1) The case involved a challenge to an Executive Order by President Cory Aquino that merged and transferred provinces between existing administrative regions.
2) Congress had passed legislation allowing the President to merge existing administrative regions following the creation of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
3) The Supreme Court dismissed the petition, finding that Congress was merely continuing the pattern of past legislation in granting the President power to reorganize administrative regions. The Court also found an implied standard of promoting efficiency and the national development goals.
1) The case involved a challenge to an Executive Order by President Cory Aquino that merged and transferred provinces between existing administrative regions.
2) Congress had passed legislation allowing the President to merge existing administrative regions following the creation of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
3) The Supreme Court dismissed the petition, finding that Congress was merely continuing the pattern of past legislation in granting the President power to reorganize administrative regions. The Court also found an implied standard of promoting efficiency and the national development goals.
1) The case involved a challenge to an Executive Order by President Cory Aquino that merged and transferred provinces between existing administrative regions.
2) Congress had passed legislation allowing the President to merge existing administrative regions following the creation of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
3) The Supreme Court dismissed the petition, finding that Congress was merely continuing the pattern of past legislation in granting the President power to reorganize administrative regions. The Court also found an implied standard of promoting efficiency and the national development goals.
Article VI: The Legislative Department, Section 1 Issues on Delegation of Legislative
Power (Filling in the Details: authority to reorganize)
Chiongbian vs Orbos Chiongbian - Congressman in third district, South Cotabato; Orbos - Executive Secretary
Date of Promulgation: June 22, 1995 Ponente: Mendoza Motion: Certiorari and Prohibition; Special Civil Action in the Supreme Court
Background In 1968, R.A. 5435 authorized the President of the Philippines, with the help of Commission on Reorganization, to recognize the different executive departments, bureaus, offices, agencies, and instrumentalities of the government, including banking or financial institutions and corporations owned or controlled by it. Purpose was to promote simplicity, economy and efficiency in the government.
Facts The Congress passed the Organic Act for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (RA 6743) pursuant to Article 10, Section 18 of the Constitution. A plebiscite was called in some provinces which resulted to 4 provinces (Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu and Tawi Tawi) in favor of creating an autonomous region and therefore became the ARMM. The RA says that those provinces and cities who did not vote in favor of it shall remain in their existing administrative regions provided, however, that the President may merge the existing regions through administrative determination. President Cory then issued the EO containing the provinces/cities that will be merged, transferring provinces from their existing region to another. The petitioners who are members of the Congress representing legislative districts protested the Executive Order, saying that there is no law which authorizes the President to pick certain provinces and cities within existing regions and restructure them to new administrative regions. The transfer of one province under its current region to another (ex: Misamis Occidental from Region X to IX) is a form of reorganization, an alteration of the existing structures of the government. The RA 6743 only holds authority of the president to merge existing regions and cannot be construed as reorganizing them.
Issue W/N the power to merge administrative regions is legislative (petitioners stand) in character or executive as the respondents contend Petitioners: It unduly delegates power to the President to merge regions through administrative determination or at any rate provides no standard for the exercise of the power delegated Respondents: No undue delegation but only a grant of power to fill up or provide the details of legislation because the Congress did not have the facility to provide for them
Ruling: Petition is DISMISSED.
The creation and subsequent reorganization of administrative regions have been by the President pursuant to authority granted to him by law. In conferring on the President the power to merge the existing regions following the establishment of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, Congress merely followed the pattern set in previous legislation dating back to the initial organization of administrative regions in 1972. (RA5453)
This was also the basis for the sufficient standard by which the President is to be guided in the exercise of power. Standard can be gathered or implied. Standard can be found in the same policy underlying grant of power to the President in RA No. 5435 of the power to reorganize the Executive Department:to promote simplicity, economy, efficiency, in the government to enable it to pursue its programs consisted with the national goals for accelerated social and economic development.
Digest - G.R. No. L-23825 Pelaez Vs Auditor General (Separation of Powers, Non-Delegability of Legislative Power, Completeness and Sufficient Standard Test)