Aguinaldo vs. Aquino III

The Judicial and Bar Council may not, through clustering of nominees for simultaneous vacancies in a collegiate court into separate short lists, restrict the President’s constitutional prerogative to appoint any qualified nominee to any vacant position and to fix the seniority of the appointees — powers which belong exclusively to the President; where the JBC submits multiple lists for vacancies that require identical qualifications, the President may validly treat all nominees as a single pool and appoint from among them, provided each appointee has been nominated by the JBC.

Republic Act No. 10660 created six additional Associate Justice positions in the Sandiganbayan, denominated as the Sixteenth to Twenty-First Associate Justices. The Judicial and Bar Council opened applications, and on October 26, 2015 it deliberated and voted on the candidates. Instead of transmitting a single integrated list of all qualified nominees, the JBC — under the chairmanship of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes P. A. Sereno — adopted a procedure of “clustering”: it prepared six separate short lists, each containing nominees for a specific numbered vacancy (16th through 21st Sandiganbayan Associate Justice). The clusters were mutually exclusive, and no nominee appeared on more than one list. The six short lists were transmitted to President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III on the same date. On January 25, 2016, President Aquino appointed six individuals to the new posts, but he did not observe the clustering: he selected appointees from different lists, including respondents Michael Frederick L. Musngi and Geraldine Faith A. Econg, who had both been listed only in the cluster for the 21st Associate Justice position. Petitioners, incumbent Sandiganbayan justices and the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, challenged the appointments of Musngi and Econg, contending that the President had committed grave abuse of discretion by disregarding the JBC’s clustered short lists.

• Creation of the six new Sandiganbayan posts: Republic Act No. 10660 expanded the Sandiganbayan by adding six Associate Justice positions, numbered as the 16th through 21st Associate Justices. These vacancies were simultaneous and imposed identical qualifications and functions.

• The JBC’s clustering of nominees: The JBC announced the vacancies, received applications, and on October 26, 2015 voted on the candidates. Chief Justice Sereno, as JBC Chairperson, stated at the start of the deliberations that voting would proceed on a “per vacancy basis” — a practice she claimed the Council had always followed, though it was actually novel. The JBC did not consult its Supreme Court consultants before adopting the clustering method; the matter had been settled in prior executive sessions. The result was six separate short lists, each containing five to seven names, with every short list expressly designated for a specific numbered vacancy (e.g., “Sixteenth (16th) Sandiganbayan Associate Justice”). The lists were mutually exclusive; none of the 37 qualified nominees appeared in more than one cluster. The six short lists were transmitted to President Aquino under separate cover letters, all dated October 26, 2015.

• The disputed appointments: On January 25, 2016, President Aquino appointed six Associate Justices to the Sandiganbayan. He did not respect the clustered lists: he appointed respondent Michael Frederick L. Musngi, who was shortlisted only for the 21st Associate Justice post, as the 16th Associate Justice; and respondent Geraldine Faith A. Econg, likewise shortlisted solely for the 21st post, as the 18th Associate Justice. The other four appointees were drawn from various clusters. The President thus treated the 37 qualified nominees as a single pool. Chief Justice Sereno administered the oath of office to Econg on the same day.

• Petitioners’ challenge: Petitioners, incumbent Sandiganbayan Justices and the IBP, filed a petition for quo warranto, certiorari, and prohibition, asserting that President Aquino gravely abused his discretion when he “cross-reached” into different short lists, and that the appointments of Musngi and Econg were invalid because they violated the JBC’s per-vacancy lists. They obtained official copies of the short lists before filing to confirm the alleged disregard of the clustering.

• The JBC’s subsequent stance: In its motions for reconsideration, the JBC revealed that its members lacked unanimity on the validity of the President’s cross-reaching, and that the Council’s immediate concern was only the Court’s declaration that clustering was unconstitutional. The JBC did not take a position on the validity of the appointments themselves.

(The JBC’s arguments are drawn from its Motion for Reconsideration and Motion for Reconsideration-in-Intervention.)

• Literal compliance with Article VIII, Section 9: The JBC maintained that by preparing six separate short lists for six vacancies, it strictly followed the constitutional text requiring a list of at least three nominees for every vacancy. The phrase “for every vacancy,” read plainly, mandated one list per vacancy, and the JBC, as an independent constitutional body, had the discretion to perform its mandate in that manner.

