Source: http://lawlibrary.chanrobles.com/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=33828:g-r-no-103142-november-8,-1993-manuelito-a-isabelo,-jr-v-perpetual-help-college-of-rizal,-et-al&amp;catid=1308&amp;Itemid=566
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 15:05:26+00:00

Document:
MANUELITO A. ISABELO, JR., Petitioner, v. PERPETUAL HELP COLLEGE OF RIZAL, INC., and DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, CULTURE AND SPORTS, Respondents.
George I. Arboleda for Petitioner.
Evelyn Lucero Gutierrez for Perpetual Help College of Rizal, Inc.
3.	ID.; ID.; ENROLMENT OF A STUDENT, NOT AN ORDINARY CONTRACT BUT ONE IMBUED WITH PUBLIC INTEREST. — Another observation. In Non v. Dames II, we have already abandoned our earlier ruling in Alcuaz v. PSBA (that enrolment of a student is a semester-to-semester contract, and that the school may not be compelled to renew the contract) by recognizing instead the right of a student to be enrolled for the entire period required in order to complete his course. We have also stressed that the contract between the school and the student, imbued, as it is, with public interest, is not an ordinary contract.
4.	REMEDIAL LAW; SUPREME COURT; NOT A TRIER OF FACTS; CASE AT BAR. — There remains an administrative determination, to be yet resolved with finality by the DECS, i.e., whether the petitioner really deserves to be in the senior class, as he claims, or has a number of school deficiencies to overcome, as the respondent school counters. Hence, the issuance of a writ of mandamus at this time would not be warranted. We have repeatedly said that for a writ of mandamus to issue, a petitioner should, on the one hand, have a clear legal right to the thing demanded, and there should be, upon the other hand, an imperative duty of a respondent to perform the act sought to be mandated. This Court, not being a trier of facts, must remand this matter to the DECS for its own evaluation and final determination.
"WHEREFORE, petitioner prays for a writ of mandamus addressed to the Department of Education, Culture and Sports (DECS) to implement its order to re-admit him as a senior graduating student of respondent Perpetual Help College of Rizal (PHCR), and for the latter to re-admit him as a senior graduating student for March, 1992.
We granted, in our resolution of 23 June 1992, the temporary mandatory relief prayed for.
" *	Non compliance of CMT requirement as per DECS Order No. 9, S. 1990 and DECS Memorandum No. 80, S. 1991 and PHCR Internal Memo. No. 891-007;.
Beginning 05 September 1991, Manuelito was no longer allowed to enter the school premises. He forthwith sent a letter to the DECS informing the latter at the matter.
". . . concerning the dropping from the rolls without due process of the students-petitioners . . ., Manuelito Isabelo, Jr., . . ., please be advised that pending resolution thereof, the propriety of allowing the students to continue attending their classes to protect their interest as well as that of the school, is hereby enjoined.
PHCR did not comply with the directive.
Hence, this recourse. The petitioner questions PHCR’s act of voiding his enrollment.
While this Court, on 23 June 1992, issued a preliminary mandatory injunction ordering and directing PCHR to re-admit the petitioner for enrollment, 10 the same was interdicted by PHCR’s motion for clarification 11 that indeed would require factual assessments that have yet to be conclusively passed upon administratively.
The petitioner claims that the real reason why PHCR has voided his enrollment as a senior graduating student had been because of his active participation in opposing PHCR’s application for tuition fee increase with the DECS.
The private respondent, on the other hand, invokes "academic freedom" in dropping the petitioner from its roll of students. It argues that the petitioner has only been allowed to enroll "conditionally" during the first semester of school year 1991-92 pending the completion of his remedial classes in CMT, in which he has failed.
In this instance, it would seem that the principal reason forwarded by the private respondent in dropping the petitioner from its roll of students was his failure to complete some remaining units in the CMT course. He was unceremoniously dropped from the roll when the semester was about to end some time in October. He took a special training during the semestral break (which was the most reasonable time to comply), and he was able to pass it, but PHCR still refused to give him that accreditation, insisting that he by then had ceased to be a student of PHCR.
There remains, however, an administrative determination, to be yet resolved with finality by the DECS, i.e., whether the petitioner really deserves to be in the senior class, as he claims, or has a number of school deficiencies to overcome, as the respondent school counters. Hence, the issuance of a writ of mandamus at this time would not be warranted. We have repeatedly said that for a writ of mandamus to issue, a petitioner should, on the one hand, have a clear legal right to the thing demanded, and there should be, upon the other hand, an imperative duty of a respondent to perform the act sought to be mandated. 22 This Court, not being a trier of facts, 23 must remand this matter to the DECS for its own evaluation and final determination.
WHEREFORE, this case is hereby REMANDED to the Department of Education, Culture and Sports for its expeditious determination on the unresolved administrative issues raised in the instant petition. No costs.
Narvasa, C.J., Cruz, Feliciano, Padilla, Bidin, Regalado, Davide, Jr. Romero, Nocon, Bellosillo, Melo, Quiason and Puno, JJ., concur.
4.	Annex "H", Petition, Rollo, 36.
5.	Annex "K", Ibid., ibid., 48.
6.	Annex "C," Comment, Ibid., 92-93.
7.	Annex "L," Petition, ibid., 49.
8.	Annex "D", Comment, Ibid., 94.
9.	Annex "Q", Petition, Ibid., 54.
12.	68 SCRA 277 .
13.	137 SCRA 245 .
14.	G.R. No. 99327, 27 May 1993, penned by Mme. Justice Flerida Ruth P. Romero.
15.	Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U.S. 234, 263 .
17.	Loyola School of Theology, supra.
18.	Ateneo De Manila University, supra.
19.	185 SCRA 523 .
20.	161 SCRA 7 .
21.	Ibid.; see also Philippine School of Business Administration v. Court of Appeals, 205 SCRA 729,733 .
22.	Canonizado v. Benitez, 127 SCRA 610 ; Taboy v. Court of Appeals, 105 SCRA 758/1981/ Province of Pangasinan v. Reparations Commission, 80 SCRA 376/1977; Ocampo v. Subido, 72 SCRA 443 .
23.	Soriano III v. Yuzon, 164 SCRA 226 ; Blue Bar Coconut Phil. v. Tantuico, Jr., 163 SCRA 716 ; Korean Airlines Co., Ltd. v. CA, 154 SCRA 211 .

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