Administrative Law and Public Election of Officers
Midterm Reviewer
Administrative Law (Dean Roscoe Pound) – branch of
modern law under the executive department, acting in a
quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial capacity, interferes with
the conduct of the individual for the purpose of promoting
the well-being of the community, as under laws regulating
public interest, professions, trades and callings, rates and
prices, laws for the protection of public health and safety,
and the promotion of public convenience.
Two major powers:
• Quasi-legislative authority or rule-making power
• Quasi-judicial or adjudicatory function
Object and scope – regulation of private right for public
welfare
Primary function – enforce the law, which it can actually
perform even without exercising either quasi-legislative or
quasi-judicial power, if conferred upon it, may be invoked
or exercised by it only for purposes of enhancing its
enforcement prerogative, and only within the confines of
the constitutional or statutory grant of either.
Origin – legislation
Justification – expediency
Doctrine of Separation of Powers – all rules of conduct are
supposed to be laid down directly by the legislature, subject
to the direct enforcement of the executive department, and
the application or interpretation, also directly, by the
judiciary.
*government is overwhelmed with the scope of work –
delegation of power
By delegation – legislature is able to relieve itself of the
responsibility to legislate directly on relatively minor
matters and of attending as well to the adjudication of
essentially factual questions that more properly pertain to
the executive authorities.
Sources
1. Constitutional or statutory enactments creating
administrative bodies
2. Decisions of courts interpreting the charters of
administrative bodies and defining their powers, rights,
inhibitions, among others, and the effects of their
determinations and regulations.
3. Rules and regulations issued by the administrative
bodies in pursuance of the purposes for which they
were created.
4. Determinations and orders of the administrative
bodies in the settlement of controversies arising in their
respective fields.
Two senses of administration: institution and function
As an institution – aggregate of individuals in whose hands
the reins of government are for the time being—persons
who actually run the government during their prescribed
terms of office. Transitional in nature.
Distinguished from government – agency or instrumentality
through which the will of the State is formulated, expressed
and realized. Permanent fixture in every State.
As a function – actual running of the government by the
executive authorities through the enforcement of laws and
the implementation of policies. Any activity outside of
legislation and the rendering of judicial decisions will come
under administration.
Administration as an activity, internal and external
Internal – rules defining the relations of public functionaries
inter se and embraces the whole range of the law of public
officers.
External – relations of the public office with the public in
general. Rules prescribed here do not necessarily affect the
personnel of the office but are promulgated for observance
of those who have dealings or transactions with said office.
Distinguished from law
Law – impersonal command provided with sanctions to be
applied in case of violation
Administration – preventive rather than punitive and is
accepted to be more personal than law.
*Administration may also clarify certain ambiguous
provisions in statutes through the issuance of interpretative
regulations meant to make it easier for the people to
understand and obey the law.
Administrative agency – a body endowed with quasi-
legislative and quasi-judicial powers for the purpose of
enabling it to carry out laws entrusted to it for enforcement
or execution.
Agency – any department, bureau, office, commission,
authority or officer of the national government authorized
by law or executive order to make rules, issue licenses,
grant rights and privileges and adjudicate cases, etc.
Government instrumentality – any agency of the NG not
integrated within the department framework, vested with
special functions or jurisdiction by law—endowed with
some corporate powers, administering special funds and
enjoying operational autonomy, usually through a charter.
Attachment – lateral relationship between the department
or its equivalent and the attached agency or corporation for
purposes of policy and program coordination, merely.
Categories of administrative relationships:
1. Supervision and control
2. Administrative supervision
3. Attachment
Purpose of attaching one functionality inter-related
government agency to another – attain policy and program
coordination
Kinds of administrative agencies
1. Government agency – various units of the govt
2. Government-owned or controlled corporation (GOCC) –
agency organized as a stock or non-stock corporation
3. Government financial institutions (GFI) – government
directly or indirectly owns (registered with or directly
supervised by BSP or collecting or transacting funds or
contributions from the public and places them in
financial instruments)
4. Government instrumentalities with corporate powers
(GICP)/government corporate entities (GCE) – neither
corporations nor agencies integrated within the
departmental framework but vested by law with special
functions or jurisdictions
5. Non-chartered GOCC – GOCC organized and operating
under BP 68 or Corporation Code of the PH
Nature – regarded as an arm of the legislature insofar as it
is authorized to promulgate rules that have the force of law
by virtue of a valid delegation of legislative power.
Creation and abolition – by constitution or by statute
By constitution: Civil Service Commission, Commission on
Elections, Commission on Audit
By Statute: Metropolitan Manila Authority, PRC, NLRC, SEC
Powers of Administrative Agencies
Quasi-legislative – power of subordinate legislation and
permits the body to promulgate rules intended to carry out
the provisions or particular laws.
Quasi-judicial – enables the administrative body to resolve,
in a manner essentially judicial, factual and sometimes even
legal questions incidental to its primary power of
enforcement of the law.