• Independence and wisdom of the Council: The JBC argued that its practice of clustering was a matter of policy and operational necessity. It insisted that past practices—such as submitting a single consolidated list for multiple vacancies—could not give rise to vested rights and that the JBC was free to change its procedures in accordance with its best judgment.

• Avoidance of political pressure: According to the JBC, clustering was more consonant with the purpose of insulating judicial appointments from political influence because the President’s choice would be confined to the nominees for a particular vacancy, preventing him from freely choosing among all qualified candidates and thereby disregarding the JBC’s screening function.

• Lack of timely objection and consultants’ knowledge: The JBC pointed out that even before Chief Justice Sereno’s chairmanship, the “one list per vacancy” rule had been followed in first- and second-level trial courts, and it had been applied to collegiate courts since 2013. During the August 17, 2015 deliberations for four Court of Appeals vacancies, the ponente and Associate Justice Velasco were present as consultants but raised no objection, suggesting acquiescence.

• The ponente should inhibit: The JBC moved for the inhibition of Justice Leonardo-De Castro on the ground that she had been a JBC consultant from 2014 to 2016 and had personal knowledge of voting procedures and the format of short lists. It alleged that her ponencia in the November 29, 2016 Decision displayed a pre-judged conclusion against the JBC, possibly stemming from the termination of her consultancy, and thus she could not impartially participate.

• No encroachment on presidential prerogative: The JBC denied infringing on the President’s appointment power. It explained that the numbering of the lists (16th to 21st) was merely an ordinal designation to distinguish one cluster from another and was never intended to dictate the seniority of the appointees. Individual members gave varied reasons for the numbering, including the desire to head off confusion similar to that in Re: Seniority Among the Four Most Recent Appointments to the Position of Associate Justices of the Court of Appeals.

• Lack of duty to enhance chances of appointment: The JBC disclaimed any constitutional duty to maximize the appointment probability of each nominee; its role was only to vet qualifications and submit a list per vacancy. Past favorable experiences with a single consolidated list did not override the plain language of the Constitution.

• The JBC was not bound by the Decision: Because its Motion for Intervention had been denied, the JBC contended that the Decision was a judgment in personam not binding upon it, and that it had been deprived of due process.

N/A — No opposition was filed by the original respondents to the JBC’s motions.

• Inhibition of the Ponente: Whether the ponente of the November 29, 2016 Decision should be ordered to inhibit from further participation in the case.

• Intervention: Whether the JBC’s Motion for Intervention should be granted and its arguments considered.

• Constitutionality of Clustering: Whether the JBC’s act of clustering nominees into six separate short lists for the six simultaneous Sandiganbayan vacancies is consistent with Article VIII, Section 9 of the 1987 Constitution and whether it impinges on the President’s appointing power.

• Validity of the Appointments: Whether President Aquino validly exercised his discretionary power to appoint when he disregarded the clustered short lists and appointed respondents Musngi and Econg, among others, from the entire pool of qualified nominees.

• Seniority: Whether the JBC’s designation of specific numbered vacancies on the short lists constitutes an encroachment on the President’s exclusive power to determine the seniority of newly appointed collegiate court justices.

• Inhibition of the Ponente: The motion for inhibition was denied. The JBC failed to comply with the Internal Rules of the Supreme Court requiring a motion for inhibition to be under oath. Even disregarding the procedural defect, no ground for mandatory inhibition existed: the ponente had no personal pecuniary interest, was not related to any party, and had not served as counsel in the case. The imputation of bias based on her prior consultancy was unfounded; she had not been privy to the JBC’s executive sessions where clustering was discussed, and she had no opportunity to express her opinion on clustering before her ponencia. Bare allegations of partiality cannot overcome the presumption that a justice performs official duties impartially.

• Intervention: The Court granted the JBC’s prayer to intervene in the interest of substantial justice. The issues raised and arguments adduced in both the Motion for Reconsideration and the Motion for Reconsideration-in-Intervention were considered on the merits, mooting any procedural objection.

