Lacson-Magallanes
Co. Inc. v Paño
GR No.
L-27811 November 17, 1967
Section 17. The
President shall have control of all the executive departments, bureaus, and
offices. He shall ensure that the laws be faithfully executed.cralaw
SANCHEZ, J:
FACTS:
· 1932 - Jose
Magallanes was a permittee and actual occupant of a 1,103-hectare pasture land
situated inTamlangon, Municipality of Bansalan, Province of Davao.
· January 9, 1953
-Magallanes ceded his rights and interests to a portion (392,7569 hectares) of
the abovepublic land to plaintiff.
· April 13, 1954 -
the portion Magallanes ceded to plaintiff was officially released from the
forest zone as pastureland and declared agricultural land.
· January 26, 1955 -
Jose Paño and nineteen other claimantsapplied for the purchase of ninety (90)
hectares of thereleased area.
· March 29, 1955
-Plaintiff Corporation in turn filed its own sales application covering the
entire released area.This was protested by Jose Paño and his nineteen
companions upon the averment that they are actual occupantsof the part thereof
covered by their own sales application.
· July 31, 1956 - The
Director of Lands, following an investigation of the conflict, rendered a
decision on giving duecourse to the application of plaintiff corporation, and
dismissing the claim of Jose Paño and his companions. Amove to reconsider
failed.
· July 5, 1957 - the
Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources — on appeal by Jose Paño for
himself andhis companions — held that the appeal was without merit and
dismissed the same.
· June 25, 1958 -Executive
Secretary Juan Pajo, "[b]y authority of the President" decided the
controversy, modified the decision of the Director of Lands as affirmed by the
Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources, and
(1) declared that "it would be for the public interest that
appellants, who are mostly landless farmers who depend on the land for their
existence, be allocated that portion on which they have made
improvements;" and
(2)directed that the controverted land (northern portion of Block I, LC
Map 1749, Project No. 27, of Bansalan, Davao,with Latian River as the dividing
line) "should be subdivided into lots of convenient sizes and allocated to
actualoccupants, without prejudice to the corporation's right to reimbursement
for the cost of surveying this portion.”
Plaintiff
corporation took the foregoing decision to the Court of First Instance praying
that judgment be rendered declaring:
(1) that the
decision of the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources has full force
and effect; and
(2) that the
decision of the Executive Secretary is contrary to law and of no legal force
and effect.
ISSUE:
Whether or not the
Executive Secretary, acting by authority of the President, reverse a decision
of the
Director of Lands
that had been affirmed by the Executive Secretary of Agriculture and Natural
Resources —yielded an affirmative answer from the lower court
HELD:
Judgment under
review is hereby affirmed. Executive Secretary’s act cannot be assailed and
therefore has full force and effect.
RATIO:
(1) The
President's duty to execute the law is of constitutional origin.So, too, is his
control of all executive departments.Thus it is, that department heads are men
of his confidence. His is the power to appoint them; his, too, is the privilege
to dismiss them at pleasure. Naturally, he controls and directs their acts.
Implicit then is his authority to go over, confirm, modify or reverse the
action taken by his department secretaries.
In this context,
it may not be said that the President cannot rule on the correctness of a
decision of a department secretary.
(2)
Parenthetically, it may be stated that the right to appeal to the President
reposes upon the President's power of control over the executive departments.
|
Control simply
means "the power of an officer to alter or modify or nullify or set
aside what a subordinate officer had done in the performance of his duties
and to substitute thejudgment of the former for that of the latter."
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(3) The rule which
has thus gained recognition is that "under our constitutional setup the
Executive Secretary who acts for and in behalf and by authority of the President
has an undisputed jurisdiction to affirm, modify, or even reverse any
order" that the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources, including
the Director of Lands, may issue.
(4) The action
taken is "disapproved or reprobated by the Chief Executive," that
remains the act of the Chief Executive, and cannot be successfully assailed.No
such disapproval or reprobation is even intimated in the record of this case.
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