Laguna Lake Development Authority v. IPM Construction and Development Corp.

SECOND DIVISION

[G.R. No. 247928. June 16, 2021.]

LAGUNA LAKE DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY, REPRESENTED BY ITS GENERAL MANAGER JAIME C. MEDINA, petitioner,vs. IPM CONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION, respondents.

NOTICE

Sirs/Mesdames :

Please take notice that the Court, Second Division, issued a Resolution dated 16 June 2021which reads as follows:

G.R. No. 247928 (Laguna Lake Development Authority, represented by its General Manager Jaime C. Medina vs. IPM Construction and Development Corporation.). — This Petition 1 constitutes a Special Civil Action for Certiorari under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court, praying to set aside the following:

1. The Court of Appeals (CA) Resolution 2 dated August 29, 2018, issuing a Writ of Preliminary Mandatory Injunction and a Writ of Preliminary Prohibitory Injunction against petitioner Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA), the dispositive portion of which reads:

WHEREFORE, for the purpose of restoring the status quo existing prior to the extant legal controversy to prevent any irreparable damage that IPM Construction & Development Corporation [IPM] stands to suffer and to prevent any decision that may be rendered herein from becoming moot, academic and ineffectual, WE RESOLVE to GRANT a WRIT OF PRELIMINARY MANDATORY INJUNCTION and a WRIT OF PRELIMINARY PROHIBITORY INJUNCTION.

Let a WRIT OF PRELIMINARY MANDATORY INJUNCTION be issued DIRECTING respondent LLDA and/or any of its officers, representatives, agents and any other person/agency assisting them or acting for and in their behalf to immediately turn over possession of the subject leased property to IPM or its agents. A WRIT OF PRELIMINARY PROHIBITORY INJUNCTION must also be issued DIRECTING respondent LLDA and/or any of its officers, representatives, agents and any other person/agency assisting them or acting for and in their behalf to CEASE and DESIST from interfering, evicting, dispossessing and intruding with IPM's rights over the aforesaid property.

The injunctive writ shall issue upon filing by IPM of cash bond or approval of surety bond in favor of respondents in the amount of THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND PESOS (P300,000.00) which shall answer for whatever damages the latter may sustain by reason of the injunction, if this Court should eventually decide that IPM is not entitled thereto.

The writ shall be effective pending decision in this case unless earlier terminated by this Court.

The parties are directed to file their respective memoranda within 15 days from notice. Thereafter, the main petition shall be considered submitted for decision.

SO ORDERED.

2. The CA Decision 3 dated January 16, 2019, setting aside the Cease and Desist Order (CDO) issued by the LLDA on June 13, 2018 and making permanent the Writ of Preliminary Mandatory Injunction and the Writ of Preliminary Prohibitory Injunction, the dispositive portion of which reads:

WHEREFORE, the extant petition is GRANTED. The assailed June 13, 2018 [CDO] is SET ASIDE for being issued with grave abuse of discretion amounting to want or excess of jurisdiction.

The Omnibus Motion of [LLDA] is DENIED.

Accordingly, the Writ of Mandatory Injunction and Writ of Prohibitory Injunction previously issued are hereby made PERMANENT.

SO ORDERED.

3. The CA Resolution 4 dated April 11, 2019, denying LLDA's Motion for Reconsideration.

ANTECEDENT FACTS

On June 27, 2017, the City of Taguig and respondent IPM Construction and Development Corporation (IPM) entered into a Service Agreement for the Integrated System Management-Collection Disposal of Solid Waste (Agreement), stipulating that IPM will manage and maintain a Materials Recovery Facility. In relation, IPM and Nora Ysagun executed a lease agreement covering a parcel of land consisting of 22 hectares situated along the C6 Highway in Taguig City, to be used as a Transfer Station pursuant to the Agreement and IPM's Logistics Hub for its accounting, dispatching, security, and motor pool operations.