• Constitutionality of Clustering: Clustering of nominees for simultaneous vacancies in a collegiate court was declared unconstitutional. Article VIII, Section 9 does not require the JBC to fragment a single pool of qualified candidates into mutually exclusive short lists; it merely requires that for every vacancy, at least three nominees be submitted to the President. By creating six separate, non-overlapping clusters, the JBC restricted the President’s choice to the handful of names in each list: once the President appointed a nominee from one cluster, he was foreclosed from considering the remaining nominees in that cluster for the other vacancies. This effectively limited the President’s discretion to appoint any qualified nominee to any vacant post, a prerogative that is paramount under the Constitution. Furthermore, clustering lacked any objective criteria, standards, or guidelines for assigning a nominee to a particular cluster, rendering the process arbitrary and susceptible to manipulation — a favored nominee could be placed in a weak cluster to ensure appointment, while a disfavored one could be placed in a cluster with stronger contenders to diminish his or her chances.

• Validity of the Appointments: President Aquino’s disregard of the clustering was a valid exercise of his appointing power. He appointed the six new Sandiganbayan Associate Justices from among the 37 qualified nominees, treating them as if embodied in a single JBC list. Every appointee had been nominated by the JBC, satisfying Article VIII, Section 9. The minimum constitutional requirement of three nominees per vacancy (18 nominees for six vacancies) was even exceeded. The power to recommend cannot be used to restrict or limit the President’s power to appoint; as long as the President chooses from JBC-nominated individuals, the appointment is constitutionally sound.

• Seniority: The JBC’s designation of the short lists for specific numbered vacancies (16th to 21st Associate Justices) encroached on the President’s exclusive authority to determine seniority in the Sandiganbayan. By law (Presidential Decree No. 1606, Section 1), the rules of the Sandiganbayan, and jurisprudence (Re: Seniority Among the Four Most Recent Appointments to the Position of Associate Justices of the Court of Appeals), the President determines precedence according to the dates of the commissions or, when commissions bear the same date, the order in which they are issued. By assigning numerical designations to the vacancies before the appointments were made, the JBC effectively pre-determined the seniority of the future appointees, thereby arrogating unto itself a vital component of the presidential appointment power.

• Clustering of nominees for simultaneous collegiate court vacancies is unconstitutional when it impairs the President’s appointing power and predetermines seniority: The Judicial and Bar Council’s constitutional mandate to submit a list of at least three nominees for every vacancy does not authorize it to fragment a common pool of qualified candidates into exclusive, non-overlapping short lists for each specific seat in a collegiate court when the vacancies require identical qualifications. Such clustering (a) restricts the President’s choice to a subset of qualified nominees for each vacancy, thereby curtailing his paramount discretion to appoint any JBC-nominated individual to any vacant post; (b) effectively determines the seniority of the appointees in advance — a function the law vests solely in the President through the dating and sequencing of commissions; and (c) in the absence of any disclosed objective criteria or guidelines for assigning nominees to a particular cluster, opens the process to manipulation that could favor or prejudice a candidate. The JBC’s power to recommend does not extend to limiting the President’s appointing prerogative; the President may validly treat all short lists for simultaneous vacancies as a single consolidated list and appoint from among all qualified nominees.

• Standard for inhibition of a Supreme Court Justice: Under Rule 8, Section 1 of the Internal Rules of the Supreme Court, the grounds for mandatory inhibition are exclusive and specific. A prior JBC consultancy does not fall within any enumerated ground, and bare allegations of bias unsupported by clear and convincing evidence cannot overcome the presumption that a justice impartially discharges her judicial duties. Voluntary inhibition requires proof of personal hostility or prejudice beyond speculation.

• Intervention may be permitted in the interest of substantial justice despite belated filing: Even if a motion for intervention suffers from procedural infirmities, the Court may allow it and consider the intervenor’s arguments to achieve a complete resolution of the controversy, as long as no undue prejudice results.

• “The independence and discretion of the JBC, however, is not without limits. It cannot impair the President’s power to appoint members of the Judiciary and his statutory power to determine the seniority of the newly-appointed Sandiganbayan Associate Justices.”

