IN RE PETITION FOR ADOPTION OF NORA DIVINO AND AURORA PAULINO, BOTH SURNAMED BELEN, SOCORRO S. PAULINO, PETITIONER-APPELLANT, VS. NICASIO A. BELLEN AND WALFRIDO P. BELEN, OPPOSI…

Appeal by petitioner-appellant Socorro S. Paulino
from the order of the Court of First Instance of Laguna, Branch III, San Pablo City,
dated November 4, 1966 and
entered in Special Proceeding No. 216 of said court, an appeal from a decision
of the City Court of the same city dismissing her petition for adoption.  The appealed order reads as follows:

“Acting on oppositors‘ motion to
dismiss this appeal and considering that the case is for adoption over which
the City Court of San Pablo City, has concurrent jurisdiction, and is co-equal,
with this Court pursuant to Section 1(c) of Republic Act No. 644, and since
Courts of First Instance have appellate jurisdiction only over cases that are
decided by city and municipal courts in the exercise of their original
exclusive jurisdiction, this Court be­lieves, and so holds, that it has no
jurisdiction to entertain this case on appeal, and accordingly hereby dismisses
the same.

“This renders unnecessary further consideration of
petitioner’s motion of October 28,
1966 to disallow or to disqualify oppositors
from intervening in the action.

“SO ORDERED.”

The appeal was originally made to the Court of Appeals.  Thereat, after petitioner-appellant had filed
her brief, oppositors-appellees, Nicasio
A. Belen, et al. filed a manifestation to the effect that in said brief ”no
error whatsoever was assigned as having been commit­ted by the Court of First
Instance or Laguna, Branch III, but the errors assigned were those allegedly
committed by the City Court of San Pablo City in its decision”, hence oppositors-appellees “respectfully submit(s) the case
for decision.” Whereupon, petitioner-appellant filed a
counter-manifestation and motion stating that her real intention was to appeal
from the decision of the city court on the merits and praying thus:  “Wherefore, in the paramount interest of
justice, and to avoid dupli­city of appeals and further considering the
provision on the liberal construction of the Rules of Court and the fact that
the oppositors-appellees will not in anyway be
prejudiced if the present appeal will be considered as an appeal from the
decision of the City Court of San Pablo City, your petitioner-appellant
respectfully moves and prays this Honorable Court to consider the present
appeal as an appeal directly from the decision dated November 18, 1965 of the
City Court of San Pablo City to this Honorable Court”.  In a resolution dated November 22, 1967, the
Court of Appeals resolved “to consider the oppositors-appellees‘
manifestation as a waiver to file (sic) appellees‘
brief” and to declare “this case (be) transferred to the Calendar and
submitted for decision.”

Subsequent to the release of this resolution but evidently before
oppositors-appellees‘ receipt of copy thereof, the
Court of Appeals received belatedly from oppositors-appellees
a “Reply to Counter-Manifestation and Motion” contending that the
notice of appeal filed by petitioner-appellant, which referred to an appeal from
the order of dismissal of the Court of First Instance and made no mention of
the decision of the city court, “is conclu­sive upon
petitioner-appellant” and, in any event, the said appellant could no
longer convert the appeal to one from the city court “in view of the fact
that the reglementary period within which such appeal
should be made has been long past due”. 
To this reply, petitioner-ap­pellant made and filed a rejoinder pointing
out that “contrary to the claim of appellees,
the instant direct appeal was not filed out of time because your appellant’s
initial appeal to the Court of First Instance of Laguna (Branch III) was
seasonably made and she filed the present brief in order to save time and to
conform to the original theory of appellees that the
Court of First Instance of Laguna has no appellate jurisdiction to try the
instant case because according to Section 1 of R.A. No. 644 ‘Judges of
Municipal and City Courts have concurrent jurisdiction with the Court of First
Instance to try adoption cases’ (Record on Appeal, p. 17).  And since ‘the first court that acquired
jurisdiction acquires it to the exclusion of others’ (Ibid), ‘the case at bar
having been properly decided by the City Court of San Pablo, in the exercise of
its original and concurrent jurisdiction with Court of First Instance in
adoption cases, the appeal should be made also either to the Court of Appeals
or to the Supreme Court as the case may be’ (Ibid, p. 18).” Without resolv­ing
the issues thus joined by the parties, in a resolution dated February 27, 1968,
the Court of Appeals held:

