University of the Philippines v. Court of Appeals, et. al.

G.R. No. 97827 February 9, 1993

UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES, petitioner,

vs.

COURT OF APPEALS, HONORABLE RODOLFO A. ORTIZ, Presiding Judge, Regional Trial Court (Branch 89),
National Capital Region, Quezon City, Metro Manila, MANUEL ELIZALDE, BALAYEM, MAHAYAG, DUL and
LOBO, respondents.

Facts:

The facts which have drawn the University of the Philippines (UP) from the quiet groves of academia to
the judicial arena are as follows:

On August 15-17, 1986, the "International Conference on the Tasaday Controversy and Other Urgent
Anthropological Issues" was held at the Philippine Social Science Center in Diliman, Quezon City.

Jerome Bailen, Professor of the University of the Philippines, Department of Anthropology, was the
designated conference chairman. He presented therein the "Tasaday Folio," a collection of studies on
Tasadays done by leading anthropologists who disputed the authenticity of the Tasaday find and
suggested that the "discovery" in 1971 by a team led by former Presidential Assistant on National
Minorities (PANAMIN) Minister Manuel Elizalde, Jr. was nothing more than a fabrication made possible
by inducing Manobo and T'boli tribesmen to pose as primitive, G-stringed, leaf-clad cave dwellers.

In the same conference, UP history professor, Zeus Salazar, traced in a publication the actual genealogy
of the Tasadays to T'boli and Manobo ethnic groups. He likewise presented ABC's "20/20" videotaped
television documentary showing interviews with natives claiming to have been asked by Elizalde to pose
as Tasadays.

In July 1988, UP allegedly sent Salazar and Bailen to Zagreb, Yugoslavia to attend the 12th International
Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences. There, Salazar and Bailen reiterated their claim
that the Tasaday find was a hoax. Their allegations were widely publicized in several dailies.
With these acts and utterances of Bailen and Salazar as well as newspaper reports and commentaries on
the matter as bases, on October 27, 1988, Elizalde and Tasaday representatives Balayem, Mahayag, Dul
and Lobo, filed a complaint for damages and declaratory relief against Salazar and Bailen before the
Quezon City Regional Trial Court.

On November 24, 1988, UP filed a motion to intervene with supporting memorandum asserting that,
having authorized the activities of Bailen and Salazar, it had a duty to protect them as faculty members
for acts and utterances made in the exercise of academic freedom. Moreover, it claimed that it was itself
entitled to the right of institutional academic freedom.

At the hearing on the motion to intervene on November 28, 1988, the lower court required UP to submit
its answer in intervention "to enable the Court to better appreciate the issue of whether or not the
motion for leave to intervene . . . should be granted."

On December 5, 1988, Salazar and Bailen filed a motion to dismiss the complaint on the grounds that:
the complaint failed to state a cause of action; the cause of action, if any, had already prescribed; they
are protected by the guarantees of free speech and academic freedom; the court had no jurisdiction to
grant declaratory relief in a civil action and no justiciable controversy exists.

Said motion to dismiss was denied by the lower court on January 9, 1989. The same court order held
that there was no necessity to appoint a guardian ad litem for the Tasaday plaintiffs, granted UP's motion
for leave to intervene and admitted UP's answer in intervention dated December 8, 1988.

In the meantime, on February 15, 1989, UP filed a motion to dismiss the complaint but it was stricken off
the record in the Order of February 16, 1989. A subsequent motion for reconsideration was likewise
denied.

On March 12, 1991, the Court of Appeals rendered a decision dismissing the petition and lifting the
temporary restraining order it had earlier issued. It held that the motion to dismiss may not be granted
on the ground of insufficiency of cause of action predicated on matters not raised in the complaint. It
ruled that the lower court had jurisdiction over the complaint for damages as the action was aimed at
recovering relief arising from alleged wrongful acts of the defendants.

Issues:
1)Whether the acts of the defendants are within the protective mantle of academic freedom guaranteed
by the Constitution for which they cannot be made liable for damages.

