485 Phil. 675
PUNO, J.:
Singaporean-owned Nippon Paint controls 65 percent of the architectural and car paint market nationwide.On 2 April 2002, NPPI issued a memorandum to Mr. Guansing, ordering him to explain why he should not be penalized for violation of company rules and regulations, which state:
Thus, the workers said, there was no reason for the company to claim in ongoing collective bargaining talks that the company was losing money.
“How is that possible when we supply 32 million liters of the 50 million liters of car paint used nationwide? We cover 65 percent of the total market demand,” said Adonis Guansing, a chemist and auditor of the Nippon Paint Labor Union.
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Guansing said that Nippon Paint could well afford to increase wages because the company made P600 million last year based on its declaration filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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“We had no problem like this when the Japanese controlled Nippon Paint. It was only in 1997 that the union began facing serious problems when the Singaporeans took over majority ownership of the company,” Guansing said.
Management claimed the company lost P297 million and there is an unsold inventory of paint worth P202 million.
“That’s the sad part. The management places on us the blame for their incompetence. The P297 million represents the company’s collectibles while the P202 million was the paint the management has stored in various warehouses in case our union goes on strike,” Guansing said.[4]
(3) Exclusive appellate jurisdiction over all final judgments, decisions, resolutions, orders or awards of Regional Trial Courts and quasi-judicial agencies, instrumentalities, boards or commissions, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Employees’ Compensation Commission and the Civil Service Commission, except those falling within the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in accordance with the Constitution, the Labor Code of the Philippines under Presidential Decree No. 442, as amended, the provisions of this Act, and of subparagraph (1) of the third paragraph and subparagraph (4) of the fourth paragraph of Section 17 of the Judiciary Act of 1948.[10]As such, the decisions of a voluntary arbitrator fall within the exclusive appellate jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals. Indeed, this Court took this decision into consideration in approving the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure, the pertinent provision of which states as follows:
SECTION 1. Scope. — This Rule shall apply to appeals from judgments or final orders of the Court of Tax Appeals and from awards, judgments, final orders or resolutions of or authorized by any quasi-judicial agency in the exercise of its quasi-judicial functions. Among these agencies are the Civil Service Commission, Central Board of Assessment Appeals, Securities and Exchange Commission, Office of the President, Land Registration Authority, Social Security Commission, Civil Aeronautics Board, Bureau of Patents, Trademarks and Technology Transfer, National Electrification Administration, Energy Regulatory Board, National Telecommunications Commission, Department of Agrarian Reform under Republic Act No. 6657, Government Service Insurance System, Employees Compensation Commission, Agricultural Inventions Board, Insurance Commission, Philippine Atomic Energy Commission, Board of Investments, Construction Industry Arbitration Commission, and voluntary arbitrators authorized by law.[11]It is elementary in remedial law that the use of an erroneous mode of appeal is cause for dismissal of the petition for certiorari[12] and it has been repeatedly stressed that a petition for certiorari is not a substitute for a lost appeal.[13] This is due to the nature of a Rule 65 petition for certiorari which lies only where there is “no appeal,” and “no plain, speedy and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law.”[14] As previously ruled by this Court:
x x x We have time and again reminded members of the bench and bar that a special civil action for certiorari under Rule 65 lies only when "there is no appeal nor plain, speedy and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law." Certiorari can not be allowed when a party to a case fails to appeal a judgment despite the availability of that remedy, certiorari not being a substitute for lost appeal. The remedies of appeal and certiorari are mutually exclusive and not alternative or successive.[15]The fact that the NPEU used the Rule 65 modality as a substitute for a lost appeal is made plainly manifest by: a) its filing the said petition 45 days after the expiration of the 15-day reglementary period for filing a Rule 43 appeal;[16] and b) its petition which makes specious allegations of “grave abuse of discretion” but asserts the failure of the voluntary arbitrator to properly appreciate facts and conclusions of law.[17]