G.R. No. 46045 ; July 31, 1939
ERNESTO ALDEGUER, plaintiff-appellee, vs. MARTIN GEMELO and VICENTE GEMELO, defendants-appellants.

FACTS

Plaintiff Ernesto Aldeguer filed an action in the Court of First Instance of Iloilo to execute a judgment for damages rendered by the Court of First Instance of Occidental Negros more than five years prior. The original judgment was against Vicente Gemelo alone, but Martin Gemelo was joined as a defendant in this execution action. The defendants filed a counterclaim and challenged the Iloilo court’s jurisdiction, arguing that the action for enforcement should have been brought in the Occidental Negros court where the original judgment was rendered.

ISSUE

Whether the Court of First Instance of Iloilo had jurisdiction to try the action for the execution of a judgment rendered by the Court of First Instance of Occidental Negros.

RULING

Yes, the Iloilo court had jurisdiction. Under Section 447 of the Code of Civil Procedure, a judgment that is more than five years old may be enforced by an ordinary action. This is an action upon a judgment, not a mere continuation of the original suit. Following Section 377 of the same Code, which governs venue for personal actions, such an action may be brought in the province where either the plaintiff or the defendant resides, at the plaintiff’s election. Since the plaintiff resided in Iloilo, the action was properly filed there. The Court distinguished this from the scire facias proceeding (unavailable in the Philippines), which must be brought in the rendering court. The convenience of the parties supports this rule, as it prevents the burden of litigating in a distant court years after the original case. The dissenting opinion argued for a uniform rule requiring such actions to be filed in the court that rendered the original judgment, but the majority did not adopt this view.

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