(Part 1) Procedural aspect; En Banc cases penned by Justice Hernando.
Exhaustion of Administrative
Remedies.
In general, where administrative remedies are available, petitions for the issuance of the extraordinary writs should not be granted by the courts in order to give the administrative body the opportunity to decide the matter by itself correctly, and to prevent unnecessary and premature resort to courts. However, this principle of exhaustion of administrative remedies is not without exception.
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Jurisprudence would reveal that the Court has set aside such rule:
(1) when there is a violation of due process,
(2) when the issue involved is purely a legal question,
(3) when the administrative action is patently illegal amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction,
(4) when there is estoppel on the part of the administrative agency concerned,
(5) when there is irreparable injury,
(6) when the respondent is a department secretary whose acts as an alter ego of the President bears the implied and assumed approval of the latter,
(7) when to require exhaustion of administrative remedies would be unreasonable,
(8) when it would amount to a nullification of a claim,
(9) when the subject matter is a private land in land case proceedings,
(10) when the rule does not provide a plain, speedy and adequate remedy, and
(11) when there are circumstances indicating the urgency of judicial intervention. (Emphasis supplied).
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In TY, et al. v. TRAMPE, the Supreme Court gave due course to the petition for certiorari despite the fact that petitioner therein failed to exhaust administrative remedies.
The Supreme Court brushed aside the rule on exhaustion of administrative remedies and gave due course to the petition since the controversy therein does not involve questions of fact but only of law, i.e., whether or not the assessor, acting solely and independently, is authorized/empowered to impose the assessment and the treasurer to collect the tax. It further held that the protest contemplated under Section 252 of RA No. 7160 is needed where there is a question as to the reasonableness of the amount of assessment.
In the instant case, LRTA is questioning the very authority of the herein respondents to impose and collect real property tax on the properties registered in its name. It never questioned the assessments made by the city assessor or the amounts being collected by the city treasurer. A reading of its original petition would readily show that LRTA, while claiming to be a government instrumentality instead of a government-owned or controlled corporation (GOCC), is questioning the power of the assessor to assess, and the authority of the treasurer to collect, taxes against it.
From the records, it can be clearly seen that the circumstances of the instant case necessitate that We set aside the general rule.
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The issues involved in the instant
petition are purely legal issues
The issues involved in this petition are purely legal issues. It is evident that from the outset, LRTA primarily intended to question the authority of the tax assessor to impose tax assessments on its property, and the authority of the treasurer to collect said tax, as LRTA claims to be a non-taxable entity. This can be seen when the LRTA deliberately chose to file the remedies of certiorari, prohibition and mandamus, instead of just filing a protest to contest the amounts in the assessment.
Rule 65 of the Rules of Court provides:
It must be emphasized that the very nature of a petition under Rule 65 involves questions of jurisdiction. Questions regarding jurisdiction are necessarily legal as the existence or extent of an entity's jurisdiction over a certain subject matter is determined by what is conferred by law. 27 Being a legal question, there was no need for the LRTA to exhaust administrative remedies, even assuming that such remedies exist.
The administrative protest under
Section 226 of Republic Act No.
(RA) 7160, 28 or the Local
Government Code (LGC) is not a
plain, speedy and adequate
remedy
Moreover, there are no competent administrative tribunals that may grant the relief that LRTA is seeking. The questions of law interposed in this instant petition may only be appropriately addressed by the courts, and are the proper subjects of a petition for prohibition under Rule 65.
The CA erred in applying the case of Napocor v. Province of Quezon (Napocor), as the circumstances in that case drastically differ from the instant case. As correctly pointed out by LRTA in its Motion for Reconsideration before the CA, it has not raised any issue concerning the amount being assessed, but it specifically questioned the authority of the city assessor from the very start. 30
To put Our pronouncements in Napocor in its proper perspective, it must be noted that the petitioners therein were claiming a tax exemption under Section 206 of the LGC.
In claiming such exemption, whether partial or total, We ruled that by holding that real property not declared and proved as tax-exempt shall be included in the assessment roll, the above-quoted provision implies that the local assessor has the authority to assess the property for realty taxes, and any subsequent claim for exemption shall be allowed only when sufficient proof has been adduced supporting the claim. 31 In that case, since Napocor was simply questioning the correctness of the assessment, it should have first complied with Section 252 of the LGC, particularly the requirement of payment under protest. Napocor's failure to prove that this requirement has been complied with thus renders its administrative protest under Section 226 thereof without any effect. No protest shall be entertained unless the taxpayer first pays the tax.
In the contrast with Napocor, the LRTA, in filing a Petition for Certiorari, Prohibition and Mandamus with the RTC at the earliest instance, clearly intended to question the local assessor's authority to assess real property taxes on its property and the local treasurer's authority to collect such taxes.
The LRTA never invoked Section 206 of the LGC, or even bother to file a protest under Section 252, as the LRTA is not merely claiming tax-exemption on some or all of its properties (which admits the local assessor's authority to assess), but it has been arguing since the beginning that both the city assessor and treasurer do not have the authority to assess and collect local real property tax on its properties, which is similar to what was being claimed in Ty.
[End of Part I].
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