Concepcion-Bautista vs Salonga

G.R. No. 86439 April 13 1989 [Appointing Power]

FACTS:

The President appointed Mary Concepcion Bautista as the Chairman of the Commission on Human Rights pursuant to the second sentence in Section 16, Art. VII, without the confirmation of the CoA because they are among the officers of government "whom he (the President) may be authorized by law to appoint." Section 2(c), Executive Order No. 163, authorizes the President to appoint the Chairman and Members of the Commission on Human Rights. CoA disapproved Bautista's alleged ad interim appointment as Chairperson of the CHR in view of her refusal to submit to the jurisdiction of the Commission on Appointments.

ISSUES:
1. Whether or not Bautista's appointment is subject to CoA's confirmation.

2. Whether or not Bautista's appointment is an ad interim appointment.

RULING:

1. No. The position of Chairman of CHR is not among the positions mentioned in the first sentence of Sec. 16 Art 7 of the Constitution, which provides that the appointments which are to be made with the confirmation of CoA. Rather, it is within the authority of President, vested upon her by Constitution (2nd sentence of Sec. 16 Art 7), that she appoint executive officials without confirmation of CoA.

The Commission on Appointments, by the actual exercise of its constitutionally delimited power to review presidential appointments, cannot create power to confirm appointments that the Constitution has reserved to the President alone.

2. Under the Constitutional design, ad interim appointments do not apply to appointments solely for the President to make. Ad interim appointments, by their very nature under the 1987 Constitution, extend only to appointments where the review of the Commission on Appointments is needed. That is why ad interim appointments are to remain valid until disapproval by the Commission on Appointments or until the next adjournment of Congress; but appointments that are for the President solely to make, that is, without the participation of the Commission on Appointments, cannot be ad interim appointments.