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VOL. 43, FEBRUARY 28, 1972 291

Cipriano vs. Marcelino

No. L-27793. February 28, 1972.

LETICIA CIPRIANO, petitioner, vs. GREGORIO P.

MARCELINO and the HONORABLE RAFAEL DELA
CRUZ, Presiding Judge of the Third Branch, Court of First
Instance, Camarines Sur, respondents.

Administrative law; Rule of exhaustion of administrative

remedies not applicable where oppressive and unreasonable.—The
principle of exhaustion of administrative remedies may be
disregarded when it does not provide a plain, speedy and
adequate remedy. Thus, to require an ordinary employee of the
government to go all the way to the President of the Philippines
on appeal in the matter of the collection of the small total of P949
would not only be oppressive but would be patently unreasonable.
By the time her appeal shall have been decided by the President,
the amount of much more than P949 would in all likelihood have
been spent.

ORIGINAL PETITION in the Supreme Court, Certiorari.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the Court.

     Jaime C. Viola for petitioner.
Borja, & Noval for respondent Gregorio P. Marcelino.

CASTRO, J.:

Leticia Cipriano served as record clerk in the office of

municipal treasurer Gregorio P. Marcelino of Calabanga,
Camarines Sur, from Jan uary 1, 1963 to January 15, 1966,
at a monthly salary of eighty pesos (P80). On the latter
date she resigned. Because the respondent municipal
treasurer, upon her severance from the service, refused to
pay her salary corresponding to the period from September
1, 1965 to January 15, 1966, inclusive (P349), as well as the
commutation equivalent of her accumulated vacation and
sick leaves (P600), Cipriano filed on May 5, 1966 with the
Court of First Instance of Camarines Sur an action for
mandamus (civil case 6152) to compel the said municipal
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treasurer to pay her the total amount of P949. She also

asked for moral and exemplary damages, attorney’s fees
and costs of suit.
Marcelino moved to dismiss upon the ground that she
had not “exhausted all administrative remedies before
filing the
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Cipriano vs. Marcelino

present action,” arguing that exhaustion of all

administrative remedies is a condition precedent before an
aggrieved party may have judicial recourse. Granting the
motion, the court a quo ordered the dismissal of the case.
Cipriano’s motion for reconsideration was denied on May
15, 1967.
Hence, the present petition fo r certiorari on pure
questions of law.
Cipriano contends that there is no law that requires an
appeal to the Provincial Treasurer, Secretary of Finance,
Auditor General and then the President of the Philippines,
from the refusal by a municipal treasurer to pay the salary
and money value of the unused vacation and sick leaves of
a municipal employee; that assuming that an appeal all the
way up to the President of the Philippines is an
administrative remedy authorized by law, the same is not
plain, speedy and adequate; that the doctrine of exhaustion
is not applicable when the questions to be resolved are
purely of law; that the payment of her claim being a
ministerial duty of the municipal treasurer, mandamus is
the proper remedy to compel such payment; and, finally,
that to require a small government employee such as the
petitioner Cipriano to appeal all the way up to the Presid
ent of the Philippines on such an inconsequential matter as
the collection of the sum of P949, would be oppressive and
expensive not only to the employee but also to her
dependents as well.
Upon the other hand, Marcelino insists that the petition
for mandamus below states no cause of action as the
petitioner Cipriano has not exhausted all administrative
remedies available to her; that she has not acquired any
right to be paid her salary and accumulated vacation and
sick leave pay by reason of her failure to comply with the
requirements prescribed in the 1986 Manual on Pre-audit
of Government Disbursements; and that she still has
outstanding accountability in the sense she has not
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accounted for the missing triplicate copies of three official

receipts which were in her custody.
The documents required to be accomplished before
Cipriano can be paid her salary and her accumulated
vacation and sick leave pay are (a) a letter of resignation
duly ac-

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Cipriano vs. Marcelino

cepted, (b) a certificate of clearance from money and

property accountability, and (c) a certificate of clearance
from the Government Service Insurance System (p. 9, 1966
Manual on Pre-audit of Government Disbursements).
In her memo randum filed on December 22, 1967 with
this Court, Cipriano avers that she has a written
resignation duly accepted by the mayor of Calabanga; that
in the investigation conducted personally by the
respondent Marcelino with respect to the triplicate copies
adverted to by him, it was his finding that other persons,
and not the petitioner, are accountable for them; that the
petitioner has no money or property accountability; and,
finally, that she need not present a certificate of clearance
from the GSIS because she is not a member of the System.

