656 Phil. 589
PERALTA, J.:
WHEREFORE, premises considered, the assailed Decision dated December 29, 1999, as well as the Resolution dated April 28, 2000 in NLRC NCR CASE No. 0005-03748-97 (NLRC NCR CA No. 016505-98) are hereby REVERSED and SET ASIDE.
Petitioner (herein respondent) is ordered REINSTATED without loss of seniority rights with payment of backwages, including his salary differentials, overtime pay, 13th month pay, service incentive leave pay and other benefits from the time his salary was withheld, or from December 1, 1997 until actual reinstatement. However, if reinstatement is no longer feasible, private respondent company is ordered to pay separation pay equivalent to one (1) month for every year of service where a fraction of six (6) months shall be considered as one whole year. Private respondent company is likewise ordered to pay P10,000.00 as moral damages and P10,000.00 as exemplary damages. In addition, private respondent company is ordered to pay attorney's fees in the amount equivalent to 10% of the total monetary award.
SO ORDERED.[3]
It must be borne in mind that private respondent company's claim is principally anchored on the assertion that petitioner was not its employee but that of private respondent Madula who is allegedly an independent contractor.[4]
x x x x
In this petition, there is no showing that private respondent Madula is an independent contractor. We reiterate that private respondent company failed to show any evidence to support such claim.
Hence, it is fair to conclude that private respondent Madula is an employee of private respondent company. He is the operations manager of private respondent company. This fact was not refuted by either private respondent Madula or private respondent company."[5]
x x x x
In fine, it is evident that private respondent Madula is indeed an employee of private respondent company. As its operations manager, he is deemed an agent of private respondent company.[6]
WHEREFORE, the Motion to Quash Writ of Execution filed by Asian Plantation is partially granted in so far as the liability for backwages and reinstatement is concerned such that the same is adjudged against respondent Tom Madula. The respondents are solidarily liable to the rest of the award, except damages, which are for the sole account of respondent company. The garnished account of Filipinas Palm Oil Processing, Inc. with United Coconut Planters Bank is hereby ordered released to the extent of TWO HUNDRED SIXTY-SIX THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED FIFTY-SEVEN & 85/100 PESOS (P266,757.85).
SO ORDERED.[13]
Obviously, the confusion was brought about by the September 14, 2004 Order of Labor Arbiter Savari. It is immediately apparent that the order is devoid of any legal basis since the ground relied upon by private respondent Filipinas Palmoil (Asian Plantation) is not among those grounds upon which a writ of execution may be quashed. As jurisprudentially settled, quashal of the writ of execution was held to be proper in the following instances: (a) when it was improvidently issued, (b) when it is defective in substance, (c) when it is issued against the wrong party, (d) where the judgment was already satisfied, (e) when it was issued without authority, (f) when a change in the situation of the parties renders execution inequitable, and (g) when the controversy was never validly submitted to the court, The ground invoked by private respondent Filipinas Palmoil (Asian Plantation) to quash the writ of execution is patently improper as it actually sought to vary the final judgment of this Court. Despite this, Labor Arbiter Savari "partially granted" the motion to quash. Worst, Labor Arbiter Savari even went to the extent of making her own findings of fact and ruling on the merits, and came out with an entirely new disposition different from that decreed by this Court in the August 29, 2002 decision. Such action on the part of Labor Arbiter Savari betrays sheer ignorance of settled precepts, and amounts to a clear encroachment and interference on the final judgment of this Court.
Ordinarily, the recourse against such an order of the Labor Arbiter is to challenge the same on appeal or via the extraordinary remedies of certiorari, prohibition or mandamus. However, requiring petitioner to undergo such litigious process once again would not be in keeping with the protection to labor mandate of the Constitution. Thus, in order to write finis to this controversy, which has tarried for some time now, and in order to forestall the offshoot of another prolonged litigation, this Court, in the exercise of equity jurisdiction, hereby grants petitioner's motion for clarification. It is, of course, stressed that the Court is not amending its August 29, 2002 decision or rectifying a perceived error therein. With this clarification, this Court only states the obvious by explicitly articulating what should have been necessarily implied by the application of basic principles under our labor law. [14]
WHEREFORE, in view of the foregoing, in accordance with petitioner's supplications, this Court renders, nunc pro tunc, the following clarification to the decretal portion of this Court's August 29, 2002 decision.WHEREFORE, premises considered, the assailed Decision dated December 29, 1999 as well as the Resolution dated April 28, 2000 in NLRC NCR CASE NO. 0005-03748-97 (NLRC NCR CA NO. 016505-98) are hereby REVERSED and SET ASIDE.
