Case Digest: MAYOR MARCEL S. PAN v. YOLANDA O. PEÑA et al. 579 SCRA 314 (2009)

MAYOR MARCEL S. PAN v. YOLANDA O. PEÑA et al. 579 SCRA 314 (2009)

Petitioner Mayor Marcel Pan, after winning the mayoralty post, initiated a reorganization of the local government, allegedly due to the large budgetary deficit of the municipality. The Sangguniang Bayan (Sanggunian) passed a resolution giving the mayor full authority to restructure the local government unit (LGU). The Sanggunian thereafter created a Placement Committee to oversee the LGU reorganization in terms of selection and placement of personnel, in consonance with the procedures laid down in R.A. 6656, the Act to Protect the Security of Tenure of Civil Service Officers and Employees in the Implementation of Government Reorganization of 1988. Respondents Yolanda Peña et al. were permanent employees assigned at the various departments of the LGU but whose positions were abolished. They applied for the newly created positions in the LGU‘s new organization and staffing pattern but placement committee did not approve Peña et al.’s applications. The mayor appointed other employees to fill up the ranks. Peña et al. filed an appeal with the Civil Service Commission (CSC). The CSC affirmed the decision. The Court of Appeals (CA) sustained the CSC‘s decision.

ISSUE:

Whether or not Mayor Pan complied with the provisions of R.A. 6656 in effecting Peña et al.‘s separation from service

HELD:

Reorganization ―involves the reduction of personnel, consolidation of offices, or abolition thereof by reason of economy or redundancy of functions. It alters the existing structure of government offices or units therein, including the lines of control, authority and responsibility between them to make the bureaucracy more responsive to the needs of the public clientele as authorized by law. It could result in the loss of one‘s position through removal or abolition of an office. For reorganization for the purpose of economy or to make the bureaucracy more efficient to be valid, however, it must pass the test of good faith otherwise it is void ab initio. In the case at bar, Mayor Pan claims that there has been a drastic reduction of plantilla positions in the new staffing pattern in order to address the LGU‘s gaping budgetary deficit. Thus, he states that in the municipal treasurer‘s office and waterworks operations unit where respondents were previously assigned, only 11 new positions were created out of the previous 35 which had been abolished; and that the new staffing pattern had 98 positions only, as compared with the old which had 129. The CSC, however, highlighted the recreation of six (6) casual positions for clerk II and utility worker I, which positions were previously held by respondents Marivic, Cantor, Asor and Enciso. Mayor Pan inexplicably never disputed this finding nor proffered any proof that the new positions do not perform the same or substantially the same functions as those of the abolished. And nowhere in the records does it appear that these recreated positions were first offered to respondents. While the CSC never found the new appointees to be unqualified, and never disapproved nor recalled their appointments as they presumably met all the minimum requirements therefor, there is nothing contradictory in the CSC‘s course of action as it is limited only to the non-discretionary authority of determining whether the personnel appointed meet all the required conditions laid down by law. Congruently, the CSC can very well order Mayor Pan to reinstate Peña et al. to their former positions (as these were never actually abolished) or to appoint them to comparable positions in the new staffing pattern. In fine, the reorganization of the government of the Municipality of Goa was not entirely undertaken in the interest of efficiency and austerity but appears to have been marred by other considerations in order to circumvent the constitutional security of tenure of civil service employees like respondents.