G.R. No. 172206; July 3, 2013
Posted by: Alaine Joyce on July 24, 2018
FACTS:
On August 18, 2005, the Batangas State University Board of Regents (BSU-BOR) received an Order from the Ombudsman. The order directed BSU-BOR to enforce the Office of the Ombudsman's Joint Decision and Supplemental Resolution, finding herein respondents guilty of dishonesty and grave misconduct and imposing the penalty of dismissal from service with its accessory penalties, despite the fact that the same are pending appeal before the CA. Pursuant to said Order, BSU-BOR issued a Resolution resolving to implement the Order of the Office of the Ombudsman.
Respondents filed a petition for injunction with prayer for issuance of a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction before the RTC but was denied. Respondents filed their notice of appeal and Motion for Issuance of a Temporary Restraining Order and/or Injunction with the CA which granted its petition. Thereafter, the Office of the Ombudsman filed a Motion to Intervene. It questioned the Order of the CA granting the injunctive relief prayed for by the respondents. It contended that under the Ombudsman Rules of Procedure, an appeal does not stay the execution of decisions, resolutions or order issued by the Office of the Ombudsman.
ISSUES:
1. Whether or not the respondents are entitled to injunctive relief.
2. Whether or not decisions of the Office of the Ombudsman are immediately executory.
HELD:
1. The respondents are not entitled to injunctive relief.
For a writ of preliminary injunction to issue, the following requisites must concur:
(1)That the invasion of the right is material and substantial;
(2)That the right of complainant is clear and unmistakable;
(3)That there is an urgent and paramount necessity for the writ to prevent serious damage.
In the present case, the right of the respondents cannot be said to be clear and unmistakable, because the prevailing jurisprudence is that penalty of dismissal from the service meted on government employees or officials is immediately executor in accordance with the valid rule of execution pending appeal uniformly observed in administrative disciplinary cases.
2. The decisions of the Office of the Ombudsman are immediately executor.
The Constitution authorizes the Office of the Ombudsman to promulgate its own rules of procedure. For the CA to issue a preliminary injunction that will stay the penalty imposed by the Ombudsman in an administrative case would be to encroach on the rule-making powers of the Office of the Ombudsman under the Constitution and RA 6770 as the injunctive writ will render nugatory the provision of Section 7, Rule III of the Rules of Procedure of the Office of the Ombudsman. Clearly, said Rules of Procedure supersedes the discretion given to the CA in Section 12, Rule 43 of the Rules of Court when a decision of the Ombudsman in an administrative case if appealed to the CA. The provision in the Rules of Procedure of the Office of the Ombudsman that a decision is immediately executor is a special rule that prevails over the provisions of the Rules of Court.