Jurisdiction of Administrative Body
QL – prescribing a rule for the future, public in nature
QJ – applying a rule for the past, private in nature
QUASI-LEGISLATIVE POWER
Reason: impracticable for lawmakers to provide general
regulations for various and varying details of management.
• Authority delegated by the law-making body to the
administrative body to adopt rules and regulations
intended to carry out the provisions of a law and
implement legislative policy.
• Rules issues by administrative or executive officers
have the force and effect of a statute, entitled to
great respect
Administrative rule – any agency statement of general
applicability that implements or interprets a law, fixes and
describes the procedures in, or practice requirements of, an
agency, including its regulations.
Distinguished from legislative power – power to
promulgate laws; administrative regulations are intended
only to implement the law and to carry out the legislative
policy.
Legislative power - discretion to determine what the law
shall be is exclusively legislative and cannot be delegated.
QL – discretion to determine how the law shall be enforced;
power to carry out a policy declared by the lawmaker. By
virtue of a valid delegation, either expressly or implied.
Tests of Delegation
• Completeness Test – law must be complete in all its
terms and condition when it leaves the legislature so
that when it reaches the delegate, it will have nothing
to do but enforce it.
• Sufficient Standard Test – Law must offer a sufficient
standard to specify the limits of the delegate’s
authority, announce the legislative policy, and specify
the conditions under which it is to be implemented.
Accepted sufficient standards – public interest, simplicity,
economy and efficiency and public welfare.
QUASI-JUDICIAL POWER
• The power to make determinations of facts in the
performance of their official duties and to apply the
law as they construe it to the facts so found.
• Only incidental to their main function—
enforcement of the law
Judicial process – focuses on question of law, question of
facts secondary importance only
• Executive acts last after judgment is made and all
legal questions are settled
In QJ, executive acts first, with courts acting later, whenever
warranted, to review its legal findings.
Administrative officers can interpret and apply the law to
the facts as ascertained by them because this function is
necessary to the discharge of their primary function of
regulation but because they are not judges, their
determination of legal questions is subject to review by
courts of justice.
Source: incidental to the power of regulation vested in the
administrative body but often expressly conferred by the
legislature through specific provisions in the charter of
agency.
- Also vested with determinative powers to better
enable the administrative body to exercise quasi-
judicial authority
- Enabling powers – permit the doing of an act which
the law undertakes to regulate, and which would be
unlawful without government approval.
- Directing powers – order the doing or performance
of particular acts to ensure compliance with the law
and are often for corrective purposes.
- Dispensing powers – allows the administrative
officer to relax the general operation of a law or
exempt from the performance of a general duty
- Summary powers – use of force upon persons or
things without the necessity of previous judicial
warrant.
- Examining power – inspect the records and
premises, and investigate the activities, of persons
or entities coming under its jurisdiction.
o Issuance of subpoenas
o Swearing in of witnesses
o Interrogation of witnesses
o Calling for productions of books, etc
o Requiring books, etc be made available for
inspection
o Inspection of premises
o Requiring written answers to
questionnaires
o Requiring periodic or special reports
o Requiring the filing of statements
KINDS OF ADMINISTRATIVE REGULATIONS
1. Legislative rule – in the matter of subordinate
legislation, designed to implement a primary legislation
by providing the details thereof
a. Accorded by the courts or by express provision
of statute the force and effect of law
immediately upon going into effect
b. Subordinate legislation
c. Do no more than interpret the statute being
administered
d. Have validity in judicial proceedings only to the
extent that they correctly construe the statute
e. Intended to merely clarify its provisions for
proper observance; merely persuasive and is
received by courts with respect but not final
f. Supplementary -make explicit of what’s general
g. Contingent – issued upon happening of a
certain contingency which the administrative
body is given the discretion to determine or to
ascertain, under and pursuant to the law, by its
own terms, makes it own action depend under
which law as passed or will or will not operate
Requisites:
➢ Promulgation must be authorized by the legislature
➢ Must be within the scope of the authority given by
the legislature
➢ Must be promulgated in accordance with the
prescribed procedure
➢ Must be reasonable
Penal regulations – administrative regulations may have
the force and effect of law, their violation cannot give rise
to criminal prosecution unless the legislature makes such
violation punishable and imposes the corresponding
sanctions.
Requisites – administrative regulation with a penal
sanction:
➢ Law itself must make a violation of the
administrative regulation punishable
➢ Law itself must impose and specify the penalty for
the violation of the regulation
➢ Regulation must be published
Construction and Interpretation – operate prospective
only, unless legislative intent to the contrary is manifest by
express terms or by necessary implication; AR that
contravenes the statute is invalid
Enforcement – power to promulgate administrative
regulations carries with it the implied power to enforce
them—effected through judicial action, as in petitions for
mandamus and injunction or sanctions that the statute
itself may allow the administrative body to impose.
- Includes power to issue opinions and rulings to
enable the administrative agency to properly
execute said regulations
2. Interpretative rule – designed to provide guidelines to
the law which the administrative agency is in charge of
enforcing
a. Intended merely to clarify its provisions for
proper observance by the people.
