Municipality of Jimenez (thru its town officials) vs RTC Judge Vicente Baz and the Mun. of Sicanaban (thru its town officials).
This topic about the legality of the creation of towns by Presidents is one that affects me personally. Bear with me, and indulge an old man, as I inject some personal insight into my report.
Jimenez happens to be the place where my Uncle is spending his retirement years after working as a DepEd nurse for Lanao del Norte all his working life. He is a true-blooded Cebuano who married into the Galindo clan of Jimenez, Mis. Occ.
But of even more importance to me is the case of Pelaez vs Auditor General which is being leaned upon heavily by Jimenez in this petition for certiorari against respondents, more specifically the town of Sinacaban. This then is a tale of my uncle and yours truly.
Jimenez is one of the nine original towns of Misamis Occidental when the old province of Misamis was divided in 1929 into Mis Occ and Misamis Oriental. Jimenez had a land area of a little over 18,000 hectares until August 29, 1949. The following day, Aug 30, 1949, Pres. Elpidio Quirino thru EO 258 carved out of the town of Jimenez, the town of Sinacaban. Jimenez suddenly shrank to 8,100 hectares. If the Beatles were around in 1950, the people of Jimenez including the future parents-in-laws of my Uncle would have sung: “We’re not half the town we used to be”. That is my uncle’s part of the tale.
After the usual wrangling over boundaries, Jimenez and Sinacaban came to an agreement whereby portions of some barrios which were delineated as part of Sinacaban were retained by Jimenez pursuant to a resolution of the Mis Occ provincial board on Feb 18, 1950.
I am not sure how, but somehow a new generation of Sinacaban leaders forgot the agreement because on November 22, 1988 Sinacaban wanted to retake these areas and filed their claim with the Provincial Board of Mis Occ.
I googled Sinacaban just to get some insight and this is very interesting. The website for the town has this following information which I quote verbatim:
A new brand of leader came up on the year 1986, preferably the month of April.
Anyway, the PB of Mis Occ ruled in favor of Sinacaban forcing Jimenez to file a petition for certiorari, prohibition, and mandamus with the RTC. Using the case of Pelaez vs Auditor General, Jimenez contended that Sinacaban could not exist as a municipality because it was only created by an EO.
RTC Judge Baz ruled in favor of Sinacaban thus Jimenez went to the Supreme Court.
The SC ruled that, indeed, Sinacaban is a municipality although created only under an EO based on the ff:
1. It has been impliedly recognized (as when Jimenez entered into an agreement with Sinacaban in 1950) and its acts accorded legal validity.
2. Sinacaban was considered as part of a municipal circuit in the Judiciary Reorganization act of 1989;
3. The Local Government Code of 1991 provides that towns created by presidential issuances and which have their respective sets of elective officials at the time of the passage of the LGC are considered as regular municipalities.
SC in effect said that Pelaez vs Auditor General does not apply here.
Now let me share with you an old man’s tale (my tale) about Pelaez vs Auditor General. If you read the footnotes of the case you will find a list of 33 municipalities created by Pres. Macapagal (his opponents called it gerrymandering which you can google for the meaning). These 33 towns were subsequently dissolved by the order of the SC.
One of the towns listed is Libertad in Zamboanga del Sur. It was carved out of Dimataling, Zambo del Sur. How did I know these? I lived in Dimataling until Grade I. But I grew up in Cebu until high school with my grandparents. But more significant to my story is that my father was appointed by Pres. Macapagal as the mayor of Libertad. But that was shortlived because of the Pelaez ruling.
