"x x x.
Proceeding now to determine that very question of law, the Court finds that it was erroneous for the RTC to have taken cognizance of the Rule 65 Petition of respondent Sunvar, since the Rules on Summary Procedure expressly prohibit this relief for unfavorable interlocutory orders of the MeTC. Consequently, the assailed RTC Decision is annulled.
Under the Rules on Summary Procedure, a certiorari petition under Rule 65 against an interlocutory order issued by the court in a summary proceeding is a prohibited pleading.[52] The prohibition is plain enough, and its further exposition is unnecessary verbiage.[53] The RTC should have dismissed outright respondent Sunvar’s Rule 65 Petition, considering that it is a prohibited pleading. Petitioners have already alerted the RTC of this legal bar and immediately prayed for the dismissal of thecertiorari Petition.[54] Yet, the RTC not only refused to dismiss the certiorari Petition,[55] but even proceeded to hear the Rule 65 Petition on the merits.
Respondent Sunvar’s reliance on Bayog v. Natino[56] and Go v. Court of Appeals[57] to justify acertiorari review by the RTC owing to “extraordinary circumstances” is misplaced. In both cases, there were peculiar and specific circumstances that justified the filing of the mentioned prohibited pleadings under the Revised Rules on Summary Procedure – conditions that are not availing in the case of respondent Sunvar.
In Bayog, Alejandro Bayog filed with the Municipal Circuit Trial Court (MCTC) of Patnongon-Bugasong-Valderama, Antique an ejectment case against Alberto Magdato, an agricultural tenant-lessee who had built a house over his property. When Magdato, an illiterate farmer, received the Summons from the MCTC to file his answer within 10 days, he was stricken with pulmonary tuberculosis and was able to consult a lawyer in San Jose, Antique only after the reglementary period. Hence, when the Answer of Magdato was filed three days after the lapse of the 10-day period, the MCTC ruled that it could no longer take cognizance of his Answer and, hence, ordered his ejectment from Bayog’s land. When his house was demolished in January 1994, Magdato filed a Petition for Relief with the RTC-San Jose, Antique, claiming that he was a duly instituted tenant in the agricultural property, and that he was deprived of due process. Bayog, the landowner, moved to dismiss the Petition on the ground of lack of jurisdiction on the part of the RTC, since a petition for relief from judgment covering a summary proceeding was a prohibited pleading. The RTC, however, denied his Motion to Dismiss and remanded the case to the MCTC for proper disposal.
In resolving the Rule 65 Petition, we ruled that although a petition for relief from judgment was a prohibited pleading under the Revised Rules on Summary Procedure, the Court nevertheless allowed the filing of the Petition pro hac vice, since Magdato would otherwise suffer grave injustice and irreparable injury:
We disagree with the RTC’s holding that a petition for relief from judgment (Civil Case No. 2708) is not prohibited under the Revised Rule on Summary Procedure, in light of the Jakihaca ruling. When Section 19 of the Revised Rule on Summary Procedure bars a petition for relief from judgment, or a petition forcertiorari, mandamus, or prohibition against any interlocutory order issued by the court, it has in mind no other than Section 1, Rule 38 regarding petitions for relief from judgment, and Rule 65 regarding petitions for certiorari, mandamus, or prohibition, of the Rules of Court, respectively. These petitions are cognizable by Regional Trial Courts, and not by Metropolitan Trial Courts, Municipal Trial Courts, or Municipal Circuit Trial Courts. If Section 19 of the Revised Rule on Summary Procedure and Rules 38 and 65 of the Rules of Court are juxtaposed, the conclusion is inevitable that no petition for relief from judgment nor a special civil action of certiorari, prohibition, or mandamus arising from cases covered by the Revised Rule on Summary Procedure may be filed with a superior court. This is but consistent with the mandate of Section 36 of B.P. Blg. 129 to achieve an expeditious and inexpensive determination of the cases subject of summary procedure.
Nevertheless, in view of the unusual and peculiar circumstances of this case, unless some form of relief is made available to MAGDATO, the grave injustice and irreparable injury that visited him through no fault or negligence on his part will only be perpetuated. Thus, the petition for relief from judgment which he filed may be allowed or treated, pro hac vice, either as an exception to the rule, or a regular appeal to the RTC, or even an action to annul the order (decision) of the MCTC of 20 September 1993. As an exception, the RTC correctly held that the circumstances alleged therein and the justification pleaded worked in favor of MAGDATO, and that the motion to dismiss Civil Case No. 2708 was without merit. xxx [58] (Emphasis supplied.)
On the other hand, in Go v. Court of Appeals, the Court was confronted with a procedural void in the Revised Rules of Summary Procedure that justified the resort to a Rule 65 Petition in the RTC. In that case, the preliminary conference in the subject ejectment suit was held in abeyance by the Municipal Trial Court in Cities (MTCC) of Iloilo City until after the case for specific performance involving the same parties shall have been finally decided by the RTC. The affected party appealed the suspension order to the RTC. In response, the adverse party moved to dismiss the appeal on the ground that it concerned an interlocutory order in a summary proceeding that was not the subject of an appeal. The RTC denied the Motion to Dismiss and subsequently directed the MTCC to proceed with the hearing of the ejectment suit, a ruling that was upheld by the appellate court.
