SIGRID CARANDANG v. HON. REY LEONARDO B. GUERRERO, Commissioner of Customs, and The District Collector for the Port of NAIA

RESOWTfON CTA CASE NO. 10523 Page 2 o�3 The case cited by petitioner, People v. Gimenez, 1 is inapplicable here. There, the Sandiganbayan had considered the plaintiffto have waived its right to offer evidence due to repeated delays and failures to file a Formal Offer of Evidence ("FOE"). The Supreme Court reversed this, noting that the case involved the recovery of allegedly ill-gotten wealth, that the evidence needed to be presented by the plaintiff was voluminous, and many other factors that ultimately supported a liberal construction of procedural rules regarding the submission of FOEs. Importantly, however, the case did not involve jurisdiction, which is the central issue here. As such, it cannot be substantially used to justify the relaxing of procedural rules in order to somehow grant this Court with the authority to act on the instant Petition. A more appropriate case to cite here would be Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corporation v. Bureau of Customs.2 There the High Court reiterated that jurisdiction "is conferred by law and not by the consent or acquiescence of any or all of the parties or by erroneous belief of the court that it exists" and that "the perfection of an appeal in the manner and within the period set by law is not only mandatory, but jurisdictional as well, and that failure to perfect an appeal within the period fixed by law renders the judgment appealed from final and executory." The clear pronouncements here refute petitioner's arguments. This Court cannot simply relax jurisdictional restrictions in order to take cognizance of petitioner's case via acquiescence when the law clearly states that We have no jurisdiction on the matter. Furthermore, the perfection of an appeal in the manner and period set by law is mandatory and jurisdictional; it cannot simply be done away with when inconvenient. As the liberal construction of procedural rules cannot grant jurisdiction when there is none, the Court sees no cogent reason to reverse Our findings. We also deem it unnecessary to address petitioner's other arguments, considering that the case remains dismissed. ACCORDINGLY, petitioner's Motion for Reconsideration, filed on March 24, 2025, is hereby DENIED for lack of merit. The assailed Decision, dated February 27, 2025, is AFFIRMED. SO ORDERED. G.R. No. 174673, January I I, 2016. G.R. No. 209830, June 17,2015.

RESOLFfiON CTA CASE NO. 10523 Page 3 o�3 WE CONCUR: ~. ~ _, '--- MA. BELEN M. RINGPIS-LIBAN Associate Justice