475 PHIL. 410
CALLEJO, SR., J.:
After the hearing, the court issued an order denying the petitioners’ motion to recall Maquilan as witness for additional cross-examination, without prejudice to the petitioners’ recalling the latter as a hostile witness on the presentation of its rebuttal evidence.
ATTY. CORTEZ: Just for a while, Your Honor …You see one of the questions which would be propounded to her in the event that the request for cross-examination will be granted to recall the witness is whether before charges were made to the plaintiffs a compliance with Republic Act 376665 (sic) made. Under this Act, your Honor …
COURT: You can cross-examine her on that when you subpoena her.
ATTY. CORTEZ: Yes, Your Honor. Your Honor please, if she will be summoned back as rebuttal witness I cannot go straight. I still have to –COURT; You can cross-examine her because she is a hostile witness. ATTY. CORTEZ Yes, Your Honor. But before we do that since there is a formal offer of evidence submitted by the defendant - COURT: The Court has not yet ruled on that.
ATTY. CORTEZ: We don’t have a Comment yet as to their formal--- COURT: Because the Court has not yet ordered you to comment precisely because of this pending Motion. If there is still presentation of evidence then this will be premature. The offer of evidence is premature. That is why the Court has not yet considered it. On the other hand, if there will be additional evidence, they can amend this. You have to amend this because there is additional evidence.ATTY. SISON: So far, Your Honor, as I have said, it is not us who will be offering additional evidence. We will relie (sic) on what we have formally offered and we will rise and fall on the basis of our evidence. Now, the point here, Your Honor please, is to show to the Honorable Court that counsel is coming up with an issue which has not been raised in this case is to cross-examine Mary Maquilan on the basis of Republic Act 37665 (sic) which is not an issue in this case. The point here is this ----COURT: Are we not putting the cards here? We are objecting to the proposed testimony of this witness when she has not been in the witness stand. You object when the questions are propounded.ATTY. SISON: Your Honor please, the point here is counsel would like to recall my client to the witness stand after the termination.COURT: But we cannot tie their hands to what they should ask and what they should not ask.
COURT (continuation) You may object when time comes. ATTY. SISON: With due respect, Your Honor, if my memory is right, it is very clear that the recall of witness is always govern (sic) by the Rules of materiality of evidence and competency, Your Honor.COURT: That is why the Court is denying the Motion to Recall for cross-examination. But the Court will allow her to subpoena her as their hostile witness, in the course of rebuttal.ATTY. SISON: I submit, Your Honor, that’s the best remedy. COURT: Provided, of course, they will have to pay the expenses. ATTY. SISON: Your Honor please, with all candidness I adhere to the ruling of the Court. ATTY. CORTEZ: Are you going to bind with the Court the production of the witness? Because you manifested in your latest pleading that you may not know about the whereabouts of your client. You are trying to -----ATTY. SISON: Madam counsel, I don’t have control over Mary Maquilan. That was ten (10) years ago. COURT: The Court will issue subpoena. ATTY. CORTEZ: Your Honor please, that my contention while (sic) if there will be delay in the submission of its Comment and the former Presiding Judge of this Court would not resolve my pending Motion for Recall. It took him eight (8) months under the original period and then in the second period of forty (40) days all in excess of the periods given by the Court.[8]
WHETHER OR NOT PUBLIC RESPONDENT COMMITTED GRAVE ABUSE OF DISCRETION AMOUNTING TO LACK OR EXCESS OF JURISDICTION WHEN HE ISSUED THE THREE QUESTIONED ORDERS OF JULY 17, 1997, AUGUST 27, 1997 AND OCTOBER 29, 1997 DENYING PETITIONERS AN OPPORTUNITY TO FILE THEIR OBJECTIONS/COMMENT TO PRIVATE RESPONDENT’S VOLUMINOUS FORMAL OFFER OF EVIDENCE?[17]The respondent was required to file its Comment on the petition. Such Comment was filed beyond the period provided therefore; however, the CA still admitted the same.
