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SECOND DIVISION G.R. No. 168726 : March 5, 2010 PIO DELOS REYES (Deceased), represented by heirs FIDEL DELOS REYES, MAURO DELOS REYES and IRENE BONGCO (Deceased), represented by surviving spouse RODOLFO BONGCO, Petitioners, v. HONORABLE WALDO Q. FLORES, in his capacity as Senior Deputy Executive Secretary, Office of the President, HONORABLE RENE C. VILLA, in his capacity as Secretary of the Department of Land Reform (formerly Department of Agrarian Reform), THE PROVINCIAL AGRARIAN REFORM OFFICER (PARO) OF DINALUPIHAN BATAAN, THE MUNICIPAL AGRARIAN REFORM OFFICER (MARO) OF HERMOSA AND ORANI, BATAAN, and FORTUNATO QUIAMBAO, Respondents. R E S O L U T I O N CARPIO, J.: The Case This is a petition for review The Facts In 1985, Pio delos Reyes applied for exclusion from the coverage of operation land transfer, under Presidential Decree (P.D.) No. 27 In 1988, Pio and his children, Fidel, Mauro, and Irene, executed a deed of extrajudicial partition, In April 1989, the Provincial Agrarian Reform Officer recommended approval of Pios application for (i) retention of not more than seven hectares of his tenanted land planted to rice and corn, (ii) exclusion of his childrens properties from the coverage of operation land transfer, (iii) cancellation of certificates of land transfer covering the properties of his children issued in favor of farmer beneficiaries, and (iv) cancellation of certificates of land transfer covering his retention area. Fortunato Quiambao, a tenant-farmer in Pios landholdings, appealed to the DAR Secretary. He claimed that Pio was guilty of misrepresentation amounting to fraud for not stating the totality of his landholdings. He averred Pio and his children owned lands used for residential, commercial, industrial, or other urban purposes from which they derived adequate income to support themselves and their families. He further alleged that during the pendency of the petition for exclusion or retention, Pio converted portions of their landholdings into residential lands. After examining the records of the case and the evidence submitted by the parties, the DAR Secretary concluded that the subject landholdings fell under the governments operation land transfer program. In its order, Meanwhile, Pio died and was substituted by his surviving heirs, Fidel delos Reyes, Mauro delos Reyes, and Irene delos Reyes Bongco, represented by her surviving spouse, Rodolfo Bongco.chanroblesvirtua|awlibary Petitioners appealed to the Office of the President. WHEREFORE, the instant petition is hereby DISMISSED for lack of merit. The finality of the Resolution dated June 20, 2003, pursuant to Sec. 7 of Presidential A.O. No. 18, S. 1987, is hereby reiterated. The Department of Agrarian Reform is hereby directed to implement the said resolution. No further pleadings shall be entertained. SO ORDERED. Instead of filing in the Office of the President a motion for reconsideration of the 30 September 2004 order, petitioners filed in the Court of Appeals a petition for certiorari and mandamus with prayer for the issuance of a temporary restraining order and a writ of preliminary injunction. The Ruling of the Court of Appeals In its 7 January 2005 Resolution, the Court of Appeals dismissed for prematurity the petition for certiorari and mandamus filed by petitioners. The appellate court found that petitioners failed to exhaust the administrative remedies available from the dismissal of their petition for relief. According to the appellate court, petitioners failed to file in the Office of the President a motion for reconsideration of the assailed order. In its 17 June 2005 Resolution, the Court of Appeals denied petitioners motion for reconsideration. The Issue The sole issue is whether the Court of Appeals erred when it dismissed for prematurity the petition for certiorari and mandamus filed by petitioners. The Courts Ruling The petition has no merit.chanroblesvirtua|awlibary Petitioners contend the Court of Appeals erred when it dismissed the petition for certiorari and mandamus despite sufficient allegation in the petition why the motion for reconsideration would be useless, one of the exceptions to the rule on exhaustion of administrative remedies. Petitioners claim they no longer filed a motion for reconsideration of the 30 September 2004 order because it was already final and executory on its face as the order itself stated that no further pleadings would be entertained. Petitioners submit that a disposition of controversies through resolution on the merits is preferred over a peremptory dismissal by reason of a technicality.chanroblesvirtua|awlibary Respondents maintain that the filing of a motion for reconsideration is a condition sine qua non to the filing of a petition for certiorari, being the plain and adequate remedy referred to in Section 1 of Rule 65 of the Rules of Court. Respondents argue that a petition for certiorari will not prosper unless the administrative agency has been given, through a motion for reconsideration, a chance to correct the errors imputed to it. Respondents insist the law intends to afford the administrative agency an opportunity to rectify the errors it may have lapsed into before resort to the courts of justice can be had.chanroblesvirtua|awlibary At the outset, we must point out that petitioners arguments are a mere rehash of their arguments in the petition for certiorari and mandamus filed in the Court of Appeals. We agree with the Court of Appeals that petitioners ignored the procedural requirement of filing a motion for reconsideration and simply went ahead with the filing of a petition for certiorari and mandamus. The appellate court correctly dismissed the same for prematurity.chanroblesvirtua|awlibary We have held in a litany of cases that the extraordinary remedies of certiorari and mandamus are available only when there is no other plain, speedy, and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law, such as a motion for reconsideration. The writ of certiorari does not lie where another adequate remedy is available for the correction of the error.