2)Whether the Tasaday ethnic group is a hoax as the defendants had claimed in a public discussion.

3)Whether Bailen and Salazar infringed on plaintiffs' civil and human rights when they maliciously and
falsely spoke and intrigued to present plaintiffs Tasaday as fakers and impostors collaborating in a hoax
or fraud upon the public with and under the supervision of plaintiff Elizalde.

Held:

Unique Set-up on procedural problem

We are confronted here with a situation wherein an intervenor who made common cause with the
defendants moved to dismiss the complaint after filing an answer in intervention and after the original
defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint had been denied. What is more striking is the fact that the
same intervenor sought the dismissal of a complaint where its interest is not apparent. Moreover, the
intervenor founded its motion to dismiss on an extraneous matter which is not even obliquely alluded to
in the complaint.

With this unique set-up, we cannot subscribe to private respondents' contention that the resolution of
this petition is foreclosed by the principle of res judicata.

While it is true that the instant petition and that in G.R. No. 87248 revolve around the issue of whether
or not the lower court correctly denied the motion to dismiss the complaint in Civil Case No. Q-88-1028,
there is an aspect of the case which takes it out of the ambit of the principle of res judicata.

The said principle applies when there is, among others, identity of parties and subject matter in two
cases. Concededly, the fact that UP is the petitioner herein while Salazar and Bailen were the petitioners
in G.R. No. 87248 is not a hindrance to the application of res judicata because the situation is akin to the
adding of other parties to a case which had been finally resolved in a previous one. UP was not an
original party-defendant in Civil Case No. Q-88-1028, but it intervened and made common cause with
Bailen and Salazar in alleging that the case should be dismissed in order to hold inviolate academic
freedom, both individual and institutional. There is, therefore, a resultant substantial identity of parties,
as both UP, on the one hand, and Bailen and Salazar, on the other hand, represent the same interests in
the two petitions.

Following the provisions of Section 5, Rule 16 of the Rules of Court which states that any of the grounds
for dismissal provided for in Section I of the same Rule "except improper venue, may be pleaded as an
affirmative defense," UP filed a motion for a preliminary hearing on the special defenses, specifically lack
of cause of action and lack of jurisdiction over the nature of the action which it pleaded in its answer in
intervention. As Section 5 provides, the result would be the same — "as if a motion to dismiss had been
filed." It was the lower court's Order of May 15, 1989 ascribing no merit to UP's special defenses, which
was first presented to this Court for nullification on the ground of grave abuse of discretion, through the
petition for certiorari and prohibition docketed as G.R. No. 88664. The petition having been referred to
the Court of Appeals, the propriety of the same Order of May 15, 1989 was resolved against UP by said
appellate court on March 12, 1991.

Thus, to hold that res judicata applies to herein facts would be stretching to its limits the requirement of
identity of subject matter. Moreover, the fact that the resolution of Civil Case No. Q-88-1028 would
inevitably create an impact, not only on the academic community but also on the cultural minorities, we
need to scrutinize more closely the validity of the Order denying the motion to dismiss. It bears stressing
that res judicata may not be held applicable where justice may have to be sacrificed for the rigid rules of
technicality.

Academic freedom vs legal procedures

As its first ground for the allowance of the petition, UP contends that the allegations in the complaint
regarding the acts and statements of Bailen and Salazar are "protected by the mantle of the institutional
academic freedom of UP and are therefore privileged communications which cannot give rise to any
cause of action for damages under Article 26 of the Civil Code in favor of the herein private
respondents."

Actually, this ground is a restatement of the two affirmative defenses cited by the petitioner in its answer
in intervention. The lower court and the Court of Appeals correctly interpreted these defenses as falling
within the purview of Section 1(g), Rule 16 of the Rules of Court which considers as a ground for a
motion to dismiss failure of the complaint to state a cause of action.

