G.R. No. 215925 - ESPERANZA P. GAOIRAN, VS. THE HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS, BRANCH 12 OF THE REGIONAL TRIAL COURT OF ILOCOS NORTE, SPS. TIMOTEO S. PABLO AND PERLITA PABLO, MARY NYRE DAWN S. ALCANTARA, AND REGISTER OF DEEDS OF LAOAG CITY.D E C I S I O N - Supreme Court E-Library

Ruling

Accordingly, in view of the foregoing premises, and consistent with the caveat in the first paragraph of Section 5, Rule 47 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure, the Petition for Annulment of Judgment is hereby DISMISSED . SO ORDERED . [19] Petitioner filed a motion for reconsideration but the same was denied by the CA in a Resolution [20] dated November 14, 2014. Hence, this petition for certiorari imputing grave abuse of discretion on the part of the CA. Issue The issue before the Court is whether or not the CA committed grave abuse of discretion in dismissing the petition for annulment of judgment. Petitioner insists that the existence of the owner's duplicate copy of TCT T-34540 in her possession renders the RTC of Laoag City devoid of any jurisdiction to entertain Mary's petition for issuance of a second owner's duplicate copy. Moreover, the petition for annulment of judgment she filed before the CA is not an attack upon TCT T-34540, the main purpose of which is the annulment of the August 28, 2012 Decision of the RTC of Laoag City granting the reconstitution of TCT T-34540, despite the fact that the first owner's duplicate copy thereof was never lost. Thus, the cancellation of the reconstituted title is only a necessary consequence of the annulment of the assailed August 28, 2012 Decision. Since the first owner's duplicate copy of TCT T-34540 is not in fact lost, the CA committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or in excess of jurisdiction in not annulling the August 28, 2012 RTC Decision on the ground of lack of jurisdiction. [21] For their part, respondents counter that the instant petition for certiorari should be dismissed for being an improper remedy because the proper recourse to assail the dismissal of the Rule 47 petition filed with the CA is through a petition for review on certiorari under Rule 45 of the Rules of Court, it being a continuation of the original action filed before the CA. Even if the Court treats the petition as one under Rule 45, it must still be dismissed for late filing and by reason of which, the assailed CA Decision and Resolution already attained finality. The instant case is devoid of highly exceptional circumstances as to warrant the invocation of liberal application of the rules. Finally, they aver that even assuming that a Rule 65 petition may be availed of, it must still fail since the CA committed no grave abuse of discretion in dismissing the petition for annulment of judgment filed therewith. Our Ruling The petition is meritorious. Prefatorily, petitioner availed of the wrong mode of appeal when she filed before the Court a petition for certiorari under Rule 65 to assail the August 15, 2014 Decision and November 14, 2014 Resolution of the CA. A petition for certiorari under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court is a special civil action that may be resorted to only in the absence of appeal or any plain, speedy and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law. [22] In Mandy Commodities, Inc. v. The