JUANITO MADARANG, PETITIONER, VS. HON. REYNALDO B. HONRADO IN HIS CAPACITY AS JUDGE OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE OF RIZAL, BR. XXV, JOSEPHINE MADARANG AND CARLOS MADARANG, REP…

Madarang versus Honrado

The Case

This is a special civil action for certiorari and prohibition brought by Juanito Madarang against Judge Reynaldo Honrado of the Court of First Instance of Rizal, Branch Twenty-Five, and against the private respondents Josephine Madarang and Carlos Madarang, minors represented by their mother Esperanza Modequillo Madarang. The petitioner asks the Supreme Court to declare null, for grave abuse of discretion, the trial judge's order directing the issuance of a writ of execution for support pending litigation, after the very order providing that support had already been annulled and set aside by a decision of the Court of Appeals that had become final and executory. The case matters because it fixes the provisional character of support pending litigation, the limited scope of what may be granted under that provisional remedy, and the effect of a final judgment of annulment upon a later order of execution.

Procedural History

In the trial court presided over by the respondent judge, Esperanza Modequillo Madarang sued her husband Juanito Madarang for support on behalf of the two minors Josephine and Carlos, both surnamed Madarang, whom she claims are his legitimate children. The petitioner denied paternity. After hearing the evidence of the plaintiffs, the respondent judge issued an order dated May 25, 1973 granting support pending litigation, arrears in support, attorney's fees, and a per-appearance fee. The petitioner's motion for reconsideration was denied, so he went up to the Court of Appeals on certiorari, claiming denial of due process. The Court of Appeals sustained him, found grave abuse of discretion and excess of jurisdiction, and declared null and void and set aside both the decision of May 25, 1973 and the order of July 11, 1973. No appeal was taken, and that decision became final and executory. The private respondents then moved in the trial court for execution with respect only to the monthly support pending litigation, and over the petitioner's opposition the respondent judge granted the motion. Hence this special civil action in the Supreme Court, where a restraining order was issued and the case was set for hearing.

Facts

Juanito Madarang and Esperanza Modequillo were married on December 18, 1955 at the Santa Mesa Catholic Church in Manila. Two children figure in the case: Josephine, born on January 4, 1958, whose birth record names Mely Modequillo as mother and Juanito Aristorenas as father, and Carlos, born on September 13, 1959 in Borbon, Cebu, whose record names Esperanza Modequillo Madarang as mother and Juanito Madarang as father. In June 1959, while his wife was several months pregnant, the petitioner left the conjugal home and never returned. In his answer he denied paternity, imputing that the children were begotten by his wife with other men, and alleging that they were born more than a year after the spouses had begun living separately, without access or contact between them.

On the plaintiffs' evidence, the trial judge issued the order of May 25, 1973, awarding each child eight hundred pesos a month as support pending litigation, retroactive to the filing of the complaint, plus five thousand pesos as arrears in support from the time of abandonment in June 1959, five thousand pesos in attorney's fees, and one hundred pesos per court appearance of plaintiffs' counsel. The petitioner moved for reconsideration, complaining that he had been denied the right to present evidence on his defenses, but the motion was denied.

On certiorari, the Court of Appeals held that the petitioner had been denied due process and added that the rule allows support pending litigation and not other matters such as arrears in support or attorney's fees. It annulled the whole order of May 25, 1973 and the order of July 11, 1973, and that judgment became final. When the private respondents later moved for execution as to the monthly support alone, the respondent judge granted it without squarely passing on the objection that the entire order being enforced had already been annulled. At the hearing before the Supreme Court, counsel for the private respondents saw the Court's point and manifested that they were abandoning the writ of execution and filing a fresh motion for support pending litigation only, excluding arrears.

Issues

• Whether or not the respondent judge acted with grave abuse of discretion in ordering the execution of the award of support pending litigation after the Court of Appeals had annulled and set aside the very order that granted it, by a judgment that had become final and executory.
• Whether or not the petition has been rendered moot and academic by the private respondents' abandonment of the writ of execution and their filing of a new motion for support pending litigation only.

Applicable Provisions

Rule 61 of the Revised Rules of Court, as referred to by the Court of Appeals, governs support pending litigation, and the appellate court read it as confined to that remedy alone:

What Rule 61 of the Revised Rules of Court allows is support pendente lite or support pending litigation and not other matters such as arrears in support or attorney's fees.

This reading is what stripped the trial court's award of arrears and attorney's fees and confined any lawful provisional grant to current support during the litigation.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court did not have to resolve the merits squarely, because the private respondents themselves abandoned the writ of execution. The petitioner's complaint was that the trial judge enforced an order already annulled by a final judgment, and the private respondents removed that complaint by withdrawing the writ and seeking a fresh order free of the alleged flaws.

On the second issue, the Court held that the case had become moot and academic. It nevertheless reminded the petitioner and his counsel that the jurisprudence and authorities relied upon by the respondent judge in his order of May 25, 1973 remain controlling in this jurisdiction, among them the rule that on an application for support pending litigation the court need not go fully into the merits and may determine the pertinent facts provisionally, since the resolution is merely provisional in character.

Doctrine

Support pending litigation is provisional. The court may determine the pertinent facts provisionally, on affidavits or documentary evidence, without the exhaustive proof required at the final trial, because the resolution is merely provisional and does not establish definite conclusions of law or of fact. The provisional remedy extends to support during the litigation and not to other matters such as arrears in support or attorney's fees, which must await the judgment on the merits. And an order of execution cannot breathe life into an order that a final and executory judgment has already annulled; the final judgment is the law of the case between the parties.

Disposition

The petition was dismissed, without costs, the case having become moot and academic; the Court directed that its commendation of counsel for the private respondents be entered in the record and that a copy of the decision be furnished the Integrated Bar of the Philippines.

Remember This

Memorize this line: support pending litigation is provisional and covers support during the litigation only, not arrears in support or attorney's fees. Examiners use this case to test the provisional character of support pending litigation and the finality of a judgment annulling the order sought to be executed.