QUASI-JUDICIAL POWER
Jurisdiction – without it, determinations made by the
administrative bodies are absolutely null and without any
legal effect whatsoever.
a. Can be conferred upon the administrative agency
by the constitution
b. Rules of Procedure – when an AB is expressly
granted the power of adjudication, it is deemed
also vested with the implied power to prescribe the
rules to be observed in the conduct of its
proceedings.
c. Subpeona Power – not inherent in AB; these bodies
may summon witnesses and require the production
of evidence only when duly allowed by law and
always in connection with the matter they are
authorized to investigate; may be expressly granted
in the charter of the administrative body
d. Contempt power – essentially judicial and cannot be
claimed as an inherent right by AB; must be
expressly conferred and must only be used in
connection with its quasi-judicial as distinguished
from its purely administrative or routinary
functions.
Notice and Hearing – essential to due process and non-
observance will as a rule invalidate the administrative
proceedings. Essence of due process in AP is the
opportunity to explain one’s side or a chance to seek
reconsideration of the action or ruling complained of.
a. Administrative Due Process – no requirement for
strict adherence to technical rules as are observed
in truly judicial proceedings.
b. Cardinal rights of administrative due process:
a. Ang Tibay requisites
c. Procedural due process:
a. Right to actual or constructive notice of the
institution of proceedings which may affect
a respondent’s legal rights
b. Real opportunity to be heard personally or
with counsel
c. Tribunal vested with competent
jurisdiction and so constituted as to afford
a person charged administratively a
reasonable guarantee of honesty as well as
impartiality
d. Finding by tribunal which is supported by
substantial evidence
Administrative appeals and review – unless otherwise
provided by law or executive order, an appeal from a final
decision of the administrative agency may be taken to the
department head, whose decision may further be brought
to the regular courts of justice, in accordance with the
procedure specified by the law.
Enforcement and decision – in the absence of any statute
providing for the enforcement of an administrative
determination, the same cannot be enforced except
possibly by appeal to the force of public opinion.
Res Judicata – administrative decision not considered RJ so
as to preclude its subsequent reconsideration or
revocation.
JUDICIAL REVIEW
General rule – an administrative decision may be appealed
to the courts of justice only if the Constitution or law
permits or if the issues to be reviewed involve questions of
law.
Right to appeal – not a constitutional right nor embraced in
the right to be heard as guaranteed by due process.
AD – may be validly rendered final and inappealable at the
administrative level without allowing the aggrieved party a
final resort to the courts of justice.
Courts of justice will generally not interfere in executive and
administrative matters which are addressed to the sound
discretion of government agencies.
Doctrine of Primary Jurisdiction or Prior Resort – does not
warrant a court to arrogate unto itself authority to resolve
a controversy the jurisdiction over which is initially lodged
with an administrative body of special competence.
- Courts will not interfere in matters which are
addressed to the sound discretion of the
government agency entrusted with the regulation
of activities coming under the special and technical
training and knowledge of such agency.
- Calls for the determination of administrative
questions, which are ordinarily questions of fact, by
administrative agencies rather than courts of
justice.
- Where two administrative agencies share
concurrent jurisdiction, the body or agency that
first takes cognizance of the complaint shall
exercise jurisdiction to the exclusion of others.
- Applies only to the exercise by an administrative
agency of its quasi-judicial function
Doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies – calls
for resort first to the appropriate administrative authorities
in the resolution of a controversy falling under their
jurisdiction before the same may be elevated to the courts
of justice for review.
- Non-observance results in lack of cause of action
 - An administrative decision must first be appealed
to the administrative superiors up to the highest
level before it may be elevated to a court of justice
for review.
Reasons:
o Administrative superiors can correct the
errors committed by their subordinates
o Courts should as much as possible refrain
from disturbing the findings of
administrative bodies in deference to the
doctrine of separation of powers
o On practical grounds, it is best that the
courts, which are burdened enough as they
are with judicial cases, should not be
saddled with the review of administrative
cases
o Usually effected through special civil
actions of certiorari, mandamus and
prohibition, which are available only if
there is no other plain, speedy and
adequate remedy.
d. Where the amount involved is relatively small as to
make the rule impractical and oppressive
e. Where the question raised is purely legal and will
ultimately have to be decided by the courts of
justice
f. Where judicial intervention is urgent
g. Where its application may cause great and
irreparable damage
h. Where the controverted acts violate due process
i. When the issue of non-exhaustion of administrative
remedies has been rendered moot
j. Where there is no other plain, speedy and adequate
remedy
k. When the strong public interest is involved
l. In quo warranto proceedings
Appeal to the President: not necessary because Doctrine of
Political Agency – the acts of the secretary are the acts of
the President

- Failure to exhaust administrative remedies would

not affect the jurisdiction of the reviewing court
and would merely result in the lack of cause of
action which may be invoked in a motion to dismiss.

Exceptions:
a. Where there is estoppel on part of the party
invoking the doctrine
b. Where the challenged administrative act is patently
illegal, amounting to lack of jurisdiction
c. Where there is unreasonable delay or official
inaction that will irretrievably prejudice the
complainant