MARY DE V. FRAUENDORFF, PETITIONER, VS. JUDGE JOSE R. CASTRO, PRESIDING JUDGE OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE OF RIZAL, QUEZON CITY BRANCH IX, ZODIAC PHARMACEUTICAL CO., INC. & S…

Motion for reconsideration of the resolution of May 4, 1981 dismissing
the main petition herein.

I

The first point raised in petitioner’s motion for reconsideration is
that Our resolution of May 4, 1981 is violative of Sec. 2(3)
of Article 10 of the new Constitution of the Philippines.  It is contended that by Our stating in
the questioned resolution that “the
title
of Samtop to the property in question and its
right of
possession thereof are hereby deemed finally settled”, We passed upon the merits of the
case, which petitioner contends might yet be raised by her in an appeal.  Such a portrayal of Our
resolution is
inaccurate.  We did not pass on
the merits of the controversy per se.  What
We did was merely to sustain the contention of private respondent Samtop that petitioner’s motion for reconsideration (Annex
E of the petition) of the order of respondent judge of June 8, 1979 (Annex C of
the petition was pro-forma, hence, in effect, the judgment therein contained
reversing that of Judge Ulpiano Sarmiento
of March 31, 1979 (Annex A of the petition) had already become final and executory and consequently it goes even without saying that
the recognition in said order of Samtop’s rights of
ownership and possession of the premises in question are “deemed”
finally settled.  In other words, We skipped the consideration of the merits and confined
Ourselves to the finality of the judgment, which under settled law must stand
even at the risk that it might be erroneous.

II

The motion for reconsideration also points out that:

“b)  This Honorable Court decided to end the
controversy on the merits by a minute resolution in the instant proceedings
upon the ground that the alleged claim of private respondents that the order of
June 8, 1979 is already final and executory‘ is in
its ‘considered view well taken, it appearing that the motion for
reconsideration thereof of petitioner should be deemed pro-forma x x x’.

“But it must be noted that the alleged claim of private
respondents that the order of June 8, 1979 is already final and executory is significantly not even an issue in the
incident at bar, hence, with due respect, petitioner feels that this Honorable
Court in ending the controversy in the main case seriously departed from its
own pronouncement in Bautista, supra.

“Petitioner, therefore, humbly submits that this Honorable
Court’s resolution dated May 4, 1981
dismissing the petition for certiorari and deciding at the same time the
main case should have been rendered en banc as mandated by the Constitution,
and not merely by the Second Division. 
Accordingly, petitioner submits likewise that this motion for
reconsideration should be decided en banc.

“In making the foregoing insistent but humble submission,
petitioner is not unaware of the pronouncements of this Honorable Court in Lina vs. Purisima, 82 SCRA 349,
and Velasco vs. Court of Appeals, 95 SCRA 616, regarding the inherent power of
this Honorable Court to –

‘xxx do substantial justice in every case before it are inherent,
plenary and imperative, hence extensive to all instances where it appears that
final resolution of the controversy before it is feasible without denying any
of the parties involved full opportunity to be heard.  Stated differently if in any case elevated to
this Court for the correction of any supposed procedural error of any lower
court, it should be found that indeed there has been a mistake, and it further
appears that all the facts needed for a complete determination of the whole
controversy are already before the Court undisputed or uncontroverted
by the parties, the Supreme Court may at its option, whenever it feels the best
interests of justice would be thereby subserved,
dispense with the usual procedure of remanding the case to the court of origin
for its own judgment, and instead, the Supreme Court may already resolve the
pertinent determinative issues and render the final judgment on the
merits.  The obvious reason for such an extension
in the exercise of the Court’s pervasive power is that any other procedure
would amount to an unnecessary rigmarole which can only augment the expenses,
efforts and anxieties of the parties and uselessly delay the administration of
justice, no other result for all concerned being anyway perceptible.’

nay, even its
power to suspend its own rules to exempt a case if warranted under the
peculiar circumstances
of the case.

