Philippine Supreme Court Resolutions > Year 2007 > August 2007 Resolutions > [G.R No. 177602 : August 01, 2007] GOLDEN KNIGHT PRINTING SERVICES CORPORATION VS. METROPOLITAN BANK & TRUST CO., HON. ALBERT R. FONACIER, PRESIDING JUDGE OF THE RTC, BRANCH 76, MALOLOS, BULACAN, ET AL. :

Quoted hereunder, for your information, is a resolution of this Court dated 01 August 2007:

G.R No. 177602 - Golden Knight Printing Services Corporation vs. Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co., Hon. Albert R. Fonacier, Presiding Judge of the RTC, Branch 76, Malolos, Bulacan, et al.


Before the Court is a Petition for Review on Certiorari filed by petitioner Golden Knight Printing Services Corporation seeking to set aside the Resolution dated October 17, 2006 of the Court of Appeals dismissing the Petition for Annulment of Judgment which sought to nullify the judgment of the Regional Trial Court of Malolos City, Branch 76, Bulacan, granting respondent Metropolitan Bank and Trust Company's prayer for the issuance of a writ of possession over a real property covered by Transfer Certificate of Title (TCT) No. 449426 (M), [formerly TCT No. 381987(M)] and the Resolution dated April 23, 2007 denying the Motion for Reconsideration thereof.

The Court of Appeals dismissed the Petition for Annulment of Judgment in this wise:

At the outset, the petition is infirmed with the following procedural defects which necessitates its outright dismissal:

1.) the petition lacks proof or affidavit of service as required under Section 4 of Rule 47 in relation to Section 3 of Rule 46 of the Rules of Court;

2.) a certified true copy or duplicate original of the Writ of Possession dated June 26, 2006 was not attached to the petition as required under Section 4 of Rule 47 in relation to Section 3 of Rule 46 of the Rules of Court;

3.) the case number from the court of origin and the title of the action are not indicated in the caption of the petition as required under Supreme Court Circular No. 28-91.

It may also be well to stress that in an action for annulment of judgment, an outright dismissal thereof may be had when a perusal of the allegations in the initiatory petition itself reveals lack of substantial merit. This may be gleaned from Section 5, Rule 47 of the Rules of Court which provides, in part, that "should the court find no substantial merit in the petition, the same may be dismissed outright with specific reasons for such dismissal".

An examination of the present petition shows that the requisites for the remedy of annulment of judgment have not been satisfied. Again, this warrants its outright dismissal.

Under Section 1, Rule 47 of the Rules of Court, annulment by the Court of Appeals of judgments or final orders and resolutions in civil actions of Regional Trial Courts can only be availed of when the ordinary remedies of new trial, appeal, petition for relief or other appropriate remedies are no longer available through no fault of the petitioner. In the same manner, Section 2 thereof provides that annulment of judgment may be based only on the grounds of extrinsic fraud and lack of jurisdiction.

In the case at bench, there is no showing that the ordinary remedies of new trial, appeal, petition for relief and other appropriate remedies are lost and can no longer be availed of through no fault of petitioner. In fact, a copy of the Judgment dated June 26, 2006 of the court a quo was received by petitioner on July 28, 2006. Petitioner could have appealed therefrom, or more properly, filed a petition to nullify the extra-judicial foreclosure and cancel the writ of possession in the same proceeding in which possession was requested pursuant to Section 8 of Act 3135, as amended by Act 4118.

Moreover, this Court finds no merit in petitioner's assertion that the court a quo lacked jurisdiction to take cognizance over the said case there being no notice given to petitioner.

A proceeding for the issuance of a writ of possession following an extra-judicial foreclosure of a real estate mortgage is an ex-parte proceeding which does not require notice to be given to the other parties. In fact, as consistently held by the Supreme Court, the duty of the trial court to grant a writ of possession is ministerial and the judge need not look into the validity of the mortgage or the manner of its foreclosure. In the same manner, once the redemption period has expired, the right of the purchaser to the possession of the foreclosed property becomes a matter [of right], the same emanating from his ownership thereof. Thus, after the consolidation of title in the buyer's name, for failure of the mortgagor to redeem, the issuance of the writ of possession becomes a matter of right.

All told, this Court finds no compelling reason to disturb, nullify or set aside the Judgment dated June 28, 2006 of the court a quo.

The Court, while it agrees with the above disquisitions of the Court of Appeals, takes exception to the third cited procedural infirmity that the petition lacks the case number from the court of origin and the title of the action are not indicated in the caption of the petition as required under Supreme Court Circular No. 28-91.

The aforestated requirement is already deleted by the revised version of Circular No. 28-91,^[1] and therefore, the dismissal of the case based on this ground is not warranted.

Except for the aforestated ground, the Court finds no reversible error committed by the Court of Appeals. ACCORDINGLY, this petition for review on certiorari is DENIED.

Endnotes:

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^[1] Roadway Express Inc. v. Court of Appeals, 332 Phil. 733, 738 (1996).