demanded by
respondent Garrucho as the new Secretary of
Tourism.  Binamira’s
demurrer led to an unpleasant exchange that led to his filing of a complaint against the Secretary with
the Commission on Human Rights.  But that
is another matter that does not concern us here.

What does is that on January
4, 1990, President Aquino sent respondent
Garrucho the following memorandum,^[2]
copy furnished Binamira:

4 January 1990

MEMORANDUM

TO:  Hon. Peter D. Garrucho,
Jr.

Secretary of Tourism

It appearing from the records you have submitted to this Office
that the present General Manager of the Philippine Tourism Authority was
designated not by the President, as required by P.D. No. 564, as amended, but
only by the Secretary of Tourism, such designation is invalid.  Accordingly, you are hereby designated
concurrently as General Manager, effective immediately, until I can appoint a person to serve in the said office
in a permanent capacity.

Please be guided accordingly.

(Sgd.) CORAZON C. AQUINO

cc: 
Mr. Ramon P. Binamira

Philippine Tourism
Authority

Manila

Garrucho having taken over as General
Manager of the PTA in accordance with this memorandum, the petitioner filed
this action against him to question his title. 
Subsequently, while his original petition was pending, Binamira filed a supplemental petition alleging that on April 6, 1990, the President of
the Philippines
appointed Jose A. Capistrano as General Manager of the Philippine Tourism
Authority.  Capistrano was impleaded as additional respondent.

The issue presented in
this case is starkly simple.

Section 23-A of P.D. 564, which created the Philippine Tourism
Authority, provides as follows:

SECTION 23-A.  General
Manager – Appointment and Tenure. – The General Manager shall be
appointed by the President of the Philippines
and shall serve for a term of six (6)
years unless sooner removed for cause; Provided, That upon the
expiration of his term, he shall serve as such until his successor shall have
been appointed and qualified.  (As
amended by P.D. 1400)

It is not disputed that the petitioner was not appointed
by the President of the Philippines
but only designated by the Minister of Tourism.  There is a clear distinction between
appointment and designation that the petitioner has failed to consider.

Appointment may be defined as the selection, by the authority
vested with the power, of an individual who is to exercise the functions of a given office.^[3]
When completed, usually with its confirmation, the appointment results in
security of tenure for the person chosen unless he is replaceable at pleasure
because of the nature of his office. 
Designation, on the other hand, connotes merely the imposition by law of
additional duties on an incumbent official,^[4]
as where, in the case before us, the Secretary of Tourism is designated
Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Philippine Tourism Authority, or
where, under the Constitution, three Justices of the Supreme Court are designated by the Chief Justice to
sit in the Electoral Tribunal of the Senate or the House of Representatives. ^[5]
It is said that appointment is essentially executive while designation is
legislative in nature.

Designation may also be loosely defined as an appointment because it likewise involves the naming of a
particular person to a specified
public office.  That is the common
understanding of the term.  However,
where the person is merely designated and not appointed, the implication is
that he shall hold the office only in a temporary capacity and may be replaced
at will by the appointing authority.  In
this sense, the designation is considered only an acting or temporary
appointment, which does not confer security of tenure on the person named.

Even if so understood, that is, as an appointment, the
designation of the petitioner cannot sustain his claim that he has been
illegally removed.  The reason is that
the decree clearly provides that the appointment of the General Manager of the
Philippine Tourism Authority shall be made by the President of the Philippines,
not by any other officer.  Appointment
involves the exercise of discretion, which because of its nature cannot be
delegated.  Legally speaking, it was not
possible for Minister Gonzales to assume the exercise of that discretion as an alter ego of the President. 
The appointment (or designation) of the petitioner was not a merely
mechanical or ministerial act that could be validly performed by a subordinate
even if he happened as in this case to be a
member of the Cabinet.

