[ G.R. No. L-788. October 30, 1947 ] 79 Phil. 386
EN BANC
[ G.R. No. L-788. October 30, 1947 ]
CEBU TRANSIT COMPANY, INC., PETITIONER, VS. THE PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION, RESPONDENT. D E C I S I O N
PARAS, J.:
The petitioner, Cebu Transit Company, Inc., operated a taxicab service in the City of Cebu and its suburbs under a certificate of public convenience issued in its favor by the Public Service Commission in 1931. Due to the destruction and loss of the records of the Commission consequent upon the last war, the petitioner, under date of December 21, 1945, filed an application (Case No. 4502), for the reconstitution of its certificate of public convenience. After hearing, the Commission rendered a decision dated May 13, 1946, directing the issuance to the petitioner of a reconstituted certificate containing, however, the new condition that the same “shall be valid and subsisting only for a period of fifteen (15) years.” The petitioner filed a motion for reconsideration in which it was contended that the condition “was imposed without any evidence before this Honorable Commission to reasonably support such limitation.” The motion was denied after a hearing at which counsel for the petitioner did not present any evidence. Hence this appeal.
It is not pretended that the Commission has no power to impose the condition in question upon certificates issued prior to June 8, 1939, the date of the approval of Commonwealth Act No. 454, which amended section 15 of Commonwealth Act No. 146 in a sense authorizing the Commission to prescribe “as a condition for the issuance of the certificate * * * that the certificate shall be valid only for a definite period of time.” But even if the petitioner does make such pretense, we need only refer to the decision in Pangasinan Transportation Co. vs. Public Service Commission (70 Phil., 221), upholding the power of the Commission on the ground, among others, that “statutes enacted for the regulation of public utilities, being a proper exercise by the state of its police power, are applicable not only to those public utilities coming into existence after their passage, but likewise to those already established and in operation.”
Petitioner’s principal criticism is addressed to the alleged total absence of evidence reasonably supporting the appealed decision in so far as it limits the duration of its reconstituted certificate to fifteen years. In answer, it may be pointed out that the petitioner itself presented in evidence the decisions of the Commission dated February 4, 1931, December 19, 1933, and January 31, 1939, regarding the issuance of petitioner’s original certificate, its authorization to increase its equipment and to reduce its rates, and the design and color of its taxicabs. The Commission can thus be deemed to have considered the facts appearing in said decisions, in connection with the results of its own observations and investigations which ripened into the issuance by the Commission of its memorandum of July 26, 1939, approved by the Secretary of Justice on August 23, 1939, fixing the duration periods for various public services, fifteen years being thought proper for taxicab services. As held in Manila Yellow Taxicab Co. vs. Araullo (60 Phil., 833). “The Public Service Commission in the exercise of its quasi-judicial and administrative functions has the power to take into consideration the result of its own observation and investigation of the matter submitted to it for consideration and decision, in connection with other evidence presented at the hearing of a case.”
The case before us is not one in which the petitioner did not have an opportunity to be heard or to present evidence, because when its motion for reconsideration was heard,—and that was the suitable stage wherein it could show the impropriety of the period of fifteen years by corresponding evidence—its counsel merely manifested that “we submit our case on the basis of our motion for reconsideration.” We take it that the petitioner never claimed that it can hold its certificate in perpetuity or beyond fifty years, the maximum period prescribed in Commonwealth Act No. 146 and in the Constitution. Consequently, the petitioner could only have contended that its certificate should be made valid for a period longer than fifteen, but not exceeding fifty years, and it could have presented the necessary evidence at the hearing of its motion for reconsideration. Moreover, considering that the period fixed by the Commission started only from 1946, the duration of petitioner’s certificate, including the period subsequent to its issuance in 1931 up to 1945, covers a total of nearly thirty years.
The appealed decision is therefore affirmed, and it is so ordered with costs against the petitioner.
Moran, C.J., Pablo, Perfecto, Hilado, Bengzon, Briones, Padilla, and Tuason, JJ., concur.