G.R. No. 156613 ; February 18, 2008
Malayang Kapisanan ng mga Manggagawa sa Associated Anglo American Tobacco Corporation (MAKAMANGGA-GAWA), Jaime Bermudez, et al., petitioners, vs. Associated Anglo American Tobacco Corporation and/or Florente Dy, Alicia Lim and Alex Dy, respondents.

FACTS

Petitioners, a union and 44 of its members, filed a petition for certiorari before the Court of Appeals (CA) assailing the National Labor Relations Commission’s (NLRC) decision which affirmed the Labor Arbiter’s dismissal of their complaints. The Labor Arbiter dismissed the complaints on the ground of litis pendentia and/or forum shopping, noting that the same petitioners had previously challenged the Voluntary Arbitrator’s award (which declared the company’s closure legal) in a separate petition before the CA, which was eventually dismissed by the Supreme Court. The CA, however, dismissed the certiorari petition on a procedural ground, finding that only one petitioner executed the required Verification/Certification of Non-Forum Shopping without proof of authority to represent the others.

ISSUE

Whether the Court of Appeals gravely abused its discretion in dismissing the petition for certiorari based on a procedural defect in the Verification/Certification of Non-Forum Shopping.

RULING

No. The Supreme Court dismissed the petition, affirming the CA’s dismissal, but on a substantive jurisdictional ground rather than the procedural defect cited by the CA. The Court acknowledged that the rule on verification and certification may be relaxed under justifiable circumstances, such as when all petitioners share a common interest and cause of action, as in this case involving a common claim of illegal dismissal. However, the petition was fundamentally infirm because a special civil action for certiorari under Rule 65 is not the proper remedy. Rule 65 is available only when there is no appeal or any plain, speedy, and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law. Here, petitioners had the plain and adequate remedy of filing a petition for review on certiorari under Rule 45 from the NLRC decision to the Supreme Court. They failed to do so within the reglementary period, allowing the NLRC decision to become final. Their subsequent resort to a Rule 65 petition was merely a substitute for this lost appeal. The Court emphasized that certiorari cannot coexist with an appeal; they are mutually exclusive remedies. Furthermore, petitioners failed to substantively address the lower tribunals’ finding of forum shopping, which was the core reason for the dismissal of their labor complaints. Thus, the petition was dismissed for lack of merit.