LUIS SUSON, PETITIONER, VS. COURT OF APPEALS, RAMON AM. TORRES, PRESIDING JUDGE, REGIONAL TRIAL COURT, BRANCH VI, CEBU CITY, AND SPOUSES ISAAC AND LEONCIA SOCO, RESPONDENTS.

This petition for certiorari is an aftermath of the
judgment^[1]
rendered on 31 August 1978
by the Regional Trial Court of Cebu, Branch VI
(respondent court), in Civil Case No. R-14351 entitled, “Cerila Besabella, et al. vs.
Isaac Soco and Leoncia Soco.” The said case was a complaint for recovery of a
portion of Lot 2051, located in Mandaue City,
and for quieting of title.  The
respondent court, after hearing, rendered judgment in favor of therein
defendants, now private respondents, the spouses Isaac Soco
and Leoncia Soco.

The respondent court’s decision of 31 August 1978 was affirmed by the Court of Appeals in a
decision^[2]
rendered on 16 December 1981
in CA-G.R. No. 66007 which became final and executory
on 26 January 1982.  Consequently, private respondents (as
defendants) filed with the respondent court a motion for the issuance of a writ
of demolition of the improvements erected by plaintiffs Susons
on the subject property.  However, at the
hearing of said motion for demolition, it surfaced that herein petitioner, Luis
Suson, who was not a party to the case, had his house
standing on a Portion of the subject lot.

The respondent court thereupon issued an order dated 27 September 1982^[3]
directing petitioner within ten (10) days to file a complaint in intervention,
which petitioner, however, failed to do. 
For such failure to file the complaint in intervention, the respondent
court ordered petitioner on 20
October 1982,^[4]
to demolish the house within five (5) days from receipt of said order.

Petitioner filed a motion to hold in abeyance compliance with the
demolition order.  Another order of
demolition against petitioner and his two (2) sons (being among the plaintiffs
in the case) was issued on 2 December
1982.^[5]
Petitioner’s urgent motion to suspend the writ was denied.  Similarly, plaintiffs’ motion for relief from
judgment in said Civil Case No. R-14351 was denied by respondent court on 15 November 1982.^[6]

Plaintiffs in said Civil Case No. R-14351, joined by herein
petitioner Luis Suson, appealed the abovementioned
orders of the respondent court to the Court of Appeals, docketed therein as
AC-G.R. CV No. 00680.  Finding no
reversible error on the part of the respondent court, the Court of Appeals on 18 December 1985 affirmed in toto the appealed orders.^[7]

In the meantime, or on 1
December 1982, petitioner Luis Suson
filed a separate complaint before the Regional Trial Court of Cebu, Branch X, docketed as Civil Case No. R-22651,
entitled, “Luis Suson ivs.
Isaac Soco and Leoncia Soco.”^[8]
The action was for quieting of title to a portion of Lot
2051 which petitioner claims to have purchased from one Ursula Gerebese.

Plaintiffs in Civil Case No. R-14351, including herein petitioner
Luis Suson appealed the aforementioned decision of
the Court of Appeals in AC-G.R. CV No. 00680 to this Court by certiorari
in G.R. No. 74205.  The Court resolved on
23 June 1986 to deny the
petition for lack of merit.  On 8 September 1986, the Court denied
with finality petitioner’s motion for reconsideration of the resolution of 23 June 1986.  Thereafter, by resolution dated 3 December 1986^[9]
the case was remanded to the Court of Appeals for prompt execution by the
proper court.

In compliance with this Court’s resolution of 3 December 1986, respondent court,
presided over by Judge Ramon Am. Torres, ordered on 23 February 1987 in Civil Case No. R-14351 the
issuance of an alias writ of execution.^[10]
However, upon motion of herein petitioner Luis Suson
in Civil Case No. R-22651 (where he was the plaintiff), Judge Leonardo B. Canares of Branch X, RTC of Cebu,
issued an order, dated 11 March 1987, restraining the sheriff from enforcing
the alias writ of execution issued in Civil Case No. R-14351 by the respondent
court against petitioner, until the issues in Civil Case No. R-22651 shall have
been resolved.^[11]
Private respondents thereupon filed before Judge Ramon Am. Torres in Civil Case
No. R-14351 a motion to implement the latter’s order of 23 February 1987. 
The motion was, however, denied.^[12]

In his present recourse, petitioner Suson
again challenges the respondent court’s aforestated
order of demolition directed against him, dated 20 October 1982.

Meanwhile, in Civil Case No. R-22651, Branch X of the Regional
Trial Court of Cebu issued an order dated 8 May 1987 dismissing herein
petitioner’s complaint in said case.^[13]

Petitioner then filed with this Court a Supplementary Pleading
seeking also relief from said Order dated 8 May 1987 of the Regional Trial Court of Cebu, Branch X, dismissing his complaint in said Civil Case
No. R-22651.^[14]

The principal issue to be resolved here is whether on not the
respondent Regional Trial Court (Branch VI) acted with grave abuse of discretion
amounting to lack of jurisdiction, or acted in excess of its jurisdiction, when
it issued the order dated 20 October 1982 in Civil Case No. R-14351 ordering
petitioner to demolish his house on the questioned lot.

As mentioned earlier in this decision, after the respondent,
court found during the hearing of the private respondents’ motion for
demolition that petitioner had his house erected on the disputed property, the
Court ordered the petitioner, who was not a party to the action, to file a
complaint in intervention to guide the court in disposing of the motion for
execution (demolition).  It will be remembered
also that the Motion was filed for the execution of the decision dated 31 August 1978 of the respondent
court which had become final and executory after
appeal had been unsuccessfully taken therefrom by the
plaintiffs in the case to the Court of Appeals.

