Presidential Decree No. 1487

Also known as: The Tanodbayan Decree of 1977 — the decree's own Section 1 short title · The decree creating the Tanodbayan — the descriptive styling of the accountability literature · PD 1487 — the standard abbreviation

Government

Definition

Presidential Decree No. 1487 — long-titled “CREATING THE OFFICE OF THE OMBUDSMAN, TO BE KNOWN AS TANODBAYAN” and signed by President Ferdinand Marcos on 11 June 1978 — is the martial-law decree that created the Tanodbayan, the Philippines’ first office of the ombudsman, executing the mandate of the 1973 Constitution’s Article XIII, Section 6, which directed that the National Assembly “shall create an office of the Ombudsman, to be known as Tanodbayan, which shall receive and investigate complaints” against public officials. (LawPhil — PD 1487, LawPhil — 1973 Constitution) Its operative establishment clause reads: “An independent Office of the ombudsman, to be called the Tanodbayan, is hereby established. The Tanodbayan shall have two Deputies for Luzon, one for the Visayas and one for Mindanao.” (Sec. 2) (LawPhil — PD 1487) Its own Section 1 styles it the “Tanodbayan Decree of 1977” — a short title a year older than its signing — and its Section 21 repeals Republic Act No. 6028, the never-implemented Office of the Citizens Counselor of 1969. (LawPhil — PD 1487, Wikipedia — Tanodbayan)

The decree’s design was an ombudsman on paper and a presidential instrument in practice: the President appointed the Tanodbayan and his Deputies (Sec. 3), and the seven-year term “without reappointment” was qualified by removal “by the President upon his determination that the Tanodbayan or any of his Deputies has become incapacitated or has been guilty of neglect of duty, or misconduct” (Sec. 6(a)) — the clause behind the standard account’s verdict that the office “was not independent but served at the pleasure of the president and could be removed at any time.” (LawPhil — PD 1487, Wikipedia — Tanodbayan) The 1987 Constitution superseded the arrangement: Article XI created today’s independent Office of the Ombudsman and provided that “The existing Tanodbayan shall hereafter be known as the Office of the Special Prosecutor” — the succession this wiki’s Office of the Ombudsman, Office of the Special Prosecutor, and Republic Act No. 6770 entries carry link by link. (LawPhil — 1987 Constitution, LawPhil — EO 244) Statute register; superseded.

Identities

Source Type	Identity
Wikipedia	N/A — no standalone article for the decree (verified this session); the decree is treated within the Tanodbayan article (Wikipedia — Tanodbayan)
Wikidata	N/A — entity search returns no item for the decree (verified this session); “tanodbayan” resolves only as a Tagalog alias of the generic ombudsman concept (Q169180)
DBpedia	N/A — no resource for the decree; the Tanodbayan resource on the data endpoint resolves to the office and links to the Office of the Ombudsman (Philippines) (verified this session)
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	decree (noun — “An edict or law”; the instrument class, not the statute) (Wiktionary — decree)
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	N/A — id.loc.gov suggest returns no heading for the decree or “Ombudsmen — Philippines” this session
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A
Google Scholar	Presidential Decree No. 1487 Tanodbayan Decree of 1977 June 11 1978 Marcos ombudsman Tanodbayan Section 2 independent office 1973 Constitution Article XIII Section 6 RA 6028 Citizens Counselor repealed Section 17 failure of justice Sandiganbayan EO 244 1987 Constitution Article XI Office of the Special Prosecutor
ConceptNet	N/A — ConceptNet API unreachable this session (HTTP 502)
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

The Tanodbayan Decree of 1977 — the decree’s own Section 1 short title
The decree creating the Tanodbayan — the descriptive styling of the accountability literature
PD 1487 — the standard abbreviation

