This is an application for  a writ of certiorari  whereby the petitioners, Telesforo Soriano and Leon M.  Santos, seek to secure the annulment of a resolution of the Public Service Commission, dated June 16, 1931,  entered by the respondent judge  upon motion of the  Rural Transit Co., whereby certain restrictions were introduced into the terms of the franchise previously granted to the petitioners for the operation of a passenger line from San Jose, Nueva Ecija, to Manila, over two routes, one coming through San Fernando, Pampanga, and the other through the Province of Bulacan, the two lines separating  from each  other in Nueva Ecija.   The application is now  before us upon the separate answers  of the two respondents.

It appears that on April 14,1928, the  petitioners, Soriano and Santos, presented an application to the Public Service Commission for a certificate of public  convenience in conformity with Act  No.  3108, as amended, allowing them to operate a passenger bus service from San  Jose to Manila with two branches through the Provinces of Pampanga and Bulacan respectively.  Other operators  over the same lines, or  parts  thereof,  including the  Rural  Transit Co., were notified of this application, and the same was set for hearing on April 27, 1928.  Upon hearing the petition the respondent  commissioner, on June 4, 1928,  entered a decision favorable to the applicants, over the opposition of such of the persons and entities concerned as had seen fit to oppose. One of the  features of this  decision was  that it did not contain a statement of the exact times of  arrival and departure of the petitioners' buses to and from the town of Cabanatuan,  and another was that the order did not contain any restriction upon the  right of the petitioners to take up and disembark local passengers on the line from San Jose to Gapan or on the line from Gapan to Cabiao. Notice of the grant of the franchise as above stated appears to have been served upon various opposing entities, but not upon the Rural Transit Co.

After the application had  been granted, the petitioners entered upon the exercise of their franchise; and on July 2, 1930, or more than two years thereafter, the Rural Transit Co. presented a motion in the same proceeding asking for a  revision  or modification of  the terms upon  which the certificate of convenience had been granted.   This motion came on to  be heard before R. A. Cruz, Assistant  Public Service Commissioner, on October 4, 1930, in the presence of the respective attorneys for the petitioners and the Rural Transit Co.  This hearing was had upon  the record as it stood, without the introduction of additional proof by either party.  In the motion itself it was asked that the terms of the certificate be so amended as to prohibit the holders of the certificate from picking up or dropping local passengers between San Jose  and  Gapan and  between Gapan  and Cabiao, on  the ground  that the  Rural Transit  Co.  was the  prior operator  between those places  and that other operators who had been granted similar certificates prior to that of  Soriano and Santos had been subjected to this restriction.   It was also requested by  the  attorney for  the motioner that the petitioners should be assigned fixed hours for arrival to and departure from the town of Cabanatuan.

After brief discussion, the commissioner indicated that, in his opinion, the petitioners could not be deprived of  the privilege of taking up and letting off passengers between the places indicated but that hours would be fixed for the arrival and departure of their buses over the line.

This hearing occurred on October 4, 1930.  Nevertheless, some eight months passed without any order  being entered by Commissioner Cruz; and, on June 13,  1931, he transferred the matter to the Sala of his associate, M. V. del Rosario, for the resolution of the motion, the reason given being that the order of June 4, 1928, against which the motion was directed had been entered by Commissioner Del Rosario.   On June 16 thereafter, Commissioner Del Rosario entered the resolution, which is  the subject of the present proceeding.  By this order the certificate of the petitioners was  so modified as to prevent them  from taking up and disembarking  passengers from  points between San Jose and  Gapan,  and intermediate  points, and between Cabiao and  Gapan,  and intermediate points.   This order was entered by the respondent judge upon the record as  it stood when it was transferred to him without notice to either of the parties  concerned.  However, after notification of the resolution to the present petitioners a motion for reconsideration was filed in their behalf, but this  motion was promptly  overruled.   Thereafter  the  present application was  filed in this court for a writ of certiorari to abrogate said  resolution, as already stated.

In the petition it is asserted that the entry of the order of June 13, 1931, was beyond the jurisdiction of the respondent commissioner, for the reason that the order which was  the  subject  of modification in said order had been entered about three years before the entry of  the resolution complained of and more than two years before the motion for amendment had  been filed.  For this reason it  was insisted that the original order  of  June 4, 1928, had long been final and not subject to correction.

This contention is clearly not well founded.  In section 28 of Act No. 3108 it is provided that the commission may at any time order a rehearing to extend, revoke, or modify any  order made by  it.   Furthermore,  in  section  6 of Order No.  1 of the Public Service Commission itself,  it is declared that the commission reserves the  right to cancel or modify, on its initiative or at the request of an interested party, for good cause and  upon the proper proceedings prescribed  by  law, any certificate of public convenience issued by it.   The reservation expressed in this order is in  conformity with section 28 of Act No. 3108; and no reasonable doubt can be entertained as to the jurisdiction of the Public Service Commissioner to  entertain a motion  such as  that presented in this  case by the Rural Transit Co.  for the amendment of the petitioners' certificate.

But  it is further contended that,  even supposing  that it was  competent for the Public Service Commission to entertain said motion, the order complained of was beyond the jurisdiction of the commissioner, for the reason  that said order was  entered without  giving the petitioners  an opportunity to  be  heard.   We are of the  opinion that this contention is well founded.  The hearing contemplated in our law, and which our rules of practice intend to secure to litigants, is a hearing before the judge who decides the  case. In the matter before us the hearing was before  Commissioner Cruz,  who in fact, upon hearing the  motion, announced the conclusion to which he had come and the nature of the order which he intended to enter.  After this stage of the proceedings had been reached, we are.of the opinion that it was improper for Commissioner Del Rosario to decide the motion  differently without at least conceding to the parties interested an opportunity to be heard.  And  if there  cannot properly be said to have been an absolute want of jurisdiction  on the  part of  the  respondent  commissioner to enter the order which is the subject of this application, there was at least an irregular exercise of  judicial power by him, in excess  of  his lawful jurisdiction, such as supplies a basis  for the writ of certiorari.  (Leung Ben vs. O'Brien, 38 Phil., 182, 186.)

It results that the application in this case must be granted; and the resolution or order  of June  16, 1931, will be abrogated with directions to the respondent commissioner to set the motion for further hearing, and otherwise to proceed therewith as may be proper.  So ordered, with costs against the respondent Rural Transit Co.

Avanceña,  C.  J., Johnson,  Villamor, Romualdez,  Villa-Real, and Imperial, JJ., concur.

Malcolm, J., concurs in the result.