SECOND MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION AND REHASHED PRO FORMA ARGUMENTS

In the case of MERALCO vs. BARLIS, En Banc, G.R. No. 114231, June 29, 2004, it was held that Section 1,
Rule 52 of the Rules of Court, provides that a motion for reconsideration of a decision may be filed
within fifteen days from notice thereof; that under Section 10, Rule 51, if no appeal or motion for new
trial or reconsideration is filed within the time provided in the Rules, the judgment shall forthwith be
entered by the clerk in the book of entries of judgments; and that Section 2, Rule 52 further provides
that no second motion for reconsideration of a judgment or final resolution by the same party shall be
entertained, thus:

“Indeed, in Ortigas and Company Limited Partnership vs. Velasco, we held that a second motion for
reconsideration of a decision or a final order is prohibited, except for extraordinarily persuasive reasons
and only upon express leave first obtained. We explained, thus:

…The propriety or acceptability of such a second motion for reconsideration is not contingent upon the
averment of “new” grounds to assail the judgment, i.e., grounds other than those theretofore presented
and rejected. Otherwise, attainment of finality of a judgment might be staved off indefinitely, depending
on the party’s ingeniousness or cleverness in conceiving and formulating “additional flaws” or “newly
discovered errors” therein, or thinking up some injury or prejudice to the rights of the movant for
reconsideration. “Piece-meal” impugnation of a judgment by successive motions for reconsideration is
anathema, being precluded by the salutary axiom that a party seeking the setting aside of a judgment,
act or proceeding must set out in his motion all the grounds therefor, and those not so included are
deemed waived and cease to be available for subsequent motions.

For all litigation must come to an end at some point, in accordance with established rules of procedure
and jurisprudence. As a matter of practice and policy, courts must dispose of every case as promptly as
possible; and in fulfillment of their role in the administration of justice, they should brook no delay in
the termination of cases by stratagems or maneuverings of parties or their lawyers.”
Moreover, a second motion for reconsideration, which merely rehashes and recycles old allegations and
arguments deserves scant consideration. A long line of jurisprudence on this doctrine has been
enunciated by the Supreme Court, thus:

The rest of petitioner’s arguments deserve scant consideration, the same being mere rehash of those
raised in the petition, which have been fully passed upon in our Decision. METROBANK vs. WONG, G.R.
No. 120859. January 23, 2002.

Indeed, we cannot permit a losing party to further delay or thwart the execution of judgment against it
by continuously rehashing allegations that have long been rejected. SEVEN BROTHERS SHIPPING
CORPORATION vs. ORIENTAL ASSURANCE CORP., GR 140613, October 15, 2002.

The bottom line in the instant case is that petitioner lost his right to appeal before this Court and now
seeks to resurrect the same via the instant petition, which he admits finds no support in the rules. The
time-honored rule is that the failure to perfect an appeal in the manner and within the period fixed by
law renders the decision final and executory. Consequently, no court can exercise appellate jurisdiction
to review such decision. It is axiomatic that final and executory judgments can no longer be attacked by
any of the parties or be modified, directly or indirectly, even by the highest court of the land.[i] Upon
the other hand, the extraordinary action to annul a final judgment is limited to the grounds provided by
law and cannot be used as a stratagem to reopen the entire controversy and thereby make a complete
farce of a duly promulgated decision that has long become final and executory. TEODORO vs. CA, et al.,
GR 140799, September 10, 2002.

Litigation must end and terminate sometime and somewhere, and it is essential to an effective and
efficient administration of justice that, once a judgment has become final, the winning party be not
deprived of the fruits of the verdict. Courts must, therefore, guard against any scheme calculated to
bring about that result. Constituted as they are to put an end to controversies, courts should frown
upon any attempt to prolong them. TEODORO vs. CA, et al., GR 140799, September 10, 2002.

This Court takes note of petitioner’s fierce determination to evade the execution of a judgment, which
has long become final, per our entry of judgment on May 16, 2001. A perusal of the records indicates
that no new matters or arguments were raised by petitioner in his urgent motion to elevate the case to
the en banc. Rather the issues and grounds cited were a mere rehash of the issues already more than
sufficiently passed upon in his petition for review and petition to refer the case to the en banc. It is clear
to this Court that petitioner is making a mockery of justice and trifling with the judicial processes to
evade the final judgment against him. MOLL vs. CA, et al., GR 145425, December 9, 2002.

A cursory look at petitioner’s arguments readily discloses that the same are a mere rehash of the issues
and arguments raised in the original petition. The first procedural issue raised, which parenthetically,
was resolved by us in our January 30, 2002 decision, is whether or not it was proper for petitioner to
resort to a petition for certiorari, instead of appealing the decision of the trial court. X x x. As to the
contention that the contract is worth billions of pesos, thereby requiring Presidential approval for
validity, this is a mere rehash of the issues already answered in our January 30, 2002 decision. MMDA vs.
JANCOM ENV’L. CORP., et al., G.R. No. 147465. April 10, 2002.

AT BOTTOM, private respondent’s Motion for Reconsideration presents no new or substantial

arguments which have not been presented in his prior pleadings and which have not been taken up in
our Decision. His present allegations and asseverations are mere rehashes of arguments previously
presented to us or are mere restatements of the Separate and Dissenting Opinions which were already
adequately discussed in our Decision. In short, private respondent has not given any compelling reason
to warrant a reversal or modification of our earlier rulings. GOV’T OF THE USA, etc. vs. HON.
PURGANAN, etc., et al., G.R. No. 148571. December 17, 2002.

