G.R. No. 97827 February 9, 1993
UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES, petitioner, vs. COURT OF APPEALS, HONORABLE RODOLFO A. ORTIZ, Presiding Judge, Regional Trial Court (Branch 89), National Capital Region, Quezon City, Metro Manila, MANUEL ELIZALDE, BALAYEM, MAHAYAG, DUL and LOBO, respondents.

FACTS

On August 15-17, 1986, an International Conference on the Tasaday Controversy was held. UP professors Jerome Bailen (conference chairman) and Zeus Salazar presented studies and a videotape disputing the authenticity of the Tasaday, a group presented as a primitive tribe discovered in 1971 by former PANAMIN Minister Manuel Elizalde, Jr., suggesting it was a fabrication. In July 1988, UP sent Salazar and Bailen to a congress in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, where they reiterated their claim that the Tasaday find was a hoax, which was widely publicized.
On October 27, 1988, Elizalde and Tasaday representatives Balayem, Mahayag, Dul, and Lobo filed a complaint for damages and declaratory relief against Salazar and Bailen before the Quezon City RTC. They alleged the defendants’ statements deprived them of peace of mind, defiled their dignity, defamed Elizalde, and beclouded their rights under Presidential Proclamation No. 995, which reserved a forest area. They prayed for moral damages equivalent to the defendants’ two-month salaries (P32,000 per cause of action), attorney’s fees, and a declaration that the Tasadays are a distinct ethnic community entitled to benefits under the proclamation.
UP filed a motion to intervene, asserting it authorized the professors’ activities and had a duty to protect them under academic freedom. The lower court required UP to submit an answer in intervention. Salazar and Bailen filed a motion to dismiss the complaint on grounds including failure to state a cause of action, prescription, free speech, academic freedom, and lack of jurisdiction for declaratory relief. The lower court denied the motion to dismiss on January 9, 1989, granted UP’s motion to intervene, admitted UP’s answer in intervention, but held no guardian ad litem was necessary for the Tasaday plaintiffs. Salazar and Bailen’s petition to the Supreme Court (G.R. No. 87248) challenging this denial was dismissed via a minute resolution on April 3, 1989, for failure to show grave abuse of discretion; their motion for reconsideration was denied.
UP filed a motion to dismiss the complaint, but it was stricken off the record. The plaintiffs moved to declare the defendants in default, which the court granted. UP’s motion for reconsideration of the order striking its motion to dismiss was denied, with the court ruling that as an intervenor, UP could only file a complaint or an answer in intervention, not a separate motion to dismiss. UP then filed a motion for a preliminary hearing on special defenses raised in its answer-in-intervention (lack of cause of action and lack of jurisdiction). The lower court denied this motion on May 15, 1989, stating the issues were already resolved by the denial of the defendants’ motion to dismiss, which was sustained by the Supreme Court’s dismissal of G.R. No. 87248.
UP filed a petition for certiorari with the Court of Appeals (CA-G.R. SP No. 18074), which was dismissed. UP then filed the present petition for review on certiorari with the Supreme Court.

ISSUE

Whether the lower court committed grave abuse of discretion in denying UP’s motion for a preliminary hearing on its affirmative defenses of lack of cause of action and lack of jurisdiction over the nature of the action.

RULING

The Supreme Court denied the petition and affirmed the lower court and Court of Appeals’ orders. The Court held that the lower court did not commit grave abuse of discretion. The grounds raised by UP in its motion for preliminary hearing (academic freedom as a defense and lack of jurisdiction over the declaratory relief aspect) were the same grounds previously raised by the defendants Salazar and Bailen in their motion to dismiss, which was denied by the lower court and which denial was sustained by the Supreme Court’s dismissal of G.R. No. 87248. The principle of res judicata applies to the extent that the issue of the sufficiency of the complaint’s cause of action against the defendants, vis-à-vis the defenses of free speech and academic freedom, had already been settled. The Court found no compelling reason to depart from its prior resolution. The Court also noted that the claim for declaratory relief was merely incidental to the main action for damages. The Court directed the lower court to proceed with the hearing of the case with dispatch, while observing caution.