SARMIENTO v. MISON (G.R. No. 79974)
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.
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.
l 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.
l 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:
l 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;
l all other officers of the Government
whose appointments are not otherwise provided for by law;
l those whom the President may be
authorized by law to appoint; and
l 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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