SAN MIGUEL VILLAGE SCHOOL, PETITIONER, VS. HONORABLE AMIR PUKUNUM D. PUNDOGAR AND CHRISTINA TRIÑO, RESPONDENTS.

On 2 October 1985,
petitioner San Miguel Village School filed a complaint for breach of contract
with damages against respondent Christina Triño,
before the Regional Trial Court, Branch 3, Lanao del Norte, the complaint being docketed as Civil Case No.
111-577.  A Certificate
to File Action, signed by the Barangay Captain of Barangay Palao, Iligan City, dated 17 September 1985, bearing the
notation that the “respondent cannot be contacted,” was filed along
with the complaint.

Summons was served upon the private respondent through her
husband.  On 22 November 1985, private respondent having
failed to file an answer within the reglementary
period, the petitioner
School moved to declare her in
default.  The trial court granted the
motion, declared private respondent in default and designated the Branch Clerk
of Court to receive the evidence of the petitioner and thereafter to report
back to the court.

From the evidence received by the Branch Clerk of Court from the
petitioner, the following facts emerged:

On 9 May 1985,
petitioner, a duly accredited private school located at Barangay
Palao, Iligan
City, entered into a contract of
services with private respondent Christina Triño.  Under that contract, Christina Triño would teach at the petitioner School
during the schoolyear 1985-1986, which would commence
in June 1985 and end in March 1986.  She
was assigned to take charge of Grade VI, Intermediate Department.  The contract also provided that any party
desiring to terminate the contract before its scheduled expiration, would give
the other party at least one month notice of termination in writing.  Sometime in August 1985, while the contract
was in full force and effect, and during a final examination period, private
respondent suddenly stopped teaching at the petitioner School,
without giving notice of termination and thereby causing not inconsiderable
difficulties for the School.  Petitioner School
immediately sought the assistance of the Barangay
Captain of Palao and the commencement of conciliation
proceedings.  This attempt failed because
private respondent could not be contacted, she having left Iligan City and having secured a better paying job at
the Philippine Refugee Center based in Manila.

On 26 January 1986,
the trial court then presided over by Judge Magadapa Rasuman rendered a decision against private respondent, the
dispositive portion of which read as follows:

“WHEREFORE, based on the foregoing consideration, judgment is
hereby rendered in favor of the plaintiff, San Miguel Village School and against defendant, Christina Triño, as follows:

1.      Ordering defendant to pay all compensatory
damages to the plaintiff, the amount of P8,400.00;

2.     
To pay plaintiff, the amount of P5,000.00, as
moral damages;

3.     
To pay attorney’s fees of P5,000.00, and

4.     
To pay the costs of this suit.

SO ORDERED.”

Four (4) months later, on 15 May 1986, private respondent filed a Petition
for Relief from Judgment with the trial court, alleging that the court had no
jurisdiction to render its decision dated 26 January 1986 for failure of
petitioner to go through the mandatory conciliation procedure prescribed by
Sections 2 and 6 of P.D. No. 1508. 
Private respondent argued that the certification of the Barangay Captain of Palao
dated 17 September 1985 was inadequate compliance with P.D. No. 1508, private respondent being
a resident, not of Barangay Palao,
Iligan City, but rather of Barangay
Tomas Cabili, Iligan City.

Almost a year later, on 6
April 1987, the trial court, this time presided over by respondent
Judge Amir Pukunum D. Pundogar, issued an order upholding private respondent’s
contentions and setting aside the assailed decision of 26 January 1986.  In
his order, while Judge Pundogar acknowledged the
impropriety of the Petition for Relief from Judgment, he nonetheless in effect
granted the relief sought, holding that the Regional Trial Court in rendering
the decision dated 26 January 1986, acted without jurisdiction “over the
parties and the subject matter of the action”^[1] for failure of petitioner to comply with the
requirements of P.D. No. 1508.  A Motion
for Reconsideration by petitioner was denied by the respondent Judge.

In the instant Petition,
it is vigorously contended by petitioner that the trial court had jurisdiction
to render its decision of 26 January 1986.

The Court notes, at the outset, that respondent Judge in fact
granted the Petition for Relief from Judgment not because he found one or more
of the grounds specified in Section 2 of Rule 38 of the Revised Rules of Court
(fraud, accident, mistake or excusable negligence) but rather because respondent Judge found his
predecessor in the same court to have acted without jurisdiction.