• “The Court cannot sustain the strained interpretation of Article VIII, Section 9 of the 1987 Constitution espoused by the JBC, which ultimately curtailed the President’s appointing power.”

• “By arbitrarily clustering the nominees for appointment to the six simultaneous vacancies for Sandiganbayan Associate Justice into separate short lists, the JBC influenced the appointment process and encroached on the President’s power to appoint members of the Judiciary and determine seniority in the said court, beyond its mandate under the 1987 Constitution.”

• “The power to recommend of the JBC cannot be used to restrict or limit the President’s power to appoint as the latter’s prerogative to choose someone whom he/she considers worth appointing to the vacancy in the Judiciary is still paramount.”

• “Without objective criteria, standards, or guidelines in determining which nominees are to be included in which cluster, the clustering of nominees for specific vacant posts seems to be at the very least, totally arbitrary.”

• Re: Seniority Among the Four Most Recent Appointments to the Position of Associate Justices of the Court of Appeals, 646 Phil. 1 (2010) — Cited as controlling for the rule that the President, not the JBC, determines the seniority of newly appointed collegiate court justices by the date and order of issuance of their commissions.

• Jardeleza v. Sereno, G.R. No. 213181, August 19, 2014, 733 SCRA 279 — Referenced to illustrate the JBC’s practice of holding executive sessions that excluded Supreme Court consultants, demonstrating that the ponente lacked personal knowledge of the clustering decision.

• Gochan v. Gochan, 446 Phil. 433, 447-448 (2003) — Applied for the standard that bias to warrant voluntary inhibition must be proved by clear and convincing evidence, not bare allegations.

• Atong Paglaum, Inc. v. Commission on Elections, 707 Phil. 754 (2013) and Ocampo v. Enriquez, G.R. Nos. 225973 et al., November 8, 2016 — Invoked by the JBC to support a textualist approach to constitutional interpretation, but distinguished or implicitly rejected insofar as the Court declined to read Article VIII, Section 9 in a manner that would fragment the President’s appointing power.

• Article VIII, Section 9, 1987 Constitution: “The Members of the Supreme Court and judges of lower courts shall be appointed by the President from a list of at least three nominees prepared by the Judicial and Bar Council for every vacancy. Such appointments need no confirmation.” The Court interpreted this to require that for each vacancy there must be at least three nominees submitted to the President, but it does not compel separate, non-overlapping short lists that constrict the President’s choice among all qualified individuals. The provision sets a floor, not a ceiling, and does not disable the President from considering all nominees across multiple lists for simultaneous vacancies.

• Section 1, paragraph 3, Presidential Decree No. 1606 (Revised Sandiganbayan Law): Provides that the Presiding Justice is designated in his commission and “the other Justices shall have precedence according to the dates of their respective commissions, or, when the commissions of two or more of them shall bear the same date, according to the order in which their commissions have been issued by the President.” This vests the determination of seniority exclusively in the President, which the JBC’s numbered short lists preempted.

• Rule II, Section 1(b), Revised Internal Rules of the Sandiganbayan: States that “The Associate Justices shall have precedence according to the order of their appointments.” The provision reinforces that only the order of appointments—controlled by the President—governs seniority.

• Rule 8, Sections 1 and 2, Internal Rules of the Supreme Court (A.M. No. 10-4-20-SC): Enumerate the exclusive grounds for mandatory and voluntary inhibition of justices. Used to deny the JBC’s motion for inhibition for failure to meet any of the enumerated grounds or to present sworn clear and convincing evidence of bias.

Chief Justice Maria Lourdes P. A. Sereno took no part. Senior Associate Justice Antonio T. Carpio presided and concurred in the result. Associate Justices Presbitero J. Velasco, Jr. (with a separate opinion), Diosdado M. Peralta, Lucas P. Bersamin, Mariano C. Del Castillo, Jose Catral Mendoza, Bienvenido L. Reyes (on official leave), Estela M. Perlas-Bernabe (concurring in the result and joining Justice Leonen’s separate opinion), Marvic M.V.F. Leonen (with a separate opinion), Francis H. Jardeleza, and Alfredo Benjamin S. Caguioa (with a separate opinion) concurred. No dissents were registered.

N/A — The resolution was reached without any dissenting opinion.