SALUSTIANO MANALO, PETITIONER, VS. THE COURT OF APPEALS AND TEMISTOCLES MACAPANPAN, RESPONDENTS.

Manalo versus Macapanpan

The Case

This is a petition for certiorari brought by Salustiano Manalo against the Court of Appeals and his electoral rival, Temistocles Macapanpan. Manalo asks the Supreme Court to set aside two resolutions of the Court of Appeals: one dismissing his appeal in an election contest, and the other denying the reinstatement of that appeal. The case matters because it fixes the standard for appellate dismissal when a party fails to file his brief on time, and because it announces a firm attitude toward protestees in election cases, the candidates already proclaimed and seated, who do not prosecute their appeals with due vigilance.

Procedural History

Manalo was proclaimed the elected mayor of Pakil, Laguna by the board of canvassers. Macapanpan filed an election protest in the Court of First Instance of Laguna. After trial, that court rendered judgment declaring Macapanpan the duly elected mayor, with a plurality of nineteen votes over Manalo. Manalo appealed to the Court of Appeals, perfecting his appeal on 19 September 1966. On 1 March 1967, the Court of Appeals issued a resolution dismissing the appeal, it appearing that counsel for the protestee-appellant failed to file a printed brief within the reglementary period and failed to move for an extension. Acting on the appellant's motion for reconsideration, the same court, on 7 April 1967, denied the motion to reinstate the dismissed appeal. Manalo then came to the Supreme Court by petition for certiorari, challenging both resolutions as illegal, unfair, and issued without due process of law.

Facts

Manalo's central complaint was that none of his three attorneys of record ever received a notice from the clerk of the appellate court stating that all evidence, oral and documentary, was already attached to the record, which is the notice from which the period to file his brief is counted. He claimed his brief was almost completed and was merely waiting for that notice. He received the dismissal order on 10 March 1967, and on that same day moved for reconsideration, attaching his almost completed typewritten brief to show good faith, and asking for three weeks from that day within which to file his brief.

Macapanpan answered that on 11 January 1967 the appellate court did issue the notice that all evidence was already attached to the record, giving the appellant fifteen days to file his brief. That notice was sent by registered mail on 17 January 1967, received by the post office at Santa Cruz, Laguna on 18 January 1967, and delivered on 30 January 1967 to Attorney Magdaleno Palacol through his agent Macario Magcalas, although it was the wife of Magcalas who signed the registry return card and the registry book. The registry notice had earlier been offered for delivery to Attorneys Enrique Villanueva and Rustico de los Reyes, Junior, also counsel of record, but these lawyers refused to accept it. Although the petitioner had asked for a period until 31 March 1967 within which to file his brief, he filed no brief at all.

The three lawyers of the petitioner denied having authorized Mr. or Mrs. Magcalas to receive their mail. But Attorneys Villanueva and De los Reyes did not dispute, before the Supreme Court, that they had been offered delivery of the registry notices and refused to accept them.

Issues

• Whether or not the Court of Appeals acted with grave abuse of discretion, or without due process of law, in dismissing the petitioner's appeal for failure to file his printed brief within the reglementary period, and in denying the reinstatement of that appeal.
• Whether or not the Supreme Court may pass upon the errors allegedly committed by the Court of First Instance in the election contest.

Applicable Provisions

Section 3 of Rule 124 of the Rules of Court, as invoked by the petitioner, governs the notice from which the period to file the appellant's brief is counted:

Section 3. When brief for appellant to be filed. When the evidence, oral and documentary, is already attached to the record, the clerk shall notify the appellant that he may file his brief within fifteen days from receipt of the notice.

This is the very notice the petitioner claims he never received, and on which his whole due process argument rests.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that in denying reconsideration of its order of dismissal, the Court of Appeals was evidently not satisfied with the proofs submitted by the petitioner. Its action in this regard is not subject to review, for the Supreme Court cannot interfere with its discretion, nor did the Court find adequate basis for a ruling that the appellate court was bound to believe any particular evidence.

The Court stressed that it must look with disfavor upon appellants in election cases who are the protestees, the ones proclaimed or seated to contested offices, and who fail to exercise due vigilance in the prosecution of their appeals. If the petitioner was serious in his appeal and was not merely trying to delay the final outcome, why did he not file his printed brief on or before 25 March 1967, when he already knew on 10 March 1967 about the notice to file his brief in fifteen days? Or why had he not filed his brief on or before 31 March 1967, within the period he himself asked in his motion for reconsideration? The petitioner offered no answers. Having given none, the issuance of the questioned orders was not whimsical or arbitrary, and therefore not an abuse of discretion. The orders were grounded not so much on the misdelivery of the notice as on the petitioner's inaction or indifference to the prosecution of his appeal. His failure to file the appellant's brief was a good ground for dismissal, for, as the Court put it, parties cannot expect the appellate court on its own motion to search the records for grounds to support their respective theories.

On the second issue, the Court refused to pass upon the petitioner's assignment of errors allegedly committed by the Court of First Instance, because this was not a petition for certiorari against the trial court, nor an appeal by certiorari from a decision of the Court of Appeals.

Doctrine

First, the dismissal of an appeal for failure to file the appellant's brief within the period fixed by Section 3 of Rule 124 is addressed to the sound discretion of the appellate court, and the Supreme Court will not interfere with that discretion absent a showing that it was whimsical or arbitrary. Second, the period to file the brief runs from receipt of the clerk's notice that the evidence is already attached to the record, and a party who refuses delivery of that notice cannot later complain of its misdelivery. Third, protestees in election cases, the candidates already proclaimed and seated, are held to a strict standard of due vigilance; their inaction or indifference in prosecuting an appeal is itself a ground for dismissal. Fourth, parties cannot expect the appellate court, on its own motion, to search the records for grounds to support their theories. Fifth, the Supreme Court will not pass upon errors of the trial court in a petition that challenges only the resolutions of the Court of Appeals.

Disposition

The Supreme Court affirmed the resolutions of the Court of Appeals dated 1 March 1967 and 7 April 1967, with costs against the petitioner Salustiano Manalo.

Remember This

The line worth memorizing is that the Supreme Court looks with disfavor upon protestees in election cases who fail to exercise due vigilance in prosecuting their appeals, and that a dismissal for failure to file the brief is not an abuse of discretion where the party's own inaction, not the misdelivery of notice, caused the delay. Examiners use this case on the discretionary dismissal of appeals under the Rules of Court and on the strict diligence required of a proclaimed candidate who appeals an adverse election judgment.