Rule 31 of the old Rules of Court[93] – the rule in effect at the time Civil Case Nos. 0009 and 0130 were consolidated – provided that:
Rule 31
Consolidation or Severance
Section 1. Consolidation. – When actions involving a common question of law or fact are pending before the court, it may order a joint hearing or trial of any or all the matters in issue in the actions; it may order all the actions consolidated; and it may make such orders concerning proceedings therein as may tend to avoid unnecessary costs or delay.[94] (emphases ours)
Consolidation is a procedural device granted to the court as an aid in deciding how cases in its docket are to be tried so that the business of the court may be dispatched expeditiously and with economy while providing justice to the parties. To promote this end, the rule permits the consolidation and a single trial of several cases in the court’s docket, or the consolidation of issues within those cases.[95]
A reading of Rule 31 of the Rules of Court easily lends itself to two observations.First, Rule 31 is completely silent on the effect/s of consolidation on the cases consolidated; on the parties and the causes of action involved; and on the evidence presented in the consolidated cases. Second, while Rule 31 gives the court the discretion either to order a joint hearing or trial, or to order the actions consolidated, jurisprudence will show that the term “consolidation” is used generically and even synonymously with joint hearing or trial of several causes.[96] In fact, the title “consolidation” of Rule 31 covers all the different senses of consolidation, as discussed below.
These observations are not without practical reason. Considering that consolidation is basically a function given to the court, the latter is in the best position to determine for itself (given the nature of the cases, the complexity of the issues involved, the parties affected, and the court’s capability and resources vis-à-vis all the official business pending before it, among other things) what “consolidation” will bring, bearing in mind the rights of the parties appearing before it.
To disregard the kind of consolidation effected by the Sandiganbayan on the simple and convenient premise that the deposition-taking took place after the Sandiganbayan ordered the consolidation is to beg the question. It is precisely the silence of our Rules of Procedure and the dearth of applicable case law on the effectof “consolidation” that strongly compel this Court to determine the kind of “consolidation” effected to directly resolve the very issue of admissibility in this case.
In the context of legal procedure, the term “consolidation” is used in three different senses:[97]
(1) Where all except one of several actions are stayed until one is tried, in which case the judgment in the one trial is conclusive as to the others. This is not actually consolidation but is referred to as such. (quasi-consolidation)[98]
(2) Where several actions are combined into one, lose their separate identity, and become a single action in which a single judgment is rendered. This is illustrated by a situation where several actions are pending between the same parties stating claims which might have been set out originally in one complaint. (actual consolidation)[99]
(3) Where several actions are ordered to be tried together but each retains its separate character and requires the entry of a separate judgment. This type of consolidation does not merge the suits into a single action, or cause the parties to one action to be parties to the other. (consolidation for trial)[100]
Considering that the Sandiganbayan’s order[101] to consolidate several incident cases does not at all provide a hint on the extent of the court’s exercise of its discretion as to the effects of the consolidation it ordered – in view of the function of this procedural device to principally aid the court itself in dealing with its official business – we are compelled to look deeper into the voluminous records of the proceedings conducted below. We note that there is nothing that would even suggest that the Sandiganbayan in fact intended a merger of causes of action, parties and evidence.[102] To be sure, there would have been no need for a motion to adopt (which did not remain unopposed) the testimonies in the incident cases had a merger actually resulted from the order of consolidation, for in that case, the Sandiganbayan can already take judicial notice of the same.
Significantly, even the petitioner itself viewed consolidation, at most, to be merely a consolidation for trial.[103] Accordingly, despite the consolidation in 1993, the petitioner acceded to the Sandiganbayan’s 1998 Resolution (which denied the petitioner’s 1st Motion on the ground that the witnesses, whose testimony in the incident cases is sought to be adopted, “are not available for cross-examination in” the Sandiganbayan) by presenting these other witnesses again in the main case, so that the respondents can cross-examine them.
These considerations run counter to the conclusion that the Sandiganbayan’s order of consolidation had actually resulted in the complete merger of the incident cases with the main case, in the sense of actual consolidation, and that the parties in these consolidated cases had (at least constructively) been aware of and had allowed actual consolidation without objection.[104]
Considering, too, that the consolidated actions were originally independent of one another and the fact that in the present case the party respondents to Civil Case No. 0009 (an action for reconveyance, accounting, restitution and damages) are not parties to Civil Case No. 0130 (a special civil action filed by an ETPI stockholder involving a corporate squabble within ETPI), the conclusion that the Sandiganbayan in fact intended an actual consolidation and, together with the parties affected,[105] acted towards that end - where the actions become fused and unidentifiable from one another and where the evidence appreciated in one action is also appreciated in another action – must find support in the proceedings held below. This is particularly true in a case with the magnitude and complexity of the present case. Otherwise, to impose upon the respondents the effects of an actual consolidation (which find no clear support in the provisions of the Rules of Court, jurisprudence,[106] and even in the proceedings before the Sandiganbayan itself and despite the aforementioned considerations) results in an outright deprivation of the petitioner’s right to due process. We reach this conclusion especially where the evidence sought to be admitted is not simply a testimony taken in one of the several cases, but a deposition upon oral examination taken in another jurisdiction and whose admission is governed by specific provisions on our rules on evidence.
We stress on this point, too, that while the Sandiganbayan ordered the consolidation in 1993 (that is, before the deposition was taken), neither does the Pre-Trial Order[107] issued by the Sandiganbayan in 1997 in Civil Case No. 0009 contain any reference, formal or substantive, to Civil Case No. 0130.[108] Interestingly, in its Pre-Trial Brief dated
