Philippine Supreme Court Resolutions > Year 2007 > September 2007 Resolutions > [G.R. No. 144637 : September 05, 2007] GOVERNOR MANUEL M. LAPID V. OFFICE OF THE OMBUDSMAN, NATIONAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (NBI), FACT FINDING AND INTELLIGENCE BUREAU (FFIB) OF THE OFFICE OF THE OMBUDSMAN, SECRETARY OF INTERIOR AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT :

Quoted hereunder, for your information, is a resolution of this Court dated 5 September 2007:

G.R. No. 144637 - Governor Manuel M. Lapid v. Office of the Ombudsman, National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), Fact Finding and Intelligence Bureau (FFIB) of the Office of the Ombudsman, Secretary of Interior and Local Government

On July 22, 1998, the then-director of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) received an unsigned letter dated July 20, 1998 purportedly sent by the citizens of the province of Pampanga.^[1] The letter reported illegal quarrying in the province and the exaction of exorbitant fees by unscrupulous persons with the connivance of some high-ranking officials.

After conducting an investigation,^[2] the NBI recommended to the Office of the Ombudsman (Ombudsman) that Manuel M. Lapid, then Governor of Pampanga (petitioner), Clayton Olalia (Olalia), then Vice-Governor of Pampanga, Jovito Sabado (Sabado), then Provincial Treasurer, SPO4 Nestor Tadeo (Tadeo), Atty. Enrico Quiambao (Quiambao), then Provincial Administrator, and Marino Morales, then Municipal Mayor of Mabalacat, Pampanga be prosecuted for violating Republic Act No. 3019^[3] and administratively charged.^[4]

It appears that the NBI based its recommendation for the prosecution of petitioner and company on the following findings:

1. Following the Mt. Pinatuho eruption in 1991, [an] abundant supply of lahar, sand, gravel and other quarry aggregates enhanced the quarrying industry in Pampanga which afforded a lucrative business to the local quarry operators and a source of income to the Provincial Government of Pampanga in terms of taxes and quarry fees collected therefrom;
   
   
2. By virtue of Tax Ordinance No. 3, Series of 1992 enacted by the Sangguniang Panlalawigan on December 14, 1992 the Provincial Government fixed at forty pesos (P40.00) per cubic meter the fair market value of sand, gravel and other quarrying resources extracted within the territorial jurisdiction of Pampanga pursuant to the provisions of Tax Ordinance No. 1, Series of 1992;
   
   
3. Quarry operators or permittees were allowed to pay in advance quarry fees directly to the Provincial Treasurer's Office, which issued pre-stamped official receipt[s] for [the] sand-fee of P40.00;
   
   
4. To regulate or monitor the collection of tax fees on the quarrying operators, the Provincial Government put up checkpoints at all exit points of Pampanga Province and required haulers to present thereat their respective official receipts and control slips showing full payment of such fees;
   
   
5. Sometime in 1996, the quarry operators were no longer allowed to pay in advance the required taxes and quarry fees at the Provincial Treasurer's Office but, instead, they were instructed by Provincial Treasurer JOVITO S. SAB ADO, Vice Governor CLAYTON OLALIA and Provincial Administrator ENRICO QUIAMBAO to pay the same to a certain NESTOR TADEO for the municipalities of Floridablanca, Lubao, Porac and Sta. Rita; a certain RODRIGO "RUDY" FERNANDEZ for Mabalacat and Magalang; and PAUL LANGSANG and CONRADO "JUN" PANGILINAN for Bacolor, Mexico and San Fernando;
   
   
6. In addition to the quarry fee of P40, TADEO, FERNANDEZ, LANSANG and PANGILINAN demanded from the quarry operators the payment of [a] control fee in the amount of PI20.00 per truckload of quarry resources;
   
   
7. In view of the necessity to secure official receipts for such quarry fee, the quarry operators were constrained to pay the additional control fee;
   
   
8. Aside from the P40.00 quarry fee and P120.00 control fee, the members of the Western Pampanga Quarry Operators Association (WQA) claimed that they were also paying to TADEO and PANGILINAN [an] association fee of P15.00 and [a] barangay passway of P25.00 per truckload of quarry resources;
   
   
9. Sometime in July 1998, RODRIGO FERNANDEZ, JAMES GARBO and members of the Mabalacat Quarry Operators Association (MPQOA) had a meeting with Governor LAPID at the letter's residence in San Fernando, Pampanga on which occasion Governor Lapid informed the group that he would personally handle the share of RUDY FERNANDEZ and Mayor MARINO MORALES of Mabalacat. Pampanga and that herein respondent
   
   Mayor MORALES and ROY DAVID, Mayor of Porac, Pampanga should, instead, collect their own shares from the quarry operators for every truckload of sand;
   
   
10. Subsequently, Mayor MORALES collected from the quarry operators his own fees per truckload of quarry resources consisting of P40.00 for environmental protection, P25.00 for barangay passway, and P10.00 for 4K Movement, or a total of P75.00 per truckload.^[5]

After evaluating the complaint of the NBI, the Administrative Adjudication Bureau (AAB) of the Ombudsman recommended that petitioner, together with Olalia, Sabado, Quiambao, Morales, and Tadeo, be charged for grave misconduct, conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service, and dishonesty, and that they be placed under preventive suspension.^[6]

Acting on the AAB recommendation, the Ombudsman placed the petitioner Olalia, Sabado, Tadeo, Quiambao, and Morales under preventive suspension on January 13, 1999, and ordered them to file their counter-affidavits and other controverting evidence.^[7]

The Fact Finding and Intelligence Bureau of the Ombudsman intervened in the case as nominal party.^[8]

After the AAB-Investigating Panel received evidence, the Ombudsman resolved the case, disposing as follows:

