Ching Vs CA (PFR Case Digest)

CHING vs CA
[G.R. No. 124642. February 23, 2004]
FACTS:
On September 26, 1978, the Philippine Blooming Mills Company, Inc. (PBMCI) obtained a loan
of P9,000,000.00 from the Allied Banking Corporation (ABC). By virtue of this loan, the PBMCI,
through its Executive Vice-President Alfredo Ching, executed a promissory note for the said
amount promising to pay on December 22, 1978 at an interest rate of 14% per annum. As
added security for the said loan, on September 28, 1978, Alfredo Ching, together with Emilio
Tañedo and Chung Kiat Hua, executed a continuing guaranty with the ABC binding themselves
to jointly and severally guarantee the payment of all the PBMCI obligations owing the ABC to
the extent of P38,000,000.00. The loan was subsequently renewed on various dates, the last
renewal having been made on December 4, 1980.
Earlier, on December 28, 1979, the ABC extended another loan to the PBMCI in the amount of
P13,000,000.00 payable in eighteen months at 16% interest per annum. As in the previous loan,
the PBMCI, through Alfredo Ching, executed a promissory note to evidence the loan maturing
on June 29, 1981. This was renewed once for a period of one month.
The PBMCI defaulted in the payment of all its loans. Hence, on August 21, 1981, the ABC filed
a complaint for sum of money with prayer for a writ of preliminary attachment against the PBMCI
to collect the P12,612,972.88 exclusive of interests, penalties and other bank charges.
Impleaded as co-defendants in the complaint were Alfredo Ching, Emilio Tañedo and Chung
Kiat Hua in their capacity as sureties of the PBMCI.
ISSUE:
(a) Whether or not the petitioner-wife has the right to file the motion to quash the levy on
attachment on the 100,000 shares of stocks in the Citycorp Investment Philippines
(b) Whether or not the RTC committed a grave abuse of its discretion amounting to excess or
lack of jurisdiction in issuing the assailed orders.
RULING:
(a). Yes. In this case, the petitioner-wife filed her motion to set aside the levy on attachment of
the 100,000 shares of stocks in the name of petitioner-husband claiming that the said shares of
stocks were conjugal in nature; hence, not liable for the account of her husband under his
continuing guaranty and suretyship agreement with the PBMCI. The petitioner-wife had the right
to file the motion for said relief.
(b). No. We find and so hold that the CA erred in setting aside and reversing the orders of the
RTC. The private respondent, the petitioner in the CA, was burdened to prove that the RTC
committed a grave abuse of its discretion amounting to excess or lack of jurisdiction. The
tribunal acts without jurisdiction if it does not have the legal purpose to determine the case;
there is excess of jurisdiction where the tribunal, being clothed with the power to determine the
case, oversteps its authority as determined by law. There is grave abuse of discretion where the
tribunal acts in a capricious, whimsical, arbitrary or despotic manner in the exercise of its
judgment and is equivalent to lack of jurisdiction.
It was incumbent upon the private respondent to adduce a sufficiently strong demonstration that
the RTC acted whimsically in total disregard of evidence material to, and even decide of, the
controversy before certiorari will lie. A special civil action for certiorari is a remedy designed for
the correction of errors of jurisdiction and not errors of judgment. When a court exercises its
jurisdiction, an error committed while so engaged does not deprive it of its jurisdiction being
exercised when the error is committed.
After a comprehensive review of the records of the RTC and of the CA, we find and so hold that
the RTC did not commit any grave abuse of its discretion amounting to excess or lack of
jurisdiction in issuing the assailed orders.
In this case, the evidence adduced by the petitioners in the RTC is that the 100,000 shares of
stocks in the Citycorp Investment Philippines were issued to and registered in its corporate
books in the name of the petitioner-husband when the said corporation was incorporated on
May 14, 1979. This was done during the subsistence of the marriage of the petitioner-spouses.
The shares of stocks are, thus, presumed to be the conjugal partnership property of the
petitioners. The private respondent failed to adduce evidence that the petitioner-husband
acquired the stocks with his exclusive money. The barefaced fact that the shares of stocks were
registered in the corporate books of Citycorp Investment Philippines solely in the name of the
petitioner-husband does not constitute proof that the petitioner-husband, not the conjugal
partnership, owned the same. The private respondent’s reliance on the rulings of this Court in
Maramba v. Lozano and Associated Insurance & Surety Co., Inc. v. Banzon is misplaced. In the
Maramba case, we held that where there is no showing as to when the property was acquired,
the fact that the title is in the wife’s name alone is determinative of the ownership of the
property. The principle was reiterated in the Associated Insurance case where the
uncontroverted evidence showed that the shares of stocks were acquired during the marriage of
the petitioners.

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CHING vs CA

[G.R. No. 124642. February 23, 2004]

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