Rodriguez vs. City of Manila

Where publication of a proposed ordinance is made a condition precedent to its adoption, the requirement is mandatory, and the publication must encompass the whole ordinance—not merely excerpts or summaries thereof; an ordinance adopted without such full publication is null and void.

The City of Manila, governed under the Administrative Code, was required by section 2443 thereof to publish each proposed ordinance in two daily newspapers of general circulation—one in English and one in Spanish—before discussion or enactment by the Municipal Board. Act No. 2930 subsequently mandated that all public notices and advertisements of the various branches of the Government be published in the Official Gazette and repealed all provisions inconsistent therewith. The interplay between these two enactments formed the statutory backdrop against which the validity of the City's appropriation ordinance was tested. The plaintiffs were officials and employees of the City of Manila—among them four captains of the municipal police force—whose salaries were not provided for in the ordinance.

Ordinance No. 1148 of the City of Manila, entitled "An ordinance appropriating funds for the necessary expenses of the Government of the City of Manila during the fiscal year ending December thirty-first of the year one thousand nine hundred twenty-four, and for other purposes," was the subject of this prohibition proceeding. A draft of the ordinance, substantially in the same form as ultimately passed, was prepared before October 30, 1923. It consisted of eight sections, the first of which was lengthy and contained a minutely detailed statement of the various items of appropriation.

On October 30, 1923, an excerpt of section 1 and all of sections 2 through 8 were published in both the English and Spanish editions of the Official Gazette under the heading "Notice of a proposed ordinance of the City of Manila." The excerpt of section 1 contained a statement in lump sums of the amounts allotted to each department of the City Government but did not set forth the various items of the appropriations. The ordinance was passed by the Municipal Board on December 14, 1923, and approved on the same day by Geronimo Santiago as Acting Mayor. It was thereafter published in full in the Official Gazette of December 22, 1923.

As passed, the ordinance made no provision for the salaries of various officials and employees of the city, including four captains of the municipal police force, who thereupon instituted this action. The validity of the ordinance was attacked on three grounds before the Court of First Instance: first, that Geronimo Santiago was not Acting Mayor either de jure or de facto but a mere intruder; second, that the proposed ordinance was not published in two daily newspapers of general circulation as required by section 2443 of the Administrative Code; and third, that the ordinance was not published in full before its adoption, only extracts having appeared in the Official Gazette. The lower court held Santiago to be a de facto Mayor, rejecting the first ground, but declared the ordinance null and void on the second and third grounds.

• Mandatory Nature of Publication: Whether the provisions of section 2443 of the Administrative Code regarding publication of proposed ordinances are mandatory and not merely directory.
• Sufficiency of Official Gazette Publication: Whether publication of a proposed ordinance in the Official Gazette is sufficient compliance with the law, and whether section 1 of Act No. 2930 repealed the provisions of section 2443 requiring publication in two daily newspapers.
• Publication in Excerpt Form: Whether publication of a proposed ordinance in excerpt form—omitting the itemized statement of expenditures—constitutes sufficient compliance with the publication requirement.

• Mandatory Nature of Publication: Yes. Where publication of a proposed ordinance is made a condition precedent to its adoption, the requirement is mandatory and goes to the jurisdiction of the municipal board; ordinances adopted without such publication are null and void.
• Sufficiency of Official Gazette Publication: Yes. Act No. 2930 repealed the portion of section 2443 of the Administrative Code requiring newspaper publication, and publication in the Official Gazette is sufficient compliance with the law.
• Publication in Excerpt Form: No. Publication of an ordinance means the whole ordinance and not merely parts thereof; the omission of the itemized statement of expenditures rendered the publication defective and the ordinance null and void.

• Mandatory Nature of Publication: A distinction was drawn between publications required after passage of an ordinance and those required before passage. Post-passage publication provisions, though generally mandatory, have often been held merely directory where the statute does not expressly prescribe that the ordinance shall not go into effect until publication is made. Pre-passage publication, however, stands on a different footing: when publication of a proposed ordinance is made a condition precedent for its adoption, the statute is mandatory, the publication goes to the jurisdiction of the municipal council or board, and ordinances adopted without such publication are null and void. This proposition was supported by American authorities cited in the decision.

