CASE NO: 11

TITLE: TUNA PROCESSING, INC., petitioner, vs. PHILIPPINE KINGFORD, INC., respondent.
GR NO | DATE: G.R. No. 185582. February 29, 2012
PONENTE: PEREZ

FACTS: Kanemitsu Yamaoka (licensor), co-patentee of U.S. Patent No. 5,484,619, Philippine Letters
Patent No. 31138, and Indonesian Patent No. ID0003911 (Yamaoka Patent), and 5 Philippine tuna
processors, namely, Angel Seafood Corporation, East Asia Fish Co., Inc., Mommy Gina Tuna Resources,
Santa Cruz Seafoods, Inc., and respondent Kingford (sponsors/licensees) entered into a MOA.

Pertinent portions of the award read:

13.1 Within thirty (30) days from the date of transmittal of this Award to the Parties, pursuant to the terms of this award, the
total sum to be paid by RESPONDENT KINGFORD to CLAIMANT TPI, is the sum of ONE MILLION SEVEN
HUNDRED FIFTY THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED FORTY SIX DOLLARS AND TEN CENTS ($1,750,846.10).
(A) For breach of the MOA by not paying past due assessments, RESPONDENT KINGFORD shall pay CLAIMANT the
total sum of TWO HUNDRED TWENTY NINE THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FIVE DOLLARS AND
NINETY CENTS ($229,355.90) which is 20% of MOA assessments since September 1, 2005[;]
(B) For breach of the MOA in failing to cooperate with CLAIMANT TPI in fulfilling the objectives of the MOA,
RESPONDENT KINGFORD shall pay CLAIMANT the total sum of TWO HUNDRED SEVENTY ONE THOUSAND
FOUR HUNDRED NINETY DOLLARS AND TWENTY CENTS ($271,490.20)[;] 14 and
(C) For violation of THE LANHAM ACT and infringement of the YAMAOKA 619 PATENT, RESPONDENT KINGFORD
shall pay CLAIMANT the total sum of ONE MILLION TWO HUNDRED FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS AND NO
CENTS ($1,250,000.00). . . .
To enforce the award, petitioner TPI filed a Petition for Confirmation, Recognition, and Enforcement of
Foreign Arbitral Award before the RTC of Makati City. At Branch 150, respondent Kingford filed a Motion
to Dismiss. Petitioner TPI now seeks to nullify, in this instant Petition for Review on Certiorari under Rule
45, the order of the trial court dismissing its Petition for Confirmation, Recognition, and Enforcement of
Foreign Arbitral Award.
ISSUE/S: W/N a foreign corporation not licensed to do business in the Philippines have legal capacity to
sue under the provisions of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Act of 2004?
HELD: YES. The Alternative Dispute Resolution Act of 2004 shall apply in this case as the Act, as its title
An Act to Institutionalize the Use of an Alternative Dispute Resolution System in the Philippines and to
Establish the Office for Alternative Dispute Resolution, and for Other Purposes would suggest, is a law
especially enacted "to actively promote party autonomy in the resolution of disputes or the freedom of the
party to make their own arrangements to resolve their disputes." It specifically provides exclusive grounds
available to the party opposing an application for recognition and enforcement of the arbitral award.
Inasmuch as the Alternative Dispute Resolution Act of 2004, a municipal law, applies in the instant
petition, we do not see the need to discuss compliance with international obligations under the New York
Convention and the Model Law. After all, both already form part of the law.
Rule 13.1 of the Special Rules provides that "[a]ny party to a foreign arbitration may petition the court to
recognize and enforce a foreign arbitral award." The contents of such petition are enumerated in Rule 13.5.
Capacity to sue is not included. Oppositely, in the Rule on local arbitral awards or arbitrations in instances
where "the place of arbitration is in the Philippines," it is specifically required that a petition "to determine
any question concerning the existence, validity and enforceability of such arbitration agreement" available
to the parties before the commencement of arbitration and/or a petition for "judicial relief from the ruling
of the arbitral tribunal on a preliminary question upholding or declining its jurisdiction" after arbitration
has already commenced should state "[t]he facts showing that the persons named as petitioner or
respondent have legal capacity to sue or be sued."
Indeed, it is in the best interest of justice that in the enforcement of a foreign arbitral award, we deny
availment by the losing party of the rule that bars foreign corporations not licensed to do business in the
Philippines from maintaining a suit in our courts. When a party enters into a contract containing a foreign
arbitration clause and, as in this case, in fact submits itself to arbitration, it becomes bound by the contract,
by the arbitration and by the result of arbitration, conceding thereby the capacity of the other party to enter
into the contract, participate in the arbitration and cause the implementation of the result.
All considered, petitioner TPI, although a foreign corporation not licensed to do business in the
Philippines, is not, for that reason alone, precluded from filing the Petition for Confirmation, Recognition,
and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Award before a Philippine court.
WHEREFORE, the Resolution dated 21 November 2008 of the Regional Trial Court, Branch 61, Makati
City in Special Proceedings No. M-6533 is hereby REVERSED and SET ASIDE. The case is
REMANDED to Branch 61 for further proceedings. SO ORDERED.
Case no. 29
TITLE: RUBEN MANIAGO, petitioner, vs. THE COURT OF APPEALS (First Division), HON.
RUBEN C. AYSON, in his capacity as Acting Presiding Judge, Regional Trial Court, Branch IV,
Baguio City, and ALFREDO BOADO, respondents.
[G.R. No. 104392. February 20, 1996.]
PONENTE: MENDOZA

