04/02/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly exercise his appointing power anew or completely desist from exercising it. The appointment ban, however, limits the President’s control over the appointment process. When the appointment ban sets in, the President can no longer exercise his appointment power, although the President may recall a previously unaccepted appointment, or revoke an unaccepted one. The President may likewise exercise his appointing power under the exception in Section 15, Article VII of the 1987 Constitution. These conclusions draw strength from the reality that these acts are the only options that are left to the sole President’s discretion and full control, and that are inherent and consistent with the President’s prerogative as the appointing power. The full extent of the presidential control over the appointment prior to its acceptance, however, does not and should not materially alter the fact of the issuance as the reckoning point under Section 15, Article VII. Any period prior to the appointee’s acceptance is simply a period when the act of appointment, including its issuance, can be said to be complete although the appointment is not yet effective. These conclusions are consistent with both the tenor and nature of Section 15, Article VII as a limitation against the President’s exercise of his power to appoint. Since the acts pertaining to the appointee himself are beyond the President’s control, these same acts should not be covered by a provision that only essentially limits the executive power of appointment. This too, is consistent, with the constitutional objective of preventing the outgoing president from tying the hands of the incoming president through a belated exercise of the appointing power. Moreover, these conclusions will not lead to the glaring absurdities that the ponencia illustrates. Contrary to the ponencia’s arguments, we do not totally do away with or disregard the fact that an appointment is also a process. The Court should only make a clear and careful delineation that, for purposes of the prohibition against the President’s midnight appointments under Section 15, Article VII, the interpretation should be limited to the notion of an appointment as an executive act or the President’s exercise of his appointing power. The prohibition could not have included acts (such as the appointee’s acceptance) that are outside the President’s scope of executive powers. In other words, what is applicable in the present case is the term “appointment” in the context of the President’s appointing power, a concept which, as discussed above, is constitutionally, statutorily, and jurisprudentially acknowledged in our jurisdiction vis-à-vis appointment as a process. The focus in the present case is the limitation on the President’s appointing power, an executive act, where the acts of third persons, such as the appointee, is not material in the resolution of the case. Thus, an acceptance is still necessary in order for the appointee to validly assume his post and discharge the functions of his new office, and thus make the appointment effective. There can never be an instance where the appointment of an incumbent will automatically result in his resignation from his present post and his subsequent assumption of his new position; or where the President can simply remove an incumbent from his current office by appointing him to another one. I stress that acceptance through oath or any positive act is still indispensable before elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/60717 54/75