An officer to whom a discretion is entrusted cannot delegate it to
another, the presumption being that he was chosen because he was deemed fit and
competent to exercise that judgment and discretion, and unless the power to
substitute another in his place has been given to him, he cannot delegate his
duties to another.^[6]

In those cases in which the proper
execution of the office requires, on the part of the officer, the
exercise of judgment or discretion, the presumption is that he was chosen because he was deemed fit and competent to exercise that judgment and discretion, and, unless power to substitute another in his place has
been given to him, he cannot delegate
his duties to another. ^[7]

Indeed, even on the
assumption that the power conferred on the President could be validly exercised
by the Secretary, we still cannot accept that the act of the
latter, as an extension or “projection” of the personality of the
President, made irreversible the petitioner’s title to the position in
question.  The petitioner’s conclusion
that Minister Gonzales’s act was in effect the act of President Aquino is based
only on half the doctrine he vigorously invokes.  Justice Laurel stated that doctrine clearly
in the landmark case of Villena v. Secretary of the Interior,^[8] where he described the relationship of the President
of the Philippines
and the members of the Cabinet as follows:

x x x all
executive and administrative organizations are adjuncts of the Executive
Department, the heads of the various executive departments are assistants and
agents of the Chief Executive, and, except in cases where the Chief Executive
is required by the Constitution or the
law to act in person or the
exigencies of the situation demand that he act personally, the multifarious
executive and administrative functions of
the Chief Executive are performed by and through the executive departments, and
the acts of the secretaries of such departments, 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.

The doctrine presumes the acts of the Department Head to be the
acts of the President of the Philippines when “performed and promulgated in the regular course of
business,” which was true of the designation made by Minister Gonzales in
favor of the petitioner.  But it also
adds that such acts shall be considered valid only if not “disapproved or
reprobated by the Chief Executive,” as also happened in the case at bar.

The argument that the designation made by Minister Gonzales was
approved by President Aquino through her approval of
the composition of the Board of Directors of the PTA is not persuasive.  It must be remembered that Binamira was included therein as Vice-Chairman only because
of his designation as PTA General Manager by Minister Gonzales.  Such designation being merely provisional, it
could be recalled at will, as in
fact it was recalled by the President herself, through the memorandum she
addressed to Secretary Garrucho on January 4, 1990.

With these rulings, the petitioner’s claim of security of tenure
must perforce fall to the ground.  His
designation being an unlawful encroachment on a presidential prerogative, he
did not acquire valid title thereunder to the
position in question.  Even if it be assumed that it could be and was
authorized, the designation signified merely a temporary or acting appointment
that could be legally withdrawn at pleasure, as in fact it was (albeit for a different reason).  In either case, the petitioner’s claim of
security of tenure must be rejected.

The Court sympathizes with the petitioner, who apparently
believed in good faith that he was being extended a permanent appointment by
the Minister of Tourism.  After all,
Minister Gonzales had the ostensible authority to do so at the time the
designation was made.  This belief seemed
strengthened when President Aquino later approved the
composition of the PTA Board of Directors where the petitioner was designated
Vice-Chairman because of his position as General Manager of the PTA.  However, such circumstances fall short of the
categorical appointment required to be made by the President herself, and not
the Minister of Tourism, under Sec. 23 of P.D No. 564. We must rule therefore
that the petitioner never acquired valid title to the disputed position and so
has no right to be reinstated as General Manager of the Philippine Tourism
Authority.

WHEREFORE, the petition is DISMISSED, with costs against
the petitioner.  It is so ordered.

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

Fernan, C.J., No part due to close relationship with one of the parties.

^[1]
Annex C, Rollo, p. 28.

^[2]
Annex I, Ibid., p. 62.

^[3]
Cruz, Phil. Political Law, 1989 ed., p. 178; Gonzales, Neptali
A., Administrative Law, Law on Public Officers and Election Law, 1961 ed., p.
146.

^[4]
Ibid., Gonzales, p. 153.

^[5]
Sec. 14, P.D. 564, Sec. 17, Article VI, 1987 Constitution.

^[6]
State v. Patterson, 34 N. 567; 46 Corpus Juris,
1033; Mechem, Law of Public Officers, p. 567.

^[7]
State v. Patterson, 34 N. 163.

^[8]
67 Phil. 451.