ADMINISTRATIVE LAW

I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES
Administrative Law
- It is the branch of public law which fixes the
organization and determines the competence of
administrative authorities, and indicates to the individual
remedies for the violation of his rights.
Administrative Law in actual practice in the Philippines
1) It is a branch of public law.
2) It deals with the activities of executive or administrative
agencies, known and referred to as boards, bureaus,
commissions, authority, offices, and
administration;

3) These boards, bureaus, commissions, authority,

offices, and administration can exercise quasilegislative and quasi- judicial powers and functions in the
sense that they can issue rules and regulations not contrary to
the guidelines set up by law and they can resolve the issues or
the cases submitted to them;
4) Administrative regulations and policies enacted by
administrative bodies to interpret the law which they are
entrusted to enforce have the force of law are entitled to great
respect. They have in their favor a presumption of legality.
(Gonzales vs. Land Bank of the Philippines., G.R. No. 7675, March 22,
1990)

Example:
Courts do not interfere with the administrative action prior
to its completion or finality. (Radio Communications of the
Philippines vs. NTC, G.R. No. 66683, April 23, 1990)

5) In the resolution of cases or issues presented to

administrative bodies and offices, they are not bound by the
indispensible in administrative cases. (Daduvo vs. CSC, 42
SCAD 750, 223 SCRA 747)

6) An administrative decision may properly be amended or

set aside only upon clear showing that the administrative
official or tribunal has acted with grave abuse of discretion
amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction. There is an abuse
of discretion when the same was performed in a capricious
or whimsical exercise of judgment which is equivalent to
lack of jurisdiction. (Cont)

The abuse of discretion must be so patent and gross as to

amount to an evasion of positive duty or to a virtual refusal
to perform a duty enjoined by law, such as when the power
is exercised in an arbitrary or despotic manner by reason of
passion of personal hostility. (Heirs of Tanjuan vs. Office of the
President, et al., G.R. No. 126847,

December 4, 1996)

7) Factual findings of administrative bodies should be

accorded not only respect but also finality if they are
supported by substantial evidence even if not overwhelming
or preponderant. (Casa Filipino Realty Corporation vs. Office of
the President, 241 SCRA 165)

8) Although findings of facts of an administrative agency

is persuasive in courts and carries with it a strong
presumption of correctness, nonetheless, the interpretation and
application of laws is the court s prerogative. (Prudential Bank
vs. Serrano, G. R. No. 49293;
41835, January 19, 1990)

Prudential Bank vs. Gapultos, G.R. No.

9) Administrative remedies should first be exhausted

before filing a petition for relief. (Walstrom vs. Mapa, Jr., G.R. No.
38387, January 29, 1990)

10) On purely legal question, however, the aggrieved party

need not exhaust administrative nature is to be done or
can be done in the administrative forum. (Prudential Bank vs.
Serrano, supra)

11) If a case is such that its determination requires the

expertise, specialized skills and knowledge of the proper
administrative bodies because technical matters or intricate
questions of facts are involved, then relief must first be
obtained in an administrative proceeding before a remedy will
be supplied by the courts even though the matter is within the
proper jurisdiction of a court. (Industrial Enterprises, Inc. vs.
Court of Appeals, G.R.

the principle

No. 88550, April 8, 1990). This is known as

of primary jurisdiction.

 Trace the Origin of Administrative Law

1. Statutes Setting up administrative authorities either by

creating boards and commissions or administrative officers or
by confiding the powers and duties to existing boards,
commissions, or offices, to amplify, apply, execute, and
supervise the operation of, and determine controversies
arising under particular laws in the enactment of which the
legislature decided for matters of convenience or for quicker
or more efficient administration to withhold the controversies,
at least in the first instance, from the courts of law.

2. Increase of government functions and concerns

Complexities of modern life necessarily increase the
functions and concerns of government which, in turn,
requires the legislature to create more administrative
agencies which will take charge in attending to matters that
demand their special competence and expertise.

3. Necessity of government control and regulation The

government has intervened in contractual relations that are
affected with public interest. As it is now, the government
has exercised control and regulation of many aspects of
business such as but not limited to labor and management
relations, immigration and deportation, banking,
recruitment of overseas workers, insurance, finance,
foreign exchange, health, regulation of profession,
regulation of sports activities (including the monitoring of
players credentials and citizenship), investment, energy
regulation, election, tax collection and administration,
human settlements and regulation of subdivisions, civil
service and eligibility of government employees, and many
other businesses and activities that are impressed with
public interest.

 Sources of Administrative Law

1. The Constitution (i.e., Article IX, Section 1 of the 1987
Constitution which provides as follows: The
Constitutional Commissions, which shall be independent,
are the Civil Service Commission, the Commission on
Elections, and the Commission on Audit).
2. Statutes creating administrative bodies
Example:
The Board of Energy was created by Presidential Decree No.
1208, dated October 6, 1977

3. Court decisions interpreting the charters of

administrative agencies and defining their powers and
responsibilities.
4. The body of rules, regulations and orders issued by
administrative agencies.