WHEREFORE, premises considered, respondent[s] MANUEL M. LAPID, CLAYTON A. OLALIA, JOVITO S. SABADO and NESTOR C. TADEO are hereby found GUILTY of Misconduct for which they are meted out the penalty of one (1) year suspension without pay pursuant to Section 25(2) of R.A. 6770 (Ombudsman Act of 1989). Respondent MARINO P. MORALES is hereby EXONERATED from the same administrative charges for insufficiency of evidence. The complaint against respondent ENRICO P. QUIAMBAO, who resigned effective June 30, I998 was DISMISSED on March 12, 1999, without prejudice to the outcome of the criminal case.^[9]

Petitioner, Olalia, Sabado, and Tadeo filed motions for reconsideration which were denied.^[10] Petitioner thus filed before the Court of Appeals a Petition for Review with Prayer for the Issuance of a Temporary Restraining Order and Writ of Preliminary Injunction.^[11] The Court of Appeals, by Resolution^[12] of January 19, 2000, issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) enjoining the Ombudsman from enforcing the questioned order.

When the 60-day lifetime of the TRO lapsed without the Court of Appeals resolving the prayer for the issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction, petitioner filed before this Court a petition for certiorari, prohibition, and mandamus.^[13]

On March 22, 2000, the Court of Appeals denied the prayer for the issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction.^[14] The following day, the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) implemented the assailed decision of the Ombudsman,^[15] prompting the petitioner to file a supplement to his petition for certiorari, praying for the issuance of writs of prohibition and mandamus against the DILG for prematurely implementing the assailed Ombudsman decision.^[16]

This Court, by Resolution of April 5, 2000, finding premature the immediate implementation of the assailed decision of the Ombudsman, ordered the reinstatement of petitioner as provincial governor of Pampanga and remanded the case to the Court of Appeals for resolution on the merits.^[17]

The Office of the Solicitor General and the Ombudsman filed motions for reconsideration, which this Court denied for lack of merit.^[18]

By Decision^[19] of June 30, 2000, a Special Division of Five of the Court of Appeals, voting 3-2, affirmed the Ombudsman's decision on the merits, but denominated petitioner's offense as "grave misconduct," instead of "misconduct."^[20]

Petitioner's Motion for Reconsideration^[21] having been denied, he filed on October 12, 2000 the present Petition for Review^[22] before this Court, arguing that the assailed Ombudsman decision is not supported by substantial evidence as it is based on pure hearsay.^[23] And he faults the Ombudsman for violating his right to due process."^[24]

On March 21, 2002, the Office of the Solicitor General manifested to this Court that the present petition had become moot and academic in view of the re-election of petitioner as provincial governor of Pampanga during the May 11, 2001 elections.^[25]

It is settled that public officials cannot be subjected to disciplinary action for administrative misconduct committed during a prior term, because re-election to office operates as a condonation of the officer's previous misconduct.^[26] Thus this Court in Salalima v. Guingona, Jr.^[27] held:

The rule adopted in Pascual, qualified in Aguinaldo xxx, is still a good law. Such a rule is not only founded on the theory that an official's re-election expresses the sovereign will of the electorate to forgive or condone any act or omission constituting a ground for administrative discipline which was committed during his previous term. We may add that sound policy dictates it. To rule otherwise would open the floodgates to exacerbating endless partisan contests between the reelected official and his political enemies, who may not stop to hound the former during his new term with administrative cases for acts alleged to have been committed during his previous term. His second term may thus be devoted to defending himself in the said cases to the detriment of public service.^[28]

En passant, the grounds which petitioner raised in support of his petition are devoid of merit.

WHEREFORE, the petition is DISMISSED for having become moot.

Endnotes:

---

^[1] Ombudsman Records Folder 2, p.12.

^[2] Ombudsman Records Folder 1, pp. 1-6 (first six pages of Ombudsman records folder, after which page numbering goes back to p. 1); Id. at 2-11.

^[3] Ombudsman Records Folder 1, pp. 1-6.

^[4] Id. at ( "Second Endorsement," the first six pages of Ombudsman records folder).

^[5] Id. at 514-516. Vide Ombudsman Records Folder 2, pp. 2-11.

^[6] Id. at 12-15.

^[7] Id. at 8.

^[8] Id. at 22-25, 51-52; Rollo, pp. 270-271.

^[9] Id. at 531.

^[10] Rollo, pp. 262-268.

^[11] CA rollo, pp.2-56.

^[12] Id. at 217-218.

^[13] Lapid v. Court of Appeals, 390 Phil. 236, 243 (2000)

^[14] CA rollo, p.505.

^[15] Supra note 13 at 243-244.

^[16] Id.

^[17] Id. at 245; CA rollo, pp. 898-899.

^[18] Supra note 13, at 253.

^[19] Penned by Court of Appeals Associate Justice Bernardo LL. Salas, with the concurrences of Associate Justices Buenaventura Guerrero and Jose L. Sabio, Jr. and the dissents of Associate Justices Presbiterio J. Velasco, Jr., and Edgardo P. Cruz. CA rollo, 691-729.

^[20] Id. at 692-693 (Note: pagination goes back to p. 670 after p. 699).

^[21] Id. at 780-829.

^[22] Rollo, pp. 11-100.

^[23] Id. at 50-88.

^[24] Id. at 50-51, 93.

^[25] Id. at 768-776.

^[26] 326 Phil. 847, 918-920 (1996) citing Aguinaldo v. Santos, G.R. No. 94115, August 21, 1992, 212 SCRA 768, 772-774 and Pascual v. Hon. Provincial Board of Nueva Ecija, 106 Phil. 446, 471-472 (1959).

^[27] 326 Phil. 847 (1996).

^[28] Id. at 115.