[ G.R. No. 10793. March 07, 1916 ] 34 Phil. 157
[ G.R. No. 10793. March 07, 1916 ]
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, PETITIONER, VS. THE JUDGE OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE OF ILOILO AND VALERIANO BANTILLO, RESPONDENTS. D E C I S I O N
MORELAND, J.:
This is a petition for a writ of certiorari directed to the Court of First Instance of Iloilo requiring it to send to this court the record in the case of the Government of the Philippine Islands vs. Valeriano Bantillo to the end that certain orders, judgments and decrees made therein may be examined by this court and their legality determined.
It appears from the record that on the 19th day of September, 1914, the Government of the Philippine Islands brought an action against Valeriano Bantillo in the justice’s court of Balasan, Iloilo, to recover P42.50, forest taxes due and owing from him to the plaintiff. After the trial, which occurred on the 21st of October following, the complaint was dismissed on the merits. On the 24th of October the plaintiff appealed to the Court of First Instance of the Province of Iloilo and on the 4th of January, 1915, filed its complaint in the latter court, alleging the same facts and demanding the same relief as the complaint in the justice’s court. Later, and on the 6th of March 1915, the appellee moved the Court of First Instance for the dismissal of the appeal on the ground that the Government had failed to file an appeal bond within the time prescribed by law. On the hearing of the motion it appeared undisputed that, while the appeal was taken on the 24th of October, 1914, no appeal bond was filed until January 29, 1915. On this showing the court dismissed the appeal, basing the decision entirely upon the fact that the law relative to appeals from justices1 courts had not been complied with in that an appeal bond had not been filed within fifteen days after the appeal was taken.
It is the contention of the petitioner in the proceeding for the writ that the Government of the Philippine Islands does not fall within the provisions of the law requiring the presentation of a bond on appeal from the justice’s court, and that the Court of First Instance, in making the failure to file such a bond the sole basis for its judgment dismissing the appeal, exceeded its jurisdiction and overreached its powers and that its judgment dismissing the appeal was, therefore, void.
While we agree with the petitioner that the Government of the Philippine Islands is not required to give a bond on taking an appeal from a justice’s court, or from any of the courts of the Philippine Islands, we cannot go with the petitioner so far as to declare that the Court of First Instance, in dismissing the appeal for that reason, exceeded its jurisdiction and that its order was, therefore, void. We said in the case of Herrera vs. Barretto and Joaquin (25 Phil. Rep., 215) :
“It has been repeatedly held by this court that a writ of certiorari will not be issued unless it clearly appears that the court to which it is to be directed acted without or in excess of jurisdiction. It will not be issued to cure errors in the proceedings or to correct erroneous conclusions of law or of fact. If the court has jurisdiction of the subject matter and of the person, decisions upon all questions pertaining to the cause are decisions within its jurisdiction and, however irregular or erroneous they may be, cannot be corrected by certiorari. The Code of Civil Procedure giving Courts of First Instance general jurisdiction in actions for mandamus, it goes without saying that the Court of First Instance had jurisdiction in the present case to resolve every question arising in such an action and to decide every question presented to it which pertained to the cause.
“Jurisdiction is the authority to hear and determine a cause—the right to act in a case. Since it is the power to hear and determine, it does not depend either upon the regularity of the exercise of that power or upon the rightfulness of the decisions made. Jurisdiction should therefore be distinguished from the exercise of jurisdiction. The authority to decide a cause at all, and not the decision rendered therein, is what makes up jurisdiction. Where there is jurisdiction of the person and subject-matter, as we have said before, the decision of all other questions arising in the case is but an exercise of that jurisdiction.”
Further discussing the same matter the court said:
“It is not a light thing that the lawmakers have abolished writs of error and with them certiorari and prohibition, in so far as they were methods by which the mere errors of an inferior court could be corrected. As instruments to that end they no longer exist. Their place is now taken by the appeal. So long as the inferior court retains jurisdiction its errors can be corrected only by that method. The office of the writ of certiorari has been reduced to the correction of defects of jurisdiction solely and cannot legally be used for any other purpose. It is truly an extraordinary remedy and, in this jurisdiction, its use is restricted to truly extraordinary cases—cases in which the action of the inferior court is wholly void; where any further steps in the case would result in a waste of time and money and would produce no result whatever; where the parties, or their privies, would be utterly deceived; where a final judgment or decree would be naught but a snare and a delusion, deciding nothing, protecting nobody, a judicial pretension, a recorded falsehood, a standing menace. It is only to avoid such results as these that a writ of certiorari is issuable; and even here an appeal will lie if the aggrieved party prefers to prosecute it.” (Gala vs. Cui and Rodriguez, 25 Phil. Rep., 522; De Fiesta vs. Llorente and Manila Railroad Co., 25 Phil. Rep., 654; Province of Tarlac vs. Gale, 26 Phil. Rep., 338; Napa vs. Weissenhagen, 29 Phil. Rep., 180.)
The petitioner does not contend that the Court of First Instance had no jurisdiction of the action at the time the order dismissing the appeal was made. On the contrary, it assumes that the court had full jurisdiction of the appeal and, therefore, of the action, and that its duty was to go forward and dispose of it in accordance with law. If petitioner’s contention is correct, then any judgment which it pronounced with respect to the appeal or the merits of the action would be quite within its jurisdiction, no matter whether the decision on the pending question was right or wrong. It is sufficient for the purposes of this case that the Court of First Instance had jurisdiction over the appeal and had power, therefore, either to grant a motion for the dismissal of the appeal or to deny it; and its decision, whichever way it fell, was within its power and jurisdiction and could not be made the subject of a writ of certiorari.
The demurrer is sustained and the petitioner given five days in which to amend. If the petition is not amended within that time in a manner to meet the requirements of this decision, it will be dismissed finally. So ordered.
Arellano, C. J., Torres, Johnson, and Araullo, JJ., concur. Carson, J., see concurring opinion .