On the other hand, a cause of action against Bailen and Salazar can be made out from the complaint:
their acts and utterances allegedly besmirched the reputation of the plaintiffs as they were shown
therein to have staged a fraud. The fact that the "hoax" was played up in the media allegedly aggravated
the situation.
This is not to say, however, that UP's intervention was improper. In fact, it eventually proned to be
necessary. Coming to the defense of its faculty members, it had to prove that the alleged damaging acts
and utterances of Bailen and Salazar were circumscribed by the constitutionally-protected principle of
academic freedom. However, it should have championed the cause of Bailen and Salazar in the course of
the trial of the case.

This procedural lapse, notwithstanding, no irremediable injury has been inflicted on the petitioner as,
during the trial, it may still invoke and prove the special defense of institutional academic freedom as
defined in Tangonan v. Paño and in Garcia v. The Faculty Admission Committee, Loyola School of
Theology.

Since Bailen and Salazar had defaulted and thereby forfeited their right to notice of subsequent
proceedings and to participate in the trial, petitioner's answer in intervention shall be the gauge in
determining whether issues have been joined. The fact that the defenses raised in said answer were
denied grounds for a motion to dismiss does not affect their value as affirmative defenses in an answer
to a complaint within the purview of Section 5(b), Rule 6 of the Rules of Court. The Order of May 15,
1989 merely "denied" petitioner's affirmative defenses as grounds for a motion to dismiss. Moreover,
under Section 4, Rule 18 of the Rules of Court, the failure of some defendants to answer cannot prevent
the court from trying the case noon the answer filed and thereafter rendering judgment on the basis of
the evidence presented.

Scientific breakthrough vs legal procedures

With respect to the prayer of the complaint for "judgment declaring plaintiff Tasadays to be a distinct
ethnic community within the territory defined under Presidential Proclamation No. 995" the lower court
is cautioned that the same is akin to a prayer for a judicial declaration of Philippine citizenship which may
not be granted in a petition for declaratory relief. 26 As private respondents themselves declare in their
comment, "(t)he complaint was filed mainly to vindicate plaintiffs' dignity and honor, and to protect
them from further vexation.

More explicitly in their comment in CA-G.R. SP No. 18074 before the Court of Appeals, they declared:

Plaintiffs below do not ask the court to rule on so-called scientific or anthropological issues, nor to
interpret scientific or anthropological findings pertaining to the Tasaday. They merely ask the court to
find from the evidence to be presented below — Whether or not Bailen and Salazar infringed on
plaintiffs' civil and human rights when they maliciously and falsely spoke and intrigued to present
plaintiffs Tasaday as fakers and impostors collaborating in a hoax or fraud upon the public with and
under the supervision of plaintiff Elizalde.

Indeed, it is not the province of the court to make pronouncements on matters beyond its ken and
expertise. To be sure, in resolving the complaint for damages, the court may find congruence in what is
justiciable and what falls within the field of the sciences. Still, it is best to keep in mind that its proper
role and function is the determination of legal issues.

WHEREFORE, the questioned Order of the lower court and the Decision of the Court of Appeals are
hereby AFFIRMED. The lower court is directed to PROCEED with the hearing of the case with DISPATCH
even as it observes caution in the resolution of Civil Case No. Q-88-1028. No-costs.

SO ORDERED.
UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES v CSC

FACTS

Dr. De Torres is an Associate Professor of the University of the Philippines, Los Banos (UPLB). He served
as the Philippines Government’s official representative to the Centre on Integrated Rural Development
for Asia and the Pacific (CIRDAP). CIRDAP requested UPLB for a 1 year extension of said leave of absence,
but it was denied. Petitioner was advised to report for duty at UPLB but petitioner said that he had no
choice but to continue working in CIRDAP. UPLB warned the petitioner that failure to report within 30
days would result to the latter’s being dropped from the rolls of the personnel. After 5 years, petitioner
wrote that he was reporting back for duty; however, he was informed that since his leave of absence was
unapproved, he was considered AWOL and thus had to re-apply.

ISSUE

Whether the petitioner’s automatic separation from the civil service due to prolonged absence without
leave was valid.