• Sufficiency of Official Gazette Publication: Section 2443 of the Administrative Code required publication of proposed ordinances in two daily newspapers—one in English and one in Spanish. Act No. 2930, however, mandated that all public notices and advertisements of the several departments, bureaus, offices, and other branches of the Government service be published in the Official Gazette, and its section 4 expressly repealed all acts providing for publication in any other form and all acts inconsistent with its provisions. Under section 2 of the Administrative Code, municipal governments, including that of the City of Manila, are branches of the Philippine Government. The medium of publication prescribed in section 1 of Act No. 2930 was therefore applicable to all branches of the Government, and section 4 of the same Act repealed the conflicting newspaper-publication requirement of section 2443. Publication in the Official Gazette thus sufficed.

• Publication in Excerpt Form: Where publication of an ordinance is required, it means the whole ordinance and not merely parts thereof; courts have held that even the enacting clause must be included. The object of pre-adoption publication is to advise interested parties and afford them an opportunity to present their views to the Municipal Board. In appropriation ordinances, both city employees and taxpayers are interested, and to form intelligent opinions on the manner in which public funds are proposed to be expended, the portion containing the itemized statement of expenditures must be published. That was precisely the portion of which only an excerpt was published—lump sums appeared, but the detailed items did not. The omission rendered the publication defective and the ordinance null and void.

• Mandatory vs. Directory Publication Requirements — A distinction exists between publication requirements imposed after an ordinance's passage and those imposed before passage as a condition precedent to adoption. Post-passage publication provisions are generally mandatory but may be held directory where the statute does not expressly require publication as a prerequisite to effectivity. Pre-passage publication requirements, by contrast, are invariably mandatory: they go to the jurisdiction of the municipal board, and ordinances adopted without compliance are null and void.

• Full-Text Publication Rule — Where publication of an ordinance is required, the entire ordinance must be published, not merely excerpts or summaries. Even the enacting clause must be included. The purpose is to advise interested parties and afford them an opportunity to be heard before the ordinance is adopted. In appropriation ordinances, the itemized statement of expenditures is an essential component that must be published, as it enables employees and taxpayers to assess how public funds are proposed to be spent.

• "But it is otherwise where publication of a proposed ordinance is made a condition precedent for its adoption. In such cases the courts have uniformly held that the statute is mandatory; that the publication goes to the jurisdiction of the municipal council or board; and that ordinances adopted without such publication are null and void." — This passage articulates the ratio decidendi on the mandatory nature of pre-adoption publication requirements, establishing that such publication is jurisdictional.

• "Where publication of an ordinance is required it means the whole ordinance and not merely parts thereof." — This is the canonical formulation of the full-text publication rule applied to municipal ordinances, frequently cited for the proposition that partial publication does not satisfy statutory publication requirements.

• "The object of the publication of an ordinance before its adoption is, of course, to advise interested parties so as to give them an opportunity to present their views to the Municipal Board." — This defines the underlying purpose of pre-adoption publication, grounding the full-text requirement in principles of public participation and due notice.

• City and County of San Francisco vs. Buckman, 111 Cal. 25 — Cited as supporting authority for the proposition that pre-adoption publication requirements are mandatory and jurisdictional.
• State and Boice vs. City of Plainfield, 38 N.J.L. 95 — Cited as supporting authority for the mandatory nature of pre-adoption publication of proposed ordinances.
• Quint vs. City of Merrill, 105 Wis. 406 — Cited as supporting authority for the rule that ordinances adopted without required pre-adoption publication are null and void.
• In the Matter of Smith, 52 N.Y. 526 — Cited as supporting authority for the mandatory and jurisdictional character of pre-adoption publication requirements.
• People vs. Russell, 74 Cal. 578 — Cited for the proposition that even the enacting clause of an ordinance must be included in the required publication.

• Section 2443, Administrative Code — Required publication of each proposed ordinance in two daily newspapers of general circulation in the city, one in English and one in Spanish, before discussion or enactment by the Board. The Court held that the newspaper-publication portion of this section was repealed by Act No. 2930, but the requirement that the full text of the proposed ordinance be published before adoption remained operative.
• Section 2, Administrative Code — Defined "The Government of the Philippine Islands" as including provincial and municipal branches and other forms of local government, establishing that the City of Manila is a branch of the Government to which the Official Gazette publication mandate of Act No. 2930 applies.
• Section 1, Act No. 2930 — Mandated that all public notices and advertisements of the several branches of the Government service be published in the Official Gazette, providing the new medium of publication that supplanted the newspaper requirement of section 2443.
• Section 4, Act No. 2930 — Repealed all acts providing for publication of the covered documents in any form other than that prescribed in the Act and all acts inconsistent with its provisions, thereby repealing the newspaper-publication requirement of section 2443 of the Administrative Code.

Street, Malcolm, Avanceña, Villamor, and Romualdez, JJ., concurred.