ADMINISTRATIVE LAW | PHIL. COMMUNICATIONS CORP. V. ALCUAZ, 180 SCRA 218 (1989)

PHIL. COMMUNICATIONS CORP. V. ALCUAZ,

180 SCRA 218 (1989)

 

TOPIC/DOCTRINE

Where a public administrative body acts in a judicial or quasi-judicial matter, and its acts are particular and immediate rather than general and prospective, the person whose rights or property may be affected by the action is entitled to notice and hearing.

 

FACTS

Petitioner was exempt from the jurisdiction of the then Public Service Commission, now respondent NTC. However, pursuant to Executive Order No. 196 placed under the jurisdiction, control and regulation of respondent NTC, including all its facilities and services and the fixing of rates. Implementing said Executive Order No. 196, respondents required petitioner to apply for the requisite certificate of public convenience and necessity covering its facilities and the services it renders, as well as the corresponding authority to charge rates therefor. petitioner filed with respondent NTC an application for authority to continue operating and maintaining the same facilities it has been continuously operating and maintaining since 1967, to continue providing the international satellite communications services it has likewise been providing since 1967, and to charge the current rates applied for in rendering such services. Pending hearing, it also applied for a provisional authority so that it can continue to operate and maintain the above mentioned facilities, provide the services and charge therefor the aforesaid rates therein applied for. petitioner was granted a provisional authority which was valid for six (6) months which was extended 3 times, but the last extension directed the petitioner to charge modified reduced rates through a reduction of fifteen percent (15%) on the present authorized rates.

ISSUE

Whether the Respondent violates procedural due process for having been issued without prior notice and hearing in exercising its power to fix the rate of the Petitioner.

 

RULING

The court held that in so far as generalization is possible in view of the great variety of administrative proceedings, it may be stated as a general rule that notice and hearing are not essential to the validity of administrative action where the administrative body acts in the exercise of executive, administrative, or legislative functions; but where a public administrative body acts in a judicial or quasi-judicial matter, and its acts are particular and immediate rather than general and prospective, the person whose rights or property may be affected by the action is entitled to notice and hearing.

Here, the court ruled that respondents admit that the application of a policy like the fixing of rates as exercised by administrative bodies is quasi-judicial rather than quasi-legislative. At any rate, there remains the categorical admission made by respondent NTC that the questioned order was issued pursuant to its quasi-judicial functions. It, however, insists that notice and hearing are not necessary since the assailed order is merely incidental to the entire proceedings and, therefore, temporary in nature. This postulate is bereft of merit.







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