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PHILIPPINE SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

EN BANC

[G.R. No. L-33818. September 26, 1973.]

LECAR & SONS, INC., v. HON. ARTURO R. TANCO, JR., ETC. ET AL.


R E S O L U T I O N


Gentlemen:chanrob1es virtual 1aw library

Quoted hereunder, for your information, is a resolution of this Court dated September 25, 1973.

"L-33818 (Lecar & Sons, Inc. v. Hon. Arturo R. Tanco, Jr., etc. Et. Al.). — Considering the grounds of the motion of the petitioner for reconsideration of the resolution of November 22, 1972, which denied the petition for review on certiorari of the decision of the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources as well as the joint comment of the Solicitor General and the private respondent thereon, the Court Resolved to DENY said motion for lack of merit in view of the reasons stated in the two memoranda (the first consisting of thirty-five pages and the second consisting of thirty-two pages) prepared for the Court by Justice Fred Ruiz Castro which are hereby ordered attached to the record of this case. This denial is hereby declared FINAL. Teehankee, J., voted to grant the motion for reconsideration and to give due course to the petition, as follows:chanrob1es virtual 1aw library

TEEHANKEE, J.:


I reiterate my vote to grant reconsideration of the resolution of November 22, 1972 denying the petition, and to give due course to the petition.

The petition involves important questions of first impression on void declaration of location and related provisions of the Mining Act as well as vital due process questions concerning ex-parte investigations taken into account by respondent Secretary of Agriculture in his consideration of petitioner’s appeal from the mines director’s order dismissing its protest against respondent Infanta’s lode claims and an unprecedented anomalous situation with regard to petitioner’s motion for reconsideration of respondent secretary’s adverse decision on petitioner’s appeal (affirming the mines director’s dismissal order), whereby the very same mines director whose dismissal order was under review acted on July 7, 1971 as officer-in-charge of the office of the undersecretary for natural resources and in such capacity denied petitioner’s motion for reconsideration and in effect thereby upheld his own dismissal order which petitioner precisely sought to be reviewed and set aside by higher authority in accordance with law. 1

The whole premise of respondent secretary’s decision is thus stated in the decision itself:jgc:chanrobles.com.ph

"The records show that appellant filed its protest with the Director of Mines on May 5, 1969 which it subsequently amended on August 20, 1969. In its protest, appellant raised the following issues and/or causes of action:jgc:chanrobles.com.ph

"a) That the lode mining claims of all the respondents are substantially defective and incomplete in compliance with the requirements of the law on the matter and are, therefore, null and void and, therefore, cannot prevail over the placer mining claims of the protestant which took into consideration and complied with all the requirements of the law on the matter of the discovery, location and registration of such mining claims; and

"b) That the placer mining claims of the protestant should also prevail over the lode mining claims of all the respondents because geological findings have confirmed the absence of any mineral veins in the mining area under consideration which would indicate that it could properly be subject of lode claims and that on the contrary, only lateritic deposits could be found in the area and therefore, only placer mining claims may be properly filed thereon.

"In the presentation of its case, however, appellant only proved the validity of its placer claims which are admittedly registered subsequent to the lode claims of appellee herein, and did not show by convincing evidence any substantial defect in appellee’s mining claims. In view thereof, appellee filed a motion to dismiss which was granted by the Directors of Mines, and hence, this appeal.

"From the foregoing, it is apparent that the only issue that need be resolved in this appeal is whether or not the Director of Mines is justified in dismissing the protest of appellant without even requiring appellee to present his side of the case." 2

The flaw and deficiency in this approach in respondent secretary’s decision of May 13, 1971 is that it made no finding whatever on the principal bases of petitioner’s protest against respondent Infanta’s lode claims, viz,

(1) that the original declarations of location were null and void and beyond validation by amendment; since Corner Posts No. 1 of each of the 50 claims has an identical bearing (N. 8
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