Philippine Supreme Court Resolutions > Year 2011 > September 2011 Resolutions > [G.R. No. 193464 : September 14, 2011] CREDENCE MULTISALES CORPORATION, PETITIONER, VERSUS HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS, HONORABLE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION, AND ROBERTO T. SUNGA, RESPONDENTS. :

Please take notice that the Court, First Division, issued a Resolution dated 14 September 2011 which reads as follows:cralaw

"G.R. No. 193464 - CREDENCE MULTISALES CORPORATION, petitioner, versus HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS, HONORABLE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION, and ROBERTO T. SUNGA, respondents.

Petitioner seeks to annul in the present petition for certiorari the November 11, 2009 Resolution^[1] of the Court of Appeals (CA) in CA-G.R. SP No. 111047 which denied petitioner's motion for additional time to file petition for certiorari and dismissed the petition. Petitioner likewise assails the appellate court's July 7, 2010 Resolution^[2]  denying the motion for reconsideration.

Petitioner alleges that respondent Roberto T. Sunga filed a complaint for illegal dismissal. The Labor Arbiter dismissed Sunga's claim for illegal dismissal, but ordered petitioner to pay Sunga's commission of P148,373.61. The NLRC, on appeal, ruled that Sunga was illegally dismissed and ordered petitioner to pay him P305,873.61, as commission, back wages and separation pay. The NLRC subsequently denied petitioner's motion for reconsideration.^[3] 

Petitioner also alleges that three days before the expiration of the sixty (60)-day period to file a petition for certiorari, it filed a motion for additional time to file petition for certiorari with the CA. Within the extension sought, petitioner filed the petition, and the case was docketed as CA-G.R. SP No. 111047.^[4] 

As aforesaid, the CA denied the motion for additional time to file petition for certiorari and dismissed the petition. The CA held that under A.M. No. 07-7-12-SC, the sixty (60)-day period within which to file the intended petition is not extendible. The CA held, 

It needs to be stressed, however, that A.M. No. 07-7- 12-SC, Amendments to Rules 41, 45, 58 and 65 of the Rules of Court, which took effect on December 27, 2007, provides that the sixty (60)-day period within which to file the intended petition is not extendible. Section 4 of Rule 65, now reads as follows:

Sec. 4. When and where to file the petition. - The petition shall be filed not later than sixty (60) days from notice of the judgment, order or resolution. In case a motion for reconsideration or new trial is timely filed, whether such motion is required or not, the petition shall be filed not  later than sixty (60) days counted from the notice of the denial of the motion.

IN VIEW OF THE FOREGOING, petitioner['s] "Motion for Additional Time to File Petition for Certiorari" is hereby DENIED. Accordingly, the petition is DISMISSED. 

SO ORDERED.^[5]

In denying the motion for reconsideration, the CA ruled that A.M. No. 07-7-12-SC "no longer allows extension of time to file petitions for certiorari."^[6]

Hence, the instant petition.

Petitioner claims that the CA committed grave abuse of discretion when it denied the motion for additional time to file petition certiorari and dismissed the petition. Petitioner invokes our ruling in Domdom v. Third and Fifth Divisions of the Sandiganbayan^[7] that a motion for additional time to file a petition for certiorari is still allowed.

We required respondent Sunga to comment on the instant petition, but he chose to waive his right to file a comment.^[8]

Petitioner is partly correct.

Indeed, we have settled in Domdom the issue of whether a motion for extension of time to file a petition for certiorari is no longer allowed. There we ruled that motions for extension are still allowed subject to the court's sound discretion, to wit: 

That no mention is made in the above-quoted amended Section 4 of Rule 65 of a motion for extension, unlike in the previous formulation, does not make the filing of such pleading absolutely prohibited. If such were the intention, the deleted portion could just have simply been reworded to state that "no extension of time to file the petition shall be granted." Absent such a prohibition, motions for extension are allowed, subject to the Court's sound discretion. The present petition may thus be allowed, having been filed within the extension sought and, at all events, given its merits.

We cannot ignore, however, that when the CA issued the assailed Resolution on November 11, 2009, Domdom was not yet existing. Domdom was promulgated only on February 24, 2010. On this point, petitioner cannot fairly claim that the CA committed grave abuse of discretion when it denied the motion for additional time to file petition for certiorari.

Still, we find it proper to correct the CA's ruling in its Resolution dated July 7, 2010 that A.M. No. 07-7- 12-SC "no longer extension of time to file petitions for certiorari." Said ruling is consistent with our pronouncement in Domdom that "motions for extension are allowed, subject to the Court's sound discretion."

Needless to stress, grave abuse of discretion refers to palpable errors of jurisdiction; to violations of the Constitution, the law and jurisprudence; as well as to cases in which there has been a gross misapprehension of facts.^[10] For this reason, and considering the conflicting rulings of the Labor Arbiter and NLRC on the validity of Sunga's dismissal, we resolve to reinstate CA-G.R. SP No. 111047 in the CA docket for resolution on the merits. cralaw

WHEREFORE, we GRANT the instant petition, SET ASIDE the November 11, 2009 and July 7, 2010 Resolutions of the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. SP No. 111047, GRANT the "Motion for Additional Time to File Petition for Certiorari" which was denied by .the Court of Appeals, and REINSTATE in its docket CA-G.R. SP 111047.

No costs.

SO ORDERED."

Very truly yours,

(Sgd.) EDGAR O. ARICHETA
Division Clerk of Court

Endnotes:

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^[1] Rollo, pp. 45-46. Penned by Associate Justice Francisco P. Acosta, with the concurrence of Associate Justices Juan Q. Enriquez. Jr. and Pampio A. Abarintos.

^[2] Id. at 48-49. Penned by Associate Justice Francisco P. Acosta, with the concurrence of Associate Justices Juan Q. Enriquez, Jr. and Normandie B. Pizarro. 

^[3] Id. at 15-18. 

^[4] Id. at 18. 

^[5] Id. at 45-46. 

^[6] Id. at 49. 

^[7] G.R. Nos. 182382-83, February 24, 2010, 613 SCRA 528, 535. 

^[8] Rollo, p. 213. 

^[9] Supra note 7. 

^[10] See United Coconut Planters Bank v. Looyuko, G.R. No. 156337, September 28, 2007, 534 SCRA 322, 331.