555 Phil. 115
VELASCO, JR., J.:
RESPONDENT JUDGE ACTED WITHOUT OR IN EXCESS OF JURISDICTION AND IN DISMISSING THE COMPLAINT FOR ALLEGED IMPROPER VENUE AND THERE IS NO OTHER ADEQUATE, PLAIN AND SPEEDY REMEDY IN THE ORDINARY COURSE OF LAW OTHER THAN THIS PETITION.[8]In a Decision promulgated on August 12, 2002, the Special Fifth Division of the CA dismissed the petition for lack of merit.[9]
WHEREFORE, the motion for reconsideration is hereby GRANTED. Our decision dated August 12, 2002 is SET ASIDE and a new one entered SETTING ASIDE the trial court's order dated February 26, 2002 and March 20, 2002. The trial Judge is hereby ORDERED to proceed with the trial of Civil Case no. 08-418 with utmost dispatch.Dissatisfied with the result, Ang Kek Chen filed the present petition on March 5, 2004.
SO ORDERED.[11]
(A) WHETHER OR NOT, the Petition for Certiorari was CORRECTLY DISMISSED by the Honorable Court of Appeals in CA G.R. SP No. 70335 in its decision promulgated on August 12, 2002, ANNEX "C" of this Petition, thereby upholding the correct Decision of the respondent Judge that the venue of the out-of-town complaint for libel is improperly laid.The petition has merit.
(B) CONSEQUENTLY, WHETHER OR NOT, the decision ANNEX "C" of this Petition, was ERRONEOUSL REVERSED by the Honorable Court of Appeals in its resolutions dated November 21, 2004 and January 21, 2004.
(C) WHETHER OR NOT, the Petition for Certiorari filed by the respondents (then petitioners) can substitute for their LOST APPEAL.[12]
The criminal and civil action for damages in cases of written defamations as provided for in this chapter, shall be filed simultaneously or separately with the Court of First Instance of the province or city where the libelous article is printed and first published or where any of the offended parties actually resides at the time of the commission of the offense x x x (emphasis supplied).Respondents claim that their actual residence is in Aparri, Cagayan. The trial court made the following findings on the matter:
True, plaintiffs are residents and domiciled in Aparri, Cagayan. In fact, they are registered voters of Aparri, Cagayan. However, they also admit that they have a residential house in Las Piñas and it is in Las Piñas where they stay most of the time due to their profession and occupation. In short, plaintiffs are habitual residents of Las Piñas and not in Aparri, Cagayan. Aparri is plaintiffs' legal residence and place of domicile. However, to the Court's opinion, plaintiffs' actual residence is in Las Piñas, Metro-Manila [sic] as they are habitually residing thereat due to their profession and occupation.[13]When respondents raised this matter to the CA via a petition for certiorari, the findings of the trial court were upheld by the appellate court in its August 12, 2002 Decision, when it said:
Petitioners thus appear to have misread the provisions of Article 360 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended, when they filed their criminal and civil complaints in Aparri, Cagayan. Clearly, the civil and criminal complaint should be filed in the Regional Trial Court of Manila, where petitioners reside or where the article was first printed or published. But since petitioners opted to choose place of residence, we shall now discussed [sic] where petitioners properly resides [sic]. In procedural law, specifically for purposes of venue it has been held that the residence of a person is his personal, actual or physical habitation or his actual residence or place of abode, which may not necessarily be his legal residence or domicile provided he resides therein with continuity and consistency. Applying this, petitioners clearly were residents of Manila for they have a residential house in Las Piñas where they stay thereat due to their profession and occupation.[14]The CA noted the findings of the other Aparri RTC branches in the dismissals of criminal cases for libel filed by respondents against petitioner to conclude that respondents had their actual residence in Las Piñas.
