MINISTER OF NATURAL RESOURCES AND DIRECTOR OF LANDS, PETITIONERS, VS. HEIRS OF ORVAL HUGHES, ET AL., RESPONDENTS.

These proceedings lay bare a most blatant manifestation of forum-shopping,
a reprehensible manipulation of court processes and proceedings which has
succeeded in delaying enforcement of an administrative decision rendered more
than twenty (20) years ago, against which this Court will extend its correcting
hand, not only to strike down those reprehensible stratagems but also to assure
that the decision may, at long last, be finally carried out.

The events that gave rise to the present controversy go far back
in time, to the ‘twenties in fact.  In
1924, a gentleman by the name of Orval Hughes was
granted a lease by the Government over agricultural land in Malalag,
Davao,
which had an approximate area of 856 hectares. 
The lease set a term of 25 years. 
It actually expired on May 25,
1953, having been extended for 3 years and 10 months.  Orval Hughes died
during the Japanese Occupation and was succeeded in
the lease by his heirs.

Prior to the expiration of the lease, the Hughes Heirs filed individual
sales applications over 716 hectares of the land leased.

In 1949, a group of some 133 persons petitioned the Bureau of
Lands for the cancellation of the Hughes lease, alleging abandonment and
non-cultivation on the lessee’s part, and for the subdivision and allocation of
the land among them.^[1]
The petition was denied, the Bureau having found that the lessee had in truth
complied with the requirement of cultivation imposed by the lease
agreement.  An appeal by the 133
petitioners to the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources proved
unavailing.  In a decision rendered on June 2, 1953, the Secretary noted and
sanctioned the continued possession by the Hughes Heirs of the landholding
despite the expiration of the lease on May
25, 1953, and declared them entitled to acquire the same by
purchase.

Nothing daunted, the same group of 133
persons, now headed by a certain Teodulfo Tocao, filed with the Office of the President in November,
1955 an opposition to the sales applications of the Hughes Heirs.  They grounded their opposition on the claim
that they had themselves personally cultivated most of the land from 1945 to
1950, and the area cultivated by the Hughes Heirs extended only over 50
hectares.  The opposition was overruled
and dismissed on January 27, 1956.  The oppositors
moved for reconsideration.  The
Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources was required to comment.  After having the matter investigated, the
Department submitted its recommendations to the Office of the President.  Thereafter an Amended Decision was rendered
by the Executive Secretary dated August
20, 1957, awarding to the oppositors 399
out of the 716 hectares in question, and to the Hughes Heirs, the remainder,
317 hectares, each heir being allotted some 63 hectares, viz:

” * * (C)onsidering the extent of
the improvements introduced by the heirs of Orval
Hughes, the decision of this Office dated October 18, 1956 is hereby modified
in the sense that each of the 133 petitioners shall be alloted
three (3) hectares each of the 716 hectares in question and the remaining 317
hectares shall be divided among the heirs of Orval
Hughes who shall be given the preference to choose from the area of 716
hectares the particular portions to be covered by their respective
applications.”

This decision became final and executory.  But the controversy was not ended.  It was kept alive by the Hughes Heirs who
launched a series of actions in different courts in a stubborn, persistent,
repetitious effort to strike down the judgment, or at least to delay its
enforcement to such an extent as might in due time bring about disheartenment
and loss of interest on the part of those who opposed them.

The first of these actions was filed in the Court of First
Instance of Davao City where it was docketed as Civil
Case No. 4685.  That was a suit praying
for the annulment of the decision of the Office of the President dated August 20, 1957 and for an injunction
against its implementation.  It was
dismissed by the Court on April 3, 1967.  The dismissal was affirmed by the Court of
Appeals on January 18, 1971,
and by this Court on September 21,
1971.

The second suit was filed in the Court of First Instance
of Quezon City, where it was docketed as Civil Case
NO. Q-18569.  It
was given the form of a special civil action for certiorari and/or mandamus,
the basic prayer being the nullification of the award of the land by the Office
of the President to the Tocao Group of 133 persons or
so, and the proscription of the enforcement of that Office’s Amended Decision
of August 20, 1957.  The suit was dismissed on May 21, 1974.

