ROMAN SANTOS, JR. AND HERMINIA SANTOS, PETITIONERS, VS. THE HON. COURT OF APPEALS AND FRANCISCO S. NIGOS, RESPONDENTS.

The Court sets aside respondent appellate court’s* decision, since it acted beyond its jurisdiction in
entertaining respondent’s special civil action to give due course to an appeal
from a judgment that had long become final and executory.  Respondent’s failure to timely seek a review
of the trial court’s judgment through a petition for certiorari under
R.A. No. 5440 as the correct mode of appeal, (and not by the discarded notice
and record on appeal) notwithstanding the trial court’s express directive to do
so, rendered the judgment final and executory with the lapse of the 30-day
statutory period for appeal.  The special
civil action filed almost a year later by respondent with the appellate court
could not be availed of to take the place of a lost appeal.  It is well settled that as long as a court
acts within its jurisdiction, any alleged errors committed in the exercise
thereof will amount to nothing more than errors of judgment which are
reviewable only by timely appeal and not by a special civil action of certiorari
filed long after the judgment has become final and executory.

On August 9, 1974, a passenger jeepney driven by Freddie Obillo
hit petitioners’ son in Quezon City.  The
victim was rushed to a hospital where he later died.  The driver was charged and convicted in the
City Court of Quezon City.  After the
decision became final and executory, the petitioners tried and failed to
satisfy the civil liability imposed on the driver.  They then asked private respondent Francisco
S. Nigos, as the owner and operator of the passenger jeepney, to satisfy the
subsidiary civil liability of Freddie Obillo in accordance with the provisions
of Article 103 of the Revised Penal Code. 
In view of private respondents’ refusal, petitioners sued him in the
Court of First Instance of Quezon City. 
Instead of filing an answer, private respondent filed a motion to
dismiss, challenging the constitutionality of Article 103 of the Revised Penal
Code.  This motion having been denied, he
filed an answer denying that Freddie Obillo was the authorized driver of the
passenger jeepney at the time of the accident and disclaimed therefore
subsidiary civil liability.  On October
17, 1978, the trial court^[1]
rendered a decision in favor of the herein petitioners, the dispositive portion
of which reads as follows:

“WHEREFORE, judgment is hereby rendered in favor of the
plaintiffs adjudging the defendant to pay the plaintiffs:

“(a) the sum of
P12,000.00 for the death of the deceased; P6,000.00 for actual damages;
P10,000.00 for loss of earnings; and P10,000.00 for moral damages the total of
which is P40,000.00 with interest thereon at the rate of 12% per annum from the
filing of the complaint until payment in full is made;

“(b)  to pay the amount of P2,000.00 by way of
attorney’s fee, plus costs of suit.”

On November 27, 1978, private respondent filed his notice of
appeal, depositing the amount of P120.00 as appeal bond and submitted his
Record on Appeal for approval by the trial court.  On August 8, 1979, the trial court^[2]
denied approval of the Record on Appeal on the ground that the remedy available
to private respondent was a petition for review on certiorari to the
Supreme Court instead of the ordinary appeal, considering that private
respondent raised only a question of law in his appeal.  On October
3, 1979 the trial court granted, on motion of petitioners, the issuance of the
writ of execution.  On June 19, 1980, a
writ of execution was issued and the Sheriff levied on the properties of
private respondent and scheduled the auction sale on July 2, 1980 at 2:00 p.m.

Private respondent then
went to the Court of Appeals on a petition for certiorari claiming that
the acts of the trial court were contrary to law and challenged the validity of
the trial court’s orders denying approval of the record on appeal and issuing
the writ of execution.  On the scheduled
date of auction sale, respondent Court of Appeals issued a temporary
restraining order enjoining the Sheriff from conducting the said sale on July
2, 1980, until further orders.  On March
19, 1981, respondent Court of Appeals rendered its decision, the dispositive
portion of which states:

“WHEREFORE the writ of certiorari is granted and
judgment is hereby ordered declaring that the decision rendered on October 17,
1978 by the respondent court, presided over by now retired Judge Augusto Valencia
and the Order dated October 3, 1979 granting the issuance of the writ of
execution and the Notice of Sheriff Sale, annexes F, I and J rendered by the
respondent judge Rodolfo Ortiz are likewise declared null and void, and are
therefore set aside and/or nullified.

“It is further ordered that the records of this case be
remanded to the court of origin, the Court of First Instance of Rizal, Branch
XXXI, in Quezon City for further proceedings. 
The restraining order issued on July 2, 1980 is hereby made permanent.  Without any pronouncement as to costs.

“SO ORDERED.”

The Court, after considering respondent’s comment and the
appellate court’s judgment, finds merit in the petition.

1. Going back to the basics, the trial court’s judgment had long
become final and executory in August, 1979 by virtue of respondent’s failure to
timely appeal therefrom by the mode of petition for review on certiorari
under Republic Act No. 5440^[3]
long in force and effect since its approval on September 9, 1968,
notwithstanding that the trial court had expressly called his attention that
his remedy was by filing with the Court such a petition for review.

2. The trial court correctly disapproved respondent’s proffered
appeal bond by way of an ordinary appeal. 
Republic Act No. 5440 had long superseded Rule 42 and Section 1, Rule
122 of the Rules of Court on direct appeals from the court of first instance
directly to the Supreme Court in civil and criminal cases.  (In civil cases, the cited Act had limited in
Section 3 thereof, amending Section 17 of the Judiciary Act, the right of
appeal to this Court to the three specific cases therein enumerated.) In all other cases, the cited
Act restated the provisions of Rule 42 that direct appeals to this Court from
the trial court on questions of law had to be through the filing of a petition
for review on certiorari, wherein this Court could either give
due course to the proposed appeal or deny it outright to prevent the clogging
of its docket with unmeritorious and dilatory appeals.

