FIRST DIVISION
G.R. No. 126828 January 30, 2002
SPS. MILLER AND ADELIE SERONDO, petitioners,
vs.
THE COURT OF APPEALS, REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, represented by the SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE AND THE DIRECTOR OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC RESOURCES, AND JOSE GULMATICO, respondents.
PARDO, J.:
The Case
The case is an appeal via certiorari from the decision of the Court of Appeals1 that set aside the orders of the Regional Trial Court, San Carlos City, Negros Occidental, Branch 57, that denied the Republic’s motion to dismiss the complaint for certiorari2 but likewise ordered the dismissal of the aforementioned complaint.
The Facts
The subject property is a portion of the public domain, containing an area of about ten (10) hectares, which was the subject of a fishpond conflict between respondent Jose Gulmatico and Carmen Claro, who took over the contested fishpond area from spouses Benjamin Suison and Juanita Suison pursuant to a "Waiver of Rights" dated August 7, 1970 in consideration of the sum of P8,000.00. No application for the fishpond area was filed by the Suison spouses.
On November 16, 1970, Carmen Claro, by virtue of the Waiver of Rights, filed with the Philippine Fisheries Commission (PFC) Fishpond Application No. 28735 over the subject area.
On February 1, 1971, respondent Gulmatico also filed with PFC Fishpond Application No. 28880 embracing the same area.
On May 19, 1972, the PFC issued an order rejecting Claro’s fishpond application. In time, Claro filed a motion for reconsideration. During the pendency of the motion, PFC was replaced by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR).
On October 24, 1977, the BFAR denied Claro’s motion for reconsideration and gave due course to Gulmatico’s Fishpond Application No. 28880.
On December 11, 1977, Claro sold the fishpond including the improvements thereon to Jovito Burgas.
On November 9, 1978, Burgas informed BFAR that he acquired the fishpond and prayed that he be given the priority to file an application covering the said area and that the application of Gulmatico be denied for lack of merit.
On December 2, 1981, BFAR issued to Gulmatico Fishpond Lease Agreement (FLA) No. 3536 over the fishpond area in dispute for a period of twenty-five (25) years.
On April 22, 1982, Jovito Burgas filed with the Ministry of Natural Resources a petition for cancellation of FLA No. 3536 issued to Gulmatico.
On March 6, 1986, Burgas sold the fishpond to spouses Miller and Adelie Serondo.
In the order dated June 23, 1986, the Department of Agriculture, to which jurisdiction over BFAR was transferred from the Ministry of Natural Resources,3 denied Burgas’ petition and directed the MAF Regional Director to effect the orderly transfer of possession of the fishpond from Burgas to Gulmatico.
During the pendency of the appeal with the Office of the President and after Burgas had filed his appeal memorandum dated January 28, 1988, Adelie T. Serondo, who had purchased the disputed property from Burgas on March 6, 1986, filed with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food (MAF), now Department of Agriculture, on February 5, 1988, a petition to intervene praying for the cancellation of FLA 3536 in the name of Gulmatico and the issuance to her of a new lease permit covering the fishpond area in question.
On June 23, 1986, the MAF denied the petition.4 Hence, on February 16, 1988, petitioner Serondo spouses appealed the denial to the Office of the President.
In a decision dated September 5, 1988, the Deputy Executive Secretary, by authority of the President, dismissed the appeal of Burgas and Serondo, holding that Burgas’ appeal was filed out of time and that Adelie Serondo, not being a party in the proceedings before the offices a quo, could not intervene.
In dismissing the appeal, the Deputy Executive Secretary rationalized as follows:
"Finality having ineluctably set in the aforementioned PFC and BFAR orders of May 19, 1972 and October 24, 1977, respectively, the MAF did not err in dismissing petitioner-appellant’s petition for cancellation of FLA No., 3536 issued in favor of respondent-appellee. It is a rule shaped out by jurisprudence that an appeal filed outside the reglementary period confers no jurisdiction upon the appellate agency,5 except the authority to dismiss it.6
"Even prescinding from the above and delving into the merits of the case, the instant appeal cannot in any wise lay valid claim to being favorably considered. Carmen Claro, the transferee of the Suison spouses and petitioner-appellant’s immediate predecessor-in-interest, had nothing to convey to petitioner-appellant, her fishpond application over subject area having been initially rejected by the PFC in its order of May 19, 1972. In the same breadth, petitioner-appellant had also nothing to transfer to Serondo. In point of fact, the occupation by petitioner-appellant and the intervenor of the disputed fishpond area, as disclosed by the records, were sans authority from the BFAR and MAF and, hence, illegal, as may be gleaned from the PFC order of May 19, 1972. Thus:
‘The area should not be illegally occupied under penalty of law, as provided in Section 34 of Fisheries Administrative Order No. 60, as amended, quoted at the bottom hereof.’
