G.R. No. 145431 ; November 11, 2003
Romeo Paloma, Petitioner, vs. The Honorable Court of Appeals, Eduardo Poblacion, Apolinaria Paloma Vda. De Villanueva, Renato Panizales, Jonathan Ticar, Vicente Paloma and The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), Respondents.

FACTS

Petitioner Romeo Paloma filed accion publiciana complaints to recover possession of a parcel of land, claiming ownership under TCT No. 61166 derived from a 1965 deed of sale executed by his mother, Mercedes Padernilla. Private respondents, who are in possession, defended by alleging that Padernilla’s signatures on the deed were forged. They moved for the trial court to refer the disputed deed to the NBI for handwriting examination, proposing to use Padernilla’s signatures from the records of a prior civil case (Civil Case No. 6618) as standard specimens.
The trial court granted the motion. Petitioner moved for reconsideration, arguing that the genuineness of the proposed specimen signatures must first be established before they could be used for comparison. Upon denial, he filed a certiorari petition with the Court of Appeals, alleging grave abuse of discretion by the trial judge. The appellate court dismissed the petition, ruling that the specimen signatures from the court records could properly be used for comparison.

ISSUE

Whether the Court of Appeals erred in affirming the trial court’s order for a handwriting examination using unauthenticated specimen signatures, and whether this issue has been rendered moot.

RULING

The Supreme Court denied the petition, ruling that the issue had become moot and academic. The legal controversy—whether the trial court gravely abused its discretion in ordering the examination without first establishing the genuineness of the specimen signatures—was overtaken by subsequent events. The trial court had already rendered a decision on the merits of the consolidated accion publiciana cases, declaring the 1965 deed of sale valid and authentic. This decision, however, was appealed by private respondents to the Court of Appeals.
The Court emphasized that a moot issue presents no justiciable controversy, rendering its resolution of no practical value. The propriety of the examination order was an interlocutory matter subsumed by the trial court’s final judgment on the very authenticity of the deed. The substantive question of the signature’s genuineness was properly elevated and pending in the separate appeal of the main case. Therefore, reviewing the procedural order on certiorari would serve no purpose. The petition was dismissed.