BAUTISTA v.

SALONGA
G.R. No. 86439 April 13, 1989

FACTS:

The President appointed Mary Concepcion Bautista as the Chairman of the

Commission on Human Rights pursuant to the second sentence in Section 16,
Art. VII, without the confirmation of the CoA because they are among the officers
of government "whom he (the President) may be authorized by law to appoint."
Section 2(c), Executive Order No. 163, authorizes the President to appoint the
Chairman and Members of the Commission on Human Rights. CoA disapproved
Bautista's alleged ad interim appointment as Chairperson of the CHR in view of
her refusal to submit to the jurisdiction of the Commission on Appointments.

ISSUES:

1. Whether or not Bautista's appointment is subject to CoA's confirmation.

2. Whether or not Bautista's appointment is an ad interim appointment.

RULING:

1. No. The position of Chairman of CHR is not among the positions mentioned
in the first sentence of Sec. 16 Art 7 of the Constitution, which provides that the
appointments which are to be made with the confirmation of CoA. Rather, it is
within the authority of President, vested upon her by Constitution (2nd sentence
of Sec. 16 Art 7), that she appoint executive officials without confirmation of CoA.
The Commission on Appointments, by the actual exercise of its constitutionally
delimited power to review presidential appointments, cannot create power to
confirm appointments that the Constitution has reserved to the President alone.

2. Under the Constitutional design, ad interim appointments do not apply to

appointments solely for the President to make. Ad interim appointments, by their
very nature under the 1987 Constitution, extend only to appointments where
the review of the Commission on Appointments is needed. That is why ad interim
appointments are to remain valid until disapproval by the Commission on
Appointments or until the next adjournment of Congress; but appointments that
are for the President solely to make, that is, without the participation of the
Commission on Appointments, cannot be ad interim appointments.