THIRD DIVISION
|
LAND BANK OF THE Petitioner, - versus - RAYMUNDA
MARTINEZ, Respondent. |
G.R. No. 169008
Present: YNARES-SANTIAGO, J., Chairperson, AUSTRIA-MARTINEZ, CHICO-NAZARIO, and NACHURA, JJ. Promulgated: August 14, 2007 |
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D E C I S I O N
NACHURA, J.:
Before
the Court is a petition for review on certiorari
under Rule 45 of the Rules of Court assailing the September 28, 2004 Resolution[1] of
the Court of Appeals (CA) in CA-G.R. SP No. 83276 and the
Undisputed
are the following antecedent facts:
After
compulsory acquisition by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), on November
16, 1993, of respondent Martinez’s 62.5369-hectare land in Barangay Agpudlos, San Andres, Romblon, pursuant to Republic Act
No. 6657, or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988 (CARL), petitioner
Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) offered P1,955,485.60 as just
compensation.[3] Convinced
that the proffered amount was unjust and confiscatory, respondent rejected it. Thus,
the Department of Agrarian Reform Adjudication Board (DARAB), through its
Provincial Agrarian Reform Adjudicator (PARAD) conducted summary administrative
proceedings for the preliminary determination of just compensation in
accordance with Section 16 (d) of the CARL.
On
WHEREFORE, in view of the foregoing, judgment
is hereby rendered:
Ordering the Land Bank of the
SO ORDERED.[4]
A petition for the fixing of just
compensation[5] docketed
as Agrarian Case No. 696 was then filed by LBP’s counsel before the Special
Agrarian Court (SAC), the Regional Trial Court of Odiongan, Romblon, Branch 82.
After filing her answer to the said petition,[6]
respondent, contending that the orders, rulings and decisions of the DARAB
become final after the lapse of 15 days from their receipt, moved for the
dismissal of the petition for being filed out of time.[7]
Petitioner opposed the motion.[8]
Meanwhile, respondent, still
asserting the finality of PARAD Sorita’s decision, filed before the Office of
the PARAD a motion for the issuance of a writ of execution, which was eventually
granted on
On April 6, 2004, even as the motion
to quash was yet unresolved, LBP instituted a petition for certiorari[12]
before the CA, which was
docketed as CA-G.R. SP No. 83276, assailing both the November 11, 2003 and the
February 23, 2004 PARAD resolutions. LBP primarily contended that the Office of
the PARAD gravely abused its discretion when it issued the writ of execution
despite the pendency with the SAC of a petition for the fixing of just
compensation.
The CA, finding LBP guilty of
forum-shopping for not disclosing the pendency of the Motion to Quash dated
ACCORDINGLY, the present petition for
certiorari is DISMISSED outright.
Consequently, in view of the dismissal of the
above-entitled case, we are no longer in a position to act on the private
respondent’s motion for execution pending appeal.
Further, this Court, mindful that under Sec.
5, Rule 7, of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure, willful and deliberate
forum-shopping constitutes direct contempt of court and cause for
administrative sanctions, which may both be resolved and imposed in the same
case where the forum shopping is found, WARNS the counsel of record of the
petitioner that a repetition of a similar act of submitting a false
certification shall be dealt with most severely.
SO ORDERED.[14]
Not persuaded by LBP’s motion for reconsideration,
the appellate court denied the same on
On
For her part, respondent contends
that petitioner committed forum-shopping when it filed a certiorari petition without first awaiting the resolution by the
Office of the PARAD of the motion to quash;[18] and that petitioner has lost its standing to
sue considering that it is being represented by its lawyers and not the Office
of the Government Corporate Counsel (OGCC).[19]
On the basis of these antecedents, the
Court shall now resolve seriatim the
following issues: (1) whether or not petitioner may file the instant appeal
solely through its legal department; (2) whether or not petitioner has
committed forum shopping; and (3) whether or not the PARAD, in this case,
gravely abused its discretion when it issued a writ of execution despite the
pendency of LBP’s petition for fixing of just compensation with the SAC.
After meticulously reviewing the
records and considering the arguments of the parties, the Court finds the
appeal devoid of merit.
