5/28/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly decision. If the CA's certiorari jurisdiction has a limited scope and breadth, the Court, under a Rule 45 petition to review the CA decision, could not have a more expanded jurisdiction than what Rule 45 expressly provides, i.e., that the issue is limited to pure question of law. Without a definite guideline on the scope of this "question of law" before the Court, more often than not, the rule (that factual findings of labor tribunals are binding on the Court) became the exception (with the Court effectively becoming a trier of facts) and the exception became the rule. Notably, when one traces in jurisprudence the justification for the invoked exception, it will invariably point to cases where the Supreme Court departed from the rule - that the jurisdiction of the Court in cases brought to it from the CA is limited to the review of errors of law, as its findings of fact are deemed conclusive - when, among others, the findings of facts by the trial court and the appellate court are conflicting.[15] The indiscriminate adoption of this remedial law principle into labor cases stands on shaky legal grounds. To begin with, certiorari is different from appeal. In an appellate proceeding, the original suit is continued on appeal in a certiorari proceeding, the certiorari petition is an original and independent action that was not part of the trial that had resulted in the rendition of the judgment or order complained of. The higher court uses its original jurisdiction in accordance with its power of control and supervision over the proceedings of lower courts.[16] Put more bluntly, when the Court undertakes a review of the factual findings made by the lower courts, it does so on the premise that the recourse to the CA is part of the appellate process authorized by law. Hence, when the trier of facts at the trial and appellate level reach divergent factual findings, even if the same pieces of evidence are before them, the Court is constrained to set aside the rule that only questions of law may be raised under a Rule 45 petition in order to arrive at a correct and just decision. The same situation does not apply in labor cases because statutory law does not provide for an appellate process, and thus, the mere existence of a conflict in the factual findings at any stage of the proceedings does not by itself warrant the Court to undertake an independent review. c. The case of Montoya v. Transmed Manila Corporation In Montoya v. Transmed Manila Corporation,[17] the Court had the occasion to lay down the proper interpretation of the "question of law" that the Court must resolve in a Rule 45 petition assailing a CA decision on a Rule 65 petition: In a Rule 45 review, we consider the correctness of the assailed CA decision, in contrast with the review for jurisdictional error that we undertake under Rule 65. Furthermore, Rule 45 limits us to the review of questions of law raised against the assailed CA decision. In ruling for legal correctness, we have to view the CA decision in the same context that the petition for certiorari it ruled upon was presented to it; we have to examine the CA decision from the prism of whether it correctly elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/56605 16/31