WAS THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT OF THE PETITIONERS TO DUE PROCESS OF LAW GROSSLY AND BLATANTLY VIOLATED BY THE QUESTIONED DECISION AND RESOLUTION OF PUBLIC RESPONDENT COURT OF APPEALS DATED OCTOBER 22, 1999 AND JANUARY 31, 2000, RESULTING TO A SERIOUS MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE?On the first issue, the petitioners contend that the trial court committed a grave abuse of its discretion amounting to excess or lack of jurisdiction when it resolved the respondent’s formal offer of evidence and admitted such documentary evidence before they could file their comment or opposition thereto. They aver that although they had until June 12, 1996, per the trial court’s Order of March 26, 1996, within which to file their comment on such formal offer of evidence, the said period was suspended because of their motion to recall Maquilan as a witness for further cross-examination. They assert that during the hearing of March 26, 1996, the petitioners called the attention of the court to the fact that they had not yet filed their comment on the respondent’s formal offer of evidence, and that the court declared that there was no need for them to do so as yet because of the unresolved motion. They emphasized that even after the court denied their motion to recall Maquilan as witness and ordered them to present her as a hostile witness on rebuttal evidence, the court still failed to resolve the respondent’s formal offer of evidence.II
DOES PUBLIC RESPONDENT COURT OF APPEALS HAVE THE POWER AND AUTHORITY TO DISREGARD SECTION 6 OF RULE 65 OF THE 1997 RULES OF CIVIL PROCEDURE IN ORDER TO FAVOR PRIVATE RESPONDENT?[18]
… Going by the records, however, the petitioners were amply accorded the chance and/or opportunity to register their objections to the private respondent’s offer of evidence. For as early as May 27, 1994, the petitioners were already charged with knowledge or notice that they were being required to file their comments and/or objection to the offer of evidence. Nevertheless, it appears that action on the offer was put on hold pending the resolution of the motion to recall a witness. Resultantly, since the disposition of the motion to recall was made the condition sine qua non for further action on the private respondent’s offer of evidence, the petitioners should have lost no time in submitting their comment to the offer once, or as soon as the court denied on March 29, 1996, their motion to recall Ms. Maquilan for further cross-examination. To be sure, the petitioners should not have experienced any difficulty in complying with this order, given the undisputed fact that, counting from May 27, 1994, they had no less than twenty solid months to do so. As it was, the petitioners complacently took their own sweet time, so to speak, apparently secure on their assumption --which turned out to be a bit erroneous—that there was a standing order from Judge M.A. Ocampo to defer action on the offer of evidence. We have earnestly scoured the records in search of the aforementioned order, however, and have found none at all. Of course, we have also carefully reviewed the stenographic notes of the March 27, 1996 hearing which, in fine, indicated that the petitioners’ counsel asked for time to submit their comment/objection to the offer of evidence, and that Judge M.A. Ocampo declined to act on the same. Simply put, the petitioners have made capital of Judge M.A. Ocampo’s disinclination, failure, or inability to act on the private respondent’s offer of evidence, and invoked this as justification for their non-submission of the comment. The petitioners, however, advertently refused to recognize, or seemed to have minimized the fact that, by asking Judge M.A. Ocampo for another period of time to submit their comment, they had, in effect if not in fact, cleverly prolonged the proceedings in this case, as though to show that the period of twenty months or so, reckoned from May 27, 1994, was not yet sufficient and enough time to enable them to submit the comment/objection to the private respondent’s offer of evidence.At this juncture, We adopt the ratiocination of the private respondent, to wit—
“The Order of the trial court dated 1 June 1994 (Annex ‘2’ hereof) merely stated that ‘in the interim,’ meaning, from the filing of petitioners’ motion to recall witness up to the time the trial court would rule on the same, it would hold action on private respondent’s formal offer.It would, thus, appear that even during the time that the petitioners were supposed to file their motion to recall, they had already played fast and loose with court processes. Even then, as correctly argued by the respondent, there was actually no more time to suspend, as it had long expired on June 12, 1997, for which reason the respondent’s formal offer of documentary evidence was truly ripe for resolution. Hence, We hold, that far from gravely abusing his discretion, the respondent judge acted prudently and judiciously when he declared in his second assailed order that ---
“The petitioners filed their Motion to Recall Witness only on 21 June 1994, which was way beyond the original period given.
“Therefore, when petitioners filed the said motion to recall, there was no more period to suspend as it had long expired on 12 June 1994.”“The Court would stand by its order issued on July 17, 1997 that it was perfectly all right for it to proceed to act on the defendant’s formal offer of documentary evidence, as there’s no more legal obstacle for it to do so.”Indeed, His Honor exhibited a circumspect and attentive awareness of the antecedent and attendant circumstances surrounding the case. In contrast to the posture of petitioners, His Honor displayed the better part of sound legal discretion in issuing the assailed orders, as these effectively put a halt to the pernicious and dilatory tactics and maneuverings, of litigants,---or their counsel---which are anathema in this age of clogged court dockets.[19]
SEC. 35. When to make offer. – As regards the testimony of a witness, the offer must be made at the time the witness is called to testify.Assuming for the nonce that the petitioners believed in good faith the declaration of Judge Ocampo that they could file their comment after the trial court had resolved their pending motion to recall Maquilan for further cross-examination, the records show that the court denied the said motion on March 26, 1996. It then behooved the petitioners to file their comment on the respondent’s formal offer of evidence after receipt of the said order, or soon thereafter. The petitioners failed to do so. It was only, after receiving the trial court’s Order dated July 17, 1997, admitting the documentary evidence of the respondent, after the lapse of more than one year that the petitioners “awakened” and complained of having been deprived of their right to file their comment on such formal offer of evidence. Even then, the petitioners could have filed a motion for the reconsideration, appending thereto their comment/opposition to the respondent’s documentary evidence. The petitioners did not do so. If they had appended such opposition to their motion for reconsideration, the trial court could have reviewed the same, and, thereafter, even reconsider its July 17, 1997 Order. A denial thereon could then have been raised before the Court of Appeals, as the appellate court would be able to determine whether or not the trial court, in denying such motion for reconsideration, committed a grave abuse of its discretion.
Documentary and object evidence shall be offered after the presentation of a party’s testimonial evidence. Such offer shall be done orally unless allowed by the court to be done in writing.