Water district board's power to remove general manager
Sec. 23. Additional Officers.–At the first meeting of the board, or as soon thereafter as practicable, the board shall appoint, by a majority vote, a general manager, an auditor, and an attorney, and shall define their duties and fix their compensation. Said officers shall serve at the pleasure of the board. (Emphasis supplied)
The provision was subsequently amended by P.D. No. 768[13]:
SEC. 23. The General Manager.–At the first meeting of the board, or as soon thereafter as practicable, the board shall appoint, by a majority vote, a general manager and shall define his duties and fix his compensation. Said officer shall serve at the pleasure of the board. (Emphasis supplied)
On April 02, 2004, Republic Act (R.A.) No. 9286[7] was approved and signed into law, Section 2 of which provides:
Sec. 2. Section 23 of Presidential Decree No. 198, as amended is hereby amended to read as follows:
“Sec. 23. The General Manager.–At the first meeting of the Board, or as soon thereafter as practicable, the Board shall appoint, by a majority vote, a general manager and shall define [his] duties and fix his compensation. Said officer shall not be removed from office, except for cause and after due process.” (Emphasis supplied)
In the case of Paloma v. Mora (507 Phil. 697, 708, year 2005), it was held that the nature of
appointment of General Managers of Water Districts under Section 23 of P.D.
No. 198 falls under Section 14 of the Omnibus Rules Implementing Book V of
Executive Order No. 292, otherwise known as the “Administrative Code of 1987”, that is, the General Manager serves at the pleasure of the BOD.
As
mentioned, Section 23 of P.D. No. 198 was already amended by R.A. No. 9286
which now provides that the General Manager of a water district shall not be
removed from office except for cause and after due process. Said law, however,
cannot be retroactively applied as to preclude the BOD from terminating its
General Manager at the time the governing law was still P.D. No. 198 (before April 02, 2004), thus:
Unfortunately for petitioner, Rep. Act No. 9286 is silent as to the retroactivity of the law to pending cases and must, therefore, be taken to be of prospective application. The general rule is that in an amendatory act, every case of doubt must be resolved against its retroactive effect. Since the retroactive application of a law usually divests rights that have already become vested, the rule in statutory construction is that all statutes are to be construed as having only a prospective operation unless the purpose and intention of the legislature to give them a retrospective effect is expressly declared or is necessarily implied from the language used.
First, there is nothing in Rep. Act No. 9286 which provides that it should retroact to the date of effectivity of P.D. No. 198, the original law. Next, neither is it necessarily implied from Rep. Act No. 9286 that it or any of its provisions should apply retroactively. Third, Rep. Act No. 9286 is a substantive amendment of P.D. No. 198 inasmuch as it has changed the grounds for termination of the General Manager of Water Districts who, under the then Section 23 of P.D. No. 198, “shall serve at the pleasure of the Board.” Under the new law, however, said General Manager shall not be removed from office, except for cause and after due process. To apply Rep. Act No. 9286 retroactively to pending cases, such as the case at bar, will rob the respondents as members of the Board of the Palompon, Leyte Water District of the right vested to them by P.D. No. 198 to terminate petitioner at their pleasure or discretion. Stated otherwise, the new law can not be applied to make respondents accountable for actions which were valid under the law prevailing at the time the questioned act was committed.
Prescinding from the foregoing premises, at the time petitioner was terminated by the Board of Directors, the prevailing law was Section 23 of P.D. No. 198 prior to its amendment by Rep. Act No. 9286.[15] (Emphasis supplied)
In the case of CSC v. Pililla Water District (G.R. No. 190147, March 05, 2013), respondent’s BOD reappointed Rafanan as General Manager on April 8, 2005 when R.A. No. 9286 was already in force and the BOD no longer had the authority to terminate the General Manager at its pleasure or discretion. However, the threshold issue in the Pililla Water District case was whether the General Manager of a water district holds a primarily confidential position.