HELD

YES. Petitioner was never actually dropped from the service of UPLB. He remained in the roll of academic
personnel even after being warned of the possibility of being dropped from service: no notice of
dropping from the rolls was issued by UPLB; petitioner’s salary was increase several times during his
absence; his appointment was reclassified with promotion in rank. These acts are clearly inconsistent
with serparation or dropping from service. Despite Section 33, Rule XVI or the Revised Civil Service Rules
which authorizes automatic separation, such is not applicable to UP because of its academic freedom.
This freedom encompasses autonomy to choose who should teach and who should be retained in its
rolls of professors and other academic personnel.
Case Digest: MAMBA vs LARA

MAMBA, ET AL. VS. LARA, ET AL.

G.R. No. 165109, December 14,2009

Doctrine:

Decision to entertain a taxpayer’s suit is discretionary upon the Court. When the issue hinges on
the illegal disbursement of public funds, a liberal approach should be preferred as it is more in keeping
with truth and justice.

Facts:

The Sangguniang Panlalawigan of Cagayan passed a resolution authorizing Governor Edgar R.

Lara to engage the services of and appoint Preferred Ventures Corporation as financial advisor or
consultant for the issuance and flotation of bonds to fund the priority projects of the governor without
cost and commitment. It also ratified the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) entered into by Gov. Lara
and Preferred Ventures Corporation which provides that the provincial government of Cagayan shall pay
Preferred Ventures Corporation a one-time fee of 3% of the amount of bonds floated. In addition, the
Sangguniang Panlalawigan, authorized Gov. Lara to negotiate, sign and execute contracts or agreements
pertinent to the flotation of the bonds of the provincial government in an amount not to exceed P500
million for the construction and improvement of his priority projects, including the construction of the
New Cagayan Town Center, to be approved by the Sangguniang Panlalawigan. Subsequently, Lara issued
the Notice of Award to Asset Builders Corporation, giving to the latter the planning, design, construction
and site development of the town center project.

Petitioners Manuel N. Mamba, Raymund P. Guzman and Leonides N. Fausto filed a Petition for
Annulment of Contracts and Injunction with prayer for a Temporary Restraining Order/Writ of
Preliminary Injunction against the respondents (Gov. Lara et al.). The RTC, however, dismissed their
petition on the grounds that the (1) petitioners have no locus standi to file a case as they are not party to
the contract and (2) that the controversy is in the nature of a political question, thus, the court can’t take
cognizance of it.

Issues:
Whether or not the petitioners have locus standi to sue as taxpayers

Whether or not the controversy is in the nature of a political question

Ruling:

Yes, the petitioners have legal standing to sue as taxpayers.

No, the controversy is not a political question but a justiciable one.

Ratio Decidendi:

A taxpayer is allowed to sue where there is a claim that public funds are illegally disbursed, or that the
public money is being deflected to any improper purpose, or that there is wastage of public funds
through the enforcement of an invalid or unconstitutional law.

For a taxpayer’s suit to prosper, two requisites must be met: (1) public funds derived from taxation are
disbursed by a political subdivision or instrumentality and in doing so, a law is violated or some
irregularity is committed and (2) the petitioner is directly affected by the alleged act.

In the case at bar, although the construction of the town center would be primarily sourced from the
proceeds of the bonds, which respondents insist are not taxpayers’ money, a government support in the
amount of P187 million would still be spent for paying the interest of the bonds. The governor requested
the Sangguniang Panlalawigan to appropriate an amount of P25 million for the interest of the bond. So
clearly, the first requisite has been met.

As to the second requisite, the Supreme Court explained that the court, in recent cases, has relaxed the
stringent direct injury test bearing in mind that locus standi is a procedural technicality. By invoking
transcendental importance, paramount public interest, or far-reaching implications, ordinary citizens and
taxpayers were allowed to sue even if they failed to show direct injury. In cases where serious legal
issues were raised or where public expenditures of millions of pesos were involved, the court did not
hesitate to give standing to taxpayers.