“But the doctrinal precedent in Lina and Velasco, supra, is
inapplicable to the instant case, because, petitioner respectfully submits, the parties therein jointly manifested or
consented to submit the main case for decision by this Honorable Court on the merits,
although the case pending before this Honorable Court was merely an incident in the
main case.

“Moreover, petitioner feels that said pronounce­ments in Lina and Velasco, supra, cannot apply to the instant
case, because not only is the issue of whether or not the order of June 8, 1979
of respondent Judge, which reversed the decision penned by then presiding Judge
Ulpiano Sarmiento prior to
the latter’s retirement, had become final and executory,
not in issue in the instant incidental case but also because the parties never
jointly or separately contemplated nor intended to submit that issue before
this Honorable Court.  Nowhere did
respondents at any time plead for such course of action in the instant case
except in their Memorandum to which petitioner vigorously objected in her reply
memorandum.  Nor did
the petitioner.  The records will
bear petitioner on this.

“Indeed, respondents could never raise that as an issue in
this incidental proceedings because respondent Zodiac which filed the motion to
declare judgment final and executory before the lower
court had withdrawn the same as a procedural maneuver in order to pave the way
for the respondent court to resolve the petitioner’s motion for reconsideration
and motion to inhibit which respondents had insistently pressed for submission
and resolution simultaneously against petitioner’s plea that the motion to
inhibit be resolved first before the motion for reconsideration.

“Because of the foregoing humble submission that the foregoing
resolution of this Honorable Court suffers from constitutional infirmity,
insofar as it reverses or modifies in effect the doctrine in Bautista, supra,
petitioner further submits that the said resolution should have been issued en
banc.  A fortiori, this motion for
reconsideration challenging said resolution should be resolved en banc in
accordance with Section 2(3), Art. 10 of the Constitution.”
(Pp. 3-6, Motion, pp. 360-363, Record)

Counsel’s attention is sternly admonished that the above-quoted
portion of their motion baselessly attributes inaccuracies of fact to this Court, to
the point that they suggest that the resolution they are impugning was prepared
carelessly and without due attention to the matters on record.

It is not true for counsel to even attempt to accuse the Court of
passing over an issue not raised in the pleadings.  It must be recalled, in this connection, that
by Our resolution of October 5, 1979, the Court resolved to consider the
comment of respondents of September
17, 1979 as their ANSWERS (hence, they are pleadings even in the
strict legal sense).  On page 5 of said
ANSWER, the private respondents specifically raised the point that petitioner’s
motion for reconsideration was pro-forma thus:

“(15)  That on July 6, 1979, Petitioner, instead of
appealing to the proper Appellate Court from the disputed Order of June 8,
1979, filed a Motion for Reconsideration, which motion by the way is pro-forma,
(a) having failed to point out specific portions of the Order of June 8, 1979
as supposedly contrary to the facts and the law, and (b) being merely a
reiteration of what Petitioner had asserted in her opposition (Annex ‘3’
hereof), to the Motions for Reconsideration filed by Private Respondents (Annexes
‘1’ and ‘2’ hereof).” (Page 5 of Comment.)

As admitted by counsel, the same point is reiterated in private
respondents’ memorandum of October
23, 1979 in the following words:

“(37)  Differently stated, when the ground of a
Motion for Reconsideration attacks how the Decision was rendered but does not
attack the merits of the Decision, or fails to point out the law and the
jurisprudence which were supposedly violated or not applied by the Judicial
Officer, we submit that the said Motion is pro-forma and will not toll
the running of the period within which an appeal must be perfected.” (Page 15,
Par. 37, Memorandum for Private Respondents.)

While it is true that at the hearing held on August 8, 1979 in
the trial court, respondent Zodiac, for reasons of its own, withdrew its motion
wherein it attacked petitioner’s motion as pro-forma, it must be noted that Samtop had its own opposition (Annex H of the petition
herein) where the same issue was raised; and Samtop
who was represented by another counsel does not appear to have joined Zodiac’s
withdrawal.

III

Counsel argues that:

“It is significant to note that this Honorable Court decided
to give due course to the petition after it had considered the comments of the
respondents.  It is hard to fathom that
after the first step had been surmounted,
this Honorable Court would after having given due course to the petition
dismiss the petition summarily based on the same comments.