“A perusal of the errors assigned by petitioner shows that
they all in­volve questions of law only. 
Under Section 17 of Judiciary Act of 1948, the exclusive appellate
jurisdiction over the case is vested in the Supreme Court.  Pursuant to Section 31 of the same Act and
Section 3 of Rule 50, the case should be forwarded to it.

“Let this case therefore be certi­fied and elevated to the
Supreme Court for its final determination.”

We do not believe We can entertain
petitioner-appel­lant’s appeal as an appeal on the merits of the decision of
the City Court of San Pablo.  Appellant
must admit that in the light of the categorical statement in the notice of
appeal filed with the Court of First Instance of Laguna after said court
ordered the dismissal of her appeal from the decision of the city court for
lack of appellate juris­diction, over her objection based on the contention
that the appeal was legally and appropriately in the said court, there can be
no question that she intended to appeal to the Court of Appeals from the order
of dismissal of the Court of First Instance and not from the decision of the
city court.  One has to be very naive to
believe that counsel would have filed his notice of appeal with the C.F.I., if
his intention were to appeal from the city court’s decision.  Besides, as pointed out by appellees, at the time said no­tice of appeal was filed,
the time to appeal the city court decision had long expired.  The truth is that counsel had already filed a
notice of appeal from the decision of the city court and it was directed to the
C.F.I., and it was precisely the appeal by virtue of said notice that was
dismissed by the C.F.I. for lack of appellate jurisdiction.  Furthermore, it is to be noted that no record
on appeal as required by the Rules was ever filed with the city court within
the reglemen­tary period.

Fortunately for appellant, however, We
are of the opinion and so hold that We can entertain her appeal from the order
of the Court of First Instance.  We
gather from the record on appeal that in the appealed order, the Court of First
Instance resolved a question of jurisdiction, more specifically, of appellate
jurisdiction.  Under the Consti­tution,
read together with the Judiciary Act, an appeal against such an order belongs
to the exclusive appellate jurisdiction of this Court.  (Sec. 2, Art. VIII,
Constitu­tion of the Philippines; Sec. 17, No. 2(3), Judiciary Act of 1948, as
amended.)

It is true that in her brief, appellant made no assign­ment of
error regarding the trial court’s refusal to exercise appellate jurisdiction,
but Section 7 of Rule 51 explicitly exempts jurisdictional questions from the
requirement that specific assignments of error must be made.  Errors of jur­isdiction may always be
considered even if not stated in the assignment of errors nor properly argued
in the brief.  Said section provides:

“Sec. 7.  Questions that may be decided.- No error which does not af­fect the jurisdiction over the
subject matter will be considered unless stated in the assignment of errors and
properly argued in the brief, save as the court, at its option, may notice
plain errors not specified, and also cleri­cal errors.”

Withal, as can be seen, under this same provision, this Court has
the option to consider “plain errors” it “may notice” even
if not jurisdictional and “not specified”.  In this connection, it may be stated that in
the instances in the past wherein We expressed reluctance to take up
jurisdictional issues motu proprio,
there was nothing in the record indicating that the question had ever been
raised at all even in the courts below.

To be sure, then, We are giving due course to the certification
of this appeal to this Court by the Court of Appeals not because We necessarily
agree with the Court of Appeals that the errors assigned by appellant raise
only questions of law, which point We believe does not have to be decided now,
but for the reason that the only question that can in reality be raised in this
appeal is one of jurisdiction.

Coming now to the main issue before Us, We hold that in adoption
cases over which city and municipal courts have original jurisdiction
concurrent with the correspond­ing Courts of First Instance, the appeal in
cases filed originally with a city or municipal court is to the Court of First
Instance and not directly to the Court of Appeals or to this Court.