"Nor, as is equally clear, does petitioner-appellant’s claim of actual occupancy of the fishpond area gain greater plausibility, much less licit acceptance, considering the following excerpt from the order appealed from:
‘This Office believes that the claim of actual occupancy by petitioner (Burgas) even though coupled with his unawareness of the conflict between his vendor (Carmen Claro) and the respondent herein (Gulmatico), cannot prevail over the two orders of the BFAR because the vendee acquires no better right than the vendor has.’
"True, petitioner-appellant might have been unaware of the controversy between Claro and the herein respondent-appellee when he took possession of the subject fishpond. In a very real sense, however, petitioner-appellant had no one to blame but himself. For, as vendee of the property, prudence should have cautioned him into verifying Claro’s right thereto before acquiring it from the latter. Needless to state, his own negligence bars him from claiming good faith.
"The foregoing observation applies with equal force and appositeness to intervenor Serondo who, like petitioner-appellant, evidently did not also bother to inquire about the status of the subject fishpond before it was transferred to her. Worse still, she filed her petition for intervention only on February 5, 1988, or after the issuance of the appealed order on June 23, 1986, and during the pendency of the instant appeal. It is settled that an intervention may be allowed only before or during trial (Rule 17, Section 2, Rules of Court), not when a case is already in its appellate stage.7 Not being a party to the proceedings which transpired at the offices a quo, Serondo has no personality to invoke the appellate jurisdiction of this Office.
"WHEREFORE, the instant appeals are hereby DISMISSED, and the order appealed from AFFIRMED."8
On September 26, 1988, petitioner Adelie T. Serondo filed with the Office of the President a motion for reconsideration;9 however, on October 8, 1988, the Deputy Executive Secretary likewise denied the same.10
On February 25, 1991, petitioners filed with the Regional Trial Court, Branch 57, San Carlos City, Negros Occidental, a complaint for certiorari and prohibition against Jose Gulmatico, Director of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and Secretary of the Department of Agriculture and Food.
In their complaint, petitioners prayed that the FLA issued to Gulmatico be declared void for lack of jurisdiction, since the public land involved was not yet released and reclassified as fishpond at the time the Fishpond Application was approved.11
On June 24, 1991, the BFAR Director and the Secretary of Agriculture through the Office of the Solicitor General, filed with the trial court a motion to dismiss the complaint on grounds of: (a) lack of cause of action; (b) res judicata and laches.12
In time, spouses Serondo filed an opposition to the motion to dismiss.13
On December 15, 1992, the trial court denied respondents’ motion to dismiss.14 On January 26, 1993, respondents filed a motion for reconsideration.15 On May 17, 1995, the trial court denied the motion for reconsideration.16
On July 24, 1995, respondents filed with the Court of Appeals a petition for certiorari17 seeking to nullify the trial court’s orders that denied public respondents’ motion to dismiss, and motion for reconsideration.
