GR 31945; (April, 1973) (Digest)
G.R. No. L-31945 April 30, 1973
BENITO SANOY, ET AL., petitioners-appellants, vs. FRANCISCO S. TANTUICO, JR., ET AL., respondents-appellees.
FACTS
The petitioners were non-civil service eligible employees of the City of Cebu, appointed in 1964. Following the 1967 local elections, Acting City Mayor Eulogio E. Borres terminated their services from January 1 to 5, 1968, through uniformly-worded letters, and replaced them with other non-eligibles. The petitioners sought reinstatement from the Mayor and, upon denial, formally protested their removal to the Commissioner of Civil Service in February 1968.
The Commissioner referred the protests to Mayor Borres for comment, but the Mayor never acted on them. By October 2, 1968, with no definitive action from the Commissioner and the one-year prescriptive period for filing a judicial action about to lapse, the petitioners filed a petition for mandamus with the Court of First Instance of Cebu seeking reinstatement with back wages. The respondent judge dismissed the petition solely on the ground of non-exhaustion of administrative remedies, without receiving evidence on the merits.
ISSUE
Did the respondent judge correctly dismiss the petition for mandamus on the ground of non-exhaustion of administrative remedies?
RULING
No, the dismissal was erroneous. The Supreme Court held that the petitioners had substantially complied with the rule requiring exhaustion of administrative remedies. Their formal protests to the Commissioner of Civil Service constituted an adequate recourse to the administrative body vested with authority over the matter. The administrative process was effectively stalled not by the petitioners’ inaction, but by the respondent Mayor’s failure to comply with the Commissioner’s request for comment.
Furthermore, the Court emphasized the impending expiration of the one-year prescriptive period for filing such judicial actions, as established in prior jurisprudence. Under these circumstances, where the administrative remedy had been invoked but remained unresolved due to the other party’s inaction, resort to the courts was justified. The Court cited the precedent in Gonzales v. ACCFA, where a similar recourse to high officials was deemed practically equivalent to exhaustion. Consequently, the order of dismissal was set aside and the case was remanded to the trial court for a full hearing on the merits.