It argued that, to protect the interest of the people and to prevent taxes from being squandered or
wasted under the guise of government projects, a liberal approach must be adopted in determining
locus standi in public suits.
A political question is a question of policy, which is to be decided by the people in their sovereign
capacity or by the legislative or the executive branch of the government to which full discretionary
authority has been delegated. A justiciable question on the other hand, calls upon the duty of the courts
to settle actual controversies wherein there are rights involved which are legally demandable and
enforceable. It is one which is proper to be examined or decided in courts of justice because its
determination would not involve an encroachment upon the legislative or executive power. In simple
terms, a political question refers to the wisdom, while a justiciable question refers to the legality of the
acts complained of.

In the case at bar, the issues raised in the petition do not refer to the wisdom but to the legality of the
acts complained of. Thus, the Supreme Court found the instant controversy within the ambit of judicial
review.

Also, in the present case, petitioners alleged grave abuse of discretion and clear violations of law by
public respondents. They put in issue the overpriced construction of the town center; the grossly
disadvantageous bond flotation; the irrevocable assignment of the provincial governments annual
regular income, including the IRA, to respondent RCBC to cover and secure the payment of the bonds
floated; and the lack of consultation and discussion with the community regarding the proposed project,
as well as a proper and legitimate bidding for the construction of the town center.

Thus, the high court said that, even if the issues were political in nature, it would still come within their
powers of review under the expanded jurisdiction conferred upon them by Section 1, Article VIII of the
Constitution, which includes the authority to determine whether grave abuse of discretion amounting to
excess or lack of jurisdiction has been committed by any branch or instrumentality of the government.

see full text here

By nejadzinin CASE DIGESTS, JurisdictionFebruary 8, 2016980 WordsLeave a comment

Case Digest: MULLER vs MULLER

IN RE: PETITION FOR SEPARATION OF PROPERTY; MULLER VS. MULLER

G.R. No. 149615, August 29,2006

Doctrine:

He who seeks equity must do equity, and he who comes into equity must come with clean hands.

Facts:

Petitioner Elena Buenaventura Muller and respondent Helmut Muller were married in Hamburg,
Germany on September 22, 1989. The couple resided in Germany at a house owned by respondent’s
parents but decided to move and reside permanently in the Philippines in 1992. By this time, respondent
had inherited the house in Germany from his parents which he sold and used the proceeds for the
purchase of a parcel of land in Antipolo, Rizal at the cost of P528,000.00 and the construction of a house
amounting to P2,300,000.00. The Antipolo property was registered in the name of petitioner, Elena
Buenaventura Muller.

Due to incompatibilities and respondents alleged womanizing, drinking, and maltreatment, the spouses
eventually separated.

On September 26, 1994, respondent filed a petition for separation of properties before the Regional Trial
Court of Quezon City. The court granted said petition. It also decreed the separation of properties
between them and ordered the equal partition of personal properties located within the country,
excluding those acquired by gratuitous title during the marriage. With regard to the Antipolo property,
the court held that it was acquired using paraphernal funds of the respondent. However, it ruled that
respondent cannot recover his funds because the property was purchased in violation of Section 7,
Article XII of the Constitution.

The respondent elevated the case to the Court of Appeals, which reversed the decision of the RTC. It
held that respondent merely prayed for reimbursement for the purchase of the Antipolo property, and
not acquisition or transfer of ownership to him. It ordered the respondent to REIMBURSE the petitioner
the amount of P528,000.00 for the acquisition of the land and the amount of P2,300,000.00 for the
construction of the house situated in Antipolo, Rizal.

Elena Muller then filed a petition for review on certiorari.

Issue:

Whether or not respondent Helmut Muller is entitled to reimbursement.

Ruling:

No, respondent Helmut Muller is not entitled to reimbursement.

Ratio Decidendi:

There is an express prohibition against foreigners owning land in the Philippines.

Art. XII, Sec. 7 of the 1987 Constitution provides: “Save in cases of hereditary succession, no private
lands shall be transferred or conveyed except to individuals, corporations, or associations qualified to
acquire or hold lands of the public domain.”