Section 1(c) of Republic Act 644 confers upon infe­rior courts or
municipal and city courts^[1]
and courts of first instance concurrent original jurisdiction over adop­tion
cases.  Under Section 45 of the Judiciary
Act, as amended by Republic Act 2613, “Courts of First Instance shall have
appellate jurisdiction over all cases arising in municipal courts and justice
of the peace courts,^[2]
in their respective provinces, except over appeals from cases tried by justices
of the peace of provincial capitals or municipal judges pursuant to the
authority granted under the last paragraph of Section eighty-seven of this
Act.” The cited provision provides in turn:  “All cases filed under the next
preceding paragraph with Justices of the Peace of capitals and municipal court
judges shall be tried and decided on the merits by the respective justices of
the peace or municipal judges.  Proceedings
had shall be recorded and decisions therein shall be appealable
direct to the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court, as the case may be”,
and the “next preceding paragraph” referred to says:  “Justices of the peace in the capitals
of provinces and Judges of Municipal Courts shall have like jurisdic­tion as
the Court of First Instance to try parties charged with an offense committed
within the province in which the penalty provided by law does not exceed prision correc­cional
or imprisonment for not more than six years or fine not exceeding three
thousand pesos or both, and in the absence of the district judge, shall have
like jurisdiction within the province as the Court of First In­stance to hear
application for bail.”

It is thus clear that the only cases filed with, tried and
decided by the inferior courts in the exer­cise of their original jurisdiction
concurrent with the Courts of First Instance which were appealable
directly to the Court of Appeals or to this Court at the time appellant
appealed to the court a quo were those men­tioned in the
above-quoted penultimate paragraph of Section 87,^[3]
all of which are criminal in nature. 
Surely, adoption cases are not among them.  As a matter of fact, We have not found any
provision of the Judi­ciary Act and its amendments or any other law, in force
on November 4, 1966, the date of the order on appeal, allowing an appeal from a
decision or order of an infer­ior court direct to the Court of Appeals or to
this Court in civil cases within the concurrent original ju­risdiction of the
Courts of First Instance and the inferior courts.^[4]

Appellees‘ proposition that only cases
within the exclusive original jurisdiction of the inferior courts were appealable to the Courts of First Instance is not
correct.  Above-quoted Section 45 of the
Judiciary Act clearly provided that “Courts of First Instance shall have
appellate jurisdiction over all cases arising in municipal and justice of the
peace courts, etc.”, with­out distinction as to whether these cases were
of the exclusive or of the concurrent jurisdiction of said courts with the
Courts of First Instance.  The general
rule cited by appellees to the effect that where two
courts have concurrent jurisdiction, the filing of a case with one of them
exhausts the jurisdiction of the other, is not without exceptions.  In fact, as aptly pointed out by appellant in
her motions in the court be­low, in cases within the concurrent original
jurisdic­tion of the Courts of First Instance and this Court, un­der Section 17
of the Judiciary Act, no one can doubt that should one such case be filed with
the C.F.I., this Court would have appellate jurisdiction over the decision of
the C.F.I. therein either directly or after the Court of Appeals as the case
may be.  Likewise, in special civil
actions against C.F.I. in aid of the appel­late jurisdiction of the Court of
Appeals over which this Court has concurrent original jurisdiction with the
Court of Appeals,^[5]
it is obvious that this Court has appellate jurisdiction over appeals from
orders or deci­sions of the Court of Appeals therein.