In affirming the Decisions of the RTC and CA, the Supreme Court allowed the filing of a petition for certiorari against an interlocutory order in an ejectment suit, considering that the affected party was deprived of any recourse to the MTCC’s erroneous suspension of a summary proceeding. Retired Chief Justice Artemio V. Panganiban eloquently explained the procedural void in this wise:
Indisputably, the appealed [suspension] order is interlocutory, for “it does not dispose of the case but leaves something else to be done by the trial court on the merits of the case.” It is axiomatic that an interlocutory order cannot be challenged by an appeal. Thus, it has been held that “the proper remedy in such cases is an ordinary appeal from an adverse judgment on the merits incorporating in said appeal the grounds for assailing the interlocutory order. Allowing appeals from interlocutory orders would result in the ‘sorry spectacle’ of a case being subject of a counterproductive ping-pong to and from the appellate court as often as a trial court is perceived to have made an error in any of its interlocutory rulings. However, where the assailed interlocutory order is patently erroneous and the remedy of appeal would not afford adequate and expeditious relief, the Court may allow certiorari as a mode of redress.”
Clearly, private respondent cannot appeal the order, being interlocutory. But neither can it file a petition for certiorari, because ejectment suits fall under the Revised Rules on Summary Procedure, Section 19(g) of which considers petitions for certiorari prohibited pleadings:
x x x x x x x x x
Based on the foregoing, private respondent was literally caught “between Scylla and Charybdis” in the procedural void observed by the Court of Appeals and the RTC. Under these extraordinary circumstances, the Court is constrained to provide it with a remedy consistent with the objective of speedy resolution of cases.
As correctly held by Respondent Court of Appeals, “the purpose of the Rules on Summary Procedure is ‘to achieve an expeditious and inexpensive determination of cases without regard to technical rules.’ (Section 36, Chapter III, BP Blg. 129)” Pursuant to this objective, the Rules prohibit petitions for certiorari, like a number of other pleadings, in order to prevent unnecessary delays and to expedite the disposition of cases. In this case, however, private respondent challenged the MTCC order delaying the ejectment suit, precisely to avoid the mischief envisioned by the Rules.
Thus, this Court holds that in situations wherein a summary proceeding is suspended indefinitely, a petition for certiorari alleging grave abuse of discretion may be allowed. Because of the extraordinary circumstances in this case, a petition for certiorari, in fact, gives spirit and life to the Rules on Summary Procedure. A contrary ruling would unduly delay the disposition of the case and negate the rationale of the said Rules.[59] (Emphasis supplied.)
Contrary to the assertion of respondent Sunvar, the factual circumstances in these two cases are not comparable with respondents’ situation, and our rulings therein are inapplicable to its cause of action in the present suit. As this Court explained in Bayog, the general rule is that no special civil action for certiorari may be filed with a superior court from cases covered by the Revised Rules on Summary Procedure. Respondent Sunvar filed a certiorari Petition in an ejectment suit pending before the MeTC. Worse, the subject matter of the Petition was the denial of respondent’s Motion to Dismiss, which was necessarily an interlocutory order, which is generally not the subject of an appeal. No circumstances similar to the situation of the agricultural tenant-lessee in Bayog are present to support the relaxation of the general rule in the instant case. Respondent cannot claim to have been deprived of reasonable opportunities to argue its case before a summary judicial proceeding.
Moreover, there exists no procedural void akin to that in Go v. Court of Appeals that would justify respondent’s resort to a certiorari Petition before the RTC. When confronted with the MeTC’s adverse denial of its Motion to Dismiss in the ejectment case, the expeditious and proper remedy for respondent should have been to proceed with the summary hearings and to file its answer. Indeed, its resort to acertiorari Petition in the RTC over an interlocutory order in a summary ejectment proceeding was not only prohibited. The certiorari Petition was already a superfluity on account of respondent’s having already taken advantage of a speedy and available remedy by filing an Answer with the MeTC.
Respondent Sunvar failed to substantiate its claim of extraordinary circumstances that would constrain this Court to apply the exceptions obtaining in Bayog and Go. The Court hesitates to liberally dispense the benefits of these two judicial precedents to litigants in summary proceedings, lest these exceptions be regularly abused and freely availed of to defeat the very goal of an expeditious and inexpensive determination of an unlawful detainer suit. If the Court were to relax the interpretation of the prohibition against the filing of certiorari petitions under the Revised Rules on Summary Procedure, the RTCs may be inundated with similar prayers from adversely affected parties questioning every order of the lower court and completely dispensing with the goal of summary proceedings in forcible entry or unlawful detainer suits.
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