INSURANCE COMPANY OF NORTH AMERICA, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT, VS. REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES AND/OR BUREAU OF CUSTOMS AND/OR CUSTOMS ARRASTRE SERVICE AND/OR A. R. REYES & COMPANY, D…

On
May 19, 1964, the Insurance Company of North America, as subrogee
to the consignee Uy Tit & Co. Inc., for having
paid the latter P21,040.69, filed before the Court of
First Instance of Manila a complaint for recovery of the said amount plus
attorney’s fees and costs against the Customs Arrastre
Service and/or Bureau of Customs and/or A.R. Reyes & Co., operator of the
Customs Bonded Warehouse.  The amount
sought to be recovered was the alleged loss to a shipment of sixteen (16)
cartons of Industrial Wheel Brushes,
Measuring Instruments and Hand Tools discharged by SS “Lica Maersk”
in good order condition into the custody of either of the defendants.

In
answer the Bureau of Customs and the Customs Arrastre
Service claimed, aside from their incapacity to sue or be sued, that the
plaintiff had no valid cause of action against them, there being no showing that Act 3083, as amended
by Commonwealth Act 327 has been complied with. 
A.R. Reyes & Co., on the other hand, claimed that the complaint was
pre­mature because while six (6)
cartons
of cargoes with marks “UTC-M-5871-062033
Manila” were received by its warehouse, the same had not yet been claimed by consignee nor has the
latter presented the necessary delivery permit in order that the cargo may be
discharged to the consignee.

On
plaintiff’s motion, the court set the case for pre-­trial on February 20, 1965 at 9:30 A.M.  However, as the parties could not reach any settlement,
the case was set for trial.

Subsequently,
on March 11, 1965, the complaint
was amended to include
the Republic of the Philippines as
defendant.  The hearing was set for April 7, 1965.  On
that date,
the Republic of the Philippines had not
answered, so the court could not
hear the case.  On May 10, 1965 the
Republic filed its answer adopting and repleading the
answer filed by defendants Bureau of Customs and the Customs Arrastre Service. 
The case, however, was not set for hearing.

On
August 31, 1966, the
Court of First Instance dis­missed the case for plaintiff’s lack of interest to
prosecute.  Its motion for
reconsideration having been denied, the Insurance Company of North
America appealed to Us claiming that the dismissal on such ground was an
error.

Plaintiff-appellant
relies on Section 1, Rule 20 of the Rules of Court which requires the court to hold a pre-trial before the case is
heard.  But a pre-trial has already been
had on February 20, 1965, after which the case was set for trial
when the case could not be settled.  The
fact that an amended complaint was later, with leave of court, filed, did not
necessitate, under the circumstances, another pre-trial.  It would have been impractical, useless and
time consuming to call another pre-trial, considering that the Republic of the Philippines
merely adopted and repleaded all the pleadings of the
Bureau of Customs and the Customs Arrastre Service.

The
last pleading, the
answer of the Republic of the Philippines, was
filed on May 10,
1965.  After one year, three
months, and 21 days, or on August
31, 1966, the lower court dismissed the case for failure to
prosecute.  The dismissal was
proper.  A span of more than a year of
inactivity on the part of the
plaintiff shows its lack of interest in prosecuting the case.  While under the Rules, the clerk of court has the duty to include a case in the
trial calendar after the issues are joined, and to fix the date for trial as
well as to notify the parties of the same, the plaintiff may not rely upon said
duty of the clerk nor is it relieved of its own duty to prosecute the case diligently, calling
if necessary the attention of the court to the need of put­ting the case
back to its calendar if the court, because of its numerous cases, has neglected
to attend thereto.^[1]

At
any rate, the suit against the Republic
and its agencies for arrastre operations cannot be
maintained in view of said defendants’ immunity from suit.  (Mobil Philip­pines
Exploration v. Customs Arrastre Service, L-23139,
December 17, 1966).

WHEREFORE,
the order of dismissal appealed from is hereby affirmed, with costs against appellant.

SO ORDERED.

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Dizon, Makalintal, Zaldivar, Sanchez, Castro, Angeles, and Fernando, JJ., concur.

^[1]
Ventura v. Baysa, L-12960, January
31, 1962.