G.R. No. L-8020




Republic of the Philippines SUPREME COURT Manila EN BANC G.R. No. L-8020 April 11, 1956 ISABEL, DEOGRACIAS, GELACIO, PEDRO, and BASILIO, all surnamed ABESAMES, plaintiffs-appellees, vs. ADRIANO GARCIA, defendant-appellant. Meliton Pajarillaga for appellant. Gelacio G. Matis for appellees. LABRADOR, J.: This is an action of forcible entry originally instituted in the Justice of the Peace Court of Papaya, Nueva Ecija. The action was filed on January 20, 1951 and after trial the Justice of the Peace Court rendered judgment, dated April 4, 1961, ordering defendant to vacate the land subject of the action, except a portion thereof occupied by him and covered by a tax declaration. Execution was stayed upon defendant filing a supersedeas bond. Defendant appealed to the Court of First Instance. On June 7, 1951, the clerk of court notified the parties that the record of the case had been received by him. Counsel for defendant received copy of the notice on June 7, 1951. Both parties as well as the court, took no action in the case a year later, on June 11, 1952, when plaintiff's counsel moved that the defendant be declared in default for having failed to present an answer. On that same date the court granted the motion and declared the defendant in default and authorized the acting clerk of court to receive the evidence of the plaintiffs. On June 18, 1952, plaintiffs presented their evidence as ordered. The order declaring the defendant in default was received by the latter on June 17, 1952 and June 27, he filed a motion praying that he be relieved from the effects or said order, alleging that he had overlooked filing his answer because he has not lost copy of the notice he had received and that he had meritorious case supported by documentary evidence. The court denied this motion of defendant in an order dated July 1, 1952. On July 8, 1952, defendant filed in the court a notice of appeal against the order of the court denying the motion from the order of default. It is this appeal that is now pending in this court for determination. Both parties filed briefs discussing the propriety or impropriety of the order denying the defendant's petition for relief. It is to be noted that the order appealed from is one dated July 1, 1952 and its dispositive part is as follows: Finding the defendant's petition of June 27, 1952 to be wholly meritorious, the same, is, therefore, denied and the case submitted for decision on the evidence already presented by the plaintiffs. There is as yet no judgments on the merits of the case, and it is declared submitted only for decision on the evidence presented by the plaintiffs. The appeal is evidently premature as there is as yet no final judgment rendered for one party or the other in accordance with section 2 of Rule 41. The important question now before us, however, is whether the merits of the appeal can be considered notwithstanding the provisions of section 2 of Rule 41 to the effect than an interlocutory order does not stay the progress of the action, in view of the absence of any objection on the part of the adverse party against the prosecution of the appeal. The right to appeal is a statutory right (Layda vs. Legaspi. 39 Phil., 83) and may be availed of only in the cases mentioned by the law and under the circumstances specified therein. The Rules have furthermore outlined the procedure by which the right may be availed of, so section 2 of Rule 41 has provided that interlocutory orders, like the subject of the present appeal, do not stay the proceedings until after judgment has been entered in the case. The Rules have also provided the steps to be taken in order to perfect an appeal (section 2, Rule 41), and we have time again declared that unless the appeal has been perfected in the manner outlined in the Rules, the appellate court lacks power of jurisdiction to consider the appeal. The regulation of the right to appeal is founded on the rules of policy and convenience. Section 2 of Rule 41 has been adopted to avoid delays in litigation. Under the Spanish procedural laws in force in the Philippines prior to the enactment of the Code of Civil Procedure (Act No. 190), any order or decision of the court could always be subject to appeal, so there could be as so many appeals as there were orders of a trial court which the aggrieved party wanted to question before the higher tribunal. The result was unreasonable delay in judicial proceedings. It was partly to do away with the cumbersome practice of multiple appeals that the rule was adopted to allow only one appeal, in which all orders or judgments entered by a trial court could be brought to issue and reviewed in the appellate court. It will be seen that this rule has been adopted in the interest of speedy trials and proceedings and not for the convenience of parties alone. The State at whose expense trials and procedures are held before the courts of justice has a direct interest in the mandamus of the rule. As the rule is not for the exclusive convenience of the parties alone, their failure to invoke its enforcement is no ground or reason for not applying it, The rule is not privilege which the parties may or not claim as their interest demands, but a part of a system aimed at the speedy administration of justice in which the State is interested. We, therefore, hold that the failure of the adverse party to the object to the appeal for the reason that the order is merely interlocutory is no reason why the appeal, which is premature in this case, should be allowed. The appeal is hereby dismissed, without costs. So ordered Paras, C.J., Bengzon, Padilla, Reyes, A., Jugo, Bautista, Angelo, Concepcion, Reyes, J.B.L., and Endencia, JJ., concur. The Lawphil Project - Arellano Law Foundation