The third action was one for injunction, filed in the
Court of First Instance at Digos, Davao
del Sur, where it was docketed as Civil Case NO. 918, seeking to prevent the District Land Officer from administering
the land and awarding it to the occupants, who were, of course, the Tocao Group. 
This action suffered the same fate as the first two.  It was dismissed on August 12, 1975.

The fourth proceeding also took the guise of an action for
injunction.  It was filed in the Court of
First Instance of Quezon City, where it was docketed
as Civil Case No. 1376.  It basically
sought to prevent the defendants therein, inclusive of the Tocao
Group, from entering the land in question and harvesting coconuts therein, and
from molesting the plaintiff (the Hughes Heirs) in their possession and
enjoyment of the property.  This, too,
was dismissed, the dismissal coming on October
12, 1979.

The fifth suit is that which has directly given rise to
the appellate proceedings at bar.  It was
commenced by the Hughes Heirs on February 23, 1979 in the Court of First
Instance of Davao, where it was given the docket
number, 1416.  Named defendants were the
Minister of Natural Resources, the Director of Lands, the provincial PACLAP
(Presidential Action Committee on Land Problems), and two private individuals
— German Tuzon and Exequiel
Canencia — or their successors.  Two causes of action were alleged by the
Hughes Heirs in their complaint.  The
first was that the PACLAP Chairman had refused and still refused to comply with
PACLAP Special Order No. 7, enjoining the Special Screening Committee (created
to implement the decision of the Office of the President of August 20, 1957)
from performing acts of administration over the 399-hectare portion
of the land previously subject of the Hughes lease, but had instead allowed
entry into the land and the harvest of coconuts therefrom
to the prejudice of said Hughes Heirs. 
The second was that the Director of Lands had failed and refused to act
on the Heirs’ individual sales application of the 317 hectares allotted to
them.  They prayed inter alia not only that the “Director of Lands be
ordered to process and adjudicate in accordance with the aforementioned
decision the sales applications of the five (5) heirs of Orval
Hughes granting to each of them sixty three (63) hectares”, but also that they
(the Hughes Heirs) be allowed “to continue the enjoyment of their
improvements in the 399 -hectare portion of the property until such time
that their claims are finally resolved and/or their improvements paid fully for.”

In their answer, the defendants stressed that the complaint was
but a maneuver of the Hughes Heirs, like others in the past, designed to
perpetuate their occupation of the 399 hectares already awarded
to the Tocao Group. 
They asserted that contrary to the Hughes Heirs’ claim, defendant public
officials had indeed taken many steps to implement the decision of the Office
of the President of August 20, 1957,1
but those steps had been frustrated and negated by the various actions
instituted by the Hughes Heirs.  The
defendants also asserted that res judicata barred this latest attempt to re-litigate the
question of the validity or enforcement of the Decision of August 20, 1957.2

On the day of the trial, March
24, 1982, the plaintiff heirs were present but not their lawyer,
Atty. Ismael Crisanto.  The Court3 thereupon declared the plaintiffs
non-suited it appearing that Atty. Crisanto had been
duly notified of the hearing, and dissolved the writ of preliminary injunction
earlier issued.4
Atty. Crisanto moved for reconsideration alleging
lack of funds and “stomach trouble and LBM” as causes for his failure
to appear.5
The Court denied his motion, ruling that the grounds therein set out did not constitute
accident or excusable negligence.1

On petition for certiorari of the Hughes Heirs, the Court
of Appeals2
nullified the order of dismissal.  It
opined that –

” * * If the plaintiff is present, there is no basis for the
premise or assumption that the plaintiff has lost interest in his case (Gumela vs. Aniana, CA G.R. No.
31819-R, April 8, 1964), for the phrase ‘failure to prosecute the action for an
unreasonable length of time’ means ‘unwillingness to proceed with the scheduled
trial’ or failure to appear at a pre-trial (R.G. Martin, 1 Rules of Court, 1972
ed., 5 SCRA 1177; Marigomen vs. Valencia, CA-G.R. No.
05635-R, Sept. 19, 1977).”

The Appellate Court went on to say that
the policy of according parties a chance to ventilate their claims instead of
throwing out cases on procedural technicalities should have been applied in
this instance where there had been a previous opinion of the trial court3 to
the effect that a sufficient cause of action existed in plaintiffs’ favor.