Concededly, there were occasions when this Court treated a petition for certiorari as one filed under
Rule 45 of the Rules of Court. However, the circumstances prevailing in the instant case do not justify a
deviation from a general rule. Notably, the instant petition was filed way beyond the reglementary
period allowed under Rule 45 without any justifiable reason therefor nor any reasonable explanation
being proffered by petitioner. In addition, the arguments she cited are without merit and are in fact
mere rehash of the issues raised before and judiciously resolved by the courts a quo. The issues require
a review of the factual findings, which, verily, could not be done because this Court is not a trier of facts.
More importantly, a reading of the records of the case strengthens our disposition that both the trial
and the appellate courts did not abuse their discretion in assessing their factual findings. We find their
conclusions amply supported by the records of the case and grounded in law. CONEJOS vs. CA, et al., GR
149473, August 9, 2002.
An incisive examination of the allegations in the Motion for Reconsideration shows that the same [are] a
mere rehash of his averments contained in his Verified Answer and Memorandum. Neither did
respondent raise new matters that would sufficiently warrant a reversal of the assailed resolution of the
Second Division. This makes the said Motion pro forma. X x x. Indeed, in the cases where a motion for
reconsideration was held to be pro forma, the motion was so held because (1) it was a second motion
for reconsideration,[ii] or (2) it did not comply with the rule that the motion must specify the findings
and conclusions alleged to be contrary to law or not supported by the evidence,[iii] or (3) it failed to
substantiate the alleged errors,[iv] or (4) it merely alleged that the decision in question was contrary to
law,[v] or (5) the adverse party was not given notice thereof.[vi] The 16-page motion for reconsideration
filed by petitioner in the COMELEC en banc suffers from none of the foregoing defects, and it was error
for the COMELEC en banc to rule that petitioner’s motion for reconsideration was pro forma because
the allegations raised therein are a mere “rehash” of his earlier pleadings or did not raise “new
matters.” Hence, the filing of the motion suspended the running of the 30-day period to file the petition
in this case, which, as earlier shown, was done within the reglementary period provided by law.
COQUILLA vs. COMELEC, GR 151914 EN BANC, July 31, 2002.

A close perusal of the above issues and the discussions thereof shows that they are a mere rehash of
arguments and positions already raised and discussed extensively in the 246-page Resolution of
December 1, 2004, penned by Justice Artemio V. Panganiban; as well as in the 125-page Dissenting
Opinion of Justice Antonio T. Carpio, the 100-page Dissenting Opinion of Justice Conchita Carpio
Morales, the 29-page Separate Opinion of Justice Dante O. Tinga, and the 10-page Concurring Opinion of
Justice Minita V. Chico-Nazario. Further discussion of these issues would not serve any useful purpose,
as it would merely repeat the same justifications and reasons already taken up in the foregoing
Opinions, which tackled precisely those matters and even more; any further elucidations, disquisitions
and disputations would merely reiterate the same points already passed upon. LA BUGAL vs. RAMOS,
G.R. No. 127882. February 1, 2005.

After a careful perusal of the testimony of the witnesses in this case and a review of the findings and
conclusions of the trial court, we find no reason to depart from this doctrine nor apply its exceptions.
The first five errors assigned are but a mere rehash of the accused’s arguments in his memorandum filed
with the trial court. The trial court ably and correctly disposed of them in the challenged decision as
shown in the portions thereof earlier quoted. We adopt the trial court’s resolution on those issues and
commend the trial judge for her exacting analysis of the facts. PEOPLE vs. SGT. MORENO BAYANI, G.R.
No. 120894. October 3, 1996.
The accused failed to realize that the trial court even extended him a special act of liberality when it did
not consider his motion for new trial as pro-forma. The alleged newly discovered evidence in support of
the motion for new trial are but photocopies of the affidavits of Aurea Reyes and Ponciano Reyes which
were already attached to the motion for reconsideration in support of one of its grounds. Put a little
differently, the motion for new trial was merely a rehash of one of the grounds of the motion for
reconsideration. Being, pro-forma, the former did not stop the running of the period to appeal. Besides,
the motion for reconsideration was filed forty-one days after promulgation of the judgment. The
accused should then be grateful to the trial court for its liberality when it gave due course to the notice
of appeal. PEOPLE vs. ROMULO SORIA y GALLETES , G.R. No. 119007. October 4, 1996

The bulk of the aforementioned grounds is a mere rehash of movant’s previous

arguments. While DGCI is correct in stating that a motion for reconsideration,
by its very nature, may tend to dwell on issues already resolved in the decision
sought to be reconsidered and that this should not be an obstacle for a
reconsideration, the hard reality is that movant has failed to raise matters
substantially plausible or compellingly persuasive to warrant the desired course
of action.

Considering that the grounds presently raised have been sufficiently considered,
if not squarely addressed, in the subject Decision, it behooves movant to
convince the Court that certain findings or conclusions in the Decision are
contrary to law. As it is, however, the instant motion does not raise any new or
substantial legitimate ground or reason to justify the reconsideration sought.
G.R. No. 159938 January 22, 2007

SHANGRI-LA INTERNATIONAL HOTEL MANAGEMENT, LTD.,

SHANGRI-LA PROPERTIES, INC., MAKATI SHANGRI-LA HOTEL &
RESORT, INC., AND KUOK PHILIPPINES PROPERTIES, INC.,
Petitioners,
vs.
DEVELOPERS GROUP OF COMPANIES, INC.,
.