762 PHIL. 328
MENDOZA, J.:
Article 155. Jurisdiction. The Shari'a Circuit Courts shall have exclusive original jurisdiction over;Consequently, in resolving the subject complaint, the Court shall confine itself to the sole issue of whether or not Abdullah should be held administratively liable for his actions in connection with the registration of the divorce between Mamiscal and Adelaidah. A priori to the resolution of the foregoing issue is the question of whether this Court has jurisdiction to impose administrative sanction against Abdullah for his acts.
(1) All cases involving offenses defined and punished under this Code.
(2) All civil actions and proceedings between parties who are Muslims or have been married in accordance with Article 13 involving disputes relating to:(a) Marriage;
(b) Divorce recognized under this Code;
(c) Betrothal or breach of contract to marry;
(d) Customary dower (mahr);
(e) Disposition and distribution of property upon divorce;
(f) Maintenance and support, and consolatory gifts, (mut'a); and
(g) Restitution of marital rights.
(3) All cases involving disputes relative to communal properties.[Emphases Supplied]
Article 81. District Registrar. The Clerk of Court of the Shari' a District Court shall, in addition to his regular functions, act as District Registrar of Muslim Marriages, Divorces, Revocations of Divorces, and Conversions within the territorial jurisdiction of said court. The Clerk of Court of the Shari'a Circuit Court shall act as Circuit Registrar of Muslim Marriages, Divorces, Revocations of Divorces, and Conversions within his jurisdiction.In view of the above-quoted provision, it becomes apparent that the Clerk of Court of the Shari'a Circuit Court enjoys the privilege of wearing two hats: first, as Clerk of Court of the Shari'a Circuit Court, and second, as Circuit Registrar within his territorial jurisdiction. Although the Constitution vests the Court with the power of administrative supervision over all courts and its personnel,[24] this power must be taken with due regard to other prevailing laws.[Emphasis Supplied]
Article 185. Neglect of duty by registrars. Any district registrar or circuit registrar who fails to perform properly his duties in accordance with this Code shall be penalized in accordance with Section 18 of Act 3753.Commonwealth Act (C.A.) No. 3753[25] is the primary law that governs the registry of civil status of persons. To ensure that civil registrars perform their duties under the law, Section 18 of C.A. No. 3753 provides:
Section 18. Neglect of duty with reference to the provisions of this Act. — Any local registrar who fails to properly perform his duties in accordance with the provisions of this Act and of the regulations issued hereunder, shall be punished for the first offense, by an administrative fine in a sum equal to his salary for not less than fifteen days nor more than three months, and for a second or repeated offense, by removal from the service.The same Act provides:[Emphasis Supplied]
Section 2. Civil Registrar-General his duties and powers. - The director of the National Library shall be Civil Registrar-General and shall enforce the provisions of this Act. The Director of the National Library, in his capacity as Civil Registrar-General, is hereby authorized to prepare and issue, with the approval of the Secretary of Justice, regulations for carrying out the purposes of this Act, and to prepare and order printed the necessary forms for its proper compliance. In the exercise of his functions as Civil Registrar-General, the Director of the National Library shall have the power to give orders and instructions to the local Civil registrars with reference to the performance of their duties as such. It shall be the duty of the Director of the National Library to report any violation of the provisions of this Act and all irregularities, negligence or incompetency on the part of the officers designated as local civil registrars to the (Chief of the Executive Bureau or the Director of the Non-Christian Tribes) Secretary of the Interior, as the case may be, who shall take the proper disciplinary action against the offenders.Prescinding from the foregoing, it becomes apparent that this Court does not have jurisdiction to impose the proper disciplinary action against civil registrars. While he is undoubtedly a member of the Judiciary as Clerk of Court of the Shari'a Circuit Court, a review of the subject complaint reveals that Mamiscal seeks to hold Abdullah liable for registering the divorce and issuing the CRD pursuant to his duties as Circuit Registrar of Muslim divorces. It has been said that the test of jurisdiction is the nature of the offense and not the personality of the offender.[26] The fact that the complaint charges Abdullah for "conduct unbecoming of a court employee" is of no moment. Well-settled is the rule that what controls is not the designation of the offense but the actual facts recited in the complaint. Verily, unless jurisdiction has been conferred by some legislative act, no court or tribunal can act on a matter submitted to it.[27][Emphasis and Underscoring Supplied]
