by: Justice Mario L. Guariña III
The Court of Appeals was created on December 31, 1935 with
the passage of Commonwealth Act No. 3 introducing a new appellate layer between
the Supreme Court and the courts of first instance. The measure was intended to
relieve the Supreme Court of a growing caseload and convert it into a court of
cessation and dwelt more on settling issues of national significance and
establishing doctrine. Organized on February 1, 1936, the Court of Appeals was
composed of eleven magistrates originally called appellate judges and
appointed by the President of the Philippine Commonwealth with the consent of
the Commission on Appointments of the National Assembly. They sat en banc or
in two divisions. When en banc, they acted not only on administrative
matters, but heard and decided cases forwarded to it by the presiding judge or
the division. Appeals were resolved by an affirmative vote of a majority of the
division or at least six judges of the court en banc.
The first head of the court was Pedro Concepcion. In less
than a year after his appointment, he was promoted to the Supreme Court, taking
the place of Claro M. Recto who retired to private practice. Manuel Moran
followed suit in 1938 to replace Jose Abad Santos.
Further changes were brought to the court in 1938 through
Commonwealth Act No. 259. The members of the court were now called associate
justices, and its head was the presiding justice. They were
increased to 15 and sat en banc or in three divisions.
A practice distinctive of the period was the privilege given
a CA justice to sit temporarily in the Supreme Court in order to form a quorum
or render a judgment. When a CA justice was absent or a vacancy occurred in the
court, a judge of first instance was in turn designated to serve in a temporary
capacity in the court.
War clouds soon loomed in the horizon. On Christmas eve,
1941, President Quezon issued Executive Order 395 instituting some changes in
the courts. In particular, he increased the number of CA justices to 19. With
the dawn of a new order, these moves seemed almost surreal. The courts did not
escape total subjection to the Japanese military. In his very first order in
the Philippines, General Honma declared: “the Commander-in-Chief of the
Imperial Japanese Forces shall exercise jurisdiction over courts.”
An executive commission created under the authority of Honma
proceeded to reorganize the government. The Court of Appeals was reconstituted
with a membership of 17 justices headed by Jose Generoso as the presiding
justice, and a provision of the commonwealth statute permitting CA justices to
sit in the Supreme Court was now made use of to augment the depleted
composition of the High Court. In March 1941, Justice Generoso was tasked to
dispose of 6 criminal cases. In May, he was given 5 cases, together with
Hontiveros who had six, Imperial six, and Lopez Vito ten.
The Court of Appeals underwent another reorganization in
January 1944 under Executive Order 27 which President Jose Laurel issued
pursuant to Act No. 10 of the Japanese-sponsored republic. The court was for
the first time regionalized. Five district courts of appeals were established
throughout the country composed of a presiding justice and two associate
justices each. The luminaries of the second highest court of the land were
dispatched far and wide, Marceliano Montemayor to Northern Luzon, Cesar
Bengson, Central Luzon, Fernando Jugo and Jose Vera, Southern Luzon, Jose
Generoso, Sabino Padilla and Pedro Tuason, Manila and Fernando Hernandez and
Patricio Ceniza, Visayas, Mindanao and Sulu.
Ironically, the Court of Appeals was abolished with the
restoration of the Commonwealth government in 1945. President Osmeña justified
this action as an emergency measure to reduce the expenses of the government.
Decisions from the trial courts were made directly appealable to the Supreme
The Court of Appeals was to be restored only after
independence. In October 1946, Republic Act No. 52 was passed reviving the
Court of Appeals with a presiding justice and 14 associate justices appointed
by the President with the consent of the Commission on Appointments of
Congress. Marceliano Montemayor was the first post-war presiding justice.
The rule was formulated making the unanimous vote of the
division necessary for the pronouncement of a judgment. The presiding justice
was authorized, in cases where a unanimity was not reached, to designate two
other justices to sit with the original three, forming a division of five to
decide by majority vote.
The first comprehensive post-war legislation on the
judiciary was Republic Act No. 296, otherwise known as the Judiciary Act of
1948. A major innovation in this statute was the introduction of the petition
for review as the mode of review of decisions of the courts of first instance
rendered in the exercise of their appellate jurisdiction over the municipal or
city courts. The appellate decisions of these courts were deemed final, subject
to a limited recourse to the Court of Appeals that was not a matter or right
but of discretion conditioned upon a prima facie showing that a
reversible error was committed below.
The next decades saw a steady rise in the composition of the
Court of Appeals. In 1956, the CA justices were increased to 18, then 24 in
1968, 36 in 1973, and 45 in 1978. The center of gravity of the court was its
main building at Ma. Orosa Street, Ermita, Manila from where it dispensed
justice throughout the land – a four-story concrete structure with an
impressive neo-classical facade of high pillars and wide arching doors. The
building rose in 1956 on the ruins of the pre-war College of Engineering of the
University of the Philippines. It initially housed the 15 justices of the
court, whose presiding justice Alfonso Felix and six others, Gutierrez David,
Arsenio Dizon, Dionisio De Leon, Felipe Natividad, Conrado Sanchez and Querube
Makalintal would eventually be in the Supreme Court. The Court of Appeals had
become a virtual training ground of Supreme Court justices.
In April 1979, the Court of Appeals met en banc to
approve its very first code of internal rules. This was called the Rules of
Internal Operating Procedures of the Court of Appeals. The importance of
the undertaking could not be overstated. Until the code came into existence,
the internal rules of the court were only made up of customs and practices and
scattered resolutions of the court en banc or circulars of the presiding
justices which were not known to many. Justice Andres Reyes, then the PJ, was
able to persuade Justice Conrado Vasquez who was about to retire to hammer out
the first draft. His work went through a committee of his peers in the court
and along with the comments and suggestions of the Integrated Bar was
considered in the preparation of the final draft that became the code.
Under the shadow of President Marcos' constitutional
authoritarianism, another judicial reorganization was in the offing. In 1983,
BP No. 129 was enacted converting the Court of Appeals into the Intermediate
Appellate Court and increasing its number to 51. Before the court could be
entirely filled up, however, a change of government took place, and in
Executive Order No. 33, issued by President Corazon Aquino in 1986, the old
name of the Court of Appeals was restored. It was decreed that the two
additional justices needed to form the division of five be chosen by raffle.
1996 was another watershed in the history of the court. In
response to a growing clamor for the creation of regional stations of the Court
of Appeals, Republic Act No. 8256 was enacted increasing the number of its
divisions from 17 to 23 and its membership from 51 to 69. The first 17
divisions were to be stationed in Manila for cases coming from the First to
Fifth Judicial Region, the 18th to 20th divisions in Cebu
City for cases from the 6th to 8th Judicial Region, and
the 21st to 23rd divisions in Cagayan de Oro City for
cases from the 9th to 12th Judicial Region.
It would take another eight years before the law would be
implemented. In the meantime, the search for suitable offices of the regional
stations was underway. In 2004, the regional stations were opened with the
appointments of 18 new justices to those places.
The Court of Appeals enters the 21st century
aware of its history, proud of its traditions and ready for new challenges