From this decision, the Minister of Natural Resources and the
Director of Lands have appealed to this Court on certiorari positing
grave error by the Court of Appeals in resolving the issue only in its
technical aspect without taking account of the factual background of the case or
of the more weighty aspect of substantial justice.  They stress the futility of reinstating a
case which is patently without merit or foundation, involving naught but old
issues repeatedly ventilated by the Hughes Heirs and all resolved adversely to
them by judgments which had long since become final.  They also contend that Atty. Crisanto’s motion for reconsideration of the order of
non-suit against his clients was palpably insufficient in form and substance,
not being accompanied by substantiation of the grounds relied upon for relief
or by an affidavit of merits.

The petitioners are correct. 
There is merit in their appeal. 
The challenged judgment of the Appellate Court will be reversed.

The Appellate Tribunal failed to apprehend, in the first place, that
Atty. Crisanto’s motion for reconsideration or, more
properly, motion for new trial under Rule 37 of the Rules of Court, was flawed
by serious defects.  Neither an affidavit
of merit nor an affidavit of the averred absolutory causes (as regards the
lawyer’s failure to appear for trial) was appended to the motion, as explicitly
required by Section 2, Rule 37 in relation to Section 7, Rule
133 of the Rules.1 There was in other words no
declaration under oath to establish the counsel’s claimed illness, conformably
with the rule governing evidence on motions. 
And there was no affidavit of merit setting out the facts claimed to
constitute the plaintiffs’ valid and meritorious cause or causes of action.  This is a fatal omission, absent any
circumstance on record of adequate weight to excuse or justify the same.2

The Appellate Court also failed to consider the obvious fact that
the action commenced by the Hughes Heirs in the Trial Court — the fifth
in a series of actions given diverse guises and forms by said heirs — was but
a thinly veiled attempt to relitigate shopworn and
adjudicated issues, in a transparent effort to hold on to a 399-hectare area of
their predecessors’ original leaseholding over which
they had been pronounced, more than once, to have no right, and which had
already been allotted and assigned to other persons, by decisions,
administrative and judicial, which had all attained finality, the first having
attained this state as early as 1957, thirty years back in time.

The Hughes Heirs argue that the action at bar is different from
those previously instituted by them, the latter having sought prevention of
implementation of the decision of August
20, 1957 whereas the current action precisely sought implementation
thereof.  The argument is clearly without
merit.  It flies in the teeth of their
prayer to be allowed to continue in possession of the 399-hectare area which
had been awarded to other persons upon the flimsy excuse that they still had
improvements thereon.  But this matter of
the improvements would by now have been settled had it not been for their
recalcitrance.  As early as 1978, the
administrative authorities were already set to make an inventory and appraisal
of those improvements, to be set-off against the occupation fees owing from the
Hughes Heirs;3
but this, the Heirs have effectively prevented up to now.  They should not be permitted to so delay
implementation of the Decision of August
20, 1957 any longer, specially to the
prejudice of the grantees of said 399-hectare portion of the land in
question.  Their resort to forum
shopping, to the filing of repetitious suits in different courts, not only
furnishes ground for giving their present action short shrift, but also lays
the foundation for an inquiry into their liability for constructive contempt
for having abused the processes of the courts, and their counsel’s own
liability for the same sanction and such other additional administrative
responsibility as might be proper in the premises.1

Under these circumstances, the dismissal of the Hughes Heirs’
complaint by the Trial Court was correct, and it was serious error for the
Court of Appeals to have ordered its reinstatement.  A case that bears no merit merely adds to the
burden of an already burdened Judiciary. 
This Court reiterates what it pointed out many years back:2

” * * (T)he dockets of the courts are so clogged with cases
most of which involve genuine controversies needing urgent attention that it
has become the plain duty of judges enforceable by mandamus to dismiss
at the earliest opportunity those which are shown to be, like the case at bar,
hopelessly without any possible cause of action, even if they have to cast
aside, whenever necessary, in so dismissing them, minor flaws in procedure
which do not affect the jurisdiction of the court nor the minimum requirements
of due process.”

