By Perfecto T. Raymundo
MANILA, (PNA) — The Court of Appeals (CA) has dismissed a petition filed by officers of Parents Enabling Parents Coalition Party in connection with a complaint for damages filed against them before a Makati City Regional Trial Court.
In a Sept. 6, 2013 ruling penned by Associate Justice Agnes Reyes-Carpio, the CA’s Special Eight Division denied the petition for certiorari filed by Philip Piccio, et al. questioning several orders of the Makati City RTC.
The complaint for damages for malicious prosecution was instituted by private respondents alleging that defendants Piccio, others, and PEP officers Virginia Lasiste, Christina Salvador, John Joseph Gutierrez and Ricardo Loyares conspired and confederated with one another in instituting at least six criminal complaints for syndicated estafa in different courts, which they supposedly did maliciously and without probable cause.
After mediation failed, the counsel for private respondents orally moved to declare Lasiste and Salvador in default due to their non-appearance and failure to properly authorize their counsel to represent them at that stage of the proceedings but was denied by the RTC.
The RTC partially granted the motion for reconsideration in November 2011.
This prompted the petitioners to question the same before the CA.
They claimed that the RTC committed grave abuse of discretion when it declared defendants Lasiste and Salvador as in default and allowed private respondents to present evidence ex-parte against them despite the commonality of the claims and the defenses interposed by all the defendants.
In the CA ruling, it said Lasiste and Salvador were able to answer within the period, adding that “the trial court correctly applied Rule 18 over Rule 9 of the Rules of Court.”
“In any event, the decision of the trial court will not solely and exclusively rest on the evidence presented ex-parte. The court will not take the evidence hook, line and sinker but rather evaluate the same in relation to the other pieces of evidence presented against the other defendants,” the CA said.
Concurring in the ruling were Associate Justices Rosalinda Asuncion-Vicente and Eduardo Peralta, Jr.