Executive Order No. 864

Also known as: EO 864 · The completion declaration of the judiciary reorganization · Executive Order No. 864, s. 1983

Definition

Executive Order No. 864 (January 17, 1983) is the presidential instrument by which President Ferdinand E. Marcos “declare[d] the completion of the reorganization of the judiciary as provided in Batas Pambansa Blg. 129” — the act approved August 14, 1981 that rebuilt the Philippine lower and intermediate judiciary. Its long title announces both faces of the declaration: “DECLARING THE REORGANIZATION OF THE JUDICIARY PURSUANT TO BATAS PAMBANSA BLG. 129 CREATING THE INTERMEDIATE APPELLATE COURT; THE REGIONAL TRIAL COURTS, THE METROPOLITAN TRIAL COURTS, MUNICIPAL CIRCUIT TRIAL COURTS AND MUNICIPAL TRIAL COURTS, AND ABOLISHING THE COURT OF APPEALS, THE COURTS OF FIRST INSTANCE, JUVENILE AND DOMESTIC RELATIONS COURTS, CIRCUIT CRIMINAL COURTS, COURTS OF AGRARIAN RELATIONS AND ALL CITY AND MUNICIPAL COURTS AND MUNICIPAL CIRCUIT COURTS; AND APPROVING THE STAFFING PATTERN AND COMPENSATION SCHEME FOR THE NEW COURTS, ETC.” (LawPhil — EO 864)

The order was the trigger BP 129’s Section 44 had armed: that section kept the old courts functioning “until the completion of the reorganization provided in this Act as declared by the President,” whereupon “the said courts shall be deemed automatically abolished and the incumbents thereof shall cease to hold office.” (LawPhil — BP 129) Section 1 of the order pulled it with one time-stamp: “The Court of Appeals, Courts of First Instance, Juvenile and Domestic Relations Courts, Circuit Criminal Courts, Courts of Agrarian Relations, and all City, Municipal Courts, and Municipal Circuit Courts shall be deemed automatically abolished upon the constitution and organization of the Intermediate Appellate Court, Regional Trial Courts, Metropolitan Trial Court, Municipal Trial Courts and Municipal Circuit Trial Courts as of 12:00 o’clock midnight, of January 17, 1983.” (LawPhil — EO 864) This entry treats the declaration itself; the statute belongs to this wiki’s Batas Pambansa Blg. 129 entry.

Identities

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Google Scholar	Executive Order No. 864 January 17 1983 Marcos judiciary reorganization Batas Pambansa Blg. 129 Section 44 completion declaration Court of First Instance abolished midnight Intermediate Appellate Court organized
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Also Known As

EO 864
The completion declaration of the judiciary reorganization
Executive Order No. 864, s. 1983

Examples and Analogies

A switch thrown at midnight: BP 129 built the new courts on paper in 1981 but left them switched off; EO 864 closed the circuit — one declaration, and at midnight of January 17, 1983 the old benches went dark while the new courts began to “exercise their respective jurisdictions as provided by law.” The order created nothing itself — it certified the work of BP 129’s Sections 3, 13, and 25 and set the housekeeping in motion. (LawPhil — EO 864, LawPhil — BP 129)
Verified instrument data:
Recitals: a staffing pattern submitted by the Supreme Court under Sec. 43 of BP 129; the reorganization “can now be implemented with the issuance of appointments of the Appellate Justices, and Judges of the new courts”; and the need for guidelines transferring “pending cases, records, personnel, equipment, property, and appropriations to the new courts” (LawPhil — EO 864)
Sec. 1: the abolition of the old courts at the midnight of January 17, 1983, quoted above (LawPhil — EO 864)
Sec. 2: annual salaries from Presiding Appellate Justice at ₱75,000 through Regional Trial Judge at ₱61,464 and Metropolitan Trial Judge at ₱50,376, down to ₱37,380 for the lowest first-level judges (LawPhil — EO 864)
Secs. 3–8: staffing pattern per Annex “A”; Supreme Court to fix court territories and session venues; transfer of pending cases with records, equipment, property, and personnel “on a temporary basis until reappointed or replaced”; the Sec. 46 gratuity; a salary floor for retained incumbents; publication “in at least five newspapers of general circulation” (LawPhil — EO 864, LawPhil — BP 129)

