G.R. No. 149227 - LA SALETTE COLLEGE, REPRESENTED BY ITS PRESIDENT, FR. ROMEO GONZALES, MS; AND JESUS T. BAYAUA, DEAN OF STUDENT SERVICES, VS. VICTOR C. PILOTIN.DECISION - Supreme Court E-Library

Ruling

Accordingly, in order to perfect an appeal from a decision rendered by the RTC in the exercise of its original jurisdiction, the following requirements must be complied with. First, within 15 days, a notice of appeal must be filed with the court that rendered the judgment or final order sought to be appealed; second, such notice must be served on the adverse party; and third, within the same 15-day period, the full amount of appellate court docket and other legal fees must be paid to the clerk of the court that rendered the judgment or final order. It should be noted that full payment of the appellate docket fees within the prescribed period is mandatory, [19] even jurisdictional, [20] for the perfection of the appeal. Otherwise, the appellate court would not be able to act on the subject matter of the action, [21] and the decision or final order sought to be appealed from would become final and executory. [22] In the present case, petitioners insist that they seasonably paid the docket fees. After resolving thrice the timeliness of the payment of the docket fees, the CA finally found that these had been paid one (1) year and 11 days from the filing of their notice of appeal. To recapitulate, on November 26, 1998, petitioners received the November 17, 1998 RTC Decision. Consequently, they had 15 days to file their Notice of Appeal. They did so on November 26, 1998, but failed to pay the docket fees. A review of the records shows that they paid these only on July 8, 1999, [23] or after almost seven (7) months from the mandated last day for payment, which was December 11, 1998. Clearly, the November 17, 1998 RTC Decision, which petitioners sought to appeal, had long become final and executory. Relaxation of the Rule on Nonpayment of Docket Fees Notwithstanding the mandatory nature of the requirement of payment of appellate docket fees, we also recognize that its strict application is qualified by the following: first , failure to pay those fees within the reglementary period allows only discretionary, not automatic, dismissal; second , such power should be used by the court in conjunction with its exercise of sound discretion in accordance with the tenets of justice and fair play, as well as with a great deal of circumspection in consideration of all attendant circumstances. [24] In Mactan Cebu International Airport Authority v. Mangubat, [25] the payment of the docket fees was delayed by six (6) days, but the late payment was accepted, because the party showed willingness to abide by the Rules by immediately paying those fees. Yambao v. Court of Appeals [26] saw us again relaxing the Rules when we declared therein that "the appellate court may extend the time for the payment of the docket fees if appellant is able to show that there is a justifiable reason for x x x the failure to pay the correct amount of docket fees within the prescribed period, like fraud, accident, mistake, excusable negligence, or a similar supervening casualty, without fault