Pre-Semester Frontier Post 32
Of the 19 powers given to NEA by RA 10531, the power to appoint a GM is NOT one of them
The rulemaking power is inherent in every administrative agency, it does not come from any Republic Act. Administrative bodies do not fall under any of the 3 branches of government (executive, judicial, legislative). They are “mestizo.” They exercise both quasi-judicial (adjudicating) power and quasi-legislative (rulemaking) power.
What RA 10531–the law they are citing–gives NEA are exactly nineteen (19) specific powers. Appointing a GM is NOT one of them. When the law enumerates, it excludes. So NEA cannot just add to its own power by mere resolution. A resolution cannot have the force and effect of law because they were not properly promulgated like all other laws.
For one thing, NEA does not publish its resolutions in the Official Gazette. That’s why I cant wait for this to reach the Supreme Court. In the lower courts, the “fog of debate” and emotions tend to obscure the real issue. But in the quietude of SC deliberations, that’s when real academicians and legal scholars can carefully bring the correct perspective into play. Trading emotional blows based on nothing but “stock knowledge” and natural law (when your statements begin with, “it’s only natural that x x x), nothing will be accomplished.
The author is a writer and lawyer based in Baguio City, Philippines. Former editor of the Gold Ore and Baguio City Digest, professor of journalism, political science and law at Baguio Colleges Foundation (BCF). He is a photographer and video documentarist. He has a YouTube channel called “Parables and Reason”