In an Ex-Parte Order dated September 7, 2017, the LLDA ordered/directed IPM to show cause why no CDO should be issued for violation of Republic Act (RA) No. 4850. 5 LLDA allegedly found that IPM was running a stockyard with piles of garbage along a shoreland area without the necessary clearance or permit. LLDA opined that it held exclusive jurisdiction to issue a permit for the use of lake water for any project or activity affecting Laguna de Bay.

IPM wrote LLDA on December 13, 2017, denying dumping garbage in the leased area and claiming that it was merely using the same as a Materials Recovery Facility and Transfer Station, where contents of garbage trucks are transferred to bigger trucks for immediate transport to the designated landfill. It likewise refuted the allegation that backfilling and reclamation were being conducted therein. 6

Unconvinced, LLDA issued a CDO dated December 22, 2017 (First CDO) directing the discontinuance of the illegal dumping of waste materials and conduct of reclamation activities. 7 On January 22, 2018, IPM moved for the reconsideration of the First CDO, which the LLDA denied in a Resolution dated February 8, 2018. 8 IPM appealed to the Office of the President (OP) on March 9, 2018. 9

Supposedly due to IPM's disregard of the First CDO, despite pendency of the appeal before the OP, LLDA issued another CDO dated June 13, 2018 (Second CDO) directing IPM to cease and desist from conducting illegal reclamation and backfilling activities and to stop all its operations. LLDA likewise seized control of the property and prohibited IPM personnel from entering and exiting the premises without the former's permission.

Aggrieved, IPM applied before the CA for the issuance of temporary restraining order and/or writ of preliminary injunction and writ of mandatory injunction, seeking to order LLDA to return possession of its leased property and to enjoin it from interfering with, evicting, dispossessing, and intruding into IPM's property rights over the same. IPM asserts that the confiscation affected not only the purportedly illegal Transfer Station, but also the Logistics Hub where IPM conducts its entire business operations.

LLDA counters that it is authorized to order the closure of the property and that the closure of the lot was necessary to minimize the damage and pollution that IPM had caused and might have continued to cause if not for the closure. The ingress of garbage and other waste materials into the premises necessarily renders the same within the jurisdiction of LLDA.

The CA, in a Resolution 10 dated August 29, 2018, issued a writ of preliminary mandatory injunction directing LLDA to immediately turn over possession of the property to IPM, and a writ of preliminary prohibitory injunction directing LLDA to cease and desist from interfering with, evicting, dispossessing, and intruding into IPM's rights over the aforesaid property, as well as directed the parties to file their respective memoranda.

The CA, in a Decision 11 dated January 16, 2019, set aside the Second CDO for being issued with grave abuse of discretion amounting to want or excess of jurisdiction, denied the Omnibus Motion of LLDA, and made permanent the Writ of Mandatory of Injunction and Writ of Prohibitory Injunction previously issued against LLDA.

In its Petition before this Court dated June 24, 2019, LLDA prays that the CA Decision and Resolutions (Assailed Orders) be set aside. IPM filed its Comment/Opposition on September 27, 2019, 12 while LLDA filed its Reply with Opposition on February 12, 2020. 13

OUR RULING

We deny the Petition.

LLDA's Petition for Certiorari filed before this Court under Rule 65 is a wrong mode of appeal of the Assailed Orders of the CA. Rule 45, Section 1 states that appeal by certiorari is available to parties who wish to appeal final judgments, orders, and resolutions of the CA. Since the Assailed Orders are final in nature, they are properly the subject of an ordinary appeal under Rule 45.

A final judgment, order or decree finally disposes of, adjudicates, or determines the rights of the parties, either on the entire controversy or on some definite and separate branch thereof, and which concludes them until it is reversed or set aside. 14 A final judgment leaves nothing else to be done because the period to appeal has expired. 15 The Assailed Orders are final judgments since the court a quo, having annulled the Second CDO, is left with nothing more to do other than the execution of the Assailed Orders. In addition, the period to appeal the Assailed Orders has already expired, leaving no doubt as to their finality and ripeness for execution.

