G.R. No. 171698; July 4, 2007
MARIA SHEILA ALMIRA T. VIESCA, Petitioner, vs. DAVID GILINSKY, Respondent.
FACTS
Petitioner Maria Sheila Viesca and respondent David Gilinsky, a Canadian citizen, are the biological parents of a son, Louis Maxwell, born in 2001. Respondent executed an Affidavit acknowledging paternity. Their relationship later soured. In 2004, respondent filed a petition for visitorial rights. During the pendency of the case, the parties entered into a Compromise Agreement, which was approved by the Regional Trial Court (RTC) and rendered as a Compromise Judgment on May 12, 2004. The agreement detailed custody (awarded to the mother), specific visitorial rights for the father, and comprehensive support obligations.
Subsequently, petitioner filed a Motion for Partial Reconsideration, seeking to amend the Compromise Judgment, which the RTC denied. Petitioner then filed a Reiterative Motion to Inhibit the presiding judge, which she later moved to withdraw. The RTC granted the withdrawal and subsequently issued an Order directing the execution of the Compromise Judgment. Petitioner challenged this Order via a Petition for Certiorari before the Court of Appeals (CA), arguing the Compromise Judgment was not yet final and executory due to her pending motion for reconsideration and that the judge should have inhibited himself.
ISSUE
The core issue is whether the Court of Appeals erred in affirming the RTC’s orders that declared the Compromise Judgment final and executory and directed its execution.
RULING
The Supreme Court denied the petition and affirmed the CA’s decision. The Court held that a judgment based on a compromise agreement is immediately final and executory upon its approval by the court. Such a judgment is not subject to appeal but may be challenged only on grounds of vitiation of consent, such as fraud, mistake, or duress, through a separate action to annul the compromise. Petitioner’s Motion for Partial Reconsideration, which sought to alter the terms of the voluntarily entered agreement, was a prohibited pleading that did not toll the finality of the judgment.
The Court further ruled that petitioner’s voluntary act of withdrawing her Motion to Inhibit constituted a waiver of any perceived ground for inhibition. Consequently, the RTC judge committed no grave abuse of discretion in proceeding to order the execution of the final and executory Compromise Judgment. The law favors the settlement of disputes, and the parties are bound by the terms of their agreement, which has the force of res judicata. Petitioner’s remedy, if she believed the compromise was vitiated, was a separate action for annulment, not a motion for reconsideration or a certiorari petition against the execution order.