EN BANC
G.R. No. 228795 [Formerly UDK 15699], December 01, 2020
ESTELITA A. ANGELES, Petitioner, v. COMMISSION ON AUDIT (COA) AND COA-ADJUDICATION AND SETTLEMENT BOARD, Respondents.
D E C I S I O N
LOPEZ, J.:
The propriety of the denial of a request for relief from accountability is the main issue in this Petition for Certiorari1 under Rule 64, in relation to Rule 65 of the Rules of Court assailing the Commission on Audit's (COA) Decision2 dated April 13, 2015.
WHEREFORE, premises considered, the instant petition for review of Ms. Estelita A. Angeles is hereby DENIED. Accordingly, Adjudication and Settlement Board Decision No. 2012-023 dated May 30, 2012, finding Ms. Angeles and the Estate of the late Lily de Jesus jointly and severally liable for the total amount of [P]1.3 million, is hereby AFFIRMED.7 (Emphasis in the original.)Estelita sought reconsideration. On June 6, 2016, the COA denied the motion for being filed out of time and for lack of merit.8 Hence, this Petition for Certiorari under Rule 64 of the Rules of Court. Estelita maintains that the absence of security escort alone does not indicate negligence, and that the robbery was unexpected to occur in broad daylight on a public street.9 On the other hand, the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) argues that Estelita was negligent in allowing bank transactions without any security escort. The OSG points out that the COA properly considered the absence of security escort and the explanation offered in case of loss of government funds through robbery.10
SEC. 3. Time to File Petition. - The petition shall be filed within thirty (30) days from notice of the judgment or final order or resolution sought to be reviewed. The filing of a motion for new trial or reconsideration of said judgment or final order or resolution, if allowed under the procedural rules of the Commission concerned, shall interrupt the period herein fixed. If the motion is denied, the aggrieved party may file the petition within the remaining period, but which shall not be less than five (5) days in any event, reckoned from notice of denial. (Emphasis supplied.)Accordingly, the petition must show when notice of the assailed judgment or order or resolution was received; when the motion for reconsideration was filed; and when notice of its denial was received. The rationale for requiring a complete statement of material dates is to determine whether the petition is timely filed. Yet, Estelita merely provided the date she received the Resolution of the COA denying her motion for reconsideration. Estelita failed to state the time she had been notified of the COA Decision denying her appeal and the date she filed the motion for reconsideration. Notwithstanding, this Court can reasonably conclude that Estelita's Petition for Certiorari was filed beyond the reglementary period. Admittedly, Estelita sought for a reconsideration before the COA, which would no longer entitle her to the full 30-day period to file a petition for certiorari unless such motion was filed on the same day that she received the decision denying her appeal, which did not happen in this case. To be sure, the COA denied Estelita's motion for reconsideration because it was belatedly filed and has no merit. As such, the petition for certiorari could have been dismissed outright for being filed out of time.
SEC. 105. Measure of liability of accountable officers. -Differently stated, the officers may be relieved from accountability absent evidence that they acted negligently in handling public properties or funds,22 or when the loss occurs while they are in transit or if the loss is caused by fire, theft, or other casualty or force majeure.23 In Bintudan v. Commission on Audit,24 we explained that negligence is a comparative and relative concept highly dependent on the surrounding facts,25viz.:cralawred
(1) Every officer accountable for government property shall be liable for its money value in case of improper or unauthorized use or misapplication thereof, by himself or any person for whose acts he may be responsible. He shall likewise be liable for all losses, damages, or deterioration occasioned by negligence in the keeping or use of the property, whether or not it be at the time in his actual custody.
(2) Every officer accountable for government funds shall be liable for all losses resulting from the unlawful deposit, use, or application thereof and for all losses attributable to negligence in the keeping of the funds. (Emphases supplied.)
Negligence is the omission to do something that a reasonable man, guided upon those considerations which ordinarily regulate the conduct of human affairs, would do, or the doing of something which a prudent man and [a] reasonable man could not do. Stated otherwise, negligence is want of care required by the circumstances. Negligence is, therefore, a relative or comparative concept. Its application depends upon the situation the parties are in, and the degree of care and vigilance which the prevailing circumstances reasonably require. x x x.26Cognitive of this standard, we rule that Estelita and Lily exercised the reasonable care and caution that an ordinary prudent person would have observed in a similar situation. They have performed what is humanly possible under the circumstances. Foremost, the cashier and the revenue collection officer used the service vehicle driven by the municipal driver in going to and from the bank which is safer compared to other means of transportation. They followed the existing practice of securing travel pass and the procedure in withdrawing the payroll money. The bank transaction was made during regular office hours. Unfortunately, armed men attacked them while they were en route back to their office. As Estelita aptly argued, the robbery was unexpected to occur in broad daylight on a public street. The violent robbery, which resulted in injuries to the driver and the death of the cashier, could not have been prevented. It was beyond Estelita or Lily's control. The municipal mayor, the audit team leader, and the supervising auditor all recommended the grant of relief from accountability given the positive identification of the culprits and the absence of Estelita's fault or participation in the robbery.