Examples and Analogies

A constitutional mandate executed by decree: the 1973 Constitution ordered the legislature to create the Tanodbayan; under martial law the President made the office himself — PD 1487 is the constitution’s Section 6 rendered as a one-man statute, preamble included “to give effect to the constitutional right of the people to petition the government for redress of grievances.” (LawPhil — 1973 Constitution, LawPhil — PD 1487)
A repeal rather than a repair: rather than activate the Office of the Citizens Counselor that Republic Act No. 6028 had created in 1969 — which the standard account records as “not at all implemented” — Section 21 simply repealed it, clearing the field for the new office. (LawPhil — PD 1487, Wikipedia — Tanodbayan)
A seven-year term with a presidential escape hatch: Section 6(a) grants the term and the removal in one sentence — “seven years without reappointment unless removed by the President” — the drafting that made the paper independence and the presidential control a single clause. (LawPhil — PD 1487)
Verified statutory data:
Long title: “Creating the Office of the Ombudsman, to Be Known as Tanodbayan” (LawPhil — PD 1487)
Signed: “Done in the City of Manila, this 11th day of June, in the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and seventy-eight” (LawPhil — PD 1487)
Short title (Sec. 1): “This Decree may be cited as the Tanodbayan Decree of 1977” (LawPhil — PD 1487)
Establishment (Sec. 2): “An independent Office of the ombudsman, to be called the Tanodbayan, is hereby established,” with two Deputies for Luzon, one for the Visayas, one for Mindanao (LawPhil — PD 1487)
Appointment (Sec. 3): “The President shall appoint the Tanodbayan and his Deputies,” from qualifications of members of the bar “not… actively involved in partisan affairs” (Sec. 4) (LawPhil — PD 1487)
Term (Sec. 6): seven years without reappointment, unless removed by the President for incapacity, neglect of duty, or misconduct; the Senior Deputy to act in vacancies (Sec. 6(b)) (LawPhil — PD 1487)
Prosecution (Sec. 17): upon “a failure of justice,” the Tanodbayan “shall file and prosecute the corresponding criminal, civil, or administrative case before the Sandiganbayan or the proper court or body” — the prosecutorial power the Constitution’s own Section 6 had sketched (LawPhil — PD 1487, LawPhil — 1973 Constitution)
Immunities (Sec. 18): “No proceeding, opinion, or expression of the Tanodbayan or any member of his staff, shall be reviewable in any court” (LawPhil — PD 1487)
Repeal (Sec. 21): “Republic Act No. 6028 is hereby repealed” (LawPhil — PD 1487)
Constitutional anchor: 1973 Constitution, Article XIII, Section 6 (Tanodbayan) beside Section 5 (Sandiganbayan) (LawPhil — 1973 Constitution)

Usage Scenarios

1. Citing the Tanodbayan’s Creation

The standard citation for the Marcos-era office is Section 2’s establishment clause quoted verbatim above, with Section 3’s presidential appointment — the two provisions every account of the office’s dependence on the President rests on. (LawPhil — PD 1487)

2. Researching the 1973 Constitution’s Accountability Design

The decree is the implementing statute of Article XIII — Section 5’s Sandiganbayan and Section 6’s Tanodbayan — the constitutional pair that gave martial-law Philippines its anti-graft architecture, which the 1987 charter then rebuilt. (LawPhil — 1973 Constitution)

3. Tracing the 1987–1989 Succession

The lineage runs from this decree to the 1987 Constitution’s Article XI — “The existing Tanodbayan shall hereafter be known as the Office of the Special Prosecutor” — through Executive Order No. 244 of 24 July 1987, which declared that office “now in existence” and set it to exercising “powers presently exercised by the Tanodbayan except those conferred on the Office of the Ombudsman,” to the first Ombudsman’s installation of 12 May 1988 and the Ombudsman Act of 1989 — the succession this wiki’s Republic Act No. 6770 entry documents. (LawPhil — 1987 Constitution, LawPhil — EO 244, Wikipedia — Tanodbayan)

4. Comparative Ombudsman Studies

The decree is the Philippine datum for the Scandinavian ombudsman’s authoritarian adaptation — the office imported in name and complaint function while appointment, removal, and review were kept in the executive — the case comparative literature sets against the 1987 Constitution’s independent redesign. (LawPhil — PD 1487, Wikipedia — Tanodbayan)

Strategies

Execute the constitution by decree: with the legislature’s creation power suspended in substance under Proclamation No. 1081, the President made the constitutional office himself — lawmaking by decree as the martial-law mode of institution-building. (LawPhil — PD 1487)
Clear the failed predecessor: repealing RA 6028’s Citizens Counselor rather than reviving it gave the new office a clean pedigree and a free field. (LawPhil — PD 1487, Wikipedia — Tanodbayan)
Keep the appointment and the removal: Section 3’s appointment and Section 6(a)’s removal clause reserved the office’s life to the President — the control point the 1987 Constitution’s JBC-list appointment and single term were written to abolish. (LawPhil — PD 1487, LawPhil — 1987 Constitution)
Immunity from review: Section 18(a)’s bar on judicial review of Tanodbayan proceedings completed the design — an unreviewable office answerable to one man. (LawPhil — PD 1487)

