G.R. No. L-30396 July 30, 1971
Eugenio O. S. Aguilar, As Municipal Mayor of Cabusao, Camarines Sur, petitioner, vs. Hon. Augusto L. Valencia, as Judge, CFI-Cam. Sur., Joaquin Ramos, Saturnino Urcia, Valentin Enciso, Jose Gonzales and Alfonso Villote, respondents.

FACTS

Petitioner Municipal Mayor Eugenio Aguilar issued a memorandum on January 16, 1968, terminating the services of several policemen, including respondents Valentin Enciso, Jose Gonzales, and Melencio Paglinawan. The memorandum declared their positions vacant effective immediately, citing that their provisional appointments failed to meet the minimum age or educational requirements under Republic Act No. 4864 (The Police Act of 1966). These appointments had been made by the previous mayor in 1967. The affected patrolmen, joined by others anticipating similar action, filed a petition for prohibition with a writ of preliminary injunction in the Court of First Instance (CFI) to restrain the enforcement of the mayor’s memorandum.
The Mayor, in his answer, contended the patrolmen were unqualified, with specific allegations against Enciso’s qualifications and Gonzales’s and Paglinawan’s alleged misrepresentation in their personal data sheets and overage. He also filed a counterclaim for damages. The parties submitted a stipulation where the mayor disclaimed any present intention to terminate the other petitioners. After hearing, the CFI ruled in favor of the patrolmen, making the preliminary injunction permanent and holding that their removal was illegal.

ISSUE

Whether the termination of the provisional appointees via the mayor’s memorandum was valid under the governing civil service laws.

RULING

The Supreme Court affirmed the CFI decision, ruling the termination was invalid. The legal logic is anchored on statutory due process and the specific conditions for terminating provisional appointments. Under the then-governing Civil Service Law ( Republic Act No. 2260 ), specifically Section 24(c), a provisional appointment could only be terminated thirty days after the appointing authority received a list of eligible candidates from the Civil Service Commission. The mayor’s memorandum made no mention of such a list, relying solely on alleged deficiencies in age or education.
Even assuming these alleged defects were true, the dismissal remained unlawful. Section 32 of the same Civil Service Law expressly mandated that no civil service officer or employee could be removed except for cause and after due process. The summary dismissal via memorandum, without any prior investigation or hearing, constituted a blatant violation of this constitutional and statutory guarantee of due process. The Court rejected the mayor’s ancillary defenses. The subsequent approval of replacement appointments in April 1968 could not retroactively validate the illegal January dismissal. Furthermore, the defense of failure to exhaust administrative remedies was unavailing, as it was not raised below and is inapplicable where the issue presented is purely a question of law regarding the violation of fundamental rights. The patrolmen’s right to security of tenure, even in a provisional capacity, was thus upheld.