3. Respondent has no one to blame but himself.  By not filing the petition for review on certiorari
with this Court as mandated by law and directed by the trial court, he thereby
waived his right to seek a review of the decision of the trial court.  Instead of following promptly the trial
court’s directive of taking the proper recourse with this Court, he allowed the
trial court’s judgment to become final and executory with the lapse of the
30-day statutory period to file an appeal. 
He is now precluded from questioning the validity of the trial court’s
final and executory judgment and order of execution after having failed all
this time (almost a year had lapsed from the time he received the order of the
trial court of August 8, 1979 to the time he filed his special civil action for
certiorari in the Court of Appeals on or about the end of June, 1980) to
file such petition for review.

4. Respondent cannot revive a right which he had irretrievably
lost through his gross inaction.  On this
score alone, the respondent appellate court should have dismissed outright
private respondent’s belated petition for certiorari.  As this Court held in Agricultural and
Industrial Marketing Inc. v. Court of Appeals,^[4]
“it is beyond question that the perfection of an appeal, or the filing of
petition for review, within the statutory or reglementary period is mandatory
and jurisdictional; and that failure to so perfect an appeal renders final and
executory the questioned decision and deprives the appellate court of
jurisdiction to entertain appeal.  The
lapse of the appeal period deprives the courts of jurisdiction to alter the
final judgment, and the prevailing party becomes entitled as a matter of right
to its execution, and for the court, it
becomes its ministerial duty to order the execution of judgment.”

5. Respondent Court of Appeals, in rendering its questioned
judgment, committed grave abuse of discretion and acted without
jurisdiction.  A petition for certiorari,
as the one filed with it by respondent, must be based on jurisdictional grounds
against the trial court’s judgment because, as long as the trial court acted
with jurisdiction, any error committed by it in the exercise thereof will
amount to nothing more than an error of judgment which is reviewable only by
timely appeal.  A special civil action of
certiorari, filed long after the trial court’s judgment has become final
and executory, cannot be availed of as a substitute for a lost appeal.  In De la Cruz v. Intermediate Appellate
Court,^[5]
the Court held once more:  “Time and
again We have dismissed petitions for certiorari to annul decisions or
orders which could have, but have not, been appealed.  Where the Court has jurisdiction over the
subject matter, as respondent judge has in this case, the orders or decision
upon all questions pertaining to the cause are orders or decision within its
jurisdiction, and however erroneous they may be, they cannot be corrected by certiorari.  This special civil action does not lie where
the remedy by appeal has been lost because said remedy cannot take the place of
an appeal.”^[6]

6. Finally, as may be seen from respondent appellate court’s
judgment itself, respondent had filed with it the petition on the claim that
“there is no appeal nor any plain, speedy and adequate remedy in the
ordinary course of law except this petition for certiorari x x x (and)
that these acts of the (trial) court are all contrary to law,” and that
petitioner sought “to nullify only the order of the (trial) court dated
August 8, 1979 [denying his proffered appeal] and the writ of execution dated
June 19, 1980.” In fine, what respondent sought of the appellate court was
to set aside the questioned orders and to allow its appeal to be given due
course.  But respondent court went beyond
this into the very merits of the lost appeal and resolved the case in favor of
respondent without any appeal being before it by nullifying even the trial
court’s judgment on the pleadings, justifying its action on the ground that it
was contrary to law and respondent had prayed in his petition “for any
relief just and equitable in the premises.”^[7]
As already stressed hereinabove, this merely compounded its acts without and in
excess of jurisdiction.  The trial
court’s judgment has long become final and executory.  Appellate court could no longer resuscitate
respondent’s lost right of appeal much less overturn and set aside the trial court’s final and executory judgment.

ACCORDINGLY, the petition is granted and the decision of
respondent Court of Appeals dated March 19, 1981 is hereby set aside.  Let the case be remanded to the Quezon City
Regional Trial Court, successor of the Court of First Instance, for enforcement
of the writ of execution of the judgment rendered in favor of petitioner.  This decision is immediately executory.

SO ORDERED.

Narvasa, Cruz, Paras, and
Gancayco, JJ., concur.

* First Division then composed of
Justices Ramon Gaviola, Milagros German, ponente, and Lino M. Patajo.

^[1]
Presided by Judge Augusto Valencia

^[2]
Presided by Judge Rodolfo A. Ortiz after the retirement of Judge Valencia

^[3]
Section 3 of R.A. 5440 provides: 
“The Supreme Court shall provide by rule for the procedure
governing petitions for writs of certiorari to review judgments mentioned in
Section seventeen of Republic Act Numbered Two hundred ninety-six, as amended
by this Act and the effect of the filing thereof on the judgment or decree
sought to be reviewed.  Until the Supreme
Court provides otherwise, said petitions shall be filed within the period fixed
in the rules of court for appeals in criminal or civil cases or special civil
actions or special proceedings, depending upon the nature of the case in which
the judgment or decree sought to be reviewed, was rendered; the filing of said
petition shall stay the execution of the judgments sought to be reviewed; and
the aforesaid petitions shall be filed and served in the form required for
petitions for review by certiorari of decisions of the Court of
Appeals.”

^[4]
118 SCRA 49

^[5]
134 SCRA 417

^[6]
See also People v. Villanueva, 110 SCRA 465 to same effect.

^[7]
Rollo, pp. 17-18