04/02/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly considering it “complete xxx once the last act required of the appointing authority has been complied with”), as opposed to the broad view of the term as a process that involves acts of the appointee; second, the purpose of Section 15, in relation to Section 4 of Article VII of the Constitution, in the light of the Aytona ruling and; third, the nature of the power of appointment and the considerations that underlie it. Based on these considerations, I conclude that for an appointment to be valid under Section 15, Article VII, the appointment papers must have already been signed, issued or released prior to the constitutional ban, addressed to the head of the office concerned or the appointee himself. The appointee’s acceptance through an oath, assumption of office or any positive act does not find any reference in Section 15, Article VII as this part of the appointment process is already outside the President’s power of control and is wholly within the appointee’s discretion. The Constitution could not have envisioned a prohibition on the President that is already beyond the sphere of his executive powers. The ponencia disagrees with this view and asserts that an appointment will only be valid if all the elements for the completion of its total process are present.[140] It further avers that my argument (that acceptance even after the ban will not affect the appointment’s validity as long as the designation and transmittal of the appointment papers were made before the ban sets in), will lead to glaring absurdities, i.e., that in case of the appointee’s non-acceptance, the position will be considered occupied and nobody else may be appointed to it; that an incumbent public official, appointed to another public office by the President, will automatically be deemed to occupy the new public office and to have resigned from his first office; and that, if the President is unhappy with an incumbent public official, the President can simply appoint him to another public office, thus remove him from his current post without due process. I disagree with these contentions. The act of issuing or releasing the appointment paper (together with the transmittal letter, if any) is the only reliable[141] and unequivocal[142] act that must be completed to show the intent of the appointing power to select the appointee. In other words, the President cannot be considered to have performed the “last act” required of him to complete the exercise of his power of appointment if the signing of the appointment is not coupled with its issuance. Along the same line of thought, because the appointing authority considers both the formal and informal qualifications of the prospective appointee[143] in exercising the power of appointment, the issuance of the appointment is the act that signifies the certainty of his choice. Prior to the issuance of an appointment, the President can choose to issue an appointment to another, or decide not to issue any appointment at all. After the issuance and before the appointment is accepted by the appointee, the appointment process still lies within the President’s control although the appointment can already be accepted by the appointee. The President finally loses control over the appointment process when the appointee accepts it. Prior to its acceptance, the President can still recall the appointment he issued and elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/60717 53/75