G.R. NO. 166933 - DEVELOPMENT BANK OF THE PHILIPPINES, VS. COMMISSION ON AUDIT.D E C I S I O N - Supreme Court E-Library

Ruling

WHEREFORE, all premises considered, this Commission affirms the subject disallowance contained in CSB No. PSMD 98-01(97) dated April 23, 1998, but modifying the amount from P5,525,000.00 to P5,000,000.00 for want of prior Presidential approval contrary to Letter of Implementation No. 29 and LOI No. 667. Accordingly, the herein request is hereby DENIED. The petitioner received a copy of the decision on August 8, 2001, and on August 16, 2001, it filed its Motion for Reconsideration [5] dated August 15, 2001. The Motion for Reconsideration was denied in a Resolution [6] of the COA, dated February 27, 2003. It was received on March 12, 2003, through a certain Lolet Toledo. Upon verification, the petitioner learned that the said Lolet Toledo is a personnel of its Resident Corporate Auditor and that no copy of the resolution was served upon any of its departments. Alleging that it came to know of the resolution of its motion by the respondent only on February 8, 2005, petitioner filed on February 21, 2005 before this Court its Petition for Certiorari [7] pursuant to the Revised Rules of Court. We shall first determine whether the petition was filed on time. Section 9 of Rule 13 of the Rules of Court provides: SECTION 9. Service of judgments, final orders or resolutions. Judgments, final orders or resolutions shall be served either personally or by registered mail. When a party summoned by publication has failed to appear in the action, judgments, final orders or resolutions against him shall be served upon him also by publication at the expense of the prevailing party. While Section 6 of Rule 13 of the Rules of Court provides: SECTION 6. Personal service Service of the papers may be made by delivering personally a copy to the party or his counsel, or by leaving it in his office with his clerk or with a person having charge thereof. If no person is found in his office, or his office is not known, or he has no office, then by leaving the copy, between the hours of eight in the morning and six in the evening, at the party's or counsel's residence, if known, with a person of sufficient age and discretion then residing therein. Judgments, final orders and resolutions are appealable. It is necessary that they be served personally or, if not possible, by registered mail accompanied by a written explanation why the service was not done personally, [8] in order that the period for taking an appeal may be computed. As a rule, personal service of judgments is done by delivering them personally to the party or his counsel, or when they are left in his office, with his clerk or with a person having charge thereof. In case this is not possible, the copy of the judgment may be left at the party's or his counsel's residence with a person of sufficient age or discretion residing therein. In the case at bar, service of the COA resolution was made to a certain Lolet Toledo on March 12, 2003. Toledo was the resident corporate auditor of the petitioner. Respondent COA