Article 82. Duties of District Registrar. Every District Registrar shall exercise supervision over Circuit Registrars in every Shari'a District. He shall, in addition to an entry book, keep and bind copies of certificates of Marriage, Divorce, Revocation of Divorce, and Conversion sent to him by the Circuit Registrars in separate general registers. He shall send copies in accordance with Act. No. 3753, as amended, to the office of the Civil Registrar-General.All these notwithstanding, the power of administrative supervision over civil registrars remains with the National Government. As Section 2 of CA No. 3753 provides:
Section 2. Civil Registrar-General his duties and powers. - The director of the National Library shall be Civil Registrar-General and shall enforce the provisions of this Act. The Director of the National Library, in his capacity as Civil Registrar-General, is hereby authorized to prepare and issue, with the approval of the Secretary of Justice, regulations for carrying out the purposes of this Act, and to prepare and order printed the necessary forms for its proper compliance. In the exercise of his functions as Civil Registrar-General, the Director of the National Library shall have the power to give orders and instructions to the local Civil registrars with reference to the performance of their duties as such. It shall be the duty of the Director of the National Library to report any violation of the provisions of this Act and all irregularities, negligence or incompetency on the part of the officers designated as local civil registrars to the (Chief of the Executive Bureau or the Director of the Non-Christian Tribes) Secretary of the Interior, as the case may be, who shall take the proper disciplinary action against the offenders.It was only with the advent of the Local Government Code that the power of administrative supervision over civil registrars was devolved to the municipal and city mayors of the respective local government units. Under the "faithful execution clause" embodied in Section 455(b)(l)(x)[35] and Section 444(b)(l)(x)[36] of the Local Government Code, in relation to Section 479[37] under Article IX, Title V[38] of the same Code, the municipal and city mayors of the respective local government units, in addition to their power to appoint city or municipal civil registrars are also given ample authority to exercise administrative supervision over civil registrars. Thus, when Administrative Order No. 1, Series of 1993 of the Office of the Civil Registrar-General (OCRG) was passed to implement CA No. 3753 it was declared:[Emphasis Supplied]
Rule 1. Duties and Powers of the Civil Registrar-General. - The Civil Registrar-General shall have the following duties and powers:This authority of the Mayor to exercise administrative jurisdiction over Circuit Registrars was also recognized generally, under Section 47(2) of the Administrative Code of 1987,[39] and specifically, under Rule 11 of Administrative Order No. 2, Series of 1993[40] of the OCRG, and the more recent Administrative Order No. 5, Series of 2005[41] of the same office, which applies specially to the registration of acts and events concerning the civil status of Muslim Filipinos.
a) To enforce the provisions of Act No. 3753; b) To prepare and issue regulations for carrying out the purposes of Act No. 3753 and other laws relative to civil registration, and to prepare and order printed the necessary forms for its proper compliance; c) To give orders and instructions to the city/municipal civil registrars with reference to the performance of their duties as such; and d) To report any violation of the provisions of Act No. 3753 and other laws on civil registration, and all irregularities, negligence or incompetency of city/municipal civil registrar to the concerned mayor who shall take the proper disciplinary action against the offender.
Section 9. Jurisdiction of Heads of Agencies. - The Secretaries and heads of agencies, and other instrumentalities, provinces, cities and municipalities shall have original concurrent jurisdiction with the Commission over their respective officers and employees. x x xConsequently, it behooves the Court to also forward the subject complaint to the Office of the Mayor, Marawi City and to the CSC for appropriate action.
