Garcia vs.

Board of Investments (BOI)

191 SCRA 288
November 1990

FACTS:

Former Bataan Petrochemical Corporation (BPC), now Luzon Petrochemical Corporation, formed by a group of Taiwanese
investors, was granted by the BOI for the transfer of its proposed plant site from Bataan to Batangas and the shift of the plant’s
feedstock or fuel for its petrochemical plant from “naphta only” to “naptha and/or liquefied petroleum gas. In February 1989,
one year after the BPC began its production in Bataan, the corporation applied to the BOI to have its plant site transferred from
Bataan to Batangas. Despite vigorous opposition from petitioner Cong. Enrique Garcia and others, the BOI granted private
respondent BPC’s application, stating that the investors have the final choice as to where to have their plant site because they
are the ones who risk capital for the project.

ISSUE:

Whether or not the BOI committed a grave abuse of discretion in yielding to the application of the investors without
considering the national interest

COURT RULING:

The Supreme Court found the BOI to have committed grave abuse of discretion in this case, and ordered the original application
of the BPC to have its plant site in Bataan and the product naphta as feedstock maintained.

The ponente, Justice Gutierrez, Jr., first stated the Court’s judicial power to settle actual controversies as provided for by
Section 1 of Article VIII in our 1987 Constitution before he wrote the reasons as to how the Court arrived to its conclusion. He
mentioned that nothing is shown to justify the BOI’s action in letting the investors decide on an issue which, if handled by our
own government, could have been very beneficial to the State, as he remembered the word of a great Filipino leader, to wit: “..
he would not mind having a government run like hell by Filipinos than one subservient to foreign dictation”.

Justice Griño Aquino, in her dissenting opinion, argued that the petition was not well-taken because the 1987 Investment Code
does not prohibit the registration of a certain project, as well as any decision of the BOI regarding the amended application. She
stated that the fact that petitioner disagrees with BOI does not make the BOI wrong in its decision, and that petitioner should
have appealed to the President of the country and not to the Court, as provided for by Section 36 of the 1987 Investment Code.

Justice Melencio-Herrera, in another dissenting opinion, stated that the Constitution does not vest in the Court the power to
enter the realm of policy considerations, such as in this case.