Law School Noob: [CASE DIGEST] COMPANIA GENERAL DE TABACOS DE FILIPINAS v. THE BOARD OF PUBLIC UTILITY COMMISSIONERS (G.R. No. L-11216)

Tuesday, February 2, 2021

[CASE DIGEST] COMPANIA GENERAL DE TABACOS DE FILIPINAS v. THE BOARD OF PUBLIC UTILITY COMMISSIONERS (G.R. No. L-11216)

March 6, 1916

Ponente: Moreland, J.

FACTS

In 1965, Compania General de Tabacos de Filipinas, a foreign corporation organized under the laws of Spain and engaged in business in the Philippines as a common carrier of passengers and merchandise by water, received a show-cause order from the Board of Public Utility Commissioners. The order asked Compania General why it should not be required to present detailed annual reports on its operations and finances.

The Board was invoking Sec. 16(e) of Act No. 2307, which states that the Board shall have the power to require every public utility to submit an annual report of finances and operations, "in such form and containing such matters as the Board may from time to time by order prescribe."

In its return to the show-cause order, Compania General refused to provide annual reports of its finances and operations, saying that the power being invoked by the Board constituted an invalid delegation of authority by Congress.

The Board eventually decided to require Compania General to submit a report of its finances and operations. Hence, the instant petition.

RULING

Whether the power being invoked by the Board was an invalid delegation of power by Congress? -- YES.

Sec. 16(e) of Act No. 2307 leaves a lot of discretion to the Board in the manner by which it shall administer such power. The law is effectively an expression of the will of the Board and not an expression of the will of Congress or the will of the State with respect to the public utilities to which it refers.

Indeed, the subject provision does not lay down the general rules of action under which the commission shall proceed, nor does it itself prescribe in detail what those reports shall contain.

The Legislature seems simply to have authorized the Board of Public Utility Commissioners to require what information the Board wants. It would seem that the Legislature, by the provision in question, delegated to the Board of Public Utility Commissioners all of its powers over a given subject-matter in a manner almost absolute, and without laying down a rule or even making a suggestion by which that power is to be directed, guided or applied.

Practically everything is left to the judgment and discretion of the Board of Public Utility Commissioners, which is unrestrained as to when it shall act, why it shall act, how it shall act, to what extent it shall act, or what it shall act upon.

As such, the Board's order against Compania General is set aside. Case is remanded to the Board for dismissal.

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