Hindsight is a cruel judge. It is so easy to say, after the event, that one should have done this and not that or that he should not have acted at all, or else this problem would not have arisen at all. That is all very well as long as one is examining something that has already taken place. One can hardly be wrong in such a case. But the trouble with this retrospective assessment is that it assumes for everybody an uncanny prescience that will enable him by some mysterious process to avoid the pitfalls and hazards that he is expected to have foreseen. It does not work out that way in real life. For most of us, all we can rely on is a reasoned conjecture of what might happen, based on common sense and our own experiences, or our intuition, if you will, and without any mystic ability to peer into the future. x x x.28 (Emphasis supplied.)Similarly, in Callang v. Commission on Audit,29 the petitioner cannot be faulted that she believed that it was safer to bring the money home where she could always keep a vigilant eye. In that case, the petitioner decided to bring home the remaining cash of P537,454.50 for the salaries and wages of her co-employees given that their office does not have a safety vault and had been the subject of burglaries in the past. While aboard a jeepney on her way to work the next day, a robber took her bag containing the money and her personal belongings. The Court citing Hernandez reiterated that while it is easy to pass judgment with the benefit of foresight, an individual cannot be faulted in failing to predict every outcome of one's action.
We do not believe, however, that in the instant case, the standard of extraordinary diligence required private respondent to retain a security guard to ride with the truck and to engage brigands in a firelight at the risk of his own life and the lives of the driver and his helper.Taken together, the COA committed grave abuse of discretion when it denied the request for relief from accountability. The conclusion that the accountable officers, in hindsight, should have requested a security escort is insufficient to establish negligence. While the COA's diligence in guarding public properties and funds is admirable, we stress that it should not be at the cost of government employees who are not guilty of negligence, and who, in the performance of their duties, risk their lives and limbs.x x x x
In these circumstances, we hold that the occurrence of the loss must reasonably be regarded as quite beyond the control of the common carrier and properly regarded as a fortuitous event. It is necessary to recall that even common carriers are not made absolute insurers against all risks of travel and of transport of goods, and are not held liable for acts or events which cannot be foreseen or are inevitable, provided that they shall have complied with the rigorous standard of extraordinary diligence.32
| Very truly yours, |
EDGAR O. ARICHETA | |
Clerk of Court | |
By: | |
(SGD) ANNA-LI R. PAPA-GOMBIO | |
Deputy Clerk of Court En Banc |
Endnotes:
1Rollo, pp. 2-15.
2Id. at 43-49.
3Id. at 64-65.
4Id. at 17-23.
5Id. at 24-32.
6Id. at 43-49.
7Id. at 48.
8Id. at 50.
9Id. at 2-14.
10Id. at 151-169.
11Id. at 99-100.
12Id. at 104-109.
13Fortune Life Insurance Company, Inc. v. Commission on Audit Proper (Resolution), 752 Phil. 97, 105 (2015).
14Tanenglian v. Lorenzo, 573 Phil. 472, 485 (2008), citing Neypes v. CA, 506 Phil. 613, 625-626 (2005).
15Dr. Malixi v. Dr. Baltazar, 821 Phil. 423, 440-441 (2017), citing Paras v. Judge Baldado, 406 Phil. 589 (2001); Doble v. ABB, Inc./Nitin Desai, 810 Phil. 210, 228 (2017); Trajano v. Uniwide Sales Warehouse Club, 736 Phil. 264, 273-274 (2014); Heirs of Amada Zaulda v. Zaulda, 729 Phil. 639, 651 (2014); Manila Electric Company v. Gala, 683 Phil. 356, 364 (2012); and Durban Apartments Corp. v. Catacutan, 514 Phil. 187, 195 (2005).
16 750 Phil. 258 (2015).
17 G.R. No. 244443 (Resolution), October 15, 2019.
18Philippine Bank of Communications v. CA, 805 Phil. 964, 972 (2017).
19 RULES IMPLEMENTING THE CODE OF CONDUCT AND ETHICAL STANDARDS FOR PUBLIC OFFICIALS AND EMPLOYEES. See Rule VI, Section 8, par. 3; See Cruz v. Gangan, 443 Phil. 856, 863 (2003).
20 Presidential Decree (PD) No. 1445; published on August 7, 1978.
21Id.; Gutierrez v. Commission on Audit, 750 Phil. 413, 431 (2015).
22Callang v. Commission on Audit, G.R. No. 210683, January 8, 2019.
23 PD No. 1445, SEC. 73; See Bintudan v. Commission on Audit, 807 Phil. 795, 804 (2017).
24 807 Phil. 795 (2017).
25Callang v. Commission on Audit, supra.
26Id.
27 258-A Phil. 604 (1989).
28Id. at 610.
29Supra note 22.
30Picart v. Smith, 37 Phil. 809, 813 (1918).
31 250 Phil. 613 (1988).
32Id. at 621-623.