G.R. No.

114323 July 23, 1998

OIL AND NATURAL GAS COMMISSION, petitioner,
vs.
COURT OF APPEALS and PACIFIC CEMENT COMPANY, INC., respondents.
Facts:
The petitioner is a foreign corporation owned and controlled by the Government of
India while the private respondent is a private corporation duly organized and
existing under the laws of the Philippines. The present conflict between the
petitioner and the private respondent has its roots in a contract entered into by and
between both parties on February 26, 1983 whereby the private respondent
undertook to supply the petitioner FOUR THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED (4,300)
metric tons of oil well cement. In consideration therefor, the petitioner bound itself
to pay the private respondent the amount of FOUR HUNDRED SEVENTY-SEVEN
THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS ($477,300.00) by opening an
irrevocable, divisible, and confirmed letter of credit in favor of the latter. The oil well
cement was loaded on board the ship MV SURUTANA NAVA at the port of Surigao
City, Philippines for delivery at Bombay and Calcutta, India. However, due to a
dispute between the shipowner and the private respondent, the cargo was held up
in Bangkok and did not reach its point destination. Notwithstanding the fact that the
private respondent had already received payment and despite several demands
made by the petitioner, the private respondent failed to deliver the oil well
cement. The petitioner then informed the private respondent that it was referring its
claim to an arbitrator pursuant to Clause 16 (Arbitration Clause) of their contract
that the venue for arbitration shall be at Dehra dun.
On July 23, 1988, the chosen arbitrator, one Shri N.N. Malhotra, resolved the dispute
in petitioner's favour. To enable the petitioner to execute the above award in its
favor, it filed a Petition before the Court of the Civil Judge in Dehra Dun. India
(hereinafter referred to as the foreign court for brevity), praying that the decision of
the arbitrator be made "the Rule of Court" in India which was GRANTED.
The petitioner filed a complaint with Branch 30 of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of
Surigao City for the enforcement of the aforementioned judgment of the foreign
court. The private respondent moved to dismiss the complaint. RTC dismissed the
complaint for lack of a valid cause of action. The petitioner then appealed to the
respondent Court of Appeals which affirmed the dismissal of the complaint. In its
decision, the appellate court concurred with the RTC's ruling that the arbitrator did
not have jurisdiction over the dispute between the parties, thus, the foreign court
could not validly adopt the arbitrator's award. The petitioner filed this petition for
review on certiorari,
HELD:
As specified in the order of the Civil Judge of Dehra Dun, "Award Paper No. 3/B-1
shall be a part of the decree". This is a categorical declaration that the foreign court
adopted the findings of facts and law of the arbitrator as contained in the latter's
Award Paper. Award Paper No. 3/B-1, contains an exhaustive discussion of the
respective claims and defenses of the parties, and the arbitrator's evaluation of the
same. Inasmuch as the foregoing is deemed to have been incorporated into the
foreign court's judgment the appellate court was in error when it described the
latter to be a "simplistic decision containing literally, only the dispositive portion". 25
The constitutional mandate that no decision shall be rendered by any court without
expressing therein dearly and distinctly the facts and the law on which it is based
does not preclude the validity of "memorandum decisions" which adopt by
reference the findings of fact and conclusions of law contained in the decisions of
inferior tribunals.
Furthermore, the recognition to be accorded a foreign judgment is not necessarily
affected by the fact that the procedure in the courts of the country in which such
judgment was rendered differs from that of the courts of the country in which the
judgment is relied on. If the procedure in the foreign court mandates that an Order
of the Court becomes final and executory upon failure to pay the necessary docket
fees, then the courts in this jurisdiction cannot invalidate the order of the foreign
court simply because our rules provide otherwise.
WHEREFORE, the instant petition is GRANTED, and the assailed decision of the Court
of Appeals sustaining the trial court's dismissal of the OIL AND NATURAL GAS
COMMISSION's complaint before Branch 30 of the RTC of Surigao City is REVERSED,

PRISCILLA C. MIJARES, et. al. vs. HON. SANTIAGO JAVIER RANADA

Facts:
On 9 May 1991, a complaint was filed with the United States District Court (US
District Court), District of Hawaii, against the Estate of former Philippine President
Ferdinand E. Marcos (Marcos Estate). The action was brought forth by ten Filipino
citizens2 who each alleged having suffered human rights abuses such as arbitrary
detention, torture and rape in the hands of police or military forces during the
Marcos regime. These plaintiffs brought the action on their own behalf and on behalf
of a class of similarly situated individuals, particularly consisting of all current
civilian citizens of the Philippines, their heirs and beneficiaries, who between 1972
and 1987 were tortured, summarily executed or had disappeared while in the
custody of military or paramilitary groups. Plaintiffs alleged that the class consisted
of approximately ten thousand (10,000) members; hence, joinder of all these
persons was impracticable. Then, on 3 February 1995, the US District Court,
presided by Judge Manuel L. Real, rendered a Final Judgment (Final
Judgment) awarding the plaintiff class a total of One Billion Nine Hundred Sixty Four
Million Five Thousand Eight Hundred Fifty Nine Dollars and Ninety Cents
($1,964,005,859.90). The Final Judgment was eventually affirmed by the US Court of
Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in a decision rendered on 17 December 1996.
On 20 May 1997, the present petitioners filed Complaint with the Regional Trial
Court, City of Makati (Makati RTC) for the enforcement of the Final Judgment. On 9
September 1998, respondent Judge Santiago Javier Ranada 10 of the Makati RTC
issued the subject Order dismissing the complaint without prejudice. Respondent
judge opined that contrary to the petitioners' submission, the subject matter of the
complaint was indeed capable of pecuniary estimation, as it involved a judgment
rendered by a foreign court ordering the payment of definite sums of money,
allowing for easy determination of the value of the foreign judgment. On that score,
Section 7(a) of Rule 141 of the Rules of Civil Procedure would find application, and
the RTC estimated the proper amount of filing fees was approximately Four Hundred
Seventy Two Million Pesos, which obviously had not been paid.
Petitioners submit that their action is incapable of pecuniary estimation as the
subject matter of the suit is the enforcement of a foreign judgment, and not an
action for the collection of a sum of money or recovery of damages.
HELD:
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.
It is self-evident that while the subject matter of the action is undoubtedly the
enforcement of a foreign judgment, the effect of a providential award would be the
adjudication of a sum of money.
Thus, we are comfortable in asserting the obvious, that the complaint to enforce the
US District Court judgment is one capable of pecuniary estimation. But 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. What provision then governs the
proper computation of the filing fees over the instant complaint? 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."
As crafted, Rule 141 of the Rules of Civil Procedure avoids unreasonableness, as it
recognizes that the subject matter of an action for enforcement of a foreign
judgment is the foreign judgment itself, and not the right-duty correlatives that
resulted in the foreign judgment. In this particular circumstance, given that the
complaint is lodged against an estate and is based on the US District Court's Final
Judgment, this foreign judgment may, for purposes of classification under the
governing procedural rule, be deemed as subsumed under Section 7(b)(3) of Rule
141, i.e., within the class of "all other actions not involving property." Thus, only the
blanket filing fee of minimal amount is required.