Under the circumstances, therefore, the situation of private complainant does not fall within the conceptual meaning of the term "residence" as explained in the cases mentioned above. His situation is that he owns a house in Aparri and comes home at least once a month. However, his presence in the place of his residence, although consistent, is admittedly not continuous. For this reason, the complainant's stay at his house in Aparri may only be considered as occasional or intermittent. The requirement is that his stay in his place of abode must not only be consistent but also continuous. Therefore, his stay in Aparri is not "residence" for purposes of determining venue in libel cases.[15]In Criminal Case No. VI-1094 decided by the Aparri, Cagayan RTC, Branch 6, the trial court likewise dismissed the information against petitioner, holding that:
The Court does not believe that the offended party is only temporarily residing in Manila for the following reasons: Seventy percent of his cases are cases in Metro Manila; he has his law office in Metro Manila but he has none in Aparri, Cagayan; he and his family reside in Las Pinas [sic] though he has an ancestral house in Aparri, Cagayan. His presence in Aparri is seldom, while he is most of the time in Metro Manila. The offended party, therefore, is actually residing in Las Pinas [sic] and he should have filed the libel case in Las Pinas [sic], Metro Manila.[16]Considering the foregoing findings of these trial courts, as well as the findings of the Aparri, Cagayan RTC, Branch 8 in Civil Case No. 08-418, the CA found that respondents were residents of Las Piñas.
We have closely examined the records and we find that petitioners' residence is in Aparri, Cagayan.The CA erred in its findings.
As stated, an individual does not lose the domicile even if he has lived and maintained residences in different places. Residence, it bears repeating, implies a factual relationship to a given place for various purposes. The absence from legal residence or domicile to pursue a profession, to study or to do other things of a temporary or semi permanent nature does no [sic] constituent loss of residence. Thus, the assertion by the trial court that they could not have been a resident [sic] of Aparri, Cagayan is misplaced.[17]
But, the far-ranging question is this: What does the term "resides" mean? x x x We lay down the doctrinal rule that the term "resides" connotes ex vi termini "actual residence" as distinguished from "legal residence or domicile." This term "resides," like the terms "residing" and "residence," is elastic and should be interpreted in the light of the object or purpose of the statute or rule in which it is employed. In the application of venue statutes and rules—x x x residence rather than domicile is the significant factor. Even where the statute uses the word "domicile" still it is construed as meaning residence and not domicile in the technical sense. Some cases make a distinction between the terms "residence" and "domicile" but as generally used in statutes fixing venue, the terms are synonymous, and convey the same meaning as the term "inhabitant." In other words, "resides" should be viewed or understood in its popular sense, meaning the personal, actual or physical habitation of a person, actual residence or place of abode. It signifies physical presence in a place and actual stay thereat. In this popular sense, the term means merely residence, that is personal residence, not legal residence or domicile. Residence simply requires bodily presence as an inhabitant in a given place, while domicile requires bodily presence in that place and also an intention to make it one's domicile. No particular length of time of residence is required though; however, the residence must be more than temporary.[19]It is clear that in granting respondents' Motion for Reconsideration, the CA accepted the argument of respondent Atty. Calasan that "residence" is synonymous with "domicile."
for purposes of venue, the less technical definition of "residence" is adopted. Thus, it is understood to mean as "the personal, actual or physical habitation of a person, actual residence or place of abode. It signifies physical presence in a place and actual stay thereat. In this popular sense, the term means merely residence, that is, personal residence, not legal residence or domicile. Residence simply requires bodily presence as an inhabitant in a given place, while domicile requires bodily presence in that place and also an intention to make it one's domicile."[20]There is clearly a distinction between the two terms, "residence" and "domicile," which shall be applied in this civil action for damages.
This Court held in the case of Uytengsu vs. Republic, 50 O.G. 4781, October 1954, reversing its previous stand in Larena v. Ferrer, 61 Phil. 36 and Nuval v. Guray 52 Phil 645, that—In respondents' case, they maintained a residence in Las Piñas in the year 2000, and their domicile in Aparri, Cagayan which was maintained year after year. As mentioned in Koh, one may have both a residence and a domicile. One need not abandon one's domicile to acquire a separate residence, if this separate residence is not intended to be legal residence as well. The ideas of "domicile" and "actual residence" may even at times refer to one and the same place, but not so in this particular case, where there are two particular and distinct places referred to."There is a difference between domicile and residence. Residence is used to indicate a place of abode, whether permanent or temporary; domicile denotes a fixed permanent residence to which when absent, one has the intention of returning. A man may have a residence in one place and a domicile in another. Residence is not domicile, but domicile is residence coupled with the intention to remain for an unlimited time. A man can have but one domicile for one and the same purpose at any time, but he may have numerous places of residence. His place of residence generally is his place of domicile, but is not by any means, necessarily so since no length of residence without any intention of remaining will constitute domicile."[22] (Italics supplied.)