LOPE GERIAN, LUCIO GERIAN, FRANCISCO GERIAN, LEOPOLDO GERIAN, CONSTANCIA GERIAN AND ANTONIETA GERIAN, PETITIONERS, VS. HON. ALEJANDRO R. BONCAROS AS JUDGE OF CFI OF NEGROS ORIEN…

The default orders issued by respondent judge are set aside as
having no factual nor legal basis and having been issued arbitrarily and with
grave abuse of discretion.  Trial judges
are enjoined to act with circumspection and not to precipitately declare
parties in default, needlessly compelling the aggrieved party to undergo the
additional expense, anxiety and delay of seeking the intervention of the
appellate courts and depriving them of the much needed time and attention that
could instead have well been devoted to the study and disposition of more
complex and complicated cases and issues.

The factual background is undisputed.

Summons of the complaint filed (in the Negros
Oriental court of first instance presided by respondent judge) by private
respondents as plaintiffs against petitioners as defendants for recovery of
possession and ownership of a portion of a certain parcel of land (said to be
the subject of a partition agreement between them) was served on peti­tioners
on January 8, 1977.  The case was docketed as Civil Case No. 6629
of respondent judge’s court.

Petitioners timely filed through counsel on January 13, 1977 their answer to the complaint
and the same duly forms part of the records of the case.  At the end thereof is a notation that copy
thereof was furnished respondents through their counsel Atty. Reuben A. Espancho at his postal address at Dumaguete City,
and according to res­pondent judge’s Order of July 20, 1977 there was inserted further in long hand the
phrase “by registered mail.”

A “Motion to Take Deposition” for March 4, 1977 was there­after filed by
petitioners’ counsel on February 23,
1977 and served personally on the four private respondents but not
on their counsel.  And so, respondents’
counsel, “not having as yet received a copy of (their) answer,” as
per their comment of September 20,
1978 submitted to this Court, filed in retaliation a motion to
declare petitioners in default and to stop the intended deposition.

The motion for default and the motion to take deposition were
jointly heard by respondent judge who thereafter issued his questioned Order of
March 4, 1977 declaring petitioners in default and prohibiting them from
proceeding with the deposition, further ordering that “plaintiffs [herein
respondents] may present their evidence ex parte
any time at their convenience upon notice to the Clerk of Court of this sala.”

Petitioners’ motion for reconsideration was “lengthily
argued” before respondent judge on March 23, 1977 and denied on July 6,
1977 for petitioners’ counsel’s failure “to submit a memorandum citing a
Supreme Court ruling reversing itself with respect to service of pleadings to
counsel on record [that] it can be served to the parties themselves although
such a party is, represented by counsel.”

Petitioners filed on July 11, 1977 an Urgent Motion to Lift Order
of Default “invoking liberal interpretation of the Rules citing Supreme
Court decisions” but respondent judge instead issued his questioned
extended Order of July 20, 1977 denying the same “for failure to comply
with sec. 3, Rule 18 of the Revised Rules of Court [since] defendants [herein
petitioners] have not shown good faith in their petition to lift the order of
default.”

Hence, the petition at bar. 
The same being obviously meritorious, the Court has dispensed with the
filing of briefs or memoranda and sets aside the questioned orders.

1. To start with, there is no factual nor legal basis for a
respondent judge’s order of default on the ground that petitioners “failed
to file their answer within the reglementary period
even if an answer has already been attached to the records of this case but
filed outside of the reglementary period for failure
to serve a copy of the answer to plaintiffs [respondents] who are represented
by a lawyer.”^[1]
As noted above, the fact is that petitioners’ answer was indisputably filed
timely on the fifth day of the 15-day reglementary
period.  The failure of petitioners’
counsel to submit proof of service of the answer on respondents (due apparently
to counsel’s stubbornness) did not constitute a legal ground for disregarding
the answer which was timely filed and attached to the record and was already
within the actual knowledge of respondents and their counsel.^[2]
Rule 18, section 1 provides for a default order only “if the defendant
fails to file an answer within the time specified in these rules” – which
is not the case here.  If at all,
respondent judge could have very well followed the standard practice of
requiring petitioners to furnish anew respondents with a copy of the answer
with proof of service.

2. Neither was there factual nor legal basis for respondent judge’s
order denying the motion to lift his default order on the ground that
petitioners had not complied with the requirement of Rule 18, section 3 and
shown that the failure to answer “was due to fraud, accident, mistake or
excusable neglect and that [defendant] has a meritorious defense.”

