GR 143797; (May, 2006) (Digest)
G.R. No. 143797 ; May 4, 2006
CARLITO L. MONTES, Petitioner, vs. COURT OF APPEALS, Sixth Division, Office of the Ombudsman, Department of Science and Technology, Respondents.
FACTS
Petitioner Carlito L. Montes, Chief of the Legal Division of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), was found guilty of Gross Misconduct by the Office of the Ombudsman for violating Republic Act No. 4200 (The Anti-Wire Tapping Law). The administrative case stemmed from complaints by Imelda D. Rodriguez and Elizabeth Fontanilla, who alleged that Montes secretly recorded private conversations with them and with the DOST Secretary without their knowledge or consent. Montes admitted to making these recordings, which he later produced and played during a hearing before the Presidential Commission Against Graft and Corruption. The Ombudsman imposed a penalty of one-year suspension without pay.
Montes filed a petition for certiorari with the Court of Appeals (CA) challenging the Ombudsman’s decision. The CA initially dismissed the petition for procedural deficiencies but later required the Ombudsman to comment upon Montes’s motion for reconsideration. However, pending resolution, the DOST Secretary implemented the suspension order on July 17, 2000. Montes then filed the instant Petition for Prohibition with the Supreme Court, seeking to enjoin the implementation of the suspension order, arguing its prematurity given the pending CA petition and raising substantive issues against the Ombudsman’s findings.
ISSUE
Whether the Petition for Prohibition is the proper remedy to restrain the implementation of the suspension order which has already been enforced.
RULING
The Supreme Court dismissed the petition. The Court held that a writ of prohibition is a preventive remedy meant to restrain a future act; it is not intended to provide relief for an act that is already completed or fait accompli. The factual record, including Montes’s own admissions, clearly established that the one-year suspension order had already been implemented starting July 17, 2000. Since the act sought to be enjoined had already been consummated, the petition for prohibition was rendered moot and academic. The Court emphasized that prohibition does not lie to undo a completed act. Consequently, without ruling on the substantive merits of the administrative case or the propriety of the suspension’s execution, the Court dismissed the petition on this procedural ground alone.