The exercise of the sound discretion
vested in courts in resolving motions to dismiss is not limited to the
application of the technical rules of procedure but extends to the application
of the applicable substantive legal provisions to the attendant facts and
circumstances in order that justice and fair play may be fully accorded.3

Parenthetically, the circumstances obtaining in the case at bar,
above specified, serve to distinguish the situation therein comprehended from
that in Dayo v. Dayo,
95 Phil. 703, cited by the Court of Appeals in justification of its action.

WHEREFORE, the Decision of the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R.
No. 14269 subject of the present appeal, is REVERSED
AND SET ASIDE, and the Order of the Trial Court dated March 24, 1982, dismissing the complaint of the
respondents Hughes Heirs is REINSTATED AND AFFIRMED.  The respondents, Heirs of Orval
Hughes, as well as their counsel, Atty. Ismael Crisanto, are DIRECTED TO SHOW CAUSE IN WRITING, within ten
(10) days from notice of this judgment, why they should not be punished for
constructive contempt and/or otherwise disciplinary dealt with for abuse of the
processes of the courts for having instituted a series of actions in different
courts upon the same subject matter.  Costs against private respondents.

Teehankee, C.J., Cruz, Paras*,
and Gancayco, JJ., concur.

^[1]
The case was docketed as DANR Case No. 581

1
On May 5, 1972 a screening
committee was organized to determine the qualifications of the 133 persons allocated lots within the 399-hectare portion
excluded from the 716 hectares comprising the original leasehold of Orval Hughes.  That
committee was reorganized on October
17, 1977 to consider new methods and strategies to implement the
Decision of August 20, 1957.  On December 10, 1977 the committee was
commanded to cause a relocation survey of the property, to take physical
possession and control of all portions thereof outside of the parcels
segregated for the Hughes Heirs, to exercise acts of administration over the
same, to compute and collect from the Hughes Heirs all unpaid occupation fees
from 1953, and to require said heirs to render an accounting of the fruits of
the land from the same year.  On November 22, 1978 the committee was
dissolved and the Provincial PACLAP Committee of Davao
del Sur was designated to take over its functions
particularly that of screening the petitioners-awardees and maintaining
possession of the premises.  The same
committee was also directed to make an inventory and appraisal of the
improvements within the entire area of 716 hectares as of 1953, and to assess
the Hughes Heirs for the payment of the corresponding occupation fees.  Revised screening guidelines were also laid
down by the PACLAP Executive Committee. 
(Rollo, pp. 71-73)

2
The defendants subsequently moved to dismiss the action on the ground of res judicata as
well as failure of the complaint to state a cause of action, but their motion
was denied by Judge F. Gapultos on April 29, 1980.

3
At this time presided over by Judge Pacita Canizares Nye

4
Rollo, p. 88

5
Id., pp. 89-93

1
Id., p. 94

2
P.V. Sison, J., ponente;
Victoriano and Colayco, JJ.,
concurring

3
See footnote 2, page 4, supra

1 When the motion for new trial is made for the causes
mentioned in subdivision (a) inter alia, e.g.,
fraud, accident, mistake or excusable negligence, it shall be proved in the
manner provided for proof of motions, i.e., by affidavits or depositions.

2 Wack Wack
Golf & Country Club, Inc. v. C.A., et al., 106 Phil. 501; Bernabe v. C.A., et al., 19 SCRA 679; Ferrer v. Yang Sepeng, 60
SCRA 149; Dionisio v. Sioson
Puerto, 60 SCRA 471; Philippine Commercial & Industrial Bank v. Hon.
R. Ortiz, et al., G.R. No. L-49223, May
29, 1987

3 See foonote 1, page 4, supra

1 Resolution of the Court En Banc dated January 11,
1983 (par. 17); Pacquing v. C.A., et al., 115
SCRA 117; Buan v. Lopez, 145 SCRA 34; E. Razon, Inc., et al. v. Philippine Ports Authority,
et al, G.R. No. 75197:  Resolution of the
Court en banc, July 31, 1986; Palm Avenue Realty Development
Corporation, et al. v. PCGG, et al., G.R. No. 76296, August 31, 1987

2 Commissioner of Immigration v. Vamenta, Jr., 45 SCRA 342

3 PNB v. Philippine Milling Co., 26 SCRA 712,
715

*
Designated a Special Member of the First Division