This case has been cited 3 times or more.
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2005-09-15 |
PUNO, J. |
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| Third. Petitioner contends that the HRET cannot review decisions of the COMELEC and that COMELEC decisions, orders, or rulings may be solely reviewed by the Supreme Court on certiorari by the aggrieved party within thirty days from receipt of a copy thereof.[53] It is true that generally, the method of assailing a judgment or order of the COMELEC is via petition for certiorari.[54] As aforestated, however, it was petitioner who submitted these resolutions to the HRET as proofs that Mrs. Ang Ping was not a proper party. These same resolutions were collaterally attacked by Mrs. Ang Ping before the HRET when she alleged that these violated her right to due process.[55] A void judgment or resolution may be impeached through collateral attack.[56] A direct attack on a judgment or resolution is defined as an attempt to avoid or correct it in some manner provided by law, in a proceeding instituted for that very purpose, in the same action and in the same tribunal. Conversely, a collateral attack is an attempt to impeach the judgment or resolution by matters dehors the record, before a tribunal other than the one in which it was rendered, in an action other than that in which it was rendered; an attempt to avoid, defeat, or evade it, or deny its force and effect, in some incidental proceeding not provided by law for the express purpose of attacking it; any proceeding which is not instituted for the express purpose of annulling, correcting, or modifying such decree; an objection, incidentally raised in the course of the proceeding, which presents an issue collateral to the issues made by the pleadings.[57] The rule that a void judgment or decree is subject to collateral attack at any time is based upon a court's inherent authority to expunge void acts from its records.[58] The void resolutions of the COMELEC, especially the April 30, 2004 resolution issued by its First Division, cannot oust the HRET of its jurisdiction over the case at bar. | |||||