GILBERTO M. DE LOS REYES AND CESAR Q. CONCON, PETITIONERS, VS. THE HONORABLE SANDIGANBAYAN AND PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, RESPONDENTS.

De los Reyes versus Sandiganbayan

The Case

This is a petition for review brought by Gilberto de los Reyes and Cesar Concon against the Sandiganbayan and the People of the Philippines. The petitioners were officials of the Office of the City Assessor of Cebu City who had been convicted of violating Section 106 of the Property Tax Code, in relation to Section 30, for approving the downward reassessment of certain real properties without the authority of the Local Board of Assessment Appeals. The case matters to a reviewee not because of the property tax question, but because the Supreme Court uses it to settle a procedural point: whether a motion for reconsideration in an appealed case before the Sandiganbayan must be set for hearing, and what happens when the graft court treats such a motion as a mere scrap of paper and declares its decision final.

Procedural History

An Information was filed in the Municipal Trial Court of Cebu City, Branch 5, charging Antonio Callanta, Gilberto de los Reyes, and Cesar Concon with violating Section 106 of the Property Tax Code in relation to Section 30. On September 12, 1994, the Municipal Trial Court acquitted Callanta but convicted De los Reyes and Concon, sentencing each to six months of imprisonment with costs. The two appealed to the Regional Trial Court of Cebu City, Branch 7, which on May 31, 1996 affirmed the conviction, adding a fine of 500 pesos each. De los Reyes and Concon then appealed their conviction to the Sandiganbayan by petition for review. On July 7, 2004, the Sandiganbayan denied the appeal and affirmed the Regional Trial Court. The petitioners received a copy on July 20, 2004, and filed a motion for reconsideration on August 5, 2004. Because the motion was not set for hearing, the Sandiganbayan issued a Resolution on August 12, 2004 declaring the motion a mere scrap of paper, holding that the period to appeal was not suspended and that its decision had become final and executory. The petitioners then came to the Supreme Court by petition for review, assailing both the Decision and the Resolution.

Facts

In 1988 the Office of the City Assessor of Cebu City conducted a general revision of the assessment of real properties. The revision updated tax declarations and raised or lowered the assessed values of certain properties. Acting on the requests of some property owners, Callanta as City Assessor, together with De los Reyes as Assistant Head II and Concon as Tax Mapper IV, granted requests to reassess and readjust assessed values without the intervention or participation of the Local Board of Assessment Appeals. The reassessments produced new tax declarations reflecting reduced values.

The prosecution presented tax declarations, notices of assessment, and the testimony of the incumbent City Assessor, Palermo Lugo. As to Concon, the evidence showed that he acted on the request of the spouses Bernardo and approved a new tax declaration reducing the assessed value of their building from 312,730 pesos to 64,310 pesos, and that he approved other declarations with reduced values. As to De los Reyes, several new tax declarations with reduced values approved by him were presented. The prosecution claimed that neither petitioner was authorized by law to grant and approve reassessments of properties with assessed values exceeding 100,000 pesos.

The defense countered that the City Assessor was authorized to entertain petitions for reconsideration under Section 22 of the Property Tax Code, that it was a long-standing practice of City Assessors nationwide to do so, and that the petitioners acted on the reassessments by virtue of designations authorizing them to handle routinary matters, including petitions for reconsideration, in the absence of the City Assessor. In a separate administrative case, the Supreme Court had found the petitioners administratively liable and suspended them for one year, and in a separate criminal case for violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, the Sandiganbayan had acquitted all the accused.

Issues

• Whether or not the petitioners were required to set their motion for reconsideration for hearing before the Sandiganbayan, such that their failure to do so made the motion a mere scrap of paper that did not toll the reglementary period to appeal.
• Whether or not the Sandiganbayan acted correctly in declaring its decision final and executory on that ground.

Applicable Provisions

Section 1 of Rule VII of the Revised Internal Rules of the Sandiganbayan, on motion day, provides:

SECTION 1. Motion Day. – Except for motions which may be acted upon ex parte, all motions shall be scheduled for hearings on a Friday, or if that day is a non-working holiday, on the next working day. Motions requiring immediate action may be acted upon on shorter notice. In appealed cases, the provision of Sec. 3, Rule 49 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure, as amended, on Motions shall apply.

This is the governing rule, and it tells us that in appealed cases the Sandiganbayan does not require motions to be set for hearing.

Section 3 of Rule 49 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure, on motions, provides:

SEC. 3. No hearing or oral argument for motions. – Motions shall not be set for hearing and, unless the court otherwise directs, no hearing or oral argument shall be allowed in support thereof. The adverse party may file objections to the motion within five (5) days from service, upon the expiration of which such motion shall be deemed submitted for resolution.

This is the rule that applies to the petitioners' motion for reconsideration, and it expressly dispenses with the setting of the motion for hearing.

Ruling

The petition is meritorious. On the first issue, the Court holds that the petitioners were not obliged to set their motion for reconsideration for hearing. The Sandiganbayan, in declaring the motion a mere scrap of paper, failed to cite any rule as basis, and indeed there is no rule in the 2002 Revised Internal Rules of the Sandiganbayan requiring a movant to set such a motion for hearing on a specific date and time. Under the second paragraph of Section 2, Rule 1, Part 1 of those Rules, the Rules of Court affecting the Regional Trial Courts and the Court of Appeals govern proceedings in the Sandiganbayan insofar as applicable, but only in the absence of a similar provision in the graft court's own Rules. Here there is such a provision: the last paragraph of Section 1, Rule VII of the Revised Internal Rules makes Section 3 of Rule 49 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure applicable to motions in appealed cases. What was pending before the Sandiganbayan was precisely an appealed case, the petitioners' appeal by petition for review from the Regional Trial Court. Under Section 3 of Rule 49, motions shall not be set for hearing, and the adverse party may file objections within five days from service, after which the motion is deemed submitted for resolution. The petitioners were therefore obliged merely to serve a copy of their motion on the Special Prosecutor, which they did.

On the second issue, because the Sandiganbayan acted contrary to its own rules in perfunctorily denying the motion and declaring its decision final and executory, the assailed resolution is a nullity.

Doctrine

First, in appealed cases before the Sandiganbayan, a motion for reconsideration need not be set for hearing. Section 1 of Rule VII of the Revised Internal Rules of the Sandiganbayan expressly applies Section 3 of Rule 49 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure, which provides that motions shall not be set for hearing and that the adverse party may file objections within five days from service, after which the motion is deemed submitted for resolution. Second, the Rules of Court govern proceedings in the Sandiganbayan only in the absence of a similar provision in its own Revised Internal Rules; where the graft court's Rules speak, they control. Third, a resolution issued in violation of the court's own rules is a nullity, and a motion wrongly declared a scrap of paper does not cause the decision to become final.

Disposition

The petition is granted; the Resolution of the Sandiganbayan declaring the motion for reconsideration a scrap of paper is nullified, and the Sandiganbayan is directed to resolve the petitioners' motion for reconsideration in due course.

Remember This

Memorize this line: in appealed cases before the Sandiganbayan, motions are not set for hearing, because Section 3 of Rule 49 of the Rules of Civil Procedure applies, and a motion wrongly called a scrap of paper does not make the judgment final. Examiners use this case to test whether you know that the Sandiganbayan's own Revised Internal Rules, not the ordinary motion-day rule, govern motions in appealed cases, and that a court's violation of its own rules produces a nullity.