As to the procedure for appealing from an infer­ior court to the
Court of First Instance in an adoption case, all that need be recalled is that
adoption is a special proceeding (sec. 1, Rule 72) and that under Sec. 2 of the
same Rule, “in the absence of special provisions, the rules provided for
in ordinary civil actions shall be, as far as practicable, applicable in
special proceedings”, and hence the rules governing appeals in ordinary
civil actions from the inferior court to the Court of First In­stance apply
also in adoption cases filed with city courts. 
In any event, the rules for ordinary civil actions may be observed by
virtue of Section 6 of Rule 135 which autho­rizes that “when by law
jurisdiction is conferred on a court or judicial officer, all auxiliary writs,
processes and other means necessary to carry it into effect may be employed by
such court or officer; and if the procedure to be followed in the exercise of
such jurisdiction is not specifically pointed out by law or by these rules, any
suitable process or mode or proceeding may be adopted which appears conformable
to the spirit of said law or rules.”

Accordingly, in the case at bar, since it is not questioned that,
procedurally speaking, petitioner-ap­pellant’s appeal was duly elevated to the
court a quo, and it being Our ruling that said court had
appellate jurisdiction over the appealed decision of the City Court of San
Pablo City, it results that the court a quo erred in dismissing
petitioner-appellant’s appeal for lack of appellate jurisdiction.  The fact that Republic Act 6031 quoted in
footnote 3 hereof changed the rule of appel­late jurisdiction in cases of this
nature on August 4, 1969 did not affect the appellate jurisdiction already
vested in the court a quo in 1966 under Republic Act 2613.

As to the possible suggestion that to expedite proceedings, this
Court should already decide this case on the merits, suffice it to say that the
record of the proceedings in the inferior court is not before Us.  In fact, from
what appears in the record before Us, it is not clear
whether or not the inferior court acted as a court of record here.  At any rate, We are confident that once the
court a quo passes on the objections of appellees,
there will be hardly any reason to further prolong this case, considering that
it is elementary that a person may legally adopt two or more children and that
if the children to be adopted are all of age, the con­sent of neither of their
legitimate parents is necessary, all that is needed being their own consent.

WHEREFORE, the order of dismissal of the court a quo
of November 4, 1966 as well as its order of December 1, 1966 denying
appellant’s motion for reconsideration are hereby reversed and this case is
ordered returned to said court for appropriate proceedings consistent here­with,
with costs against appellees.

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Dizon, Makalintal, Zaldivar, Castro, Fernando, Teehankee,
Villamor, and Makasiar, JJ., concur.

^[1]
City Courts were then called municipal courts and the inferior courts in the
municipalities were known as justice of the peace courts.

^[2]
See footnote 1.

^[3]
Section 45 of the Judiciary Act was amended by Sec­tion 1 of Republic Act 6031
on August 4, 1969 to read
thus:

“SEC. 43.
Appellate Jurisdiction.- Courts of First
Instance shall have appellate jurisdiction over all cases arising in the city
and municipal courts, in their respective provinces, except over appeals from
cases tried by municipal judges of provincial ca­pitals or city judges pursuant
to the authority granted under the last para­graph of Section 87 of this Act.

Courts of First Instance shall
decide such appealed cases on the basis of the evidence and records transmit­ted
from the city or municipal courts:  Provided,
That the parties may submit memoranda and/or brief with oral argu­ment if so
requested:  Provided, how­ever,
That if the case was tried in a city or municipal court before the lat­ter
became a court of record, then on appeal the case shall proceed by trial de
novo.

In cases falling under the exclu­sive
original jurisdiction of munici­pal and city courts which are appealed to the
courts of first instance, the decision of the latter shall be final:  Provided, That the findings of facts
contained in said decision are supported by substantial evidence as basis
thereof, and the conclusions are not clearly against the law and jurisprudence;
in cases falling under the concurrent jurisdictions of the municipal and city
courts with the courts of first instance, the appeal shall be made directly to
the court of ap­peals whose decision shall be final:  Provided, however, That the
supreme court in its discretion may in any case involving a question of law,
upon petition of the party aggrieved by the decision and under rules and
conditions that it may prescribe, re­quire by certiorari that the case be
certified to it for review and deter­mination, as if the case had been brought
before it on appeal.”

^[4]
See footnote 3.

^[5] Breslin vs. Luzon Stevedoring Co., 84 Phil. 618.