Alajar vs Alba

100 Phil. 683 Political Law Control Power Removal of Appointed LGU
officials

Republic Act No. 603 created the City of Roxas. Section 8 thereof provides
that the vice mayor shall be appointed by the president. Pursuant to the
law, Vivencio Alajar was appointed as the mayor. Later on, the
president sent communication to Alajar telling him that he will be replaced
by a new appointee, Juliano Alba. Alba was then declared as the acting
mayor. Alajar refused to leave his post and he filed a quo warranto case
before Judge Jose Evangelista who ruled in favor of him.
Alba appealed before the Supreme Court. Alba argued that section 2545
of the Revised Administrative Code provides:
Appointment of City Officials. The President of the Philippines shall
appoint, with the consent of the Commission on Appointments of the
Congress of the Philippines, the mayor, the vice-mayor . . . and he
may REMOVE at pleasure any of the said officers . . .
Alajar however insisted that the above provision is incompatible with the
constitutional inhibition that no officer or employee in the Civil Service
shall be removed or suspended except for cause as provided by law,
because the two provisions are mutually repugnant and absolutely
irreconcilable.

ISSUE: Whether or not Alajar, an appointed vice mayor, can be removed

by the president upon displeasure.

HELD: Yes. The question is whether an officer appointed for a definite

time or during good behavior, had any vested interest or contract right in
his office, of which Congress could not deprive him.

The act of Congress in creating a public office, defining its powers,

functions and fixing the term or the period during which the officer may
claim to hold the office as of right and the tenure or the term during
which the incumbent actually holds the office, is a valid and constitutional
exercise of legislative power. In the exercise of that power, Congress
enacted RA 603 creating the City of Roxas and providing, among others
for the position of Vice-Mayor and its tenure or period during which the
incumbent Vice-Mayor holds office at the pleasure of the President, so, the
logical inference is that Congress can legally and constitutionally make
the tenure of certain officials dependent upon the pleasure of the
President. Therefore, Alajar was appointed by the pleasure of the
president and can also be removed when that pleasure ceases.