Digest by Angelika V. Ortega
FACTS: Petitioners were prominent victims of human rights violations during the Marcos regime who were awarded, in a Final Judgment, damages in a US District Court. They filed a complaint with the Regional Trial Court of Makati for the enforcement of the said Judgment. They contended that since the Marcos Estate did not file any petition with the US Supreme Court after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the Final Judgment, the US decision had become final and executory, hence cognizable in the Philippines, pursuant to the Rules of Court.
Marcos Estate then filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the petitioners incorrectly paid the filing fees. Petitioners countered that an action for enforcement of foreign judgment is not capable of pecuniary estimation, thus their payment was enough.
The Makati trial court dismissed the complaint without prejudice, stating that the proper amount of filing fees was not paid.
ISSUE: Whether or not the Makati trial court erred in its decision.
RULING: Yes.
Although the complaint to enforce US Decision is one capable of pecuniary estimation, at the same time, it is also an action based on judgment against an estate, thus placing it beyond the ambit of Section 7(a) of Rule 141. For this case and other similarly situated instances, we find that it is covered by Section 7(b)(3), involving as it does, “other actions not involving property.”
Notably, the amount paid as docket fees by the petitioners on the premise that it was an action incapable of pecuniary estimation corresponds to the same amount required for “other actions not involving property.” The petitioners thus paid the correct amount of filing fees, and it was a grave abuse of discretion for respondent judge to have applied instead a clearly inapplicable rule and dismissed the complaint.
Moreover, the Makati trial court erred in interpreting that the action for enforcement of a foreign judgment is a new case.
There is an evident distinction between a foreign judgment in an action in rem and one in personam. For an action in rem, the foreign judgment is deemed conclusive upon the title to the thing, while in an action in personam, the foreign judgment is presumptive, and not conclusive, of a right as between the parties and their successors in interest by a subsequent title. However, in both cases, the foreign judgment is susceptible to impeachment in our local courts on the grounds of want of jurisdiction or notice to the party, collusion, fraud, or clear mistake of law or fact. Thus, the party aggrieved by the foreign judgment is entitled to defend against the enforcement of such decision in the local forum. It is essential that there should be an opportunity to challenge the foreign judgment, in order for the court in this jurisdiction to properly determine its efficacy.
It is clear then that it is usually necessary for an action to be filed in order to enforce a foreign judgment, even if such judgment has conclusive effect as in the case of in rem actions, if only for the purpose of allowing the losing party an opportunity to challenge the foreign judgment, and in order for the court to properly determine its efficacy. Consequently, the party attacking a foreign judgment has the burden of overcoming the presumption of its validity.
Our martial law experience bore strange unwanted fruits, and we have yet to finish weeding out its bitter crop. While the restoration of freedom and the fundamental structures and processes of democracy have been much lauded, according to a significant number, the changes, however, have not sufficiently healed the colossal damage wrought under the oppressive conditions of the martial law period. The cries of justice for the tortured, the murdered, and the desaparecidos arouse outrage and sympathy in the hearts of the fair-minded, yet the dispensation of the appropriate relief due them cannot be extended through the same caprice or whim that characterized the ill-wind of martial rule. The damage done was not merely personal but institutional, and the proper rebuke to the iniquitous past has to involve the award of reparations due within the confines of the restored rule of law.
THE BARRISTER 