Formal trial not mandatory in administrative cases before Ombudsman - G.R. No. 180236

G.R. No. 180236

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Suffice to say, petitioners were not denied due process of law when the investigating lawyer proceeded to resolve the case based on the affidavits and other evidence on record. Section 5(b)(1)³² Rule 3, of the Rules of Procedure of the Office of the Ombudsman, as amended by A.O. No. 17, plainly provides that the hearing officer may issue an order directing the parties to file, within ten days from receipt of the order, their respective verified position papers on the basis of which, along with the attachments thereto, the hearing officer may consider the case submitted for decision. It is only when the hearing officer determines that based on the evidence, there is a need to conduct clarificatory hearings or formal investigations under Section 5(b)(2) and Section 5(b)(3) that such further proceedings will be conducted. But the determination of the necessity for further proceedings rests on the sound discretion of the hearing officer. As the petitioners have utterly failed to show any cogent reason why the hearing officer’s determination should be overturned, the determination will not be disturbed by this Court. We likewise find no merit in their contention that the new procedures under A.O. No. 17, which took effect while the case was already undergoing trial before the hearing officer, should not have been applied.

The rule in this jurisdiction is that one does not have a vested right in procedural rules. In Tan, Jr. v. Court of Appeals,³³ the Court elucidated:

Statutes regulating the procedure of the courts will be construed as applicable to actions pending and undetermined at the time of their passage. Procedural laws are retroactive in that sense and to that extent. The fact that procedural statutes may somehow affect the litigants’ rights may not preclude their retroactive application to pending actions. The retroactive application of procedural laws is not violative of any right of a person who may feel that he is adversely affected. Nor is the retroactive application of procedural statutes constitutionally objectionable. The reason is that as a general rule no vested right may attach to, nor arise from, procedural laws. It has been held that “a person has no vested right in any particular remedy, and a litigant cannot insist on the application to the trial of his case, whether civil or criminal, of any other than the existing rules of procedure. (Emphasis supplied.)

While the rule admits of certain exceptions, such as when the statute itself expressly or by necessary implication provides that pending actions are excepted from its operation, or where to apply it would impair vested rights, petitioners failed to show that application of A.O. No. 17 to their case would cause injustice to them. Indeed, in this case, the Office of the Ombudsman afforded petitioners every opportunity to defend themselves by allowing them to submit counter-affidavits, position papers, memoranda and other evidence in their defense. Since petitioners have been afforded the right to be heard and to defend themselves, they cannot rightfully complain that they were denied due process of law. Well to remember, due process, as a constitutional precept, does not always and in all situations require a trial-type proceeding. It is satisfied when a person is notified of the charge against him and given an opportunity to explain or defend himself. In administrative proceedings, the filing of charges and giving reasonable opportunity for the person so charged to answer the accusations against him constitute the minimum requirements of due process. More often, this opportunity is conferred through written pleadings that the parties submit to present their charges and defenses.³⁴ But as long as a party is given the opportunity to defend his or her interests in due course, said party is not denied due process.³⁵

Neither is there merit to Cabalit’s assertion that she should have been investigated under the “old rules of procedure” of the Office of the Ombudsman, and not under the “new rules.” In Marohomsalic v. Cole,³⁶ we clarified that the Office of the Ombudsman has only one set of rules of procedure and that is A.O. No. 07, series of 1990, as amended. There have been various amendments made thereto but it has remained, to date, the only set of rules of procedure governing cases filed in the Office of the Ombudsman. Hence, the phrase “as amended” is correctly appended to A.O. No. 7 every time it is invoked. xxx"