TOPIC: Art. 36, Prejudicial Question

FACTS: Petitioner Ruben Maniago was the owner of shuttle buses which were used in transporting
employees of the Texas Instruments, (Phils.), Inc. from Baguio City proper to its plant site at the
Export Processing Authority in Loakan, Baguio City.

On January 7, 1990, one of his buses figured in a vehicular accident with a passenger jeepney owned
by private respondent Alfredo Boado along Loakan Road, Baguio City. As a result of the accident, a
criminal case for reckless imprudence resulting in damage to property and multiple physical injuries
was filed on March 2, 1990 against petitioner's driver, Herminio Andaya, with the Regional Trial
Court of Baguio City, Branch III, where it was docketed as Criminal Case No. 7514-R. A month later,
on April 19, 1990, a civil case for damages was filed by private respondent Boado against petitioner
himself. The complaint, docketed as Civil Case No. 2050-R, was assigned to Branch IV of the same
court.

Petitioner moved for the suspension of the proceedings in the civil case against him, citing the
pendency of the criminal case against his driver. But the trial court, in its order dated August 30, 1991,
denied petitioner's motion on the ground that pursuant to the Civil Code, the action could proceed
independently of the criminal action, in addition to the fact that the petitioner was not the accused in
the criminal case. Petitioner took the matter on certiorari and prohibition to the Court of Appeals,
maintaining that the civil action could not proceed independently of the criminal case because no
reservation of the right to bring it separately had been made in the criminal case.

Issue: W/N despite the absence of such reservation, private respondent may nonetheless bring an
action for damages against petitioner under the Civil Code

Held: No. Rule 111 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure, while reiterating that a civil action
under these provisions of the Civil Code may be brought separately from the criminal action; provides
that the right to bring it must be reserved.

This Rule reads:

Section 1. Institution of criminal and civil actions. When a criminal action is instituted, the civil
action for the recovery of civil liability is impliedly instituted with the criminal action, unless the
offended party waives the civil action, reserves his right to institute it separately, or institutes the civil
action prior to the criminal action.

Such civil action includes recovery of indemnity under the Revised Penal Code, and damages under
Articles 32, 33, 34 and 2176 of the Civil Code of the Philippines arising from the same act or
omission of the accused.

The reservation of the right to institute the separate civil actions shall be made before the prosecution
starts to present its evidence and under circumstances affording the offended party a reasonable
opportunity to make such reservation.

Sec. 3. When civil action may proceed independently. In the cases provided for in Articles 32, 33,
34 and 2176 of the Civil Code of the Philippines, the independent civil action which has been
reserved may be brought by the offended party, shall proceed independently of the criminal action,
and shall require only a preponderance of evidence.

1 quite clearly requires that a reservation must be made to institute separately all civil actions for the
recovery of civil liability, otherwise they will be deemed to have been instituted with the criminal
case. Such civil actions are not limited to those which arise "from the offense charged," as originally
provided in Rule 111 before the amendment of the Rules of Court in 1988. In other words the right of
the injured party to sue separately for the recovery of the civil liability whether arising from crimes
(ex delicto) or from quasi delict under Art. 2176 of the Civil Code must be reserved otherwise they
will be deemed instituted with the criminal action

e requirement that before a separate civil action may be brought it must be reserved does not impair,
diminish or defeat substantive rights, but only regulates their exercise in the general interest of orderly
procedure. The requirement is merely procedural in nature. For that matter the Revised Penal Code,
by providing in Art. 100 that any person criminally liable is also civilly liable, gives the offended
party the right to bring a separate civil action, yet no one has ever questioned that rule that such action
must be reserved before it may be brought separately.

Indeed, the requirement that the right to institute actions under the Civil Code separately must be
reserved is not incompatible with the independent character of such actions. There is a difference
between allowing the trial of civil actions to proceed independently of the criminal prosecution and
requiring that, before they may be instituted at all, a reservation to bring them separately must be
made. Put in another way, it is the conduct of the trial of the civil action not its institution through
the filing of a complaint which is allowed to proceed independently of the outcome of the criminal
case.

WHEREFORE, the decision appealed from is REVERSED and the complaint against petitioner is
DISMISSED. SO ORDERED.