G.R. Nos. 66059-60 December 4, 1989
Filipinas Investment and Finance Corporation, petitioner, vs. Intermediate Appellate Court and Felimon Cuevas, respondents.

FACTS

Private respondent Felimon Cuevas purchased vehicles on installment from Ace Consolidated, Inc., executing promissory notes and chattel mortgages as security. These credit instruments were assigned to petitioner Filipinas Investment and Finance Corporation. Upon Cuevas’s default, the petitioner initiated foreclosure proceedings. Cuevas filed a suit (Civil Case No. 61514) to enjoin the foreclosure, while the petitioner filed a separate collection case (Civil Case No. 61651) for another vehicle. The cases were consolidated. The trial court ruled in favor of the petitioner, ordering Cuevas to return two specific Datsun cars for foreclosure or pay their monetary value. This 1966 judgment became final and executory in 1969.
A writ of execution was issued in 1969. In 1970, Cuevas delivered the two Datsun cars to the sheriff. However, the petitioner, alleging the cars were in a “dilapidated condition,” refused to accept them and did not proceed with the foreclosure sale. Instead, over a decade later in 1981, the petitioner filed two new complaints against Cuevas seeking to collect the very same unpaid balances secured by the chattel mortgages on those two Datsun cars, claiming the old judgment remained unsatisfied.

ISSUE

Whether the petitioner’s filing of new collection suits in 1981, based on the same cause of action adjudicated in the 1966 final judgment, is permissible.

RULING

No. The Supreme Court affirmed the appellate court’s dismissal of the new suits, ruling they were barred by res judicata. The 1966 judgment constituted a final adjudication on the merits of the petitioner’s right to recover the vehicles or their value upon default. The petitioner’s proper recourse after the 1970 execution was to enforce that final judgment through a supplemental proceeding or a revival of judgment, not to initiate a completely new action re-litigating the same claim. A final judgment can no longer be enforced by ordinary execution after five years from its entry. Beyond that period, the remedy is an action for revival of judgment, which is not a re-examination of the original issues but a new suit to revive the old decree. The petitioner’s 1981 complaints were not actions for revival but were attempts to re-litigate the already settled obligation, which is precisely prohibited. The fact that the cars were allegedly in poor condition when tendered did not nullify the final judgment or open the original cause of action for re-adjudication; any issue regarding the execution or satisfaction of that judgment should have been raised in execution proceedings ancillary to the original case.