“Memoranda having been submitted by the parties, petitioner
feels that the case should have been subjected to further study and then
decided in an extended decision.

“Petitioner humbly believes that this has not been true in this
case.  Obviously, the minute resolution
contains inaccurate statements giving the impression that this Honorable Court
failed to notice that the petition had already been given due course.  More, it failed to consider that all the
respondents had been impleaded in the case upon its
own order earlier issued by it ordering the petitioner to amend the page one
(1) of the petition, so as to implead the private
respondents which order had been complied with. 
Thus, petitioner respectfully submits that it was not correct for this
Honorable Court to state as follows:

‘Attending to the letter of one Angela T. Samson asking for the
early resolution of this case, and acting on the petition herein, the comments
thereon of respondent judge himself, as well as the Zodiac Pharmaceutical Co.
Inc. and Samtop Investment & Development
Corporation, the last two having filed their respective comments even without
having been impleaded as parties, which they ought to
have been made, from the outset, hence the Court may consider their comments
herein as in the nature of voluntary appearances, thereby enabling the Court to
acquire jurisdiction over their persons, as well as the reply filed by
petitioner, the Court Resolved to DISMISS the petition, for lack of merit, x x x’

because on October 22, 1979, this Honorable
Court passed the following resolution:

‘Considering the pleadings filed in this case, the Court Resolved
to NOTE:  x x x (c) the Compliance dated October 15, 1979 of counsel for
petitioner with the resolution of October 5, 1979 which, among other things,
required amendment of page one of petition by impleading
as respondents Zodiac Pharmaceutical Co. Inc. and Samtop
Investment and Development Corp., the defendants in Civil Case Q-20678.’

“Neither was it accurate for this Honorable Court to state
that the petition lacked merit –

‘x x x it being obvious that the
purported basis of the motion for inhibition against respondent judge, which
indirectly, at least, affects his integrity, has not and cannot seemingly be
supported by any shred of substantial 
evidence, what with the adamant refusal of Atty. Federico Agcaoili to be examined in court under oath regarding his
imputation to Atty. Consulta of certain
statements indirectly, if not directly, alleging money consideration as being
needed by petitioner in order to view their motion for reconsideration x x x’ (underscoring ours)

because undisputed is the fact that during
the hearing of the motion to inhibit on June 14, 1979, Atty. Ramon Academia
(not Atty. Consulta) counsel of respondent Zodiac who
told petitioner’s counsel that:  ‘If you
do not have P200,000.00 do not expect to win in our Motion for
Reconsideration,’ expressed his conformity to the motion to inhibit, saying:  ‘If your Honor please, I came to Court with a
prepared Manifestation more in the nature of a conformity to the motion filed
by the plaintiff to inhibit.  x x x’ (T.S.N. June 14, 1979, p. 2, Annex
2 of Respondent Judge’s Comment). 
The foregoing admission made by a lawyer in a prepared Manifestation
more than suffices to convince the respondent Judge to inhibit himself, for no
lawyer in his right mind after deliberating over the matter (because he had a
prepared manifestation) would conform to the motion to inhibit imputing the
said statements to him, if the same were not true.” (Pp.
7-10, Motion for Reconsideration En Banc, pp. 364-367, Record.)

Again, counsel must be reminded that it is not a simple matter to
accuse this Court of practically not knowing what it is doing.  To say, for
instance, that “(O)bviously, the minute
resolution contains inaccurate statements giving the impression that this Court
failed to notice that the petition had already been given due course” is
less than fair to the efforts exerted by the Court to review all the pertinent
portions of the record.  Counsel ought to
know that even if a petition has already been given due course, it is neither
without power or authority, nor even improper for it to dispose of the case in
a minute resolution, in instances wherein its discretion dictates a reasoned
out and full-blown opinion is unnecessary.