These assertions are not controverted.

We have held time and time again that the principle of

exhaustion1 of administrative remedies is not without2
exception, not is it a condition precedent to judicial relief.
The principle may be disregarded when3 it does not provide
a plain, speedy and adequate remedy. It may and should
be relaxed when its 4
application may cause great and
irreparable damage.
It is altogether too obvious that to require the petitioner
Cipriano to go all the way to the President of the
Philippines on appeal in the matter of the collection of the
small total of nine hundred forty-nine (P949) pesos, would
not only be oppressive but would be patently unreasonable.
By the time her appeal shall have been decided by the
President, the amount of much more than P949, which is
the total sum of her claim, would in all likelihood have
been spent.
In De Leon vs. Libay (see footnote 3). this Court, with

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_______________

1 Pascual vs. Provincial Board of Nueva Ecija, L-11959, October 31,

1959.
2 Tapales vs. President of the U.P. and Board of Regents, 62 O.G. 3148.
3 National Development Co. vs. Collector of Customs, L-19180. October
31, 1963; De Leon vs. Libay, 60 O.G. 7599.
4 De Lara vs. Cloribel, L-21653, May 31, 1965.

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Cipriano vs. Marcelino

considerable emphasis, made this statement which is

apropos of the case at bar:

“The theory that a party must first exhaust his remedies in the
administrative branch before seeking the aid of the strong arm of
equity must give way to the reality that a government employee
must depend for the support of himself and his family upon his
salary, and were he to be deprived of that even alone for a few
months, possibly even less, that must mean starvation because
more often than not, a government employee lives hand-to-mouth
existence and he awaits with eager hands the arrival of the
forthnightly envelope because upon it must hinge the supply of
rice and fish and clothing of his spouse and children and himself
and with it only can be maintained, and therefore were the
dogmatic, rule of exhaustion of administrative remedies be made
to mean that he should wait for the most final administrative
decision in his case, the only logical result must be vital disaster to
his dependents and to himself, so that this is the reason why the
ride of exhaustion of administrative remedies has always been
understood to mean that the same have furnished a plain, speedy
and adequate remedy.”

All the documents required to support payment of

Cipriano’s salary and the cash commutation of her unused
vacation and sick leaves have been accomplished. Cipriano
having thus earned the right to the said payment, it has
become the corresponding duty of the respondent treasurer
to recognize such right and effect payment.
ACCORDINGLY, the present petition is granted, and
the orders a quo of April 14 and May 14, 1967 are set aside.
The municipal treasurer of the Municipality of Calabanga,
Camarines Sur, is hereby ordered to pay to the petitioner,
Leticia Cipriano, without further delay, the total sum of
nine hundred forty-nine (P949) pesos. No pronouncement
as to costs.
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          Concepcion, C.J., Reyes. J. B.L., Makalintal,

Zaldivar, Fernando, Teehankee, Barredo, Villamor an d
Makasiar, JJ., concur.

Petition granted.

Notes.—The rule on exhaustion of administrative

remedies is founded not only on practical consideration but
also on comity existing between the principal organs of the
government (Madriñan v. Sinco, L-14559, Nov. 29, 1960;
Ta-

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Chan Kian vs. Angsin

pales v. Board of Regents of U.P., 7 SCRA 553). There are,

however, well-settled exceptions to th is rule, such as,
where resort to the administrative agency is futile due to
agency’s long inaction (Azuelo v. Arnaldo, L-15144, May 26,
1960); in cases involving private land claims (Santiago v.
Cruz, L-8271, Dec. 29, 1955 ); where the action of
administrative head is patently illegal, arbitrary and
oppressive (Mangubat v. Osmeña, L-12837, April 30, 1959);
where the issue involved is purely one of law (Fernandez v.
City Mayor Cuneta, L-14392, May 30, 1960); or when the
proper administrative officials were already practically
given an opportunity to act upon a person’s petition
(Gonzales v. Aldana, 57 O.G. 5699).

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