The proper remedy of a party aggrieved by a decision of the CA is a petition for review under Rule 45 which is not similar to a petition for certiorari under Rule 65. 16 A basic jurisprudential rule in our jurisdiction is that certiorari under Rule 65 cannot be made a substitute for a lost appeal. This holds true even if the error ascribed to the court rendering the judgment is its lack of jurisdiction over the subject matter, or the exercise of power in excess thereof, or grave abuse of discretion in the findings of fact or of law set out in the decision, order or resolution. The existence and availability of the right of appeal prohibits the resort to certiorari because one of the requirements for the latter remedy is the unavailability of appeal. 17

The existence and availability of the right of appeal are antithetical to the availability of the special civil action of certiorari. Remedies of appeal and certiorari are mutually exclusive, not alternative or successive. Hence, certiorari is not and cannot be a substitute for an appeal, especially if one's own negligence or error in choice of remedy occasioned such loss or lapse. One of the requisites of certiorari is that there be no available appeal or any plain, speedy and adequate remedy. Where an appeal is available, certiorari will not prosper, even if the ground therefor is grave abuse of discretion. 18

Moreover, LLDA's Petition does not fall under the exception provided for by jurisprudence where a defective petition for certiorari may be converted to an ordinary appeal. An important consideration therefor is that the Petition was filed within the reglementary period to file an appeal. It is noteworthy that in the litany of cases where this Court did not consider certiorari as an appeal, the former remedy was filed beyond the 15-day period to interpose an appeal. 19 LLDA allowed the deadline to lapse without filing the appropriate appeal, and to remedy the procedural lapse, filed this petition under Rule 65 instead.

Given the improper remedy taken, the assailed orders of the CA have, thus, become final and immutable and, therefore, can no longer be altered or modified in any respect. The doctrine of immutability of judgments bars courts from modifying decisions that had already attained finality, even if the purpose of the modification is to correct errors of fact or law. 20

IN VIEW OF THE FOREGOING, the Petition is DENIED.

SO ORDERED. (J. Lopez, J., designated additional member per Special Order No. 2822 dated 7 April 2021.)

By authority of the Court:

(SGD.) TERESITA AQUINO TUAZONDivision Clerk of Court

 

Footnotes

1.Rollo, pp. 3-41.

2. Penned by Associate Justice Priscilla J. Baltazar-Padilla (a retired Member of the Court), with the concurrence of Associate Justices Victoria Isabel A. Paredes and Germano Francisco D. Legaspi; id. at 51-56.

3.Id. at 58-76.

4.Id. at 180-181.

5. An Act Creating the Laguna Lake Development Authority, Prescribing Its Powers, Functions and Duties, Providing Funds Therefor, and for Other Purposes.

6.Rollo, pp. 79-85.

7.Id. at 95-96.

8.Id. at 114-116.

9.Id. at 118-120.

10.Id. at 51-56.

11.Id. at 58-76.

12.Id. at 959-1008.

13.Id. at 1753-1763.

14.Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Omya Chemical Merchants, Inc., G.R. No. 237079, November 7, 2018, citing Santos v. People, 585 Phil. 337, 351 (2008).

15. See People v. Escobar, 814 Phil. 840, 859 (2017).

16.Mercado v. Valley Mountain Mines Exploration, Inc., 677 Phil. 13, 51 (2011).

17.Nuque v. Aquino, 763 Phil. 362, 368 (2015).

18.Butuan Development Corporation v. Court of Appeals, 808 Phil. 443, 451 (2017).

19.Punongbayan-Visitacion v. People, 823 Phil. 212, 222 (2018).

20.Abadilla, Jr. v. Spouses Obrero, 775 Phil. 419, 426 (2015).