HILARIO P. SORIANO vs HON. MERCEDITA N.

GUTIERREZ, Undersecretary of
Justice, and MELINDA S. MANUZON

Before this Court is a Petition for Certiorari under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court seeking
to annul and set aside as having been issued by public respondent Undersecretary of
Justice, with grave abuse of discretion amounting to excess of jurisdiction, the following:
(1) Resolution dated February 13, 2003 of the Department of Justice dismissing the
petitioner's petition for review of the Resolution of the Office of the City Prosecutor of
Manila dated February 14, 2002; and (2) Resolution dated August 27, 2004 3 of the
Department of Justice denying petitioner's Motion for Reconsideration.

FACTS: On September 29, 2000, Mrs. Melinda S. Manuzon, the former Head of the
Treasury Department of RBSM, executed an affidavit where she disclosed that on
December 1997, herein complainant Hilario P. Soriano opened the following accounts
with the San Miguel Branch of RBSM bank:

a) Savings Account No. 0104-08338-7 Signatories – Mr. Hilario Soriano and Mr.
Marces Perez

b) Savings Account No. 0104-08339-5 Signatories – Mr. Hilario Soriano and Mrs.
Melinda Manuzon

Mrs. Manuzon later on submitted the said affidavit with the Department of Justice, City
of Manila.

Thus, on August 13, 2001, Mr. Soriano filed a criminal complaint against Mrs. Manuzon
for Violation of R.A. 1405, otherwise known as the Secrecy of Bank Deposits Law.

In her Counter-Affidavit, Mrs. Manuzon alleged that the prohibitions under R.A. 1405 do
not apply to a bank under receivership like in the case of RBSM.

In response thereto, Mr. Soriano filed his Reply-Affidavit where he stated that there is
nothing under R.A. 1405, as amended, which stated that the prohibitions stated therein
does not apply to a bank under receivership, much less, if the bank is already undergoing
liquidation.

On October 30, 2001, Mrs. Manuzon filed her Rejoinder Affidavit where she reiterated
her claim that R.A. 1405, as amended, does not apply to bank under receivership.

On February 14, 2002, Assistant City Prosecutor Pedro B. Salonga issued the
questioned resolution recommending the dismissal of the complaint for Violation of R.A.
1405 against Mrs. Melinda S. Manuzon.

On appeal, the public respondent affirmed the Assistant City Prosecutor's resolution in
this manner:
 xxx xxx xxx “Under Section 12, in relation to Section 7, of Deparment Circular No.
70 dated July 3, 2000, the Secretary of Justice may motu propio dismiss outright
the appeal if there is no showing of any reversible error in the questioned resolution
or when the issues raised therein are too unsubstantial to require consideration.
We carefully examined the petition and its attachments and found no such error
committed by the prosecutor that would justify a reversal of the assailed resolution
which is in accord with the law and evidence on the matter.

CONSEQUENTLY, the petition for review is hereby DISMISSED. SO ORDERED.”

Its Motion for Reconsideration having been denied, petitioner filed the instant petition
anchored on the following ground, hence: The Resolution dismissing the petition as
well as the Resolution denying herein petitioner's motion for reconsideration,
were issued with grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack of jurisdiction since
the dismissal has no support in fact and in law.

The petition lacks merit.

It should be noted, in the first place, that the sole office of a writ of certiorari is the
correction of errors of jurisdiction including the commission of grave abuse of discretion
amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction. The familiar rule is that grave abuse of
discretion exists when the questioned act of the DOJ was exercised capriciously and
whimsically as is equivalent to lack or in excess of jurisdiction. It does not include
correction of public respondent DOJ's findings which hardly qualifies as grave abuse of
discretion. In a long line of cases, the Supreme Court held:

“Grave abuse of discretion implies such capricious and whimsical exercise of

judgment as is equivalent to lack of jurisdiction, or in other words where the power
is exercised in an arbitrary or despotic manner by reason of passion or personal
hostility, and it must be so patent and gross as to amount to an invasion of positive
duty or to a virtual refusal to preform the duty enjoined or to act at all in
contemplation of the law.

There is grave abuse of discretion where the respondent acts in a capricious,

whimsical, arbitrary or despotic manner in the exercise of his judgment as to be
said to be equivalent to lack of jurisdiction. (Nepomuceno vs. Court of Appeals,
303 SCRA 679 [Feb. 15, 1999] citing Nable, 72 Phil. 278 [1941]; Abad Santos v.
Province of Tarlac, 66 Phil. 480; Alafriz v. Nable, 62 Phil. 278; Republic of the
Philippines v. Villarama, Jr., 278 SCRA 736; Lalican v. Vergara, 276 SCRA 158).”

In the case at bench, there is no showing that public respondent DOJ exceeded its
jurisdiction in rendering the assailed Resolutions. Neither public respondent DOJ
rendered the assailed Resolutions with grave abuse of discretion. Petitioner in this case
has not proven such allegation of grave abuse of discretion on the part of the DOJ.

What is being sought here is the annulment of the Resolutions by the public respondent
DOJ so that the filing of an information/complaint for Violation of R.A. 1405, as amended,
otherwise known as the Secrecy of Bank Deposits Law may prosper against private
respondent Melinda S. Manuzon, who executed an affidavit allegedly narrating the
accounts of the petitioner. Such demand would involve an interpretation of the said law
– R.A. 1405, which is certainly beyond the province of the extraordinary writ of certiorari.
But even then, as held by the public respondent DOJ, the Assistant City Prosecutor's
finding that there was no violation whatsoever by the private respondent of Republic Act
No. 1405 has basis at all.

First, it must be noted that the RBSM (Rural Bank of San Miguel) was placed under
receivership on January 21, 2000, and it has been then under liquidation. Private
respondent executed the affidavit on September 29, 2000 – long after RBSM was closed
by BSP.

Under Section 30 of R.A. 7653, otherwise known as the New Central Bank Act, when a
bank is placed under receivership or liquidation, it presupposes that the BSP Monetary
Board (MB) had already forbidden the bank from doing business in the Philippines and,
the MB had designated the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation (PDIC) as the
bank's statutory receiver.

Thus, logically, having forbidden to do business, RBSM could no longer perform the
functions of a banking institution, and the only reason for its existence is to wind up its
corporate affairs, gather its assets and settle its obligations. Thus, the disclosure by
private respondent of the bank account is not a prohibited act under R.A. 1405 inasmuch
as RBSM is not anymore a “banking institution” within the spirit and letter of the law.

Second, it cannot be gainsaid that petitioner's alleged act of irregularities will be covered
by the impunity offered by R.A. 1405, as amended. To sustain petitioner's theory would
make available to person who made anomalies an easy means of evading prosecution.
It must be stressed that the execution of the affidavit relates to whether the petitioner
diverted/misappropriated RBSM funds. Thus, the disclosure is purely incidental. It is hard
to conceive that it was ever within the intention of Congress to consider such disclosure
within the purview of the prohibition of the Bank Secrecy Law under R.A. 1405.

Finally, the action of public respondent DOJ dismissing petitioner's Petition for Review
and in denying the Motion for Reconsideration, if erroneous, is an error of judgment not
error of jurisdiction, and therefore, certiorari cannot lie.

WHEREFORE, in view of the foregoing, the instant petition is DENIED for lack of merit.
The assailed Resolutions of the Department of Justice in I.S. No. 01H-32320 are
AFFIRMED. SO ORDERED.