Private respondent Filipinas Palmoil Processing Inc. (Asian Plantation Phils., Inc.) is hereby ordered to REINSTATE petitioner Joey Dejapa without loss of seniority rights and to pay him his backwages including his salary differentials, overtime pay, 13th month pay, service incentive leave pay and other benefits from the time his salary was withheld or from December 1, 1997 until actual reinstatement. If reinstatement is no longer feasible, private respondent Filipinas Palmoil Processing, Inc. (Asian Plantation Phils., Inc.) is likewise ordered to pay separation pay in addition to the payment of backwages and other benefits equivalent to one (1) month pay for every year of service, where a fraction of six (6) months shall be considered as one whole year.
Private respondent Filipinas Palmoil Processing Inc. (Asian Plantation Phils., Inc.) is likewise ordered to pay petitioner P10,000.00 as moral damages, P10,000.00 as exemplary damages, and attorney's fees in the amount equivalent to 10% of the total monetary award.
Private respondent Tom Madula is hereby relieved from any liability under the judgment.
Labor Arbiter Lilia S. Savari is hereby directed to implement the final judgment of this Court strictly in accordance with the foregoing, and to order the UCPB to release the garnished amount of P736,910.10 to the NLRC Sheriff for further disposition.[15]
THE HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS DECIDED A QUESTION OF SUBSTANCE CONTRARY TO LAW AND SETTLED RULINGS OF THE SUPREME COURT WHEN IT ORDERED THE COMPANY TO REINSTATE THE RESPONDENT AND PAY HIM BACKWAGES, SALARY DIFFERENTIALS, OVERTIME PAY, 13TH MONTH PAY, SERVICE INCENTIVE LEAVE PAY AND OTHER BENEFITS, AND IF REINSTATEMENT IS NOT POSSIBLE, TO PAY RESPONDENT SEPARATION PAY IN ADDITION TO BACKWAGES AND OTHER BENEFITS, PLUS DAMAGES AND ATTORNEY'S FEES CONSIDERING THAT:A. RESPONDENT WAS NEVER DISMISSED AND WAS NEVER UNDER THE EMPLOY OF THE COMPANY, [AND]
B. QUASHAL OF THE WRIT OF EXECUTION IS PROPER UNDER THE FACTS AND CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE.[16]
The object of a judgment nunc pro tunc is not the rendering of a new judgment and the ascertainment and determination of new rights, but is one placing in proper form on the record, the judgment that had been previously rendered, to make it speak the truth, so as to make it show what the judicial action really was, not to correct judicial errors, such as to render a judgment which the court ought to have rendered, in place of the one it did erroneously render, nor to supply nonaction by the court, however erroneous the judgment may have been.[19]
It is basic that once a decision becomes final and executory, it is immutable and unalterable. Private respondents' (herein petitioners) motion for reconsideration seeks a modification or reversal of this Court's August 29, 2002 decision, which has long become final and executory, as in fact, it is already in its execution stage. It may no longer be modified by this Court or even by the Highest Court of the land.
It should be sufficiently clear to private respondents (herein petitioners) that the December 10, 2004 Resolution was issued merely to clarify a seeming ambiguity in the decision but as stressed therein, it is neither an amendment nor a rectification of a perceived error therein. The instant motion for reconsideration has, therefore, no merit at all.[20]
No other procedural law principle is indeed more settled than that once a judgment becomes final, it is no longer subject to change, revision, amendment or reversal, except only for correction of clerical errors, or the making of nunc pro tunc entries which cause no prejudice to any party, or where the judgment itself is void. The underlying reason for the rule is two-fold: (1) to avoid delay in the administration of justice and thus make orderly the discharge of judicial business, and (2) to put judicial controversies to an end, at the risk of occasional errors, inasmuch as controversies cannot be allowed to drag on indefinitely and the rights and obligations of every litigant must not hang in suspense for an indefinite period of time. As the Court declared in Yau v. Silverio,Litigation must end and terminate sometime and somewhere, and it is essential to an effective and efficient administration of justice that, once a judgment has become final, the winning party be, not through a mere subterfuge, deprived of the fruits of the verdict. Courts must therefore guard against any scheme calculated to bring about that result. Constituted as they are to put an end to controversies, courts should frown upon any attempt to prolong them.
Indeed, just as a losing party has the right to file an appeal within the prescribed period, the winning party also has the correlative right to enjoy the finality of the resolution of his case by the execution and satisfaction of the judgment. Any attempt to thwart this rigid rule and deny the prevailing litigant his right to savor the fruit of his victory must immediately be struck down. Thus, in Heirs of Wenceslao Samper v. Reciproco-Noble, we had occasion to emphasize the significance of this rule, to wit:It is an important fundamental principle in our Judicial system that every litigation must come to an end x x x Access to the courts is guaranteed. But there must be a limit thereto. Once a litigant's rights have been adjudicated in a valid final judgment of a competent court, he should not be granted an unbridled license to come back for another try. The prevailing party should not be harassed by subsequent suits. For, if endless litigations were to be encouraged, then unscrupulous litigants will multiply in number to the detriment of the administration of justice.[22]