In Land Bank of the
There
is nothing in the LBP charter that expressly authorizes the said Legal
Department to appear in behalf of LBP in any court or quasi-judicial
proceeding. Attys. Beramo and Berbaño insist that the creation of the LBP Legal
Department “necessarily entails conferment of the power to represent [LBP] in
any and all cases” and consequently confers the power to “exercise such
incidental powers or perform such acts as are necessary to make the conferred
power effective.” At first blush, this is not an unreasonable position; yet, we are precluded from adopting the same,
owing to the explicit proviso in Section 10, Book IV, Title III, Chapter 3 of
the Administrative Code of 1987, which reads:
Section
10. Office of the Government Corporate Counsel. — The Office of the
Government Corporate Counsel (OGCC) shall act as the principal law office
of all government-owned or controlled corporations, their subsidiaries, other
corporate offsprings and government acquired asset corporations and shall exercise
control and supervision over all legal departments or divisions maintained
separately and such powers and functions as are now or may hereafter be
provided by law. In the exercise of such control and supervision, the Government
Corporate Counsel shall promulgate rules and regulations to effectively
implement the objectives of the Office.
The
OGCC is authorized to receive the attorney's fees adjudged in favor of their
client government-owned or controlled corporations, their subsidiaries/other
corporate offsprings and government acquired asset corporations. These
attorney's fees shall accrue to a Special fund of the OGCC, and shall be
deposited in an authorized government depository as trust liability and shall
be made available for expenditure without the need for a Cash Disbursement
Ceiling, for purposes of upgrading facilities and equipment, granting of
employee's incentive pay and other benefits, and defraying such other incentive
expenses not provided for in the General Appropriations Act as may be
determined by the Government Corporate Counsel. (Emphasis supplied.)
The above provision mandates the
OGCC, and not the LBP Legal Department, as the principal law office of the LBP.
Moreover, it establishes the proper hierarchical order in that the LBP Legal
Department remains under the control and supervision of the OGCC. Indeed, if we were to accede to the position of Attys. Beramo and
Berbaño that the mere constitution of an LBP Legal Department ipso facto confers upon it the capacity
to litigate cases in behalf of LBP in any legal proceeding, then the role of
the OGCC as the principal law office of all GOCCs would be rendered nugatory in
all GOCCs with Legal Departments.
At the
same time, the existence of the OGCC does not render the LBP Legal Department a
superfluity. We do not doubt that the LBP Legal Department carries out vital
legal services to LBP. However, the performance of such functions cannot
deprive the OGCC’s role as overseer of the LBP Legal Department and its mandate
of exercising control and supervision over all GOCC legal departments. For the purpose of filing petitions and
making submissions before this Court, such control and supervision imply
express participation by the OGCC as principal legal counsel of LBP. Our
succeeding disposition of the OGCC’s pending Manifestation would delve
in detail the extent of the OGCC’s required participation. But suffice for now,
Attys. Beramo and Berbaño are in error when they assert that the OGCC’s
participation in the present petition is not required at all.
It
should also be noted that the aforementioned Section 10, Book IV, Title III,
Chapter 3 of the Administrative Code of 1987 authorizes the OGCC to receive the
attorney's fees adjudged in favor of their client GOCCs, such fees accruing to
a special fund of the OGCC. Evidently, the non-participation of the OGCC in
litigations pursued by GOCCs would deprive the former of its due funding as
authorized by law. Hence, this is another reason why we cannot sustain Attys.
Beramo and Berbaño's position that the OGCC need not participate in litigations
pursued by LBP.
It may strike as disruptive to
the flow of a GOCC’s daily grind to require the participation of the OGCC as
its principal law office, or the exercise of control and supervision by the
OGCC over the acts of the GOCC’s legal departments. For reasons such as
proximity and comfort, the GOCC may find it convenient to rely instead on its
in-house legal departments, or more irregularly, on private practitioners. Yet the statutory role of the OGCC as
principal law office of GOCCs is one of long-standing, and we have to recognize
such function as part of public policy. Since the jurisdiction of the OGCC
includes all GOCCs, its perspective is less myopic than that maintained by a particular
legal department of a GOCC. It is not inconceivable that left to its own
devices, the legal department of a given GOCC may adopt a legal position
inconsistent with or detrimental to other GOCCs. Since GOCCs fall within the
same governmental framework, it would be detrimental to have GOCCs foisted into
adversarial positions by their respective legal departments. Hence, there is
indubitable wisdom in having one overseer over all these legal departments
which would ensure that the legal positions adopted by the GOCCs would not
conflict with each other or the government.