The first requirement of a showing of fraud, accident, mistake or
excusable neglect is not applicable, because petitioners had timely filed their
answer.  Petitioners had after the filing
of their motion for reconsideration duly filed an affidavit of merit and
personally served the same on respondents’ counsel.^[3]
Indeed, even such a requirement was not called for, since their answer, timely
filed, duly sets forth from a mere perusal thereof special and affirmative
defenses which uphold their right to their day in court.  In brief, the case below, from principal
petitioner-defendant Lope Gerian’s viewpoint is one
wherein respondents-plaintiffs, his own children from a first marriage would
“deprive their own father of his share in the common property (parcel No.
2), naturally, any proposal towards that end could always meet the disapproval
of defendants, but if plaintiffs would only want to get their respective shares
legally due them, defendants would not lose time to approve.”^[4]

3. It is time that trial judges adhere to the time-honored
injunction to refrain from procedural technicalities and get down to the
business of hearing and deciding cases on their merits, instead of handing down
default orders on flimsy grounds as in the case at bar and needlessly
compelling the aggrieved party to undergo the additional expense and anxiety
and delay in having to come up to this Court to set aside a baseless default
order and depriving this Court of the much needed time and attention that it
could well have devoted to the disposition of more complex and complicated
cases and issues.

As the late Chief Justice Moran well put it:  “the Rules shall be liberally construed
in order to promote their object and to assist the parties in obtaining just,
speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action and proceeding.  If a technical and rigid enforcement of the
rules is made, their aim would be defeated. 
The general object of procedure is ‘to facilitate the application of
justice to the rival claims of contending parties, bearing always in mind that
procedure is created ‘not to hinder and delay but to facilitate and promote the
administration of justice.’ And in proceeding to apply justice, courts must
strive ‘to assist the parties in obtaining just, speedy, and inexpensive
determination’ of their rival claims. 
The procedure, there­fore, must be not only just and speedy but also as
inexpensive as pos­sible, for expensive litigations are sometimes equivalent to
denial of justice.”^[5]

The Court has time and again as in the recent case of Mercader vs. Bonto^[6]
enjoined trial judges to act with circumspection, and not to misuse and abuse
the rules of procedure as instruments for the denial of substantial justice and
equity.  It has ever cautioned them that
this Court “frowns upon such application of procedural rules with pedantic
rigor” and that “default is not a mechanical gadget for the
acceleration of judicial litigations” and reminded them that they should
not act precipitately in declaring a party in default “because judgments
by default are never looked upon with favor.”

The Court has thus invariably stricken down the hasty ex parte judgments of trial courts who have shown more a
misplaced adeptness in technical virtuosity rather than faithful adherence to
the cardinal principle of liberally applying the procedural rules with the end
of administering plain and simple justice and giving a party his day in
court.  The shortcomings of counsel in
the observance of the Rules which serve as an aid for the orderly presentation
and disposition of cases may well be taken care of by appropriate disciplinary
action against such counsel rather than imposing upon the hapless
party-litigant the capital penalty of a default order and judgment.  If respondent judge had but applied the
uniform and consistent doctrinal jurisprudence of the Court rather than
dissipated his time and attention with procedural trivialities (to the extent
of holding extensive hearings and writing extended orders to justify his
wrongful denial of petitioners’ motion to lift his baseless default order) and
done his clear duty of trying and deciding the case on its merits, both his
docket and this Court’s docket would have been less by one – and multiplied by
similar cases, such savings in wastage of the courts’ time, efforts and
energies could conceivably amount to hundreds, if not thousands, of cases that
should never have at all reached the appellate courts on procedural
technicalities.

ACCORDINGLY, the questioned default orders are set aside
and the case is ordered remanded to respondent judge for prompt hearing and
determination on the merits.  With costs
against respondents jointly and severally. 
This decision shall be immediately executory
upon promulgation.

SO ORDERED.

Makasiar, Fernandez, Guerrero, De
Castro, and Melencio-Herrera,
JJ., concur.

^[1] Rollo, p. 25.

^[2]
Mendez vs. Seng Kiam,
106 Phil 109, 116 (1960); Rosario vs. Alonzo, 8 SCRA 397, 399 (1963).

^[3]
Petitioners’ Reply, Rollo, p. 48.

^[4]
Petitioners’ Answer below, Rollo, p. 23.

^[5] 1
Moran’s Rules of Court 1970 ed., 103-104.

^[6]
L-48564, August 20, 1979,
per Makasiar, J. and cases cited therein.