PHILIPPINE AIR LINES, INC., PETITIONERS, VS. HON. FRANCISCO ARCA, AS JUDGE OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE OF MANILA, BR. 1, AND ARTURO T. SANTOS, RESPONDENTS.

Petition for certiorari to reverse and set aside an order of
respondent Judge F. Arca of the Court of First
Instance of Manila, entered in its Civil Case No. 54545, that set aside a
previous order dismissing the petition for relief of Arturo T. Santos, reinstated
the case and set the same for hearing.

The material antecedents of the case are the following:

Petitioner herein, Philippine Air Lines, Inc. (PAL for short),
had obtained in the Municipal Court of Manila (Case No. 103992) a judgment
against Arturo T. Santos for P1,500.00, plus P300.00 attorneys’ fees and
costs.  Copy of the decision was received
by defendant Santos on April 2, 1963, and on April 10, 1963 said party filed a
motion for reconsideration through counsel.

On April 20, 1963,
the Municipal Court denied Santos’
motion for reconsideration.  Notice of
the denial was served on defendant’s counsel on April 27, 1963.

On May 14, 1963,
PAL petitioned for execution; and on May
20, 1963 the Court caused the issuance of a writ of execution.

On July 19, 1963, Arturo Santos applied to the Court of First
Instance of Manila for relief from the judgment rendered against him by the
Municipal Court, averring that the latter’s order denying his motion for
reconsideration had only come to the knowledge of his counsel on July 11, 1963
“due to accident, mistake or excusable negligence” in that, as stated
in the annexed affidavit of merit, Leonardo Magat,
clerk of the law office of Santos’ attorneys, after receiving the said order,
and because of the absence of Attorney De la Cruz “affiant placed the
aforesaid order in his desk”; that said clerk was stricken with influenza
and “was absent from office the next week or from April 20 to May 4,
1963”, and failed to give said order to Attorney De la Cruz.  Santos
asked for a preliminary injunction, which the court granted.

PAL moved to dismiss the petition on the ground that the excuse
shown was flimsy and that the petition for relief had been filed beyond the
sixty-day period allotted for the purpose by section 3 of Rule 38 of the Rules
of Court.

The Court of First Instance, acting favorably on the motion of
PAL, ordered the dismissal of the petition, with costs against petitioner Santos,
on January 30, 1964.

A first motion for reconsideration filed by Santos
was denied on March 2, 1964;
whereupon, petitioner Santos gave
notice of appeal.  But before the same
was perfected, and upon a second motion for reconsideration, supported by
affidavits of the doctor, who claimed to have treated Magat,
and of Attorney Enrico de la Cruz to the effect that
he only came to know for the first time of the (Municipal Court’s) order of
July 11, 1063, and despite PAL’s opposition, the
court reconsidered and set aside the order of dismissal and set the case for
hearing.

Thereupon, unable to obtain reconsideration of this last order,
petitioner resorted to this Court, alleging grave abuse of discretion in the
setting aside of the original order of dismissal of the petition for relief.

We find merit in PAL’s petition.  The excuse offered by respondent Santos as reason for his failure to perfect in due time his appeal from
the judgment of the Municipal Court, that counsel’s clerk forgot to hand him
the court notice, is the most hackneyed and habitual subterfuge employed by
liti­gants who fail to observe the procedural requirements prescribed by the
Rules of Court.  The uncritical
acceptance of this kind of commonplace excuses, in the face of the Supreme
Court’s repeated rulings that they are neither credible nor constitutive of excusable
negligence (Gaerlan vs. Bernal, G.R. No. L-4039, 29 Jan­uary 1952; Mercado vs.
Judge Domingo, G.R. No. L-19457, 17 December 1966) is certainly such whimsical exercise of
judgment as to be a grave abuse of discretion.

Even assuming the truth of the allegations in the affidavit of
clerk Leonardo Magat (Annex G of the petition for
relief), the court below should have noted that upon the return to duty of the
clerk on May 4, 1963, after his one week’s illness, respondent’s appeal period
had not yet fully elapsed, since the 15 days from the service of the notice on
April 28 did not expire until May 13, 1963; and no excuse is shown why counsel,
who was aware of the Municipal Court’s adverse decision on the merits, failed
to search Magat’s desk during his absence, or make
apposite inquiries from the clerk immediate­ly upon his return.  The failure to do so betrays a lack of
diligent supervision and attention on the part of counsel that in no way can be
accepted as excusable neglect.  The evasion
of duty becomes more apparent when it is further con­sidered that no inquiries
were apparently made at all from clerk Magat until
July 11:  for respondent Santos alleges
that he or his counsel only learned of the denial of the motion for
reconsideration on that date, when the sheriff levied upon Santos’ movables.  It is also to be borne in mind that no
doctor’s certificate of Magat’s illness was attached
to the original petition for relief dated July 19, 1963; that such a medical
certification was not produced until the filing of the second motion for reconsideration
of Santos on March 11, 1964, eight months after the petition for relief; that,
in the meantime, res­pondent court had occasion to observe in the original
order of January 30, 1964 granting the motion to dismiss the petition that –

“this Court, on January 9, 1964, ordered both counsel to furnish
proof of their respective contentions, but instead of supplying proof, they
filed long arguments and affidavits that did not help the Court in any
way”,

a deficiency weighing more heavily on the
party applying for relief, upon whom lies the burden of proving that its
negligence was excusable.

In the face of all these facts and circumstances, we have no
alternative but to find that in reversing its denial of relief on the strength
of a second motion for reconsideration, which added nothing that could not have
been alleged in the petition and in the first motion for reconsideration
previously rejected, the respondent judge revealed a simple-minded willingness
to swallow a story patently concocted to delay as much as possible the
satisfaction of a judgment against respondent Santos.  This undiscriminating credulity does not
conform to what is to be expected of a judicial mind.

It is, likewise, a salutary rule to hold a second or ulterior
motion for reconsideration to be merely pro forma when it merely
advances facts or arguments that were already available when the preceding
motion for reconsideration was submitted. 
Such succeeding motions should not interrupt any procedural period fixed
by the Rules of Court.  By requiring
litigants and counsel to be exhaustive in their motions and pleadings and avoid
repetitiousness, courts may eventually reduce the unnecessary delays that are
the curse of judicial litigation since time immemorial.

WHEREFORE, the writ prayed for is granted, and the Court
of First Instance of Manila is directed to dismiss the petition for relief in
its Case No. 54545 filed by respondent Arturo T. Santos.  The latter shall pay the costs in both
instances.

SO ORDERED.

Concepcion, C.J., Dizon,
Regala, Makalintal, Bengzon, Zaldivar, Sanchez, and Castro, JJ., concur.