Attys. Beramo and Berbaño claim
that the LBP Legal Department had handled some cases which had been decided by
the Court and that the OGCC has never been involved in the litigation and
handling of LBP’s appellate cases involving specialized fields such as banking
and agrarian reform. These points should not be dismissed lightly, but then
again, years of wrong practice do not
make a statutory right. The Administrative Code of 1987, adopting a decades-old
legal precept, expressly provides that it is the OGCC that acts as the
principal law office of GOCCs and exercises control and supervision over the
legal departments of GOCCs. If the LBP Legal Department has long operated as an
independent fiefdom absent any control, supervision, or even concern from the
OGCC, then this practice must end now. As to the pending litigations of LBP
which are [handled] exclusively by the LBP Legal Department, it shall be the
individual courts with jurisdiction over those cases that shall decide how to
proceed next. We shall not, by reason of this Resolution, interfere with the dispensation of those cases.
Certainly, Section 10, Book IV, Title III, Chapter 3 of the Administrative Code
of 1987 can be invoked by adverse parties or by the courts in citing as
deficient the exclusive representation of LBP by its Legal Department. Then
again, if neither the adverse parties nor the courts of jurisdiction choose to
contest this point, there would be no impediment to the litigation to maintain.
Of course, if the principle that the OGCC is the principal
law office of GOCCs proves persistently inconvenient in practice, it would be
up to Congress to amend the Administrative Code, or for the OGCC itself to
promulgate rules and regulations that would alleviate the problems in practice
without abdicating its legal mandate. The
succeeding discussion on the OGCC's pending Manifestation involves a
review of the OGCC's current practices, including the present rules and
regulations.[21]
In the present controversy, we find
nothing in the record which shows that the OGCC has entered its appearance as
the principal legal counsel of petitioner LBP or that it has expressly given
its conformity to the LBP Legal Department’s filing of the instant petition. On
this ground alone, the appeal must be denied. Petitioner should have been more
circumspect, considering that the instant petition was filed on
Even if we allow the LBP’s filing of
the instant petition without any authority from the OGCC, we must still deny
the same for we find no reversible error in the CA’s ruling that LBP forum
shopped. In Repol v. Commission on
Elections,[22] we
found forum shopping in the filing of a petition for certiorari during the pendency of an omnibus motion to reconsider,
set aside and quash a writ of execution with the trial court. Likewise, in Go v. Judge Abrogar,[23] we deemed as a violation of the rules against
forum shopping the institution of a separate action for annulment of auction
sale with injunction, simultaneous with a third-party adverse claim and motion
to quash writ of execution, and a petition for certiorari, mandamus and prohibition.
Further, in La Campana Development Corporation
v. See,[24] we
explained that the simultaneous filing of a motion to quash writ of execution
and an action for the annulment of a judgment run afoul of the prohibition on
forum shopping, thus:
In essence, forum
shopping is the practice of litigants resorting to two different fora
for the purpose of obtaining the same relief, to increase their chances of
obtaining a favorable judgment. In determining whether forum shopping exists,
it is important to consider the vexation caused to the courts and the
parties-litigants by a person who asks appellate courts and/or administrative
entities to rule on the same related causes and/or to grant the same or
substantially the same relief, in the process creating the possibility of
conflicting decisions by the different courts or fora on the same
issues. We have ruled that forum shopping is present when, in two or more cases
pending, there is identity of (1) parties (2) rights or causes of action and
reliefs prayed for and (3) the identity of the two preceding particulars is
such that any judgment rendered in the other action, will, regardless of which
party is successful, amount to res judicata in the action under
consideration.
