G.R. No. L-2345 - Agustin vs. De la Fuente

The City of Manila faced a significant problem with numerous vendors and peddlers clogging its plazas and crowded downtown streets.
City authorities conceived the idea of establishing a centralized market to consolidate these vendors and ease urban congestion.
The mayor proposed converting certain buildings in Osmena Park into a Central Market and recommended the allocation of P52,500 for remodeling purposes.

In a session held on March 18, 1948, the municipal board approved the mayor’s recommendation in principle.
Five days later, the board president informed the mayor, suggesting that, due to the project’s urgency, the city treasurer be authorized to release the fund even prior to the publication of the proposed ordinance in the Official Gazette.
Acting on this advisory information, the mayor on March 27, 1948, authorized the immediate release and expenditure of the P52,500 fund.

The remodeling of the buildings in Osmena Park began the month following the mayor's authorization and was completed on July 1, 1948, at an actual expenditure of approximately P52,000.
After the completion, the plazas and streets in the districts of Quiapo and Sta. Cruz were cleared of curb vendors and hawkers.
Vendors who were removed from the streets were assigned stalls within the remodeled buildings, which were then designated as the “Central Market.”

Prior to the formal establishment of the market, sidewalk vendors and peddlers protested the proposed transfer of their trade to the Central Market.
In response to the protest, a majority block within the municipal board, opposed to the mayor's initiative, amended the proposed ordinance on June 28, 1948.

The amendment shifted the allocation of the P52,500 fund from the establishment of the market to the construction of “school buildings” on the same site.

On July 9, 1948, members of the majority faction of the board (who had opposed the mayor) filed a petition to prohibit the mayor from “converting, using, and adopting” the buildings for market purposes.
They contended that the power to establish a public market resided solely with the municipal board under section 2444, paragraph (z) of the Revised Administrative Code, and that the mayor exceeded his authority.
The petition sought to invoke the writ of prohibition, a preventive remedy intended to restrain acts about to be committed rather than to reverse actions already executed.

The city engineer certified that on July 1, 1948, the remodeling was fully completed and the buildings were ready for occupancy by the vendors.
According to the city treasurer, by July 10, 1948, vendors had already been reassigned into the remodeled buildings and were actively conducting their trade there.
Although petitioners argued that some details (e.g., inadequate toilet facilities and ongoing booth construction) indicated the market was not entirely finished, the conclusive certifications established that the conversion to a Central Market was a consummated act.

Whether the mayor had the authority to unilaterally establish a public market in Manila by converting the Osmena Park buildings, or if this power was exclusively vested in the municipal board under section 2444, paragraph (z) of the Revised Administrative Code.

Whether a writ of prohibition—which is fundamentally a preventive remedy—could be granted in a case where the act in question (the establishment and operationalization of the Central Market) had already been consummated.
Whether the petition, despite the alleged inadequacies in the market facilities, could succeed in preventing or undoing an act that was already executed and functioning.