PROFESSIONAL REGULATION COMMISSION (PRC), HERMOGENES POBRE AND ARMANDO PASCUAL, PETITIONERS, VS. COURT OF APPEALS, ARLENE DE GUZMAN, VIOLETA MENESES, CELERINA NAVARRO, JOSE RAMO…

Professional Regulation Commission versus Court of Appeals

The Case

This is a consolidated pair of petitions arising from what the Court itself calls the Fatima controversy. The Professional Regulation Commission, through its Chairman Hermogenes Pobre and Associate Commissioner Armando Pascual, comes before the Supreme Court against the Court of Appeals and a group of medical graduates led by Arlene de Guzman. The graduates had passed the physician licensure examinations but the Commission refused to administer their oaths and withheld their licenses, prompting the graduates to sue for mandamus. The case matters to a reviewee for two reasons: it is a clean illustration of mootness, and it is a stern reminder that the remedies of ordinary appeal and certiorari are mutually exclusive, not alternative or successive.

Procedural History

The graduates filed an amended petition for mandamus before the Regional Trial Court of Manila. The trial court granted a writ of preliminary mandatory injunction ordering the Commission to administer the oath and register them as physicians. The Commission questioned the writ before the Court of Appeals, which nullified it, holding that the Commission's authority to determine who may practice medicine is discretionary, not ministerial. The graduates elevated the matter to the Supreme Court, which denied their petition for failure to show reversible error.

Meanwhile, trial in the mandamus case proceeded. When the Commission's counsel failed to appear, the Commission was declared to have waived cross examination. The trial court later denied the Commission's motion for reconsideration. The Commission then went to the Supreme Court to nullify several trial court orders, and the Court referred the petition to the Court of Appeals. The appellate court declared the questioned orders void and directed the trial court to allow cross examination, receive the Commission's evidence, and decide the case on the merits. The Commission sought partial reconsideration, asking that the mandamus case be dismissed, but the appellate court denied it.

The trial court then rendered judgment on the merits, ordering the Commission to allow the graduates to take the oath and to register them as physicians, without prejudice to administrative disciplinary action. The Commission received the decision, filed a notice of appeal, and then filed a petition for review on certiorari before the Supreme Court, assailing the appellate court for not dismissing the mandamus case. Separately, the Commission filed a petition for certiorari against the trial judge for refusing to inhibit himself and for deciding the case with what it called amazing speed. The Supreme Court consolidated the two petitions.

Facts

Arlene de Guzman, Violeta Meneses, Celerina Navarro, Jose Ramoncito Navarro, Arnel Herrera and Geraldine Elizabeth Pagilagan were graduates of the Fatima College of Medicine. They took the physician licensure examinations in February 1993 and passed. The Commission, however, refused to administer their oaths and withheld their licenses, allegedly because they obtained unusually high ratings, especially in Biochemistry, and in Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Pursuant to a Board Resolution of the Board of Medicine, the examinees from Fatima College were charged in an administrative case with immorality, dishonest conduct, fraud and deceit in connection with those examinations. The trial court restrained the Commission from proceeding with that administrative hearing.

After the trial court decided the mandamus case in favor of the graduates, the Commission filed a notice of appeal. It also filed the two petitions now before the Supreme Court. On the charge of forum shopping, the Solicitor General's office explained that the decision was routed slowly through its docket division, and that the petition was already filed at two thirteen in the afternoon of the twenty third of December, before the handling lawyer could have acted on the decision.

Issues

• Whether or not the petition assailing the Court of Appeals for not dismissing the mandamus case has been rendered moot by the trial court's decision on the merits.
• Whether or not the Commission is guilty of forum shopping for filing a petition for certiorari while its appeal was pending before the Court of Appeals.
• Whether or not certiorari may be availed of despite a perfected appeal.

Applicable Provisions

The decision invokes the settled rule on the exclusivity of remedies, which it states as follows:

The remedies of an ordinary appeal and certiorari are mutually exclusive, not alternative or successive.

This rule governs the second petition, because the Commission had already perfected its appeal when it resorted to certiorari.

The decision also quotes its earlier ruling in the Lansang case, which recognized a narrow exception:

After a judgment had been rendered and an appeal therefrom had been perfected, a petition for certiorari relating to certain incidents therein may prosper where the appeal does not appear to be a plain, speedy and adequate remedy.

The Court examines this exception but declines to apply it here, because the Commission showed no need to be promptly extricated from the unfavorable judgment.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the petition had become moot. The trial court had already decided the mandamus case on the merits before the petition was filed, so there was no longer any justiciable controversy, and any declaration would be of no practical use or value. The proper remedy was an appeal, which the Commission in fact filed.

On the second issue, the Court found no forum shopping. For forum shopping to exist, both actions must involve the same transactions, the same essential facts and circumstances, and identical causes of action, subject matter and issues. The mere pendency of an appeal based on the same subject matter does not suffice; the issues must also be identical, and the respondents failed to substantiate their charge.

On the third issue, the Court held that certiorari was not available. The Lansang exception did not apply because the Commission's perfected appeal could adequately grant the relief it sought. The Court stressed that the Commission did not withdraw its appeal, so the appellate court and the Supreme Court were reviewing the same decision at the same time, creating a distinct possibility of absurdity and confusion. The Court also reminded counsel of her correlative duty to assist in the speedy and efficient administration of justice.

Doctrine

A Bar candidate should retain these rules. First, a case is moot when a supervening event, occurring even before the petition is filed, leaves no justiciable controversy, so that any declaration would be of no practical use or value. Second, forum shopping requires the same transactions, essential facts and circumstances, and identical causes of action, subject matter and issues; identity of subject matter alone is not enough. Third, the remedies of ordinary appeal and certiorari are mutually exclusive, not alternative or successive, and certiorari will prosper despite a perfected appeal only where the appeal is not a plain, speedy and adequate remedy, as in the Lansang case.

Disposition

The petition in the first case was dismissed for being moot, and the petition in the second case was likewise dismissed because of the pending appeal before the Court of Appeals, with counsel advised to be more circumspect in her dealings with the courts.

Remember This

Memorize the line: appeal and certiorari are mutually exclusive, not alternative or successive. Examiners use this case to test mootness and forum shopping, and to test whether a party may pursue simultaneous remedies in two fora.