Usage Scenarios

1. Dating the Abolition of the Old Courts

Records research turns on the order’s date: the Court of Appeals, the Courts of First Instance, the Courts of Agrarian Relations, and their companion courts all stood abolished at midnight of January 17, 1983 — a case captioned “Court of First Instance” in late 1982 is ordinary; one captioned so after that midnight is anomalous. (LawPhil — EO 864, LawPhil — BP 129)

2. Tracing the Successor Courts and the 1986 Restoration

The genealogy entries of this wiki — the Intermediate Appellate Court, the Regional Trial Court, the first-level courts — all date their subjects’ organization to the EO 864 midnight; the reorganization did not outlast its author’s government unchanged, Executive Order No. 33 of July 28, 1986 restoring the Court of Appeals name with a Presiding Justice and fifty Associate Justices. (LawPhil — EO 864, LawPhil — EO 33)

Strategies

Put the timetable in one hand: BP 129 conditioned everything on a single presidential declaration, and EO 864’s strategy was simultaneity — abolition, constitution, and the assumption of jurisdiction all stamped with one midnight, so no court existed without a successor for even an hour. (LawPhil — BP 129, LawPhil — EO 864)
Cushion the human cost: the order directed implementation of Sec. 46’s gratuity — a month’s salary per year of service for every separated justice, judge, and employee — and its Sec. 7 floor and Sec. 8 publication requirement finished the housekeeping. (LawPhil — EO 864, LawPhil — BP 129)

Security and Safety Measures

No gap in adjudication: abolition fell “upon the constitution and organization” of the new courts at the same midnight — the old dockets passed to the new courts by operation of law, with “the pertinent functions, records, equipment, and property, including the necessary personnel,” the principal safeguard for litigants who had not chosen the reorganization. (LawPhil — EO 864, LawPhil — BP 129)
The Supreme Court’s staffing check: the first recital records that the staffing pattern came from the Supreme Court under Sec. 43, and the second ties completion to appointments already issued — the judiciary’s own hand in the scheme, and no abolition before the successors’ judges had qualified. (LawPhil — EO 864)
For researchers: cite the 1981 approval and the 1983 declaration as two facts; attribute no court’s creation to EO 864; and date the restored Court of Appeals name to EO 33, not this order. (LawPhil — BP 129, LawPhil — EO 33)

Historical Context

Batas Pambansa Blg. 129 rebuilt the judiciary below the Supreme Court in one statute — an Intermediate Appellate Court, thirteen Regional Trial Courts, and the first-level family of Metropolitan, Municipal, and Municipal Circuit Trial Courts — but its Section 44 kept the old courts sitting until the President declared completion. (LawPhil — BP 129) The seventeen months between approval and declaration are explained by the order’s own recitals: completion awaited the Supreme Court’s staffing pattern under Sec. 43, the issuance of appointments to the new benches, and the transfer guidelines. When those were in hand, Marcos issued EO 864 on January 17, 1983 — old courts abolished, new courts organized, salaries fixed, gratuity machinery set running. (LawPhil — EO 864) The territorial allocation the reorganization produced was carried into the Supreme Court’s Administrative Order No. 3, Series of 1983, whose amendments still govern trial-court territory today; and the 1986 government revised rather than reversed the work, EO 33 renaming the second court while the trial courts EO 864 organized continue under BP 129 as amended. (OCA — Territorial Jurisdiction, LawPhil — EO 33)

Challenges and Controversies

The Two Dates of the Abolition

Popular accounts date the abolition of the old courts to 1981, the year BP 129 was approved; they in fact sat until midnight of January 17, 1983. Completion is a separate act from authorization — and EO 864 is the act. (LawPhil — BP 129, LawPhil — EO 864)

Incumbents Abolished, Not Removed for Cause

Section 44’s machinery — incumbents who “shall cease to hold office” upon declaration, tempered only by gratuity and the chance of reappointment — abolished an entire bench in one stroke, the constitutional question the design quietly answered yes; the 1987 Constitution’s tenure guarantees were written after, and in part against, this episode. (LawPhil — BP 129, LawPhil — EO 864)

An Instrument Given to an Author Later Overthrown

EO 864 is studied as an artifact of presidential supremacy under the 1973 Constitution: the pace, the fact, and the midnight of the judiciary’s reorganization rested in one man’s declaration — though the court structure it brought up at midnight has outlasted every subsequent re-labeling, the name change it certified for the second court being undone by EO 33 within four years. (LawPhil — EO 864, LawPhil — EO 33)