5/28/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly to rest once a judgment becomes final and executory; execution of the decision proceeds as a matter of right as vested rights are acquired by the winning party. Just as a losing party has the right to appeal within the prescribed period, the winning party has the correlative right to enjoy the finality of the decision on the case. After all, a denial of a petition for being time-barred is tantamount to a decision on the merits. Otherwise, there will be no end to litigation, and this will set to naught the main role of courts of justice to assist in the enforcement of the rule of law and the maintenance of peace and order by settling justiciable controversies with finality.[37] In sum, the CA committed grave abuse of discretion when it extended underserved and unwarranted liberality to private respondent. “There is grave abuse of discretion when there is an evasion of a positive duty or a virtual refusal to perform a duty enjoined by law or to act in contemplation of law as when the judgment rendered is not based on law and evidence but on caprice, whim and despotism x x x.”[38] Such is present here as shown by the CA’s obstinate refusal to dismiss the case despite the late filing of the motion for extension and the flimsy excuse for the extension sought, the late filing of the petition and the numerous infirmities attending the same, and private respondent’s continued defiance of its directive. These circumstances serve to highlight private respondent’s propensity to disregard the very rules that the courts, the litigants and the lawyers are duty-bound to follow. WHEREFORE, the petition is hereby GRANTED. The assailed Court of Appeals Resolutions dated November 20, 2009 and February 10, 2010 are REVERSED and SET ASIDE for having been issued with grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction. The Petition for Certiorari filed by private respondent Amanda C. Mendigorim in CA-G.R. SP No. 110808 is DISMISSED. SO ORDERED. Carpio, (Chairperson), Brion, Perez, and Perlas-Bernabe, JJ., concur. [1] CA rollo, pp. 98-100; penned by Associate Justice Hakim S. Abdulwahid and concurred in by Associate Justices Sesinando E. Villon and Michael P. Elbinias. [2] Id. at 9-27. [3] Id. at 184. [4] Id. at 106-114. [5] Id. at 80-93; penned by Labor Arbiter Enrique L. Flores, Jr. The LA, however, disallowed private respondent’s claim for unpaid salaries corresponding to the unexpired portion of Guillermo’s employment contract for lack of basis as the same is only awarded in illegal dismissal cases. elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/56563 7/12