October 2010 - Philippine Supreme Court Resolutions
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[G.R. No. 190946 : October 04, 2010] SPOUSES ROMULO AND ESTRELLA HERNANDEZ, PETITIONERS -VERSUS- SPOUSES NICASIO AND ADORACION RODRIGUEZ, RESPONDENTS. :
[G.R. No. 190946 : October 04, 2010]
SPOUSES ROMULO AND ESTRELLA HERNANDEZ, PETITIONERS -VERSUS- SPOUSES NICASIO AND ADORACION RODRIGUEZ, RESPONDENTS.
Sirs/Mesdames:
Please take notice that the Court, Third Division, issued a Resolution dated 04 October 2010, which reads as follows:
G.R. No. 190946 - SPOUSES ROMULO and ESTRELLA HERNANDEZ, petitioners -versus- SPOUSES NICASIO and ADORACION RODRIGUEZ, respondents.
R E S O L U T I O N
We resolve the Motion for Reconsideration dated June 9, 2010 fded by petitioner Spouses Romulo and Estrella Hernandez to set aside our Resolution of April 12, 2010 affirming the September 4, 2009 Decision of the Court of Appeals (CA) in CA-G.R. CV No. 90961. The CA denied the petitioners' appeal due to their failure to prove that they, and not Tarcilla Buenesco (Tarcilla), are now the creditors of respondents Nicasio and Adoracion Rodriguez.
We denied the petition for failure to show a reversible error in the CA's decision to warrant the exercise of our discretionary appellate jurisdiction. Moreover, we noted that the petitioners failed to include in their petition a proper verification and a valid affidavit of service.[1]
In their Motion for Reconsideration, the petitioners merely reiterate the arguments in their petition, with a plea for the liberal construction of procedural rules.
We find no reversible error to merit reconsideration.
In their demand letter dated July 26, 2004, their Complaint before the Regional Trial Court (RTC), their Appellee's Brief before the CA, and their Petition for Review before us, the petitioners consistently stated that Tarcilla was the creditor in the loan transaction.[2] In her testimony before the RTC, Estrella even stated that she paid the principal amount of one million pesos to her aunt in 1998.[3]
To contradict the CA's finding that the petitioners failed to substantiate their claim that they advanced the principal to Tarcilla, they pointed to parts of Adoracion's testimony to prove that Estrella Hernandez was the creditor in the loan transaction as early as 1996:[4]
This testimony is clearly inconsistent with the petitioner's statements in (1) their pleadings, wherein they clearly stated that it was Tarcilla who was the creditor in the loan transaction of October 1996; and (2) Estrella's testimony, stating that it was only in 1998 that she paid Tarcilla the principal of P1,000,000.00.
When a party deliberately adopts a certain theory, and the case is tried and decided on that theory in the court below, the party will not be permitted to change her theory on appeal. To permit one party to change its theory will be unfair to the other party. It is the rule, and the settled doctrine of this Court, that a party cannot raise in the appellate court any question of law or of fact that was not raised in the court below or which was not within the issue raised by the parties in their pleadings.[5] Moreover, in the present case, the contrary positions taken by the petitioners only render their claims more dubious.
We also scrutinized the MTC decision of July 7, 2004 and found nothing there that would support the petitioners' allegation that they advanced to Tarcilla the loan principal, as this decision merely referred to the interest that the petitioners advanced to Tarcilla.
A liberal construction of procedural rules in this case would serve no purpose since the petitioners failed to show any error on the part of the CA that would call for the exercise of this Court's appellate jurisdiction.
WHEREFORE, premises considered, we hereby DENY the Motion for Reconsideration for lack of merit.
SO ORDERED.
G.R. No. 190946 - SPOUSES ROMULO and ESTRELLA HERNANDEZ, petitioners -versus- SPOUSES NICASIO and ADORACION RODRIGUEZ, respondents.
We resolve the Motion for Reconsideration dated June 9, 2010 fded by petitioner Spouses Romulo and Estrella Hernandez to set aside our Resolution of April 12, 2010 affirming the September 4, 2009 Decision of the Court of Appeals (CA) in CA-G.R. CV No. 90961. The CA denied the petitioners' appeal due to their failure to prove that they, and not Tarcilla Buenesco (Tarcilla), are now the creditors of respondents Nicasio and Adoracion Rodriguez.
We denied the petition for failure to show a reversible error in the CA's decision to warrant the exercise of our discretionary appellate jurisdiction. Moreover, we noted that the petitioners failed to include in their petition a proper verification and a valid affidavit of service.[1]
In their Motion for Reconsideration, the petitioners merely reiterate the arguments in their petition, with a plea for the liberal construction of procedural rules.
We find no reversible error to merit reconsideration.
In their demand letter dated July 26, 2004, their Complaint before the Regional Trial Court (RTC), their Appellee's Brief before the CA, and their Petition for Review before us, the petitioners consistently stated that Tarcilla was the creditor in the loan transaction.[2] In her testimony before the RTC, Estrella even stated that she paid the principal amount of one million pesos to her aunt in 1998.[3]
To contradict the CA's finding that the petitioners failed to substantiate their claim that they advanced the principal to Tarcilla, they pointed to parts of Adoracion's testimony to prove that Estrella Hernandez was the creditor in the loan transaction as early as 1996:[4]
x x x x
This testimony is clearly inconsistent with the petitioner's statements in (1) their pleadings, wherein they clearly stated that it was Tarcilla who was the creditor in the loan transaction of October 1996; and (2) Estrella's testimony, stating that it was only in 1998 that she paid Tarcilla the principal of P1,000,000.00.
When a party deliberately adopts a certain theory, and the case is tried and decided on that theory in the court below, the party will not be permitted to change her theory on appeal. To permit one party to change its theory will be unfair to the other party. It is the rule, and the settled doctrine of this Court, that a party cannot raise in the appellate court any question of law or of fact that was not raised in the court below or which was not within the issue raised by the parties in their pleadings.[5] Moreover, in the present case, the contrary positions taken by the petitioners only render their claims more dubious.
We also scrutinized the MTC decision of July 7, 2004 and found nothing there that would support the petitioners' allegation that they advanced to Tarcilla the loan principal, as this decision merely referred to the interest that the petitioners advanced to Tarcilla.
A liberal construction of procedural rules in this case would serve no purpose since the petitioners failed to show any error on the part of the CA that would call for the exercise of this Court's appellate jurisdiction.
WHEREFORE, premises considered, we hereby DENY the Motion for Reconsideration for lack of merit.
SO ORDERED.
Very truly yours,
(Sgd.) LUCITA ABJELINA-SORIANO
Clerk of Court
(Sgd.) LUCITA ABJELINA-SORIANO
Clerk of Court
Endnotes:
[1] Rollo, pp. 95-96.
[2] Id. at 9-10,44,46,79.
[3] Id. at 57.
[4] TSN, July 14,2006, pp. 7-9.
[5] Sari-sari Group of Companies, Inc. v. Piglas Kamao (Sari-sari Chapter), G.R. No. 164624, August 11, 2008, 561 SCRA 569, 589 and Commissione of Internal Revenue v. Migrant Pagbilao Corporation, G.R. No. 159593, October 16,2006, 504 SCRA 484, 494-495.