Again, for counsel to say that “it is not correct for this
Honorable Court to state as follows:

‘Attending to the letter of one Angela T. Samson asking for the
early resolution of this case, and acting on the petition herein, the comments
thereon of respondent judge himself, as well as the Zodiac Pharmaceutical Co.
Inc. and Samtop Investment & Development
Corporation, the last two having filed their respective comments even without having been impleaded
as parties, which they ought to have been made, from the outset, hence the
Court may consider their comments herein as in the nature of voluntary
appearances, thereby enabling the Court to acquire jurisdiction over their
persons, as well as the reply filed by petitioner, the Court Resolved to
DISMISS the petition, for lack of merit, x x x” (Pp.
8-9, Motion, pp. 365-366, Record)

The record shows that the sole original respondent in this case
was Judge Jose R. Castro.  After We issued the resolution of August 20, 1979 requiring comment, on August 28, 1979, private respondents Zodiac and Samtop filed a joint motion for extension to file their
comment, even when they were not yet named respondents which petitioner opposed
on September 4, 1979 precisely because the sole respondent was
the judge.  Nonetheless, in fact, said
respondents filed their comment on September 24, 1979 (although dated September
17, 1979), and it was only on October 5, 1979 that We required them to be impleaded, hence there is no inaccuracy in Our statement in
the resolution of May 4, 1981 that in a sense said respondents submitted
voluntarily to the jurisdiction of this Court.

IV

Counsel further
criticizes the Court because, according to
them “(n)either was it accurate for this
Honorable Court to state that the petition lacked merit –

‘x x x it being obvious that the
purported basis of the motion for inhibition against respondent judge, which
indirectly, at least affects his integrity, has not and cannot seemingly be
supported by any shred of substantial evidence, what with the adamant
refusal of Atty. Federico Agcaoili to be examined in
court under oath regarding his imputation to Atty. Consulta
of certain statements indirectly, if not directly, alleging money consideration as being needed by petitioner in
order to view their motion for
reconsideration x x x'” (underscoring ours) (P.
9, Motion, p. 366, Record)

The Court does not indulge in any debate
with counsel as to the correctness or
incorrectness of its holding that a petition lacks merit.  In many instances it does not even state the
reason for such a conclusion and all practicing lawyers are aware of this.  In this case at bar, the Court took pains to
state why it believes the petition has no merit insofar as the move to inhibit
respondent judge is concerned.  And
suffice it now to add that Atty. Federico Agcaoili
has nobody else to blame for his adamant refusal to be put on the witness stand
in order for the trial court to have
proof in the record, with the requisite cross examination of the accuser, of
the charge that Atty. Consulta had made statements
derogatory to the integrity of the trial judge. 
It must be emphasized in this connection, that the contention of counsel
that the statement of Atty. Academia during the hearing before the trial court
that he had gone thereat with a prepared manifestation withdrawing his
opposition to the motion for inhibition is indicative of the truth of counsel Agcaoili’s charge is a veritable non-sequitur,
particularly, because Atty. Academia was pre­cisely demanding legally
admissible evidence to such effect by insisting that Atty. Agcaoili
take the witness stand.

Withal, there are considerations which are taken into account but
are not stated in the pertinent resolution as decision.  It is not incumbent upon the Court to discuss
every pro and con in the pleadings and memoranda of the parties.

As regards the instant motion for reconsideration, the Court,
after mature deliberation thereon in the light of the opposition thereto of
private respondents, the reply of petitioner and the rejoinder to said reply as
well as all relevant matters extant in the record, holds that the points raised
in said motion have already been duly taken up and considered in the formulation
of the resolution of May 4, 1981 and there is nothing new for the Court to pass
upon, except to reiterate, at this point that counsel for petitioner should in
the future be less inaccurate in his indictments against the Court.  By and large and considering that counsel Agcaoili’s broadsides may be deemed as manifestation of
excessive zeal, and, anyway, this is the first occasion he has committed such a
fault, the Court is inclined to consider reminders and admonitions above as
sufficient.

Accordingly, the motion for reconsideration is DENIED.

Concepcion,
Jr., Fernandez, Guerrero, and De Castro,
JJ., concur.

Aquino, J., no part.

Abad Santos, J., on official leave.

Fernandez and Guerrero, JJ., designated to sit with
the Second Division.