"x x x.
A party filing a petition for relief from judgment must strictly comply with two (2) reglementary periods: (a) the petition must be filed within sixty (60) days from knowledge of the judgment, order or other proceeding to be set aside; and (b) within a fixed period of six (6) months from entry of such judgment, order or other proceeding. Strict compliance with these periods is required because provision for a petition for relief from judgment is a finalact of liberality on the part of the State, which remedy cannot be allowed to erode any further the fundamental principle that a judgment, order or proceeding must, at some definite time, attain finality in order at last to put an end to litigation. In Turqueza v. Hernando, this Court stressed once more that:
. . . the doctrine of finality of judgments is grounded on fundamental considerations of public policy and sound practice that at the risk of occasional error, the judgments of courts must become final at some definite date fixed by law. The law gives an exception or ‘last chance’ of a timely petition for relief from judgment within the reglementary period (within 60 days from knowledge and 6 months from entry of judgment) under Rule 38, supra, but such grave period must be taken as ‘absolutely fixed, inextendible, never interrupted and cannot be subjected to any condition or contingency. Because the period fixed is itself devised to meet a condition or contingency (fraud, accident, mistake or excusable neglect), the equitable remedy is an act of grace, as it were, designed to give the aggrieved party another and last chance’ and failure to avail of such last chance within the grace period fixed by the statute or Rules of Court is fatal . . . . (Emphasis in the original)4
In Spouses Reyes v. Court of Appeals and Voluntad,5 the Regional Trial Court of Bulacan rendered a decision against the Spouses Reyes’ predecessors-in-interest. The decision became final on December 8, 1995. The Spouses Reyes had notice of the decision on May 30, 1997 when they received a Court of Appeals order directing them to comment on the petition for certiorari filed by respondents heirs of Voluntad. Attached to the Court of Appeals’ order was a copy of the trial court’s decision.
On June 21, 2000, the Spouses Reyes filed a petition for relief from judgment against the Regional Trial Court of Bulacan’s decision. This court affirmed the dismissal of the petition for relief from judgment for having been filed out of time and said:
It should be noted that the 60-day period from knowledge of the decision, and the 6-month period from entry of judgment, are both inextendible and uninterruptible. We have also time and again held that because relief from a final and executory judgment is really more of an exception than a rule due to its equitable character and nature, strict compliance with these periods, which are definitely jurisdictional, must always be observed.6 (Emphasis in the original)
x x x."