 Administrative bodies/agencies in the Philippines

1) Administrative bodies for regulation under police power
a) Commission on Immigration and Deportation
b) Securities and Exchange Commission
c) Professional Regulation Commission
d) Bureau of Food and Drug
e) Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board
f) Board of Food Inspectors
g) Monetary Board
h) Land Transportation Office

2) Administrative bodies for regulation of public utilities

a) Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board
b) National Telecommunications Commission
c) Board of Energy
d) National Water and Resources Council
e) Civil Aeronautics Board
f) Board of Marine Inquiry

3) Administrative bodies to carry on governmental functions

a) Bureau of Internal Revenue
b) Bureau of Customs
c) Civil Service Commission
d) Board of Special Inquiry
e) Board of Lands
f) Land Registration Authority

4) Administrative bodies that adjudicates and decides

industrial controversies
a) National Labors Relations Commission
b) Philippine Overseas Employment Adjudication Office
c) Human Settlement Regulatory Commission or The Housing and
Land Use Regulatory Board

5) Administrative bodies making the government a private

party
a) Commission on Audit
b) Social Security System Adjudication Office

6) Administrative bodies that grant privileges

a) Philippine Veterans Affairs Office
b) Board of Pardons and Parole
c) Bureau of Lands
d) Land Transportation and Franchising Regulatory Board

In the case of PLDT vs. City of Bacolod (G.R. No. 14179,

July 15, 2005), the Supreme Court ruled that the Bureau of
Local Government Finance under the Department of Finance is
NOT and administrative agency whose findings on questions of
facts are given weight by the courts.

 Definition of Administration
It is an activity of the executive officer of the
government. The government administers when it appoints
an officer, instructs its diplomatic agents, assesses and
collects its taxes, drills its army, investigated a case of the
commission of crime and executed the judgment of court.
Whenever we see the government in action as opposed to
deliberation or the rendering of a judicial decision, there we
say is administration. Administration is thus to be found in
all the manifestation of executive action. (Goodnow,
Comparative Administrative Law, p.12)

Administration, as it is presently understood, refers to the

aggregate of those persons in whose hands the reigns of the
government are for the time being. (U.S. vs. Dorr, 2 Phil. 332)

 Two aspects of Administration

1. Internal administration
- This includes
the legal structure or organization of public administration
and the legal aspects of each institutional activity (i.e.,
personnel, material, physical and planning activities).
2. External administration
- This is
concerned with the problems of administrative regulations
or the exercise of power for carrying out the ends for
which such powers were delegated. (42 Am. Jur., 290)

 Distinguish the following:

(a) Administration and Politics
(b) Administration and Law
(c) Administration of government and administration
of justice
(d) Administration as an organization and
administration as a government
(a) Administration and Politics
ADMINISTRATION
Administration has something to
do with the execution of the
policies of the State.
Execution of said policies is
entrusted to the body of officers,
called administrative officers.

POLITICS

Politics has something to do with

policies or expressions of the
States will.

(b) Administration and Law

ADMINISTRATION

LAW

Administration achieves public

security by preventive measures.
It selects a hierarchy of officials
to each of whom definite work is
assigned, and it is governed by
ends rather than rules. It is
personal. Hence, it is often
arbitrary and is subject to the
abuse incident to personal as
contrasted with impersonal or
law-regulated action.

Politics has something to do with

policies or expressions of the
States will.

(c) Administration of government and

administration of justice
ADMINISTRATION OF
GOVERNMENT

ADMINISTRATION OF
JUSTICE

The administrative officers who

are charged with the
administration of government
determine what is the law to find
out whether they are competent
to act and if so, whether it is wise
for them to act.

The judicial officers who are

charged with the administration
of justice decides controversies
between individuals and
government officers as to the
applicability in the cases in a
question of a particular rule if
law. Hence, they determine what
law is applicable to the facts
brought before them.

(d) Administration as an organization and

government
ADMINISTRATION AS AN
ORGANIZATION

ADMINISTRATION AS A
GOVERNMENT

Administration refers to the

group of aggregate of persons in
whose hands, the reigns of
government are for the time
being U.S. vs. Dorr, 2 Phil. 332).
It indicates the entire
administrative organization
extending down from the Chief
Executive to the most humble of
his subordinates. It is thus the
totality of the executive and
administrative authorities.
(Goodnow, op. cit., p.5)

As an element of the State, a

government is defined as that
institution or aggregate of institutions
by which an independent society
makes and carries out those rules of
action which are necessary to enable
men to live in a social state, or which
are imposed upon the people forming
that society by those who possess the
power or authority of prescribing
them. (U.S. vs. Dorr, 2 Phil. 332;
Bacani vs. National Coconut
Corporation, 53 O.G. 2798)

 Weaknesses of administrative action

1. Tendency towards arbitrariness;
2. Lack of legal knowledge and attitude in sound judicial
technique;
3. Susceptibility to political bias or pressure, often brought
about by uncertainty of tenure and lack of sufficient
safeguards for independence;
4. A disregard for the safeguards that insure a full and fair
hearing;
5. Absence of standard rules of procedure suitable to the
activities of each agency; and
6. A dangerous combination of legislative, executive, and
judicial function. (Lawyers Journal, Vol. 7, p. 560; Macapagal,
Judicial Supremacy over Administrative Bodies, Lawyers Journal,
Vol. 12, pp. 312-314)

II. ADMINISTRATIVE AGENCIES: THEIR NATURE,

CREATION, ESTABLISHMENT AND ABOLITION
Nature of Administrative agencies
- An administrative agency is an organ of
government entrusted with the task of enacting specific
rules and regulations to effectuate the purpose of the
stature creating it. Its functions and powers are quasilegislative or quasi-judicial, or in some instances, it acts
as an agent of the executive branch of the government, in
which case, it is entrusted with the duty to exercise
executive and administrative functions.