Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila

EN BANC

G.R. No. L-19823             January 12, 1963

RUPERTO ADVINCULA and BRAULIO AVELINO, petitioners,
vs.
HON. COMMISSION ON APPOINTMENTS and its Chairman
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF THE PHILIPPINE SENATE;
HON. SECRETARY OF JUSTICE;
HON. JUDICIAL SUPERINTENDENT, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE;
HON. JUDGE CESARIO GOLEZ; THE SECRETARY OF THE COMMISSION ON APPOINTMENTS, respondents.

Jose Y. Torres and Alfonso Dadivas, Jr. for petitioners.
Office of the Solicitor General for respondents.

R E S O L U T I O N

BARRERA, J.:

Petitioners pray, upon the grounds urged in their motion, for the reconsideration of the decision rendered her in dismissing their petition for mandamus.

The issue in this case, as stated in our decision, is the interpretation of Section 21 of the Revised Rules of the Commission on Appointments which in its pertinent part, reads:

SEC. 21. Resolution of the Commission on any appointment may be reconsidered on motion by a member presented not more than one (1) day after their approval. . .

Petitioners contend that since their appointments were confirmed on April 27 (a Friday) and the motion for reconsideration was filed on April 30 (the following Monday), the confirmation had become final and irrevocable, and its subsequent reconsideration was null and void.

On the other hand, we found that the Commission of Appointments itself has, in effect, ruled that the one-day provision in question refers to a working day, and Saturday not being one, the filing of the motion made on the following Monday fulfills the requirement of the rule.

Wherefore, the parties respectfully pray that the foregoing stipulation of facts be admitted and approved by this Honorable Court, without prejudice to the parties adducing other evidence to prove their case not covered by this stipulation of facts. 1äwphï1.ñët

We upheld the interpretation given by the Commission itself of its own rules and refused to issue the writ of mandamus prayed for. We now reaffirm our decision on the following grounds:.

(1) Section 9, Article VI, of the Constitution, providing:

The Congress shall convene in regular session once every year on the fourth Monday of January, unless a different date is fixed by law. It may be called in special session at any time, by the President to consider general legislation or only such subjects as he may designate. No special session shall continue longer than thirty days and no regular session longer than one hundred days, exclusive of Sundays.

is not applicable to the Commission on Appointments. The constitutional provision expressly limits the duration of the sessions of the Congress itself to thirty days, for special sessions, and one hundred days for regular sessions, exclusive of Sundays. To hold that this provision equally applied to the Commission as contended by petitioners, would be to declare that the sessions of this body are coetaneous with those of the Congress itself. But this is not true because at least in the first session of the Congress when it will have to organize itself first by electing the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of the Representatives, the Commission does not come into existence until it is constituted within thirty days after the organization of both houses of Congress.1 In other words, while Congress is already in session and the 100-day period is already running as to it, the Commission is yet to be constituted. Consequently by necessity the number of days of session of the Commission fall short of those of the Congress. Therefore, the sessions of the two bodies are not coetaneous; therefore Section 9, Article VI of the Constitution is not applicable to the Commission on Appointments.

(2) The only provision that governs the sessions of the Commission on Appointments is Section 13, Article VI of the Constitution which says:

... The Commission on Appointments shall meet only while the Congress is in session, at the call of its Chairman or a majority of its Members, to discharge such powers and functions as are herein conferred upon it.

Note that the sole mandatory injunction that is obligatory on the Commission is that it shall meet only while the Congress is in session. How often and how long it shall meet is left entirely to the discretion of the Commission, as long as it is during the session of the Congress, and it shall meet at the call of its chairman or a majority of its members. Therefore, if the Commission itself decides that its working days should be from Monday through Friday of the week, excluding Saturday and Sunday, it would be exercising its lawful authority and would not be infringing any constitutional provision..

(3) The interpretation of its own rules adopted by the Commission in this case, is in accordance with Republic Act 1880, which fixed the minimum requirements of legal hours of labor to 40 hours a week or 8 hours a day for five days per week, resulting in the closing from public transaction of all government offices on Saturdays, save those excepted by law. And the Commission on Appoinments is not one of those excepted by law.

IN VIEW OF THE FOREGOING, if not for the considerations stated in the last paragraph of the original opinion, which, for the purposes of this decision, may be laid aside, the motion for reconsideration filed by the petitioners is hereby denied. So ordered.

Bengzon, C.J., Padilla, Bautista Angelo, Labrador Concepcion, Paredes, Dizon, Regala and Makalintal, JJ., concur.
Reyes, J.B.L., J., took no part.

Footnotes

1Section 13, Art. VI of the Constitution.
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