TITLE: Republic of the Philippines and National Power Corporation vs.
Sunvar Realty
Development Corporation
G.R. NO.: 194880
DATE: June 30, 2012
PONENTE: Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno
Rule 45 Petition
DOCTRINE:
The mandate of Section 36 of B.P. Blg. 129 is to achieve an expeditious and
inexpensive determination of the cases subject of summary procedure. To achieve this,
rules like Section 19 of the Revised Rule on Summary Procedure were created to bar
petitions for relief from judgment, or petitions for certiorari, mandamus, or prohibition
against any interlocutory order issued by the court in order to avoid what former Chief
Justice Panganiban calls a “sorry spectacle” of a “counterproductive ping pong” every
time a party is aggrieved by an interlocutory order.
FACTS:
Petitioners Republic and NAPOCOR are registered co-owners of a parcel of land
which they leased to the Technology Resource Center Foundation, Inc., (TRCFI) for a
period of 25 years ending on December 31, 2002. The TRCFI was given the right to
sublease this land, which it did, to Sunvar, through sublease agreements with the
common provision that their sublease agreements were going to expire on December 31,
2002, the date that the TRCFI’s lease agreements with the petitioners would expire.
In 1987, when the government was reorganized, the TCFRI was replaced with the
Philippine Development Alternatives Foundation (PDAF). Before the expiration date,
Sunvar wrote to PDAF and expressed its desire to renew the sublease over the subject
property and proposed an increased rental rate and a renewal period of another 25 years.
PDAF forwarded the letter to petitioners. By June 25, 2002, PDAF had informed Sunvar
of petitioners’ decisions not to renew the lease.
When the lease contract and the sublease agreements expired, petitioners recovered
all the rights over the subject property. Nevertheless, respondent Sunvar continued to
occupy the property.
Six years after the expiry date, petitioner Republic, through the Office of the
Solicitor General (OSG), advised respondent Sunvar to vacate the subject property.
Although Sunvar duly received the Notice, it did not vacate the property. Almost a year
after the first notice, respondent Sunvar received from respondent OSG a final notice to
vacate within 15 days. When the period lapsed, respondent Sunvar again refused to
vacate the property.
Petitioners then filed a Complaint for unlawful detainer with the Metropolitan Trial
Court of Makati City. Sunvar moved to dismiss the complaint, questioning the
jurisdiction of the MeTC as the action was supposed to an accion publiciana rather than
one for unlawful detainer. The MeTC denied respondent’s Motion to Dismiss and
subsequent Motion for Reconsideration and required Sunvar to submit their Answer.
Despite filing an Answer, Sunvar still filed a Rule 65 Petition for Certiorari with the
RTC of Makati City to assail the denial by the MeTC of respondent’s Motion to
Dismiss. To answer this petition, petitioner’s questioned the RTC’s jurisdiction and
prayed for the outright dismissal of the petition. The RTC denied the motion for
dismissal and granted the Rule 65 Petition, directing the MeTC to dismiss the Complaint
for unlawful detainer for lack of jurisdiction. Thus, the instant petition.
ISSUE: Did the RTC violate the Rules on Summary Procedure when it took cognizance
and granted the certiorari petition filed by Sunvar?
HELD: YES
RATIO:
 The RTC should have dismissed Sunvar’s petition outright for being a
prohibited pleading.
 Under the Rules on Summary Procedure, a certiorari petition under Rule 65
against an interlocutory order issued by the court in a summary proceeding is a
prohibited pleading.
 According to former Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban, the proper remedy in
such cases is an ordinary appeal from an adverse judgment on the merits
incorporating in said appeal the grounds for assailing the interlocutory order.
Allowing appeals from interlocutory orders would result in the ‘sorry spectacle’
of a case being subject of a counterproductive ping pong to and from the
appellate court as often as a trial court is perceived to have made an error in any
of its interlocutory rulings.
 The Court mentioned only two cases in which they allowed exceptions to this
rule 1 and since Sunvar could not substantiate its claims of extraordinary
circumstances that would allow those same exceptions to apply to his case, the
petition for certiorari under Rule 65 remains, for him, a prohibited pleading.
 If the Court were to relax the interpretation of the prohibition against the filing
of certiorari petitions under the Revised Rules on Summary Procedure, the
RTCs may be inundated with similar prayers from adversely affected parties
questioning every order of the lower court and completely dispensing with the
goal of summary proceedings in forcible entry or unlawful detainer suits.
 Moreover, there exists no procedural void akin to that in Go v. Court of
Appeals that would justify respondents resort to a certiorari Petition before the
RTC.
 The Court finds that petitioners correctly availed themselves of an action for
unlawful detainer and, hence, reverses the ruling of the RTC.
 The action must be brought up within one year from the date of last demand,
and the issue in the case must be the right to physical possession.
 03 February 2009 that petitioners made a final demand upon respondent Sunvar
to turn over the property.
1
Bayog vs. Natino where the Court gave due course to an appeal from an interlocutory order lest “grave
injustice and irreparable injury that visited him through no fault or negligence on his part will only be
perpetuated” and Go vs. Court of Appeals where the Court was confronted with a “procedural void” in the
Revised Rules of Summary Procedure that justified the resort to a Rule 65 Petition in the RTC. Details in the
full text.