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SALVADOR C. FERNANDEZ v. PATRICIA A. STO.

TOMAS

One Liner: The term "public office" is frequently used to refer to the right, authority and duty, created
and conferred by law, by which, for a given period either fixed by law or enduring at the pleasure of the
creating power, an individual is invested with some portion of the sovereign functions of government, to
be exercised by that individual for the benefit of the public. OR

Public office is not public property.

FACTS:

Petitioner Fernandez was serving as Director of the Office of Personnel Inspection and Audit ("OPIA")
while petitioner de Lima was serving as Director of the Office of the Personnel Relations ("OPR"), both at
the Central Office of the Civil Service Commission in Quezon City, Metropolitan Manila. Reklamo sila sa
Resolution 94-3710 nga gi release sa Civil Service.

Reklamo sila kay na reassign sila. Dili sila gnahan. Mao na pasaka sila dayon ug kaso.

Examination of Resolution No. 94-3710 shows that thereby the Commission re-arranged some of the
administrative units (i.e., Offices) within the Commission and, among other things, merged three (3) of
them (OCSS, OPIA and OPR) to form a new grouping called the "Research and Development Office
(RDO)." (daghan pa nahitabo like gi rename ang uban offices; also re-allocated certain functions moving
some functions from one Office to another;)

This re-allocation or re-assignment of some functions carried with it the transfer of the budget
earmarked for such function to the office where the function was transferred. Moreover, the personnel,
records, fixtures and equipment that were devoted to the carrying out of such functions were moved to
the Offices to where the functions were transferred.

The objectives sought by the Commission in enacting Resolution No. 94-3710 were described in that
Resolution in broad terms as "effect[ing] changes in the organization to streamline [the Commission's]
operations and improve delivery of service.”

De Lima was assigned to Regional Office 3 because the regional director in that area was about to retire
generating a need to find a replacement. Petitioner Fernandez's assignment to the CSC Regional Office
No. 5 had, upon the other hand, been necessitated by the fact that the then incumbent Director in
Region V was under investigation and needed to be transferred immediately to the Central Office.

It thus appears to the Court that the Commission was moved by quite legitimate considerations of
administrative efficiency and convenience in promulgating and implementing its Resolution No. 94-3710
and in assigning petitioner Salvador C. Fernandez to the Regional Office of the Commission in Region V
in Legaspi City and petitioner Anicia M. de Lima to the Commission's Regional Office in Region III in San
Fernando, Pampanga

Petitioners argue that Resolution No. 94-3710 effected the "abolition" of public offices, something
which may be done only by the same legislative authority which had created those public offices in the
first place.
Petitioners in effect contend that they were unlawfully removed from their positions in the OPIA and
OPR by the implementation of Resolution No. 94--3710 and that they cannot, without their consent, be
moved out to the Regional Offices of the Commission.

ISSUES:
1 Whether or not the Civil Service Commission had legal authority to issue Resolution No. 94-3710 to the
extent it merged the OCSS [Office of Career Systems and Standards], the OPIA [Office of Personnel
Inspection and Audit] and the OPR [Office of Personnel Relations], to form the RDO [Research and
Development Office]? YUUPPP, the legislative authority had expressly authorized the Commission to
carry out "changes in the organization," "as the need [for such changes] arises.

2 Whether or not Resolution No. 94-3710 violated petitioners' constitutional right to security of tenure?
NOPEEE; admin code recognizes the management prerogative of the commission to reassign employees;
validity of reassignment depends on the nature or appointment; Where the appointment does not
indicate a specific station, an employee may be transferred or reassigned provided the transfer affects
no substantial change in title, rank and salary.

SC: DISMISSED PETITION;

FIRST ISSUE-
The Revised Administrative Code of 1987 (Executive Order No. 292 dated 25 July 1987) sets out, in Book
V, Title I, Subtitle A, Chapter 3, the internal structure and organization of the Commission;

Examination of the foregoing statutory provisions reveals that the OCSS, OPIA and OPR, and as well each
of the other Offices listed in Section 16 above, consist of aggrupations of Divisions, each of which
Divisions is in turn a grouping of Sections; Put a little differently, these offices relate to the internal
structure of the Commission.

Basta ang nahitabo kay ang three offices (OCSS, OPIA & OPR) kay na merge to form a new grouping
called the "Research and Development Office (RDO).

Assuming, for purposes of argument merely, that legislative authority was necessary to carry out the
kinds of changes contemplated in Resolution No. 94-3710 (and the Court is not saying that such
authority is necessary), such legislative authority was not only validly delegated to the Commission by
Section 17 earlier quoted, but also in the Declaration of Policies found in Book V, Title I, Subtitle A,
Section 1 of the 1987 Revised Administrative Code which required the Civil Service Commission to act as
may deem necessary (naa sa case ang provisions)

SECOND ISSUE-

Appointments to the staff of the Commission are not appointments to a specified public office but
rather appointments to particular positions or ranks. Thus, a person may be appointed to the position of
Director III or Director IV; or to the position of Attorney IV or Attorney V; or to the position of Records
Officer I or Records Officer II; and so forth. In the instant case, petitioners were each appointed to the
position of Director IV, without specification of any particular office or station. The same is true with
respect to the other persons holding the same position or rank of Director IV of the Commission.
Section 26(7), Book V, Title I, Subtitle A of the 1987 Revised Administrative Code recognizes
reassignment as a management prerogative vested in the Commission and, for that matter, in any
department or agency of government embraced in the civil service

It follows that the reassignment of petitioners Fernandez and de Lima from their previous positions in
OPIA and OPR, respectively, to the Research and Development Office (RDO) in the Central Office of the
Commission in Metropolitan Manila and their subsequent assignment from the RDO to the
Commission's Regional Offices in Regions V and III had been effected with express statutory authority
and did not constitute removals without lawful cause.; did not involve any violation of the constitutional
right of petitioners to security of tenure considering that they retained their positions of Director IV and
would continue to enjoy the same rank, status and salary at their new assigned stations which they had
enjoyed at the Head Office of the Commission in Metropolitan Manila. Petitioners had not, in other
words, acquired a vested right to serve at the Commission's Head Office.

The term "public office" is frequently used to refer to the right, authority and duty, created and
conferred by law, by which, for a given period either fixed by law or enduring at the pleasure of the
creating power, an individual is invested with some portion of the sovereign functions of government, to
be exercised by that individual for the benefit of the public.

To the contrary, the legislative authority had expressly authorized the Commission to carry out "changes
in the organization," "as the need [for such changes] arises."

We conclude that the reassignment of petitioners Fernandez and de Lima from their stations in the OPIA
and OPR, respectively, to the Research Development Office (RDO) and from the RDO to the
Commissions' Regional Offices in Regions V and III, respectively, without their consent, did not
constitute a violation of their constitutional right to security of tenure.

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