On May 15, 1996, the Court of Appeals promulgated a decision setting aside the trial court’s orders of denial and ordering the dismissal of the complaint. The dispositive portion of the decision reads as follows:
"Accordingly, the petition is hereby GIVEN DUE COURSE and is GRANTED. The assailed orders of respondent court dated December 15, 1992 and May 17, 1995 issued in Civil Case No. RTC-309 are SET ASIDE and the complaint is ordered DISMISSED."18
On June 26, 1996, petitioners filed with the Court of Appeals a motion for reconsideration.19 However, on September 27, 1996, the Court of Appeals denied the same, the dispositive portion of which is as follows:
"WHEREFORE, and considering the comment of the Solicitor General, the motion is hereby DENIED."20
Hence, this appeal.21
The Issue
The issue raised is whether the Court of Appeals erred when it failed to rule on the power of the trial court to determine the conflicting versions as to when actually the subject land was classified and released as alienable and disposable land.22
The Court’s Ruling
We deny the petition. The issue raised is factual, which we may not review.23
In ruling that petitioners may no longer avail themselves of the remedy of certiorari before the trial court, the Court of Appeals held that because petitioners were not parties before the Offices a quo whose decision were sought to be annulled, they had no standing or personality to avail themselves of the remedy of certiorari. Petitioners’ remedy was to appeal the decision of the Office of the President to the Court of Appeals.
Pursuant to law, the Secretary of Natural Resources issued BFD No. 4-1764 on May 3, 1984 certifying and declaring portions of the public forest lands containing an aggregate area of 999.10 hectares located in the Municipality of Escalante, Negros Occidental as available for fishpond development.
The question of whether the fishpond area in question was included or was a portion of the aggregate area of the whole block of 999.10 hectares, classified for fishpond development on May 3, 1984 is a factual question.
The decision of the Office of the President may be appealed to the Court of Appeals pursuant to Section 9 (3) of Batas Pambansa Blg. 129. In other words, the ruling of the Office of the President did not at all involve "actions and decisions of the Director of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and the Secretary of Agriculture" affecting "fishing and fisheries." Hence, the pertinent statute that govern is Batas Pambansa Blg. 129.
The Fallo
WHEREFORE, we DENY the petition for lack of merit.
No costs.
SO ORDERED.
Davide, Jr., C.J., Puno, Kapunan and Ynares-Santiago, JJ., concur.
Footnotes
1 In CA-G. R. SP No. 37902, promulgated on March 15, 1998. Sandoval-Gutierrez, J., ponente, Buena and Vasquez, Jr., JJ., concurring. Petition, Annex "B", Rollo, pp. 14-22.
2 Docketed as Civil Case No. RTC-309.
3 Pursuant to Executive Order No. 967.
4 Petition, Annex "I", CA Rollo, pp. 87-91.
5 Negros Ice House Corporation v. Cha, 35 SCRA 283 [1970].
6 Roque v. Vda. del Rosario, 124 Phil. 671 [1966]; Desiata v. Executive Secretary, 125 Phil. 887 [1967].
7 Felicisimo v. Gloria, 47 Phil. 967 [1924]; Rizal Surety and Insurance Co., Inc. v. Tan, 83 Phil. 732 [1949]; 92 Phil. 892 [1953].
8 Complaint, Annex "J", CA Rollo, pp. 92-97.
9 Complaint, Annex "D", CA Rollo, p. 113.
10 Ibid.
11 Petition, Annex "C", CA Rollo, pp. 45-66.
12 Petition, Annex "E", CA Rollo, pp. 114-153.
13 Petition, Annex "F", CA Rollo, pp. 134-144.
14 Petition, Annex "A", CA Rollo, pp. 40-42.
15 Petition, Annex "G", CA Rollo, pp. 145-153.
16 Petition, Annex "B", CA Rollo, pp. 43-44.
17 Docketed as CA-G. R. SP No. 37902. Petition, CA Rollo, pp. 1-39.
18 Supra, Note 1, at p. 22.
19 Appendix "H", Rollo, pp. 252-261; CA Rollo, pp. 216-226.
20 Rollo, p. 11; CA Rollo, p. 250.
21 Filed on December 23, 1996 (Rollo, pp. 30-78). On October 26, 1998, we gave due course to the petition (Rollo, p. 451).
22 Memorandum of the Republic, Rollo, pp. 456- 492, Ibid., at pp. 475-477.
23 Sarmiento v. Court of Appeals, 353 Phil. 834, 845-846 [1998]; Concepcion v. Court of Appeals, 324 SCRA 85 [2000], citing Congregation of the Virgin Mary v. Court of Appeals, 353 Phil. 591, 597 [1998], Arriola v. Mahilum, 337 SCRA 464, 469 [2000]; Bolanos v. Court of Appeals, 345 SCRA 125, 130-131[2000].
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