By: Atty. Gregorio B. Austral, CPA
When the record must speak the truth
A final judgment is meant to end a controversy, not reopen it. Yet the Supreme Court’s June 9, 2026 Resolution in Far East Bank and Trust Company v. Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation, G.R. No. 172983, shows why finality must sometimes yield to accuracy. The issue was narrow but consequential: could the Court correct its already final July 22, 2015 Decision to include the Laoag City branch of Pacific Banking Corporation among the fixed assets sold to Far East Bank? The Court answered yes—not to reconsider the merits, but to make the record reflect what had already been judicially decided.
The dispute traces back to 1985, when the Central Bank placed PBC under receivership and invited bids for its assets and franchise, together with the assumption of its liabilities. Far East Bank submitted a bid covering PBC’s nonfixed and fixed assets, with the latter identified in the August 1984 Asian Appraisal Report. The Monetary Board accepted the bid, and the parties later executed a Memorandum of Agreement. In 2015, the Supreme Court held that the essential elements of a perfected contract of sale—object, consideration, and consent—were present and ordered the computation of the purchase price of the disputed fixed assets.
The problem lay in the 2015 Decision’s dispositive portion. It listed only nine PBC branches and omitted Laoag City, even though the Asian Appraisal Report included that property and the Regional Trial Court’s 1997 order expressly named it among the assets subject of the sale. After the 2015 Decision became final and executory on October 19, 2016, Far East Bank moved to correct the judgment, arguing that Laoag had disappeared from the list through inadvertence rather than through any deliberate adjudication excluding it.
Ordinarily, the doctrine of immutability bars any modification of a final judgment, even to correct erroneous conclusions of fact or law. Its purpose is practical and institutional: judicial business must proceed in an orderly manner, controversies must end, and the rights and obligations of litigants cannot remain suspended indefinitely. But the rule recognizes limited exceptions, including clerical corrections and nunc pro tunc entries that prejudice no party. Literally meaning “now for then,” such an entry records an action the court actually took but which was omitted through mistake or inadvertence; it cannot supply an action never made or repair a judicial error of judgment.
The case records supplied the required visible proof. The Supreme Court’s reasoning embraced the fixed assets identified in the Asian Appraisal Report, which included Laoag; the lower court rulings likewise consistently included it. Unlike the PBC condominium building on Paseo de Roxas, whose exclusion was explained because it had already been sold under a court-approved compromise, no separate issue or reason justified dropping Laoag. Nor would its restoration prejudice the opposing side: the Central Bank Board of Liquidators’ successor, through the Office of the Solicitor General, acknowledged that Laoag was among the properties involved, and the Privatization and Management Office made the same recognition.
The Court therefore granted the motion, affirmed the 2015 Decision with modification, and issued a nunc pro tunc judgment adding the Laoag City branch to the list of ten fixed assets. It ordered the Clerk of Court to correct the October 19, 2016 Entry of Judgment and directed the Regional Trial Court, Branch 31, Manila, to compute Laoag’s purchase price under Sections 3(c) and 10(b) of the Memorandum of Agreement. The ruling does not weaken the finality of judgments; it preserves that doctrine by confining correction to a proven inadvertent omission. Finality closes litigation, but fidelity to the record ensures that what is closed is the controversy the court actually resolved.