771 PHIL. 161
Rule 14 of the Rules of Court provides:
SEC. 11. Service upon domestic private juridical entity. - When the defendant is a corporation, partnership or association organized under the laws of the Philippines with a juridical personality, service may be made on the president, managing partner, general manager, corporate secretary, treasurer, or in-house counsel. (emphasis supplied)
We have long established that this enumeration is an exclusive list under the principle of
expresso unius est exclusio alterius.
[8] Under the present Rules of Court, the rule of substantial compliance invoked by the respondent is no longer applicable. To quote our decision in
Sps. Mason v. Court of Appeals:
The question of whether the substantial compliance rule is still applicable under Section 11, Rule 14 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure has been settled in Villarosa which applies squarely to the instant case. In the said case, petitioner E.B. Villarosa & Partner Co. Ltd. (hereafter Villarosa) with principal office address at 102 Juan Luna St., Davao City, and with branches at 2492 Bay View Drive, Tambo, Paranaque, Metro Manila, and Kolambog, Lapasan, Cagayan de Oro City, entered into a sale with development agreement with private respondent Imperial Development Corporation. As Villarosa failed to comply with its contractual obligation, private respondent initiated a suit for breach of contract and damages at the Regional Trial Court of Makati. Summons, together with the complaint, was served upon Villarosa through its branch manager at Kolambog, Lapasan, Cagayan de Oro City. Villarosa filed a Special Appearance with Motion to Dismiss on the ground of improper service of summons and lack of jurisdiction. The trial court denied the motion and ruled that there was substantial compliance with the rule, thus, it acquired jurisdiction over Villarosa. The latter questioned the denial before us in its petition for certiorari. We decided in Villarosa's favor and declared the trial court without jurisdiction to take cognizance of the case. We held that there was no valid service of summons on Villarosa as service was made through a person not included in the enumeration in Section 11, Rule 14 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure, which revised the Section 13, Rule 14 of the 1964 Rules of Court. We discarded the trial court's basis for denying the motion to dismiss, namely, private respondents' substantial compliance with the rule on service of summons, and fully agreed with petitioners' assertions that the enumeration under the new rule is restricted, limited and exclusive, following the rule in statutory construction that expressio unios est exclusio alterius. Had the Rules of Court Revision Committee intended to liberalize the rule on service of summons, we said, it could have easily done so by clear and concise language. Absent a manifest intent to liberalize the rule, we stressed strict compliance with Section 11, Rule 14 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure.
Neither can herein petitioners invoke our ruling in Millenium to support their position for said case is not on all fours with the instant case. We must stress that Millenium was decided when the 1964 Rules of Court were still in force and effect, unlike the instant case which falls under the new rule. Hence, the cases cited by petitioners where we upheld the doctrine of substantial compliance must be deemed overturned by Villarosa, which is the later case.[9] (emphasis supplied)
Therefore, the petitioner's argument is meritorious; service of summons on an officer other than those enumerated in Section 11 is invalid.
[10]However, although the petition before the CA was meritorious, the petitioner failed to pay the required docket fees and other legal fees. The payment of docket fees within the prescribed period is mandatory for the filing of a petition for certiorari.
[11] The court acquires jurisdiction over the case only upon the payment of the prescribed docket fees. The payment of the full amount of the docket fee is a condition
sine qua non for jurisdiction to rest.
We agree with the respondent that the petitioner failed to substantiate his allegations that the Court of Appeals personnel refused his offer of payment four times. Moreover, these are factual allegations that we cannot entertain because we are not a trier of facts. Nevertheless, the petitioner pleads that technicalities be set aside in order to dispense substantial justice.
The payment of docket fees, like the rule of strict compliance in the service of summons, is not a mere technicality of procedure but is an essential requirement of due process. Procedural rules are not to be set aside simply because their strict application would prejudice a party's substantive rights. Like all rules, they must be observed. They can only be relaxed for the most persuasive of reasons where a litigant's degree of noncompliance with the rules is severely disproportionate to the injustice he is bound to suffer as a consequence.
[12]In the present case, the petitioner appeals to our sense of equity and justice to relax the procedural rules in his favor because his petition for certiorari is meritorious. However, we cannot overlook the
inequity of relaxing the procedural rules for the petitioner in
CA-G.R. UDK-SP No. 6325 in order to dismiss the respondent's complaint in
Civil Case No. Q-06-58473 for the Sheriffs noncompliance with the rule on the service of summons. If we will be equitable to the petitioner, then fairness demands that we must also be equitable to the respondent.
In rendering justice, courts have always been, as they ought to be, conscientiously guided by the norm that on the balance, technicalities take a backseat against substantive rights, and not the other way around.
[13] As the petitioner itself said, the ends of justice would be best served if we do away with the technicalities as we dispense substantial justice. We thus believe that the best course of action under the circumstances is to allow the RTC to decide the case on the merits.
WHEREFORE, premises considered, we hereby
DENY the petition for lack of merit. The Regional Trial Court of Quezon City, Branch 221 is
DIRECTED to proceed with
Civil Case No. Q-06-58473 and the petitioner is
ORDERED to file its answer within five (5) days from receipt of this decision. No costs.
SO ORDERED.Peralta,** Del Castillo, Mendoza, and
Leonen, JJ., concur.
* Designated as Acting Chairperson, per Special Order No. 2222 dated September 29, 2015.
** Designated as Acting Member in lieu of Associate Justice Antonio T. Carpio, per Special Order No. 2223 dated September 29, 2015.
[1] Rollo, p. 133; penned by Associate Ramon M. Bato, Jr. and concurred in by Associate Justices Sixto C. Marella, Jr. and Noel G. Tijam.
[2] Id. at 142, penned by Associate Ramon M. Bato, Jr. and concurred in by Associate Justices Mario L. Guarina III and Noel G. Tijam.
[3] Rendered by Presiding Judge Jocelyn A. Solis-Reyes.
[4] G.R. No. 136426, August 6, 1999, 312 SCRA 65.
[5] G.R. No. L-41667, April 30, 1976, 70 SCRA 598.
[6] 242 Phil. 195(1988).
[7] G.R. No. 131714, February 28, 2000, 326 SCRA 563.
[8] Cathay Metal Corporation v. Laguna West Multi-Purpose Cooperative, Inc., G.R. No. 172204, 2 July 2014, 728 SCRA 482 citing
Paramount Insurance Corp. v. A.C. Ordonez, 583 Phil. 321, 327 (2008);
Dole Philippines, Inc. v. Hon. Quilala, G.R. No. 168723, 9 July 2008, 557 SCRA 433;
Sps. Mason v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 144662,13 October 2003, 413 SCRA 303, 311.
[9] Sps. Mason, supra note 8 citing
E.B. Villarosa & Partner Co., Ltd. v. Judge Benito, 370 Phil. 921, 927-928 (1999) and
Millenium Industrial Commercial Corporation v. Tan, 383 Phil. 468, 476-477 (2000).
[10] Cathay Metal Corporation, supra note 8.
[11] Julian v. Development Bank of the Philippines, G.R. No. 174193, 7 December 2011, 661 SCRA 745 citing
Meatmasters International Corporation v. Lelis Integrated Development Corporation 492 Phil 698, 701(2005).
[12] Julian v. Development Bank of the Philippines, supra note 11.
[13] Sps. Espejo v. Ito, G.R. No. 176511, 4 August 2009, 595 SCRA 192, 204 cited in the Petition for Review on Certiorari, p. 31; see rollo, p. 40.