The separation of powers is a fundamental principle in our system of government. It obtains not through express provision but by actual division in our Constitution. Each department of the government has exclusive cognizance of matters within its jurisdiction, and is supreme within its own sphere. But it does not follow from the fact that the three powers are to be kept separate and distinct that the Constitution intended them to be absolutely unrestrained and independent of each other. The Constitution has provided for an elaborate system of checks and balances to secure coordination in the workings of the various departments of the government.[2]The doctrine of separation of powers was also discussed in United States v. Ang Tang Ho,[3] a case which was decided when the Philippines was still under American rule:
By the organic law of the Philippine Islands and the Constitution of the United States all powers are vested in the Legislative, Executive and Judiciary. It is the duty of the Legislature to make the law; of the Executive to execute the law; and of the Judiciary to construe the law. The Legislature has no authority to execute or construe the law, the Executive has no authority to make or construe the law, and the Judiciary has no power to make or execute the law. Subject to the Constitution only, the power of each branch is supreme within its own jurisdiction, and it is for the Judiciary only to say when any Act of the Legislature is or is not constitutional.[4]Justice Antonio Carpio, quoting Justice Presbitero Velasco's dissent in Province of North Cotabato, et at. v. Government of the Republic of the Philippines Peace Panel on Ancestral Domain, et al.[5] noted in his own dissenting opinion in Metro Manila Development Authority v. Concerned Residents of Manila Bay[6] that separation of powers entails ensuring that no branch of government shall be controlled or subjected to the influence of another:
Now then, if it be important to restrict the great departments of government to the exercise of their appointed powers, it follows, as a logical corollary, equally important, that one branch should be left completely independent of the others, independent not in the sense that the three shall not cooperate in the common end of carrying into effect the purposes of the constitution, but in the sense that the acts of each shall never be controlled by or subjected to the influence of either of the branches.[7] [Emphasis supplied]More to the point, our recent decision in Gonzales III v. Office of the President[8] noted that the principle of separation of powers extends to the authority to discipline public officers and employees:
While the manner and cause of removal are left to congressional determination, this must still be consistent with constitutional guarantees and principles, namely: the right to procedural and substantive due process; the constitutional guarantee of security of tenure; the principle of separation of powers; and the principle of checks and balances.[9] (Emphasis supplied)This is a point I echoed in my concurring and dissenting opinion in Gonzales:
I agree with the positions of Justice Brion and Justice Abad in their dissenting opinions on the September 4, 2012 decision that the independence of the Office of the Ombudsman is of such a fundamental and unequivocal nature. This independence is essential to carry out the functions and duties of the Office of the Ombudsman. I agree with their position that since those in the Executive branch are also subject to the disciplinary authority of the Office of the Ombudsman, providing the Office of the President with the power to remove would be an impediment to the fundamental independence of the Ombudsman.The complaint subject of the present administrative matter charges respondent Macalinog S. Abdullah with partiality, violation of due process, dishonesty, and conduct unbecoming of a court employee. Article VIII, Section 6 of the 1987 Constitution provides for this court's "administrative supervision over all courts and the personnel thereof." However, a careful consideration of the complaint reveals that Abdullah is being held to account for acts committed in the course of his performance of functions, not as clerk of court but as a circuit (or civil) registrar. He is therefore being charged, not in his capacity as an officer performing judicial functions, but as an officer performing executive functions. In accordance with the principle of separation of powers thus, the task of disciplining Abdulla does not fall upon this court.
We cannot allow a circumvention of the separation of powers by construing Article XI, Section 2 of the Constitution[10] as delegating plenary and unbounded power to Congress. The exclusive power of the Ombudsman to discipline her own ranks is fundamental to the independence of her office.[11]
Art. 185. Neglect of duty by registrars. — Any district registrar or circuit registrar who fails to perform properly his duties in accordance with this Code shall be penalized in accordance with Section 18 of Act No. 3753.Section 18 of Commonwealth Act No. 3753 provides:
Section 18. Neglect of duty with reference to the provisions of this Act. - Any local registrar who fails properly to perform his duties in accordance with the provisions of this Act and of the regulations issued hereunder, shall be punished for the first offense, by an administrative fine in a sum equal to his salary for not less than fifteen days nor more than three months, and for a second or repeated offense, by removal from the service.Moreover, Section 2 of Commonwealth Act No. 3753 provides for the proper disciplining authority for civil registrars:
Section 2. Civil Registrar-General his duties and powers. - The director of the National Library shall be Civil Registrar-General and shall enforce the provisions of this Act. The Director of the National Library, in his capacity as Civil Registrar-General, is hereby authorized to prepare and issue, with the approval of the Secretary of Justice, regulations for carrying out the purposes of this Act, and to prepare and order printed the necessary forms for its proper compliance. In the exercise of his functions as Civil Registrar-General, the Director of the National Library shall have the power to give orders and instructions to the local Civil registrars with reference to the performance of their duties as such. It shall be the duty of the Director of the National Library to report any violation of the provisions of this Act and all irregularities, negligence or incompetency on the part of the officers designated as local civil registrars to the (Chief of the Executive Bureau or the Director of the Non-Christian Tribes) Secretary of the Interior, as the case may be, who shall take the proper disciplinary action against the offenders.Moreover, as noted by Justice Mendoza:
[T]he subject complaint should have been filed with the Regional government of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), for it is empowered by Republic Act no. 6734 to exercise supervisory power over "all line agencies and offices of the National Government" which are not otherwise excluded therein.[15] (Citation omitted)Clearly, the statutory provisions which vest executive functions in clerks of court of the Shari'a Circuit Courts dangerously transgress the fundamental constitutional boundaries between departments. It creates an enclave within the judiciary that is not subject to the disciplinary power of this court but of executive bodies.[16] Had it been raised as an issue in this case, I would have had no hesitation to vote that they be declared unconstitutional. But, this is not the lis mota of the present case.