04/02/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly 2. Whether all midnight appointments, including petitioners and intervenors, were invalid; those of the 3. Whether the appointments of the petitioners and intervenors were made with undue haste, hurried maneuvers, for partisan reasons, and not in accordance with good faith; 4. Whether the appointments of the petitioners and intervenors were irregularly made; and 5. Whether EO 2 violated the Civil Service Rules on Appointment.[31] Because the issues raised “will require the assessment of different factual circumstances attendant to each of the appointments made,”[32] the Court decided to refer the petitions to the Court of Appeals (CA) to “resolve all pending matters and applications, and to decide the issues as if these cases have been originally commenced”[33] with the CA.[34] CA RULING In four separate decisions, the CA upheld the constitutionality of E.O. No. 2, ruling that the E.O. is consistent with the rationale of Section 15, Article VII of preventing the outgoing President from abusing his appointment prerogative and allowing the incoming President to appoint the people who will execute his policies. To give meaning to this intent, the CA departed from the literal wording of the provision by construing the term “appointment” as a process that includes the appointee’s acceptance of the appointment. The CA likewise found no violation of the petitioners’ right to due process since no one has a vested right to public office.[35] Although the CA upheld the constitutionality of E.O. No. 2 and the application of its provisions to the petitioners, it expressed dismay over the “sweeping and summary invalidation of all the appointments made by the former administration without regard to the circumstances”[36] attendant to each case. Citing Sales v. Carreon,[37] the CA ruled that not all midnight appointments are invalid; the nature, character, and merits of each individual appointment must be taken into account. The CA, however, doubted its authority to evaluate the petitioners’ appointments (particularly their qualifications and merits) and referred the matter to the Office of the President to determine whether to uphold the petitioners’ appointments. The petitioners manifested their objections to the CA rulings through the present petitions. THE PETITIONS The petitioners raised identical arguments in their bid to nullify E.O. No. 2 and to uphold their respective appointments.[38] These arguments can be summarized as follows: elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/60717 36/75