G.R. No. 173820; April 16, 2012
PRODUCERS BANK OF THE PHILIPPINES, Petitioner, vs. EXCELSA INDUSTRIES, INC., Respondent.

FACTS

Respondent Excelsa Industries, Inc. obtained loans from petitioner Producers Bank, secured by a real estate mortgage. After a foreign buyer refused to pay export documents negotiated with the bank, petitioner foreclosed the mortgage, purchased the property at auction, and consolidated title. Respondent filed an action for annulment of foreclosure (Civil Case No. 1587-A). Subsequently, petitioner filed a petition for a writ of possession (LR Case No. 90-787). The Regional Trial Court (RTC) consolidated the two cases and later rendered a single decision upholding the foreclosure’s validity and ordering the issuance of the writ.
Aggrieved, respondent pursued two separate appellate remedies. For the annulment case (Civil Case No. 1587-A), it filed an ordinary appeal to the Court of Appeals (CA), docketed as CA-G.R. CV No. 59931. For the writ of possession case (LR Case No. 90-787), it filed a petition for certiorari under Rule 65, docketed as CA-G.R. SP No. 46514. The CA’s First Division, in the ordinary appeal, reversed the RTC and declared the foreclosure invalid. This decision was eventually affirmed by the Supreme Court in G.R. No. 152071. Meanwhile, the CA’s Tenth Division, in the certiorari petition, also reversed the RTC, prompting petitioner’s appeal to the Supreme Court in the instant case.

ISSUE

Whether the Court of Appeals erred in taking cognizance of and granting respondent’s petition for certiorari (Rule 65) assailing the RTC’s joint decision in the consolidated cases.

RULING

The Supreme Court granted the petition and reversed the CA. The Court held that respondent committed a procedural error by filing a petition for certiorari under Rule 65 for LR Case No. 90-787 after the RTC had consolidated it with Civil Case No. 1587-A and decided them jointly. Once cases are consolidated, they lose their separate identities and merge into a single proceeding, resulting in one judgment. A party cannot split its appeal by assailing the consolidated decision through different modes of review for each former case. The proper remedy from a final order or decision in a consolidated case is an ordinary appeal, not certiorari, especially where no jurisdictional defect or grave abuse of discretion by the RTC was alleged. Respondent’s act of filing a Rule 65 petition, despite the availability of an ordinary appeal, constituted forum shopping. The CA should have dismissed the certiorari petition outright. The merits of the foreclosure had already been conclusively settled in G.R. No. 152071, which declared the foreclosure invalid.