Security and Safety Measures

Paper independence, presidential removal: the decree’s “independent Office” of Section 2 was qualified by Section 6(a)’s removal clause — the gap between text and practice the standard account summarizes as an office that “served at the pleasure of the president and could be removed at any time.” (LawPhil — PD 1487, Wikipedia — Tanodbayan)
The national-interest check on oversight: the decree’s investigative powers — examining agency records and inspecting premises — operated subject to a presidential certification on grounds of national interest, an executive override built into the office’s own machinery. (LawPhil — PD 1487)
The constitutional succession as the safeguard: the 1987 Constitution’s redesign — an independent Ombudsman appointed from a Judicial and Bar Council list, the prosecutorial remnant subordinated as the Office of the Special Prosecutor — is the accountability system that answered the decree’s structural flaw, implemented by EO 243 and EO 244 of 24 July 1987 and completed by the Ombudsman Act of 1989. (LawPhil — 1987 Constitution, LawPhil — EO 244, Wikipedia — Tanodbayan)
For researchers: quote the decree from the full text but carry the date from the signature block (11 June 1978) and the short title from Section 1 (“Tanodbayan Decree of 1977”) — the two dates are both the statute’s own; and note the LawPhil rendering carries small transcription slips (Section 6(a)’s “To Tanodbayan” for “The Tanodbayan”) not to be reproduced as the decree’s language. (LawPhil — PD 1487)

Historical Context

The 1973 Constitution, ratified under martial law, wrote the Scandinavian ombudsman into Philippine law: Article XIII, Section 5 ordered a special court “to be known as Sandiganbayan” for graft cases, and Section 6 ordered the legislature to “create an office of the Ombudsman, to be known as Tanodbayan, which shall receive and investigate complaints” — with power, in cases of “failure of justice,” to prosecute. (LawPhil — 1973 Constitution) Republic Act No. 6028 had already tried a Philippine analogue in 1969 — the Office of the Citizens Counselor — which the standard account records as never implemented at all. (Wikipedia — Tanodbayan)

President Marcos executed the mandate by decree on 11 June 1978: PD 1487 established “an independent Office of the ombudsman, to be called the Tanodbayan,” staffed by deputies for Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao, appointed by the President, serving seven-year terms removable by him, prosecuting failures of justice before the Sandiganbayan, and unreviewable in court — and repealed the dormant Citizens Counselor law on its way out. (LawPhil — PD 1487) In practice the office “was not independent but served at the pleasure of the president,” the verdict the standard account carries into every citation of the Marcos-era Tanodbayan. (Wikipedia — Tanodbayan)

The 1987 Revolution ended the arrangement by charter. Article XI of the new Constitution created the independent Office of the Ombudsman — “composed of the Ombudsman to be known as Tanodbayan, one Overall Deputy and at least one Deputy each for Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao” — and provided that “the existing Tanodbayan shall hereafter be known as the Office of the Special Prosecutor”; President Corazon Aquino’s Executive Orders 243 and 244 of 24 July 1987 declared the two offices in existence, EO 244 assigning the Special Prosecutor “powers presently exercised by the Tanodbayan except those conferred on the Office of the Ombudsman.” (LawPhil — 1987 Constitution, LawPhil — EO 244) The modern office took form with its first appointee on 12 May 1988 and its statute in the Ombudsman Act of 1989 — the record this wiki’s accountability-cluster entries carry — leaving PD 1487 superseded: its office renamed, its machinery absorbed, and its operative sections of historical citation only. (Wikipedia — Tanodbayan)

Challenges and Controversies

A 1977 Short Title on a 1978 Decree

The decree signed “this 11th day of June… nineteen hundred and seventy-eight” cites itself in Section 1 as “the Tanodbayan Decree of 1977” — a styling this wiki’s Republic Act No. 6770 entry also carries. The record does not state the reason for the vintage; the dating rule is straightforward: sign and cite the decree to 1978, and let the short title keep its own year. (LawPhil — PD 1487)

Independence by Whose Leave

The decree’s founding contradiction — “an independent Office” whose head the President appoints and may remove on his own determination — is the clause-level evidence for the standard account’s verdict that the Tanodbayan served at presidential pleasure; the 1987 Constitution’s appointment and term design is the direct answer to it. (LawPhil — PD 1487, Wikipedia — Tanodbayan, LawPhil — 1987 Constitution)

The Unreviewable Ombudsman

Section 18(a) — “No proceeding, opinion, or expression of the Tanodbayan or any member of his staff, shall be reviewable in any court” — gave the Marcos-era office an immunity from judicial control the modern Office does not hold in that absolute form; the clause is the decree’s most cited drafting excess. (LawPhil — PD 1487)

A Statute Without Its Own Register

PD 1487 has no standalone Wikipedia article, no Wikidata item, and no DBpedia resource of its own — all verified this session — so its public record lives inside the Tanodbayan and Office of the Ombudsman accounts and the statute books; researchers citing it go to the full text. (Wikipedia — Tanodbayan, LawPhil — PD 1487)