Law School Noob: [CASE DIGEST] SARMIENTO v. MISON (G.R. No. 79974)

Monday, November 19, 2018

[CASE DIGEST] SARMIENTO v. MISON (G.R. No. 79974)

December 17, 1987 | 156 SCRA 549

Ulpiano P. Sarmiento III and Juanito G. Arcilla, petitioners

Salvador Mison, in his capacity as Commissioner of the Bureau of Customs, and Guillermo Carague, in his capacity as Secretary of the Department of Budget, respondents

Commission on Appointments, intervenor

FACTS:

In 1987, then President Corazon Aquino appointed Salvador Mison as Commissioner of the Bureau of Customs without submitting his nomination to the Commission on Appointments. Herein petitioners, both of whom happened to be lawyers and professors of constitutional law, filed the instant petition for prohibition on the ground that the aforementioned appointment violated Section 16, Art. VII of the1987 Constitution. Petitioners argued that the appointment of a bureau head should be subject to the approval of the Commission on Appointments.

ISSUE:

Whether or not the appointment of bureau heads should be subject to the approval of the Commission on Appointments.

HELD:

No, construing Section 16, Art. VII of the 1987 Constitution would show that the President is well within her authority to appoint bureau heads without submitting such nominations before the Commission on Appointments. In its ruling, the SC traced the history of the confirmatory powers of the Commission on Appointments (which is part of the legislative department) vis-a-vis the appointment powers of the President.

 Under Section 10, Art. VII of the 1935 Constitution, almost all presidential appointments required the consent or confirmation of the Commission on Appointments. As a result, the Commission became very powerful, eventually transforming into a venue for horse-trading and similar malpractices.

 On the other hand, consistent with the authoritarian pattern in which it was molded and remolded by successive amendments, the 1973 Constitution placed the absolute power of appointment in the President with hardly any check on the part of the legislature.

Under the current constitution, the Court held that the framers intended to strike a "middle ground" in order to reconcile the extreme set-ups in both the 1935 and 1973 Constitutions. As such, while the President may make appointments to positions that require confirmation by the Commission on Appointments, the 1987 Constitution also grants her the power to make appointments on her own without the need for confirmation by the legislature.

Section 16, Art. VII of the 1987 Constitution enumerates four groups of public officers:

 heads of the executive departments, ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, officers of the armed forces from the rank of colonel or naval captain, and other officers whose appointments are vested in him in this constitution;

 all other officers of the Government whose appointments are not otherwise provided for by law;

 those whom the President may be authorized by law to appoint; and

 officers lower in rank whose appointments the Congress may by law vest in the President alone.

According to the Court, only the presidential appointments of the first group of public officers are subject to the confirmation by the Commission on Appointments. A review of the deliberations would show that bureau heads have been deleted from the first group, precisely because they are lower in rank as compared to other officers enumerated in the same group.

Therefore, Mison's appointment as Commissioner of the Bureau of Customs need not be confirmed by the Commission on Appointments.

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