Source: http://lawlibrary.chanrobles.com/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=50610:gr-132453-2008&amp;catid=1502&amp;Itemid=566
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 18:44:20+00:00

Document:
G.R. No. 132453 - NATIONAL ELECTRIFICATION ADMINISTRATION, ET AL. v. HON. FELICIANO V. BUENAVENTURA, ET AL.
NATIONAL ELECTRIFICATION ADMINISTRATION (NEA), represented by its Administrator, TEODORICO SANCHEZ, and NEA MANAGEMENT TEAM, represented by its Project Manager, DANILO CRUZ, Petitioners, v. HON. FELICIANO V. BUENAVENTURA as Judge of the RTC, Br. 27, Cabanatuan City, DOMINADOR SALUDARES and ANTONIO T. DATU, Respondents.
Petitioner National Electrification Administration (NEA) is a government-owned and controlled corporation exercising supervision and control over electric cooperatives pursuant to Presidential Decree No. 269, as amended.
From 1986 to 1988, the Nueva Ecija III Electric Cooperative, Inc. (NEECO III) experienced serious institutional problems due to its failure to pay its maturing bills from the National Power Corporation (NPC). To bail it out, NEA extended loans to NEECO III, to secure which it mortgaged its entire electric system or entire property to NEA.
NEECO III failed to pay its amortizations to NEA.
NEECO III thereupon availed of NEA's re-lending program to settle its obligations with the NPC. Under the NEA-NEECO III re-lending agreement, NEECO III's Board of Directors was converted into an advisory council, and NEA was to, as it did, designate, pursuant to Section 3 of Presidential Decree No. 1645,1 a project supervisor/acting general manager to take charge of NEECO III's operations and management. In turn, NEA shelled out P30,000,000 to pay the NPC and to rehabilitate NEECO III. NEECO III, however, still defaulted in the amortization of its loan to NEA,2 drawing the latter to, by Resolution No. 423 approved on June 25, 1992, foreclose the mortgage on NEECO III's assets. Approved too were the acts of the NEA Management including the payment of separation pay to the employees of NEECO III as a result of its dissolution.
Former employees of NEECO III, in separate groups, subsequently filed complaints against NEECO III and Alberto Guiang (Guiang), a NEECO III employee-Project Supervisor/Acting General Manager,4 for illegal dismissal, reinstatement, non-payment of salaries/backwages, 13th month pay, differentials, and bonuses.
NEECO III and Guiang filed with the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) an Appeal Memorandum with Application for Writ of Preliminary Injunction and Restraining Order,6 which the NLRC dismissed for failure to post a supersedeas bond.7 NEECO III and Guiang's motion for reconsideration was denied, prompting them to file before this Court a petition for certiorari 8 docketed as G.R. No. 110509.
. . . to collect the amount of P2,485,382.86 representing the complainants' award plus execution fees of P24,700.00 payable to the NLRC pursuant to the Sheriff's Manual on Execution of Judgment.
[In case of f]ailure to collect the said amount in cash, you are hereby directed to cause the full satisfaction of the same from the movable or immovable properties of the respondent [NEECO III] not exempt from execution in accordance with the provision[s] of the Labor Code of the Philippines and the New Rules of Court.
Further, you are directed to accompany complainants and have them reinstated to their former or co-equal positions either physically or at the payroll without loss of seniority rights or other privileges.
Also on November 26, 1997, the NEA filed before the NLRC a Motion to Quash Alias [Partial] Writ of Execution,31 which included in its prayer the quashal of the "Notice of Levy/Sale on execution of personal properties."32 The records of the case do not show how the NLRC disposed of the said motion.
Josephine Manuel et al. later filed before the trial court a Motion for Intervention36 and an Urgent Motion to Dismiss,37 essentially echoing the stand of Saludares and Datu.
Instead of a separate action and in order to avoid a multiplicity of suits, the plaintiffs could have sought the effective quashal of the Writ of Execution and subsequently the "Notice of Sale" from the Supreme Court in G.R. No. 110509, when - as contended by the plaintiff - the same was being enforced against the wrong parties x x x.
. . . [T]he Court is powerless to restrain the Honorable Dominador Saludares, Labor Arbiter, whose Decision, which was admitted by plaintiff, has become final and executory by virtue of the July 25, 1994 resolution of the Supreme Court x x x.
The petition must be dismissed outright on the ground of lack of jurisdiction.
Ostensibly the complaint before the trial court was for the recovery of possession and injunction, but in essence it was an action challenging the legality or propriety of the levy vis - Ã -vis the alias writ of execution, including the acts performed by the Labor Arbiter and the Deputy Sheriff implementing the writ. The complaint was in effect a motion to quash the writ of execution of a decision rendered on a case properly within the jurisdiction of the Labor Arbiter, to wit: Illegal Dismissal and Unfair Labor Practice. Considering the factual setting, it is then logical to conclude that the subject matter of the third party claim is but an incident of the labor case, a matter beyond the jurisdiction of the regional trial courts.
Precedents abound confirming the rule that said courts have no jurisdiction to act on labor cases or various incidents arising therefrom, including the execution of decisions, awards, or orders. Jurisdiction to try and adjudicate such cases pertains exclusively to the proper labor official concerned under the Department of Labor and Employment. To hold otherwise is to sanction split jurisdiction which is obnoxious to the orderly administration of justice.
At all events, as priorly stated, NEA filed before the NLRC a Motion to Quash Alias [Partial] Writ of Execution on the same date that it filed the complaint that gave rise to the present case before the trial court45 assailing the same writ. It thus committed forum-shopping.
The remedies NEA sought before the NLRC in the Motion to Quash Alias Partial Writ of Execution are substantially the same as those sought before the RTC. The issues which NEA raised before the NLRC and those sought in the RTC are likewise the same.50 The parties in both cases are the same, given the intervention in the case before the RTC by Josephine Manuel et al.
NEA's argument that the NLRC acquired no jurisdiction over it51 does not persuade. Applying the above-cited Deltaventures Resources, Inc. v. Hon. Cabato ruling, NEA submitted itself to the jurisdiction of the NLRC when it filed its Third Party Claim and Motion to Quash Alias Partial Writ of Execution.
"(6) To authorize the NEA Administrator to designate, subject to the confirmation of the Board Administrators, an Acting General Manager and/or Project Supervisor for a Cooperative where vacancies in the said positions occur and/or when the interest of the Cooperative and the program so requires, and to prescribe the functions of said Acting General Manager and/or Project Supervisor, which powers shall not be nullified, altered or diminished by any policy or resolution of the Board of Directors of the Cooperative concerned."
2 Vide rollo, p. 311.
19 Records, pp. 80-109; id. at 45.
30 Id. at 2-3, 14.
43 384 Phil. 252 (2000).
46 Ligon v. Court of Appeals, 355 Phil. 503, 519 (1998). Citation omitted.
48 Vide Mondragon Leisure and Resorts Corporation v. United Coconut Planter's Bank, G.R. No. 154187, April 14, 2004, 427 SCRA 585, 590.
50 Vide records at 30-37; rollo, pp. 27-43.

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