G.R. No. 145363 . February 23, 2004.
MERCEDES B. GONZALES, petitioner, vs. John Doe (not his real name) and RICARDO P. NAGPACAN, respondents.

FACTS

Petitioner Mercedes B. Gonzales, a public school teacher, was administratively charged in 1993 for grave misconduct, dishonesty, and estafa. The complaint alleged she and others mortgaged a parcel of land without the owner’s consent. Respondent Ricardo Nagpacan, an Administrative Officer III, initially heard the case, which contravened Section 9 of Republic Act No. 4670 (The Magna Carta for Public School Teachers). This law mandates that such charges be heard initially by a committee including a teachers’ organization representative. Based on Nagpacan’s report, the DECS Secretary ultimately dismissed Gonzales from service in 1994. Separately, she was criminally charged for estafa based on the same facts, convicted by the trial court in 1995, but later acquitted by the Court of Appeals in 1997 for lack of proof beyond reasonable doubt.
Instead of seeking judicial relief to nullify the flawed administrative proceedings at the outset, Gonzales filed an administrative complaint against the officials, including Nagpacan, before the Office of the Ombudsman in 1999. The Ombudsman found Nagpacan and another official guilty of Simple Neglect of Duty and suspended them. Unsatisfied, Gonzales filed a petition for certiorari with the Court of Appeals, alleging the Ombudsman committed grave abuse of discretion by not finding the respondents guilty of a more serious offense. The CA dismissed her petition.

ISSUE

Whether the Court of Appeals erred in dismissing Gonzales’s petition for certiorari challenging the Ombudsman’s decision.

RULING

The Supreme Court denied the petition and affirmed the Court of Appeals. The legal logic is anchored on the principle of hierarchy of courts and the availability of adequate remedies. Gonzales failed to timely challenge the administrative proceedings against her through the proper judicial channels. She could have filed a petition for certiorari under Rule 65 to nullify the proceedings conducted in violation of the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers immediately after the adverse DECS decision. By not doing so, she forewent this adequate remedy. Consequently, her subsequent administrative complaint before the Ombudsman, filed years later, fell under the exceptions in the Ombudsman Act, which allows dismissal if the complainant had an adequate remedy elsewhere or if the complaint was filed over a year after the act. The Ombudsman’s act of still taking the case and imposing a penalty was an act of liberality, not an abuse of discretion. Gonzales’s recourse to a Rule 65 petition to question the penalty’s severity was improper, as certiorari lies only for jurisdictional errors, not errors of judgment. The Ombudsman’s finding of Simple Neglect of Duty was within its discretion.