By AMADO P. MACASAET
MALAYA
MALAYA
‘The previous decision ceding all Friar lands to the State must be recalled.’
We all have learned to accept the harsh reality that when an inferior court makes a mistake, the remedy available is an appeal to the Supreme Court. When the Supreme Court makes a mistake and sticks by it for whatever reason although the presumption is always it was done with the best knowledge of the law, the error becomes law of the land.
It is for this and no other reason that members of the Supreme Court should be possessed with the utmost probity, integrity and wisdom to discern a mistake in any ruling.
Otherwise, we would have raped or left meaningless the old maxim that democracy is a government of laws, not by men.
This clearly sounds like an introduction, and it is, to the omnibus motion filed by the lawyers of the Heirs of Severino Manotok case, presumably settled with finality as the final ruling declares.
As it turned out, according to submissions to the Supreme Court by lawyers of the Manotoks led by retired Associate Justice Florentino P. Feliciano, the Supreme Court itself committed errors which the Tribunal itself must rectify in the interest of law, facts and justice.
According to Mr. Feliciano and his lawyers, there are two fatal mistakes the Supreme Court committed in the Manotok case in denying a third motion for reconsideration.
First is the claim, as proven by the records, that the Tribunal failed to observe a fundamental requirement of law that judicial disputes over land ownership are original and exclusive functions of regional trial courts.
In various orders, discussions and denials of the Manotok claim, the question of original and exclusive jurisdiction never found a place in the learned minds of the members of the Court. The lawyers of the Manotoks are raising the issue in their omnibus motion filed on Sept. 3, 2012.
The most serious error the Supreme Court made, according to the Manotok lawyers, is promulgating a ruling by a minority of the tribunal in direct contravention if not violation of the Court’s own jurisprudence. The ruling states “all decisions and actions in Court en banc shall be made upon the concurrence of the majority of the Court who actually took part in the deliberations on the issue or issues involved and voted on them.”
The Court’s own records show that on June 26, 2012, it denied the Manotok’s “motion for leave” for lack of merit and the third motion for reconsideration, saying a third motion for reconsideration is a prohibited pleading.
Again, as shown by the records of the Court, its resolution made in en banc session did not have the concurrence of the majority of members of the Court. One way of describing this excess is allowing a minority to rule over the majority.
It is shown in the records that the resolution was promulgated or made by the Court on June 26, 2012, long after former Chief Justice Renato C. Corona was found guilty and removed from office by the Senate impeachment on May 29, 2012.
The Court was left with 14 magistrates without a chief justice after the conviction of Corona.
Most Senior Associate Justices Antonio T. Carpio, who became acting chief justice by operation of law; Presbitero Velasco Jr., Arturo Brion, Roberto A. Abad, Maria Lourdes Sereno (now Chief Justice), Bienvenido L. Reyes, and Perlas Bernabe – all seven of them – maintained their dissents.
Associate Justice Jose Mendoza was on leave when the decision was issued.
It is clear that with seven dissents, one magistrate on leave, the minority of six members of the Court ruled what is made to appear as a majority decision.
The lawyers of the Manotoks told the Supreme Court (consequently) that resolution did not have the concurrence of the majority of members … who actually took part, or were in a position to take part, in the deliberations on the issues or issues involved and voted on them.”
Given the anomaly of six members of the Court issuing a “majority” resolution against seven dissents and one on official leave, the lawyers now beg the Court to recall the resolution for not being binding and therefore does not have any effect on the parties involved.
The denial of the third motion for reconsideration is not valid as it was issued by minority of the members of the court sitting en banc.
The lawyers of the Manotok led by highly respected retired Associate Justice Feliciano lays bare the fact that from the very beginning the Supreme Court” failed to comply with a constitutional requirement that the Court state the facts and the law – the “process of legal reasoning” – on which it had purported, in the first instance, the ownership claims on the Manotok property, notwithstanding that, as the Court itself acknowledges, existing law (BP 129) vests that jurisdiction exclusively in the regional trial courts.
This is a polite way of saying the Supreme Court usurped the functions of the regional trial courts which have exclusive and original jurisdiction over land disputes, and therefore violated the Constitution which vests the right on the inferior court.
The fact that the Court erred in issuing a “majority resolution” by six magistrates against the dissents of seven peers strengthens the point of laying bare the mistake if not abuse by the Tribunal of issuing the resolution, now subject of the omnibus motion.
The Court was told by the Manotok lawyers (conversely), a decision that was rendered without the concurrence of a majority of the members of the Supreme Court en banc who actually took part in the deliberations of the case is NOT a decision of the Supreme Court en banc.
We hazard the opinion that the Supreme Court should heed the call for the rectification of its errors. Should the Court accept the humility of doing so, we see the Manotok case having a start in a regional trial court.
The previous decision ceding all Friar lands to the State must be recalled.
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email: amadomacasaet@yahoo.com
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