WHAT WENT BEFORE. Mandaue City College (MCC) was established as a community college under a Mandaue city ordinance of September 27, 2005. Then mayor Thadeo Z. Ouano contracted Dr. Paulus Marie L. Cañete as college administrator for one year, from January 1, 2006 to December 31, 2006.
Allegations of irregularities prompted the MCC board of trustees in two resolutions on June 18, 2007 to (a) order Cañete to “cease and desist” as MCC president until further notice and (b) appoint Dr. Susana Cabahug as MCC caretaker until further notice.
Cañete disobeyed the order and continued to operate an MCC in a campus at Eversley Childs Sanitarium in Jagobiao while Cabahug operated another MCC at the city’s Sports & Cultural Complex along Andres Soriano Avenue. The courts where the dispute landed called them MCC- Cañete and MCC-Cabahug.
Ched or Commission on Higher Education , after investigation, ordered the two schools to suspend operations until they’d comply with Ched policies and regulations. Only MCC-Cabahug complied. MCC-Cañete did not, prompting the Mandaue City Council to order the City Legal Office to stop anyone from using the name MCC without authority. On January 4, 2011, Ched issued a public notice that Cañete’s school had no legal personality as a college and Ched will consider all degrees it grants to its graduates as “spurious and illegal.”
Thus MCC-Cañete sued Ched, asking the Quezon City RTC to nullify the commission’s order to padlock the school and its public notice of non-recognition of degrees granted to its graduates. The RTC in 2012 rejected the petition, which MCC-Cañete raised to the Court of Appeals (CA). The CA in 2019 upheld the RTC ruling and the case went up the Supreme Court.
‘NO REASON TO DISTURB.’ The SC upheld the CA’s decision, saying it has “no reason to disturb it.”
The high court’s ruling -- handed down by the SC’s third division, with Associate Justice Henri Jean Paul B. Inring as “ponente” or writer of the decision -- was promulgated on February 22, 2023 but released to the public only last Tuesday, June 20.
RTC, CA FOUND ‘LACK OF MERIT.’ The trial court issued against Ched a TRO (temporary restraining order) on June 6, 2012 and a preliminary injunction three weeks later, on June 29, to allow the school’s graduates to take the licensure exams scheduled on September 30 in the same year.
The RTC, however, on April 25, 2016, dismissed Cañete’s lawsuit “for lack of merit.” MCC-Cañete appealed the ruling to the CA, which on March 11, 2019 threw it out, also for “lack of merit.”
Beaten twice in the lower courts, on all the issues raised by Cañete, MCC-Cañete should’ve looked again at the “merit” that the RTC and the CA said they didn’t find in the petition. The lawsuit was apparently buying time for the school, which had continued to operate through the years of court trial.
MAJOR THRUSTS of the RTC and CA rulings against MCC-Cañete were (a) recognition of Ched’s authority to issue the school closure order and (b) absence of authority for the school under Cañete to operate.
Ched had the authority under the law: Republic Act 7722 or Higher Education Act of 1994 over higher education and degree-granting programs in all post-secondary educational institutions, public and private. The closure order was “well within the power” of Ched.
And MCC-Cañete lacked authority to operate: The MCC board put Cañete, president and administrator, in the freezer. The City Council ordered the city lawyers to stop and prevent the unauthorized use of the name Mandaue City College. The Civil Service Commission disallowed payment of salaries to teachers who were not appointed by the City.
WHERE PUNCHES LANDED. Two arguments of MCC-Cañete that the SC took down, which are interesting to ponder on and watch, like virtual blows landing:
[] Not the City-created school. MCC-Cañete claimed that it was exempted from Ched recognition, under a law (Batas Pambansa (BP) Blg. 232 or Education Act of 1982). The SC called it “clutching at straws” and “specious argument.”
Being a government-operated school, the original Mandaue City College drew its authority from the Mandaue City ordinance that created it. Its president, Cañete, drew his authority from the MCC board. Both sources later withdrew the authority it granted.
Cañete was ordered by the MCC board to “cease and desist” from his job at the school. The school that he put up, MCC- Cañete, was apparently using the name Mandaue City College unlawfully, thus the name “rogue school” given by the C.A. MCC-Cañete “is not the school created by the City Council ordinance.” It cannot claim the exemption from rules governing recognition that the then Ministry of Education prescribed and enforced under BP 232.
The issue -- “to put things in perspective,” the SC said -- is not Mandaue City College. “It is the school claiming to be MCC under the administration of Dr. Cañete.”
[] No proof MCC-Cañete complied. MCC-Cabahug followed the conditions and regulations for its operation while the Cañete-run school did not. Cañete questioned the existence of Ched’s fact-finding report “instead of presenting proof of its compliance with Ched’s directives.”
It must not surprise many people anymore that the controversy took a total of 16 years to resolve, with the court battle taking much of the time: from the year it erupted, in 2007, to the current year 2023 when the SC laid down its ruling.
POLITICS? What surprises, even stupefies, is how the City was unable to prevent the official it had appointed as school chief from creating the disorder and confusion the two MCCs caused. And once the chaos started, its inability to resolve the dispute before it could go to court. The City couldn’t or didn’t enforce on time its measure against the illegal use of the name Mandaue City College.
Did Cañete do it single-handedly or did some officials help, thus the long stand-off? Politics might have a part in the turmoil. Cañete was appointed by then outgoing mayor Ouano while Cabahug was appointed by mayor Jonas Cortes who succeeded Ouano in 2007.