Madriaga, Jeremiah James July 31, 2014

Administrative Law

Presidential Power of Control

Section 17, Article VII of the 1987 Philippine Constitution states that, The President shall have
control of all the executive departments, bureaus and offices. He shall ensure that the laws be
faithfully executed.
Control is defined as the power of an officer to alter or modify or nullify or set aside what a
subordinate officer had done in the performance of his duties and to substitute the judgment of the
former for that of the latter. It includes the authority to order the doing of an act by a subordinate or
to undo such act or to assume a power directly vested in him by law.
The control power of the President is directly derived from the Constitution. Thus, any law that will
limit the exercise of his control power is invalid. The members of the Cabinet as his alter ego are
under the full control of the President. He may appoint them as he sees fit, shuffle them at pleasure,
and replace them in his discretion without any legal inhibition whatsoever (Cruz 2002).
The President also has the duty of supervising and enforcement of laws for the maintenance of
general peace and public order. Thus, he is granted administrative power over bureaus and offices
under his control to enable him to discharge his duties effectively (Ople vs Torres, 1998).

Doctrine of Qualified Political Agency
Corollary to the Presidents power of control is the doctrine of qualified political agency which
essentially postulates that the heads of the various executive departments are the alter egos of the
President, and, thus, the actions taken by such heads in the performance of their official duties are
deemed the acts of the President unless the President himself should disapprove such acts. This
doctrine is in recognition of the fact that in our presidential form of government, all executive
organizations are adjuncts of a single Chief Executive; that the heads of the Executive Departments
are assistants and agents of the Chief Executive; and that the multiple executive functions of the
President as the Chief Executive are performed through the Executive Departments. The doctrine has
been adopted here out of practical necessity, considering that the President cannot be expected to
personally perform the multifarious functions of the executive office (Manalang-Demiglio vs
TIDCORP, 2013).
As a consequence of the doctrine of qualified political agency or alter-ego doctrine, department
secretaries are alter egos or assistants of the President and their acts are presumed to be those of
the latter unless disapproved or reprobated by him. Thus, as a rule, an aggrieved party affected by
the decision of a cabinet secretary need not appeal to the OP and may file a petition for certiorari
directly in the Court of Appeals assailing the act of the said secretary.
Section 1 of Rule 65 of the Rules of Court provides that, for a petition for certiorari to prosper,
petitioner must show (1) the public respondent acted without or in excess of his jurisdiction or with
grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction and (2) there is no appeal or a
plain, speedy and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law (Manubay vs Garilao 2009).

Power of Control distinguished from Supervision

Control has been defined as the power of an officer to alter or modify or nullify or set aside what
a subordinate officer had done in the performance of his duties and to substitute the judgment of
the former for test of the latter. Supervision on the other hand means overseeing or the power
or authority of an officer to see that subordinate officers perform their duties (Mondano vs. Silvosa.)
To illustrate, Since LGUs are subject only to the power of general supervision of the President, the
Presidents authority is limited to seeing to it that rules are followed and laws are faithfully executed.
The President may only point out that rules have not been followed but the President cannot lay
down the rules, neither does he have the discretion to modify or replace the rules. (Province of
Negros Occidental vs The Commissioners, 2010).