The parties in the
two cases are indisputably identical. The allegations of facts giving rise to
respondents’ rights, such as extrinsic fraud and lack of jurisdiction, are also
essentially the same, as are the reliefs prayed for. Finally, in the light of
these close similarities, res judicata may arise. Acting on the
documents filed with them, the RTC and the MeTC may well come up with
completely opposite rulings on the question of whether or not the latter
court’s decision should be implemented. This is the very evil that the
proscription on forum shopping seeks to avert. If they wanted to avoid this
kind of problem, respondents should not have filed what were essentially the
same documents with two different courts.[25]
Similarly, in this case, petitioner
moved to quash the PARAD resolutions and at the same time petitioned for their
annulment via certiorari under Rule
65. In both proceedings, the parties are identical and the reliefs prayed for
are the same. In the two actions, petitioner
also has a singular stance: the PARAD resolutions should not be executed in
view of the pendency of the petition for fixing of just compensation with the
SAC. Thus a situation is created where the two fora could come up with conflicting decisions. This is precisely the evil sought to be
avoided by the rule against forum-shopping.
Finally and most importantly, we find
petitioner not entitled to the grant of a writ of certiorari by the appellate court because the Office of the PARAD
did not gravely abuse its discretion when it undertook to execute the
Section 11. Land Valuation and Preliminary Determination and Payment of Just Compensation. - The decision of the Adjudicator on land valuation and preliminary determination and payment of just compensation shall not be appealable to the Board but shall be brought directly to the Regional Trial Courts designated as Special Agrarian Courts within fifteen (15) days from receipt of the notice thereof. Any party shall be entitled to only one motion for reconsideration.
In Philippine Veterans Bank v. Court of Appeals[27] and in Department of Agrarian Reform Adjudication Board v. Lubrica,[28] we explained the consequence of the said rule to the effect that the adjudicator’s decision on land valuation attains finality after the lapse of the 15-day period. Considering therefore that, in this case, LBP’s petition with the SAC for the fixing of just compensation was filed 26 days after its receipt of the PARAD’s decision, or eleven days beyond the reglementary period, the latter had already attained finality. The PARAD could very well issue the writ of execution.
WHEREFORE, premises considered, the
appeal is DENIED. The decision of
the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. SP No. 83276 is AFFIRMED.
SO ORDERED.
ANTONIO
EDUARDO B. NACHURA
Associate Justice
WE
CONCUR:
CONSUELO YNARES-SANTIAGO
Associate
Justice
Chairperson
|
MA. ALICIA AUSTRIA-MARTINEZ Associate
Justice |
MINITA V. CHICO-NAZARIO Associate Justice |
A T T E S T A T I O N
I attest that the conclusions in the above decision were
reached in consultation before the case was assigned to the writer of the
opinion of the Court’s Division.
CONSUELO
YNARES-SANTIAGO
Associate
Justice
Chairperson,
Third Division
C E R T I F I C A T I O N
Pursuant to Article VIII, Section 13 of the Constitution,
and the Division Chairperson's Attestation, it is hereby certified that the
conclusions in the above decision were reached in consultation before the case
was assigned to the writer of the opinion of the Court.
REYNATO
S. PUNO
Chief
Justice
[1] Penned by Associate Justice Hakim
S. Abdulwahid, with then Presiding Justice Cancio C. Garcia (now Associate
Justice of the Supreme Court) and
Associate Justice Remedios A. Salazar-Fernando, concurring; rollo, pp. 58-60.
[2] Also penned by Associate Justice Abdulwahid, but with the concurrence of Associate Justices Salazar-Fernando and Celia C. Librea-Leagogo; id. at 63-64.
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13] Supra note 1.
[14] Rollo,
p. 60.
[15] Supra note 2.
[16] Rollo,
pp. 21-57.
[17]
[18]
[19]
[20] G.R. No. 165428, July 13, 2005 (Resolution).
[21]
[22] G.R. No. 161418, April 28, 2004, 428 SCRA 321, 334-335.
[23] 446 Phil. 227, 239 (2003).
[24] G.R. No. 149195, June 26, 2006, 492
SCRA 584.
[25] La
Campana Development Corporation v. See, id. at 588-589.
[26] These rules were superseded by the DARAB 2003 Rules of Procedure done and adopted on January 17, 2003.
[27] 379 Phil. 141, 148-149 (2000).
[28] G.R. No. 159145, April 29, 2005, 457 SCRA 800, 812-813.