Petitioner contends that when the respondent trial court in Civil
Case No. R-14351 ordered him to intervene at the execution stage of its
judgment and when, because of his failure to do so, said court ordered his
house demolished, this was tantamount to erroneously amending and altering a
decision (31 August 1978) that had become final.

We do not agree.  It cannot
be overlooked that the hearing before the respondent court on the motion for
demolition was in connection with the implementation or execution of a final
judgment in Civil Case No. R-14351. 
Petitioner was precisely given an opportunity to intervene in order to
guide the court in disposing of private respondents’ motion for demolition in
the light of petitioner’s claim that his house was erected on the disputed lot,
and yet, he was not an original party to the action.  Petitioner was thus given a chance to raise
and prove his claim of ownership over a part of the lot in question, but he
ignored such opportunity.  He cannot now
complain that he was denied due process. “A case in which an execution has
been issued is regarded as still pending so that all proceedings on the
execution are proceedings in the suit. 
There is no question that the court which rendered the judgment has a general
supervisory control over its process of execution, and this power carries with
it the right to determine every question of fact and law which may be involved
in the execution.”^[15]

Moreover, this Court has already ruled that a writ of execution
may be issued against a person not a party to a case where the latter’s remedy,
which he did not avail of, was to intervene in the case in question involving
rights over the same parcel of land.^[16]

In fine, the respondent court acted within its power when it
issued the Order of 20 October 1982
directing the demolition of petitioner’s house after he failed to intervene in
the case despite notice to do so. 
Furthermore, by petitioner’s act of joining the plaintiffs in Civil Case
No. R-14351, when the latter appealed the respondent court’s orders (which included
the demolition order dated 20 October
1982) to the Court of Appeals, and later, to this Court, petitioner
placed himself within the jurisdiction of the respondent court and thereby
bound himself to its judgment and orders.

There is also no dispute that the assailed decision of the
respondent court, dated 31 August 1978,
had become final and, therefore, its execution cannot be postponed or deferred
by the respondent court.

We now come to Civil Case No. R-22651 the separate action filed
by petitioner against the private respondents before Branch X of the Regional
Trial Court of Cebu. 
The question to be resolved here is: whether substantially the same
evidence presented in the first action, i.e. Civil Case No. R-14351 would
support and establish the complaint’s cause of action in the second case.

An examination of the record and the arguments prof­fered by
petitioner clearly indicates that no really new substantial issues and evidence
in support thereof are raised in the second action.  We agree with private respondents that the
parties in both actions are the same:^[17]
the subject matter is the same, i.e. Lot 2051, Plan
11-5121 covered by OCT 562, while the causes of action are basically identical
in both actions, such that the second action is barred by prior judgment (in
the first action) or res judicata.
 It has been held that:

“Although postulated in a slightly different form, the present
action is barred by the final order of dismissal in Case No. 4731, ‘since a
party can not, by varying his form of action or adopting a different method of
presenting his case, escape the effects of res judicata (Cayco v. Cruz, L-12663,
August 21, 1959; Aguirre v. Atienza, L-10665, Aug.
30, 1958; Labarro v. Labitoria,
54 Phil. 845; Penolosa v. Tuason,
22 Phil. 303, 321)’”^[18]

In the light of the foregoing, we see no compelling reason to
resuscitate issues which have long been laid to rest by discussing them
anew.  The Regional Trial Court of Cebu, Branch X, acted correctly in dismissing petitioner’s
complaint in Civil Case No. R-22651.

WHEREFORE, the petition is DISMISSED.  The Order of the respondent court dated 20 October 1982 is again AFFIRMED.

The order of the Regional Trial Court of Cebu,
Branch X, dated 8 May 1987,
issued in Civil Case No. R-22651 and assailed in the petition at bar through
petitioner’s “Supplementary Pleading to the Petition for Certiorari”
dated 1 June 1987 is also
AFFIRMED.  Costs against petitioner.

This decision is immediately executory.

SO ORDERED.

Melencio-Herrera, (Chairman), Paras, Sarmiento, and Regalado, JJ., concur.

^[1]
Penned by Judge Rafael T. Mendoza.

^[2]
Fifth Division, composed of Justices B. S. de la Fuente
(ponente), Jorge R. Coquia,
and Onofre A. Villaluz.

^[3]
Annex E, Ibid., p. 66

^[4]
Annex F, Ibid., p. 67

^[5] Rollo, P. 75

^[6] Rollo, p. 108

^[7]
Second Civil Cases Division, composed of Justices Crisolito
Pascual, Jose C. Campos, Jr., Serafin
Camilon, and Desiderio P. Jurado (ponente).

^[8]
Annexes J and K, Ibid., pp. 76-84

^[9]
Annex O, Ibid., p. 99

^[10] Rollo, p. 100

^[11] Rollo, p. 104

^[12] Ibid.,
p. 105

^[13] Ibid.,
pp. 135-139

^[14] Ibid.,
pp. 130-134

^[15] Vda. de Paman vs. Seneris, 115 SCRA 709; Seavan
Carrier, Inc. vs. GTI Sportswear Corporation, 137 SCRA 580

^[16] Lising vs. Plan. L-50107, 14 November 1984, 133 SCRA 194

^[17]
Petitioner, while not an original party in Civil Case No. R-14351, joined the
plaintiffs in said case and made cause with them before the Court of Appeals
and the Supreme Court.

^[18] Rasay-Lahoz vs. Leonor,
No. L-27388, March 23, 1971,
38 SCRA 48