In the case at bar, the respondent willingly and knowingly bought the property despite a constitutional
prohibition. And to get away with that constitutional prohibition, he put the property under the name of
his Filipina wife. He tried to do indirectly what the fundamental law bars him to do directly.

With this, the Supreme Court ruled that respondent cannot seek reimbursement on the ground of
equity. It has been held that equity as a rule will follow the law and will not permit that to be done
indirectly which, because of public policy, cannot be done directly.

see full text here

By nejadzinin CASE DIGESTS, JurisdictionFebruary 8, 2016498 WordsLeave a comment

REPUBLIC vs ALBIOS

G.R. No. 198780 October 16, 2013

This is a case of MARRIAGE FOR CONVENIENCE.

FACTS

Respondent Libert Albios married Daniel Lee Fringer, an American citizen. She later on filed a petition to
nullify their marriage. She alleged that immediately after their marriage, they separated and never lived
as husband and wife because they never really had any intention of entering into a married state or
complying with any of their essential marital obligations. She said that she contracted Fringer to enter
into a marriage to enable her to acquire American citizenship; that in consideration thereof, she agreed
to pay him the sum of $2,000.00; that after the ceremony, the parties went their separate ways; that
Fringer returned to the United States and never again communicated with her; and that, in turn, she did
not pay him the $2,000.00 because he never processed her petition for citizenship. She described their
marriage as one made in jest and, therefore, null and void ab initio.

The RTC ruled in her favor.

In declaring the respondent’s marriage void, the RTC ruled that when a marriage was entered into for a
purpose other than the establishment of a conjugal and family life, such was a farce and should not be
recognized from its inception. In its resolution denying the OSG’s motion for reconsideration, the RTC
went on to explain that the marriage was declared void because the parties failed to freely give their
consent to the marriage as they had no intention to be legally bound by it and used it only as a means
for the respondent to acquire American citizenship.

Not in conformity, the OSG filed an appeal before the CA. The CA, however, upheld the RTC decision.

Agreeing with the RTC, the CA ruled that the essential requisite of consent was lacking. It held that the
parties clearly did not understand the nature and consequence of getting married. As in the Rubenstein
case, the CA found the marriage to be similar to a marriage in jest considering that the parties only
entered into the marriage for the acquisition of American citizenship in exchange of $2,000.00. They
never intended to enter into a marriage contract and never intended to live as husband and wife or build
a family.

The OSG then elevate the case to the Supreme Court

ISSUE: Whether or not the marriage of Albios and Fringer be declared null and void.

RULING:

No, respondent’s marriage is not void.

The court said:

“Based on the above, consent was not lacking between Albios and Fringer. In fact, there was real consent
because it was not vitiated nor rendered defective by any vice of consent. Their consent was also
conscious and intelligent as they understood the nature and the beneficial and inconvenient
consequences of their marriage, as nothing impaired their ability to do so. That their consent was freely
given is best evidenced by their conscious purpose of acquiring American citizenship through marriage.
Such plainly demonstrates that they willingly and deliberately contracted the marriage. There was a clear
intention to enter into a real and valid marriage so as to fully comply with the requirements of an
application for citizenship. There was a full and complete understanding of the legal tie that would be
created between them, since it was that precise legal tie which was necessary to accomplish their goal.”

The court also explained that “There is no law that declares a marriage void if it is entered into for
purposes other than what the Constitution or law declares, such as the acquisition of foreign citizenship.
Therefore, so long as all the essential and formal requisites prescribed by law are present, and it is not
void or voidable under the grounds provided by law, it shall be declared valid.”

“No less than our Constitution declares that marriage, as an in violable social institution, is the
foundation of the family and shall be protected by the State. It must, therefore, be safeguarded from the
whims and caprices of the contracting parties. This Court cannot leave the impression that marriage may
easily be entered into when it suits the needs of the parties, and just as easily nullified when no longer
needed.”