cralawThe thrust of the rule on exhaustion of administrative remedies is that courts must allow administrative agencies to carry out their functions and discharge their responsibilities within the specialized areas of their respective competence. To this end, administrative agencies are afforded a chance to correct any previous error committed in its forum. Furthermore, reasons of law, comity, and convenience prevent the courts from entertaining cases proper for determination by administrative agencies. In this case, a motion for reconsideration is a plain, speedy, and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law. Petitioners should have first filed a motion for reconsideration of the 30 September 2004 order of the Office of the President. They cannot prematurely resort to a petition for certiorari on the wrong assumption that a plain reading of the 30 September 2004 order hinted that it was already final and executory. The parties are presumed to know the hornbook rule that judgments become final and executory only upon the lapse of the reglementary period to appeal or to file a motion for reconsideration without any appeal or motion for reconsideration having been made.chanroblesvirtua|awlibary Petitioners submit they no longer filed a motion for reconsideration of the 30 September 2004 order because it would have been useless. Petitioners point out that the 30 September 2004 order warned that no further pleadings would be entertained. We are not convinced that this constitutes an exception to the rule on exhaustion of administrative remedies. Petitioners may not arrogate to themselves the determination of whether a motion for reconsideration is necessary or not. Procedural rules are tools designed to facilitate the adjudication of cases. Courts and litigants alike are enjoined to abide strictly by the rules. While the Court, in some instances, allows a relaxation in the application of the rules, this was never intended to forge a bastion for erring litigants to violate the rules with impunity. It is true that litigation is not a game of technicalities, but it is equally true that every case must be prosecuted in accordance with the prescribed procedure to insure an orderly and speedy administration of justice. The procedural shortcut taken by petitioners finds no justification either in law or in jurisprudence. It is fatal to their cause of action. Accordingly, we rule that the Court of Appeals committed no error in dismissing for prematurity the petition for certiorari and mandamus filed by petitioners.chanroblesvirtua|awlibary As to the merits of the case, the question of whether petitioners owned landholdings used for residential, commercial, industrial, or other urban purposes from which they derived adequate income is a question of fact. In a petition for review under Rule 45 of the Rules of Court, only questions of law, not of fact, may be raised before this Court. Well-settled is the rule that this Court is not a trier of facts. It is not this Courts function to re-examine the respective sets of evidence submitted by the parties. WHEREFORE, we DENY the petition for review. We AFFIRM the 7 January 2005 and 17 June 2005 Resolutions of the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. No. 87584. Costs against petitioners. SO ORDERED. ANTONIO T. CARPIO WE CONCUR: ARTURO D. BRION
JOSE PORTUGAL PEREZ A T T E S T A T I O N I attest that the conclusions in the above Resolution had been reached in consultation before the case was assigned to the writer of the opinion of the Courts Division. ANTONIO T. CARPIO C E R T I F I C A T I O N Pursuant to Section 13, Article VIII of the Constitution, and the Division Chairpersons Attestation, I certify that the conclusions in the above Resolution had been reached in consultation before the case was assigned to the writer of the opinion of the Courts Division. REYNATO S. PUNO cralaw Endnotes:
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