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Public Officers Notes

This document discusses the classification of powers and duties of government officers as either ministerial or discretionary. Ministerial duties are absolute, certain and require merely executing a specific task as defined by law. Discretionary duties require exercising judgment and adapting means to an end, as the law does not specifically direct how the act should be carried out. The document also summarizes impeachment under the Philippine Constitution, including the grounds and process for impeachment of public officials to protect the state from misconduct.

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Rafael Jurado Ugang
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70 views3 pages

Public Officers Notes

This document discusses the classification of powers and duties of government officers as either ministerial or discretionary. Ministerial duties are absolute, certain and require merely executing a specific task as defined by law. Discretionary duties require exercising judgment and adapting means to an end, as the law does not specifically direct how the act should be carried out. The document also summarizes impeachment under the Philippine Constitution, including the grounds and process for impeachment of public officials to protect the state from misconduct.

Uploaded by

Rafael Jurado Ugang
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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LIABILITY OF MINISTERIAL OFFICERS

(1) Nonfeasance - Neglect or refusal to perform an act


which is the officer’s legal obligation to perform
(2) Misfeasance – Failure to use that degree of care, skill,
and diligence required in the performance of official
duty
(3) Malfeasance – the doing, through ignorance,
inattention or malice, of an act which he had no legal
right to perform

CLASSIFICATION OF POWERS AND DUTIES


[De Leon, 2008]
AS TO NATURE

Ministerial
Official duty is ministerial when it is absolute, certain and
imperative involving merely execution of a specific duty
arising from fixed and designated facts. Where the officer
or official body has no judicial power or discretion as to the
interpretation of the law, and the course to be pursued is
fixed by law, their acts are ministerial only.
Performance of duties of this nature may, unless expressly
prohibited, be properly delegated to another. Thus, a
ministerial act which may be lawfully done by another
officer may be performed by him through any deputy or
agent willfully created or appointed.
Where the law expressly requires the act to be performed
by the officer in person, it cannot, though ministerial, be
delegated to another.

Discretionary
They are such as necessarily require the exercise of reason
in the adaptation of means to an end, and discretion in
determining how or whether the act shall be done or the
course pursued.
When the law commits to any officer the duty of looking
into facts and acting upon them, not in a way which it
specifically directs, but after a discretion in its nature, the
function is quasi-judicial.
The presumption is that the public officer was chosen
because he was deemed fit and competent to exercise that
judgment and discretion. Unless the power to substitute
another in his place has been given to him, a public officer
cannot delegate his duties to another.

CONSTITUTIONAL OFFICERS

With respect to constitutional officers removable only


by means of impeachment, and judges of lower courts,
they are not subject to the removal of the President.

IMPEACHMENT
Impeachment – method of national inquest into the
conduct of public men.

Purpose:​ To protect the people from official delinquencies


or malfeasances. It is primarily intended for the protection
of the State, not for the punishment of the offender.
The President, the Vice-President, the Members of the
Supreme Court, the Members of the Constitutional
Commissions, and the Ombudsman may be removed from
office on impeachment for, and conviction of, culpable
violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and
corruption, other high crimes, or betrayal of public trust.
All other public officers and employees may be removed
from office as provided by law, but not by impeachment.
(Sec. 2, Art. XI, Constitution)
The House of Representatives has the sole power to
initiate all cases of impeachment while the Senate sits as a
court for the trial of impeachment cases. Judgment in
cases of impeachment shall not extend further than
removal from office and disqualification to hold any office
under the Republic of the Philippines, but the party
convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to
prosecution, trial, and punishment, according to law. (Sec.
3, Art. XI, Constitution)

IMPEACHMENT
Impeachment has been defined as “a criminal proceeding
against a public officer, before a quasi-judicial political court,
instituted by written accusation called ‘articles of
impeachment.’” [Agpalo, 2005]

Its purpose is to protect the people from official


delinquencies or malfeasances. It is primarily intended for
the protection of the State, not for the punishment of the
offender. The penalties attached to impeachment are
merely incidental to the primary intention of protecting the
people as a body politic. [De Leon, 2008]

GROUNDS [Sec. 2, Art. XI, Constitution]


(1) culpable violation of the Constitution
(2) treason
(3) bribery
(4) graft and corruption
(5) other high crimes
(6) betrayal of public trust
The acts which are impeachable grounds must be
committed in the performance of the official’s public office.
[Agpalo, 2005]

No impeachment proceedings shall be initiated against


the same official more than once within a period of one
year. [Sec. 3, Art. XI, Constitution]

“Having concluded that the initiation takes place by the act


of filing of the impeachment complaint and referral to the
House Committee on Justice, the initial action taken
thereon, the meaning of Section 3 (5) of Article XI becomes
clear. Once an impeachment complaint has been initiated
in the foregoing manner, another may not be filed against
the same official within a one year period following Article
XI, Section 3(5) of the Constitution.” [Francisco, Jr. v. House
of Representatives, (2003)]

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