TITLE: Republic of the Philippines and National Power Corporation vs. Sunvar Realty Development Corporation G.R. NO.

: 194880 DATE: June 30, 2012 PONENTE: Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno DOCTRINE: The mandate of Section 36 of B.P. Blg. 129 is to achieve an expeditious and inexpensive determination of the cases subject of summary procedure. To achieve this, rules like Section 19 of the Revised Rule on Summary Procedure were created to bar petitions for relief from judgment, or petitions for certiorari, mandamus, or prohibition against any interlocutory order issued by the court in order to avoid what former Chief Justice Panganiban calls a sorry spectacle of a counterproductive ping pong every time a party is aggrieved by an interlocutory order. FACTS: Petitioners Republic and NAPOCOR are registered co-owners of a parcel of land which they leased to the Technology Resource Center Foundation, Inc., (TRCFI) for a period of 25 years ending on December 31, 2002. The TRCFI was given the right to sublease this land, which it did, to Sunvar, through sublease agreements with the common provision that their sublease agreements were going to expire on December 31, 2002, the date that the TRCFIs lease agreements with the petitioners would expire. In 1987, when the government was reorganized, the TCFRI was replaced with the Philippine Development Alternatives Foundation (PDAF). Before the expiration date, Sunvar wrote to PDAF and expressed its desire to renew the sublease over the subject property and proposed an increased rental rate and a renewal period of another 25 years. PDAF forwarded the letter to petitioners. By June 25, 2002, PDAF had informed Sunvar of petitioners decisions not to renew the lease. When the lease contract and the sublease agreements expired, petitioners recovered all the rights over the subject property. Nevertheless, respondent Sunvar continued to occupy the property. Six years after the expiry date, petitioner Republic, through the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), advised respondent Sunvar to vacate the subject property. Although Sunvar duly received the Notice, it did not vacate the property. Almost a year after the first notice, respondent Sunvar received from respondent OSG a final notice to vacate within 15 days. When the period lapsed, respondent Sunvar again refused to vacate the property. Petitioners then filed a Complaint for unlawful detainer with the Metropolitan Trial Court of Makati City. Sunvar moved to dismiss the complaint, questioning the jurisdiction of the MeTC as the action was supposed to an accion publiciana rather than one for unlawful detainer. The MeTC denied respondents Motion to Dismiss and subsequent Motion for Reconsideration and required Sunvar to submit their Answer. Despite filing an Answer, Sunvar still filed a Rule 65 Petition for Certiorari with the RTC of Makati City to assail the denial by the MeTC of respondents Motion to Dismiss. To answer this petition, petitioners questioned the RTCs jurisdiction and prayed for the outright dismissal of the petition. The RTC denied the motion for dismissal and granted the Rule 65 Petition, directing the MeTC to dismiss the Complaint for unlawful detainer for lack of jurisdiction. Thus, the instant petition. ISSUE: Did the RTC violate the Rules on Summary Procedure when it took cognizance and granted the certiorari petition filed by Sunvar? HELD: YES RATIO: The RTC should have dismissed Sunvars petition outright for being a prohibited pleading. Under the Rules on Summary Procedure, a certiorari petition under Rule 65 against an interlocutory order issued by the court in a summary proceeding is a prohibited pleading. According to former Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban, the proper remedy in such cases is an ordinary appeal from an adverse judgment on the merits incorporating in said appeal the grounds for assailing the interlocutory order. Allowing appeals from interlocutory orders would result in the sorry spectacle of a case being subject of a counterproductive ping pong to and from the appellate court as often as a trial court is perceived to have made an error in any of its interlocutory rulings.

The Court mentioned only two cases in which they allowed exceptions to this rule 1 and since Sunvar could not substantiate its claims of extraordinary circumstances that would allow those same exceptions to apply to his case, the petition for certiorari under Rule 65 remains, for him, a prohibited pleading. If the Court were to relax the interpretation of the prohibition against the filing of certiorari petitions under the Revised Rules on Summary Procedure, the RTCs may be inundated with similar prayers from adversely affected parties questioning every order of the lower court and completely dispensing with the goal of summary proceedings in forcible entry or unlawful detainer suits.

Bayog vs. Natino where the Court gave due course to an appeal from an interlocutory order lest grave injustice and irreparable injury that visited him through no fault or negligence on his part will only be perpetuated and Go vs. Court of Appeals where the Court was confronted with a procedural void in the Revised Rules of Summary Procedure that justified the resort to a Rule 65 Petition in the RTC. Details in the full text.
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