Newsweek, Inc. vs. IAC, National Federation of Sugarcane Planters, et al.

(respondents)
GR No. L-63559; 30 May 1986

Facts:
- Respondents (incorporated associations of sugarcane planters in Negros Occidental) filed a case
(class suit representing 8,500 sugarcane planters) against Newsweek (foreign corp licensed to do
business in Phil) and 2 of Newsweeks non-resident reporters.
- The complaint alleged that petitioner and reporters committed libel by the publication of An
Island of Fear which portrayed Negros Occidental as a place dominated by big landowners who
exploited, brutalized, and killed the sugarcane workers.
- Petitioner filed MtD for failure to state a cause of action.
- CFI denied MtD and found that complaint states a cause of action. MfR denied.
- Newsweek filed petition for certiorari w/ IAC for having issued the order w/ grave abuse of
discretion as amounting to lack of jurisdiction praying dismissal of complaint for failure to state
a cause of action.
- CA affirmed CFI and ordered case to be tried on the merits on grounds that complaint contains
allegations of fact and appeal is proper not certiorari under rule 65. MfR denied.

Issue & Ruling: Whether petition for certiorari under Rule 65 is proper. NO.
Procedural
SC held that the proper remedy is appeal by certiorari under Rule 45 but even if Newsweek
filed a petition for cerutirari under Rule 65 SC treated it as a petitioner for review on certiorari
because it was filed on time, w/in 15 days from notice of the resolution denying the MfR.
Libel
The case is not a class suit. Each of the plaintiffs has a separate and distinct reputation in
the community. They do not have a common interest in the subject matter. The news report merely
stated that Mayor Sola had the victim arrested by special police unit brought by him into the area.
The report did not single out Sola as a sugar planter.

Rule 65
As a general rule, an order denying MtD is interlocutory and cannot be subject of appeal
until final judgment. The ordinary procedure is to file an answer, go to trial and if the decision is
adverse, reiterate the issue on appeal from the final judgment. The same rule applies to an order
denying a motion to quash, except that instead of filing an answer a plea is entered and no appeal
lies from a judgment of acquittal.
Exception is if the court, in denying the motion to dismiss or motion to quash, acts without
or in excess of jurisdiction or with grave abuse of discretion, then certiorari or prohibition lies. It
would be unfair to require defendant to undergo the ordeal and expense of a trial if the court has
no jurisdiction over the subject matter, or is not the court of proper venue, or if the denial of the
MtD or motion to quash is made with grave abuse of discretion or a whimsical and capricious
exercise of judgment. The ordinary remedy of appeal cannot be plain and adequate.
Newsweeks MtD is based on the ground that the complaint states no cause of action
against it by pointing out the non-libelous nature of the article sued upon. There is no need of a
trial in view of the conclusion of SC that the article is not libelous. The specific allegation in the
complaint, to the effect that the article attributed to the sugarcane planters the deaths and
brutalization of sugarcane workers, is not borne out by a perusal of the actual text.