Philippine Supreme Court Resolutions > Year 2010 > June 2010 Resolutions > [G.R. No. 190392 : June 28, 2010] ALFREDO D. ROA III AND LAZARO L. MADARA, PETITIONERS -VERSUS- JUDGE NORMA C. PERELLO, JUDGE PEDRO M. SABUNDAYO, JR., EDWARD T. MARCELO, CONSTANCIO D. FRANCISCO, ANNA MELINDA MARCELO REVILLA, LINDA J. MARCELO, JOHN J. MARCELO, CELIA C. CABURNAY, CELEDONIO ESCANO, JR., PHILIPPINE AMUSEMENT AND GAMING CORPORATION (PAGCOR), EFRAIM GENUINO AND RAFAEL FRANCISCO, RESPONDENTS. :

Please take notice that the Court, Third Division, issued a Resolution dated 28 June 2010, which reads as follows:

G.R. No. 190392 - ALFREDO D. ROA III and LAZARO L. MADARA, petitioners -versus- JUDGE NORMA C. PERELLO, JUDGE PEDRO M. SABUNDAYO, JR., EDWARD T. MARCELO, CONSTANCIO D. FRANCISCO, ANNA MELINDA MARCELO REVILLA, LINDA J. MARCELO, JOHN J. MARCELO, CELIA C. CABURNAY, CELEDONIO ESCANO, JR., PHILIPPINE AMUSEMENT AND GAMING CORPORATION (PAGCOR), EFRAIM GENUINO and RAFAEL FRANCISCO, respondents.

R E S O L U T I O N

This resolves the Motion for Reconsideration, dated March 31, 2010, filed by petitioners Alfredo Roa III and Lazaro Madara to set aside our Resolution of February 8, 2010, affirming the April 30, 2009 amended decision of the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. SP No. 91950 that denied the petitioners' appeal after finding them guilty of forum shopping.

In their Motion for Reconsideration, the petitioners argue that they did not commit forum shopping when they filed their petition, docketed as CA-G.R. SP No. 91950, while another petition (CA-G.R. SP No. 90821, which was later elevated before this Court as G.R. No. 172449) was still pending. Moreover, they assert that special circumstances in this case justify relaxing the rule on forum shopping.

We find no reversible errors to merit reconsideration.

The issue on forum shopping has already been decided by this Court with finality in Madara v. Perello.^[1] The Court decided that:

In the required sworn certification attached to the petition for review filed with us, the petitioners stated under oath that they have not commenced any other action or proceeding involving the same issues in the Supreme Court, Court of Appeals or any other tribunal or agency, or that any such action or proceeding is pending with us, the Court of Appeals, or any other tribunal [or] agency. Additionally, they undertook to report to this Court the filing of any similar action or proceeding within five days from knowledge of such filing. Despite this certification and undertaking, the petitioners never disclosed to this Court the pendency of CA-G.R. SP No. 91950 or any of its material developments; thus, we are left in the dark, up to now, on the status and fate of CA-G.R. SP No. 91950. As far as we know, there are two pending cases dealing with the issues before us - CA-G.R. SP No. 91950 and the present petition.

Clearly, therefore, the petitioners forum-shopped when [they] filed the present petition. They also filed with this Court a false certification of non-forum shopping and blatantly violated as well their undertaking in their sworn certification. If only for these reasons, the present petition for review must be summarily dismissed. [Emphasis from original.]

Thus, the petitioners are now bound by this Court's ruling under the principle of conclusiveness of judgment.^[2] Under this principle, the judgment in a prior action between the same parties operates as an estoppel in a subsequent action between them with respect to matters actually determined or which were necessarily included in the prior action.^[3] It precludes the relitigation of a particular fact or issue in a subsequent action between the  same  parties  even if the subsequent action is based on a different claim or cause of action.^[4] Thus, the petitioners can no longer come to this Court to seek to overturn our earlier ruling in Madara v. Perello between themselves and the respondents. WHEREFORE, premises considered, we hereby DENY the Motion for Reconsideration for lack of merit.

SO ORDERED.

Endnotes:

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^[1] G.R. No. 172449, August 20, 2008, 562 SCRA 638, 656-657.

^[2] Rule 39, Section 47 (c) of the Rules of Court states that:

Section 47. Effect of judgments or final orders. - The effect of a judgment or final order rendered by a court of the Philippines, having jurisdiction to pronounce the judgment or final order, may be as follows:

x x x x

(c) In any other litigation between the same parties or their successors-in-interest, that only is deemed to have been adjudged in a former judgment or final order which appears upon its face to have been so adjudged, of which was actually and necessarily included therein or necessary thereto.

^[3] Del Rosario v. Far East Bank & Trust Company, G.R. No. 150134, October 13, 2007, 537 SCRA 571, 584.

^[4] Philippine Commercial International Bank v. Alejandro, G.R. No. 175587, September 21, 2007, 533 SCRA 738, 747.