1/5/2021 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly Grave abuse of discretion is defined as "capricious or whimsical exercise of judgment that is patent and gross as to amount to an evasion of positive duty or a virtual refusal to perform a duty enjoined by law."[21] It arises when a lower court or tribunal violates and contravenes the Constitution, the law or existing jurisprudence.[22] The Supreme Court explained in Yu v. Judge Reyes-Carpio,[23] viz.: The term "grave abuse of discretion" has a specific meaning. An act of a court or tribunal can only be considered as with grave abuse of discretion when such act is done in a "capricious or whimsical exercise of judgment as is equivalent to lack of jurisdiction." The abuse of discretion must be so patent and gross as to amount to an "evasion of a positive duty or to a virtual refusal to perform a duty enjoined by law, or to act at all in contemplation of law, as where the power is exercised in an arbitrary and despotic manner by reason of passion and hostility." Furthermore, the use of a petition for certiorari is restricted only to "truly extraordinary cases wherein the act of the lower court or quasi-judicial body is wholly void." From the foregoing definition, it is clear that the special civil action of certiorari under Rule 65 can only strike an act down for having been done with grave abuse of discretion if the petitioner could manifestly show that such act was patent and gross, x x x. In the case at bench, respondents did not even attempt to show that the trial court abused its discretion, much less that the exercise thereof was so patent and gross and to amount to lack of jurisdiction; in fact, even the appellate court simply stated in its assailed Decision that the trial court merely erred, and not abuse its discretion, much more grave, in applying Rule 23 of the Rules on Civil Procedure instead of Rule 119 of the Rules on Criminal Procedure, which particularly deals with the conditional examination of a prosecution witness, like Mary Jane in this case, in criminal cases. Notably, the appellate court did not specify the circumstances in support of its conclusion that the trial court arrived at its conclusion in an arbitrary and despotic manner. On the contrary, a close examination of the trial court's judgment shows that it was anchored on the peculiar incidents surrounding the case, and applied jurisprudence and rules which it believed were pertinent. It has in fact judiciously discussed the rationale for its decision to allow the taking of Mary Jane's deposition through written interrogatories in this wise: First, Sec. 15, Rule 119 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure requiring prosecution witnesses who are either sick or infirm or has left the Philippines without any date of return, to deliver their testimony in open court cannot be applied to the private complainant, because her situation as a death row convict in a foreign country incapacitates her from making decisions, on her own, to take the witness stand. Such decision to testify and the manner by which her testimony is to be given depends on the Indonesian authorities before whom she was sentenced to suffer the supreme penalty of death; Second, considering the inapplicability of Sec. 15, Rule 119 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure, the Court found it appropriate to apply in a suppletory manner, Sec. 23 of the Revised Rules of Court for the taking of https://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/65855 8/22