It is, however, firmly settled^[2]
that failure of a plaintiff to comply with the requirements of P.D. No. 1508 does not affect the jurisdiction of the court
that tried the action.  In e.g., Millare v. Hernando, the Court stressed that “the conciliation procedure required under
P.D. No. 1508 is not a jurisdictional requirement in the sense that failure to
have prior recourse to such procedure would not deprive a court of its
jurisdiction either over the subject matter or over the person of
the defendant.”^[3] Failure of a plaintiff to go through the
conciliation procedure established by P.D. No. 1508 merely affects the
sufficiency, or the maturity or ripeness of the plaintiff’s cause of action and
the complaint becomes vulnerable to a motion to dismiss, not on the ground of
lack of jurisdiction, but rather for want of cause of action or for prematurity.^[4] Respondent Judge was thus in palpable error
in holding his predecessor without jurisdiction to render
the assailed decision.

Respondent Judge was equally in error when he either disregarded
or misconstrued the Certificate to File Action, dated 17 September 1985, which had been issued by the Barangay Captain of Barangay Palao.

Respondent Judge simply said apropos this Certificate to
File Action, that no “confrontation” had taken place between
petitioner and private respondent before the Barangay
authorities and immediately concluded that the requirements of P.D. No. 1508
had been violated.  There is no question
that the “confrontation” or conciliation proceedings did not
materialize here, since private respondent did not appear before the Lupon.  Where,
however, the defendant in an action fails for one reason or another to respond
to a notice to appear before the Lupon, the
requirement of P.D. No. 1508 must be regarded as having been satisfied by the
plaintiff.  A defendant cannot be allowed
to frustrate the requirements of the statute by her own refusal or failure to
appear before the Lupon and then later to
assail a judgment rendered in such action by setting up the very ground of
non-compliance with P.D. No. 1508.  In
simplest terms, a defendant cannot be allowed to profit by her own default.

In the instant case, private respondent, as noted earlier, had
stated in her subsequent Petition for Relief from Judgment that she resided not
in Barangay Palao but in Barangay Cabili, in effect
suggesting that she had not received notice to appear before the Lupon of Barangay Palao.  We do not
believe that the statement and suggestion of private respondent should be given
much credence.  In the first place, the Barangay authorities of Barangay Palao must be presumed to have performed their official
duties and to have acted regularly in issuing the Certificate to File
Action.  They must be presumed to have
sent a notice to Christina Triño to appear before the
Lupon; otherwise, they could not reasonably
have stated that Christina “could not be contacted.” Secondly, petitioner School
had already presented evidence during the hearing before the Commissioner
appointed by Judge Rasuman that both petitioner and
private respondent were residents of Palao, Iligan City.

Finally, and in any event, the alleged failure on the part of a
plaintiff to comply with the procedural requirement established by P.D. No.
1508 must be raised in a timely manner, that is, at the first available
opportunity, if such alleged failure is to provide legal basis for dismissal of
the complaint.  Such failure must be
pleaded, in other words, in a timely
motion to dismiss or in the answer. 
Failure to so set up that defense produces the effect of waiver of such
defense.  In the instant case, private
respondent was declared in default and that default order was never set
aside.  Accordingly, private respondent
must be held to have waived whatever right she may have had to raise the
defense of failure to comply with the compulsory conciliation procedure under
P.D. No. 1508.  Indeed, that was not the
only thing she waived; she also waived the right to appear and to file an answer and there to set up that and
other defenses that she might have had. 
It is simply too late to demand conciliation under P.D. No. 1508 after a
judgment on the merits (albeit by default) has been rendered and become final
and executory.

ACCORDINGLY, the Orders of respondent Judge Amir Pukunum D. Pundogar dated 6 April 1987 and 15 June 1987 in Civil Case No. 111-577 are hereby REVERSED and
SET ASIDE and the Decision dated 26 January 1986 of Judge Magadapa
Rasuman is hereby REINSTATED.  Costs
against private respondent.

SO ORDERED.

Fernan, C.J., (Chairman), Gutierrez,
Jr., Bidin, and
Cortes, JJ., concur.

^[1] Rollo, p. 17.

^[2] Royales v. IAC, 127 SCRA 470 (1984); Peregrina v. Panis, 133
SCRA 72 (1984); Gonzales v. Court of Appeals, 151 SCRA 289 (1987); Ebol v. Amin, 135 SCRA 438
(1985); Millare v. Hernando, 151 SCRA 484
(1987); Fernandez v. Militante, G.R. No.
59801, 31 May 1988; Spouses Bejer v. Court of
Appeals, G.R. Nos. 79404 and 80045, 27 January 1989.

^[3] 151 SCRA at 489.

^[4] Fernandez v. Militante,
G.R. No. 59801, 31 May 1988 at p. 3.