INOCENCIO PARI-AN, ALFONSO S. SAPIPI, CIRIACO G. GIBRALTAR, ABDON CANTILLER, JULIAN V. BANARIA, ABELARDO A. INOCENCIO, CIRIACO DACULA, JR. RODOLFO. CACHUELA, JR. PATRICIO T GARC…

Pari-an versus Civil Service Commission

The Case

This is a petition for certiorari brought by fourteen Municipal Agricultural Food Officers of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food in Region 6, assigned to different municipalities of Iloilo province, against the Civil Service Commission and the officials of the Department of Agriculture. The petitioners were displaced from the Personnel Placement List and demoted to the lower position of Agricultural Productivity Technicians after the Department's Reorganization Appeals Board ruled against them in a protest case in which they had never been impleaded. The case matters because it applies the Court's earlier omnibus ruling annulling the reorganizations of several departments, and it restates the constitutional rule that a civil service employee holding a permanent appointment cannot be removed, suspended, or demoted except for cause provided by law.

Procedural History

The petitioners' names were dropped from the Personnel Placement List by the Reorganization Appeals Board of the Department of Agriculture in its resolution of April 6, 1989, which upheld instead the appointments of the Blanca, Borra, and Tobias groups as Municipal Agricultural Officers. The petitioners appealed to the Civil Service Commission, which dismissed their appeal on August 17, 1990, sustaining the Appeals Board on the ground that it had acted pursuant to a bona fide reorganization. The Commission denied their motion for reconsideration on December 3, 1990. The petitioners then filed this petition for certiorari in the Supreme Court, with a prayer for a temporary restraining order to halt their demotion. The Court restrained the Commission and the Department from implementing the questioned resolutions and directed the issuance of a preliminary writ of mandatory injunction commanding the Regional Director to reinstate the petitioners to the positions they respectively occupied at the time of the filing of the action.

Facts

Before the change of administration following the people power revolution in February 1986, the fourteen petitioners occupied positions as Municipal Agricultural Food Officers in the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Region 6, assigned to different municipalities of Iloilo province. The private respondents held positions other than Municipal Agricultural Food Officers in various bureaus of the Ministry, such as the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, the Bureau of Soils and Water Management, the Bureau of Plant Industry, and the Bureau of Animal Industry. On January 30, 1987, President Corazon Aquino issued Executive Order No. 116 reorganizing the Ministry and renaming it the Department of Agriculture.

Pursuant to that order, Secretary of Agriculture Carlos Dominguez issued Memorandum Circular No. 4 dated October 9, 1987, setting guidelines for the reorganization. Among other things, it provided that the positions of provincial agricultural and food officers, municipal agricultural and food officers, and Division Chiefs shall be filled through a competitive examination of qualified candidates to be given by Sycip, Gorres, Velayo under the authority of the Civil Service Commission, and that preference in appointments must be given to the qualified incumbent of the position to be filled. Examinations were conducted in March 1988, evaluations were made by the Placement Committee, and a Personnel Placement List was prepared and posted on the bulletin board of the Regional Office on August 23, 1988, listing forty-four employees as Municipal Agricultural Officers. On the same date, the Regional Director issued a special order deploying them to their respective places of assignment, and the petitioners were reassigned to the same stations they held as Municipal Agricultural Food Officers.

Two groups of former Municipal Agricultural Food Officers who did not find their names in the list appealed to the Reorganization Appeals Board, protesting the appointment of their replacements. The Regional Director required the parties to submit their civil service forms, certificates of training, performance appraisals, and other relevant documents. The petitioners, not having been named respondents in that protest, were never asked to submit additional documents. Yet when the Appeals Board rendered its decision on April 6, 1989, their names had been dislodged from the list, and the appointments of the Blanca, Borra, and Tobias groups were upheld. The petitioners were in effect demoted to Agricultural Productivity Technicians, positions much lower in grade and salary scale than their positions as Municipal Agricultural Officers.

Issues

• Whether or not the Civil Service Commission erred in affirming the decision of the Department's Reorganization Appeals Board in the protest case against Alma Blanca and the other private respondents.
• Whether or not the unprotested appointments of the petitioners as Municipal Agricultural Officers had already become final before the Appeals Board decision was promulgated.
• Whether or not the petitioners were removed from their positions as Municipal Agricultural Officers without due process of law.

Applicable Provisions

Section 2, paragraph 3, Article Nine B of the 1987 Constitution provides:

No officer or employee of the civil service shall be removed or suspended except for cause provided by law.

This is the security of tenure guarantee on which the petitioners' reinstatement rests, because the records show no cause for their demotion.

Executive Order No. 17, dated May 28, 1986, enumerates the grounds for the separation or replacement of personnel:

1. Existence of a case for summary dismissal pursuant to Section 40 of the Civil Service Law; 2. Existence of a probable cause for violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act as determined by the Ministry Head concerned; 3. Gross incompetence or inefficiency in the discharge of functions; 4. Misuse of public office for partisan political purposes; 5. Any other analogous ground showing that the incumbent is unfit to remain in the service or his separation or replacement is in the interest of the service.

These are the only grounds that could justify the petitioners' replacement, and the Court found none of them present in the records.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the petition is well taken. It recalled that the validity of the reorganization of the Department of Agriculture had already been resolved on June 4, 1990, in the consolidated reorganization cases, where the Court set aside those reorganizations, including that of the Department of Agriculture effected through examinations given by the department's steering committee with Sycip, Gorres, Velayo, on the ground that they did not comply with the guidelines in Executive Order No. 17, the 1987 Constitution, and Republic Act No. 6656. All three were already in place when the Department was reorganized. The Court stressed that removal from office as a result of reorganization must pass the test of good faith, and that in the reorganization cases the bona fide rule had been ignored or disobeyed.

On the second and third issues, the Court held that as civil service employees with permanent appointments, the petitioners could not be removed, suspended, or demoted except for cause provided by law. Since the records do not show that they had been charged and found guilty of any of the infractions listed in Executive Order No. 17, their replacement and demotion in rank were unjustified and illegal. The Court observed that the petitioners' positions as Municipal Agricultural Food Officers were not abolished in the reorganization process but were only rebaptized as Municipal Agricultural Officers; their functions, duties, and stations remained the same, and even the number of positions was not altered. The so-called reorganization was therefore only an excuse for reshuffling and replacing personnel in violation of their right to security of tenure.

Doctrine

A civil service employee with a permanent appointment cannot be removed, suspended, or demoted except for cause provided by law, as guaranteed by Section 2, paragraph 3, Article Nine B of the 1987 Constitution. A reorganization that merely renames positions without abolishing them, leaving functions, duties, stations, and the number of positions unchanged, is not a bona fide reorganization but a reshuffling of personnel, and any replacement or demotion effected through it is illegal. Removal from office as a result of reorganization must pass the test of good faith and must comply with Executive Order No. 17, the 1987 Constitution, and Republic Act No. 6656.

Disposition

The petition for certiorari was granted; the resolutions of the Reorganization Appeals Board and the Civil Service Commission were annulled and set aside, and the Secretary of Agriculture and the Regional Director were directed to reinstate the petitioners, as well as the Tobias and Senina groups, to their positions as Municipal Agricultural and Food Officers, now renamed Municipal Agricultural Officers, with the other private respondents returned to their former positions or their equivalents without reduction in salary.

Remember This

Memorize the line that a reorganization which merely rebaptizes positions while leaving functions, duties, stations, and their number untouched is no reorganization at all but a reshuffling that violates security of tenure. Examiners use this case to test the constitutional guarantee against removal or demotion without cause and the good faith requirement for government reorganization.