Before us is a petition seeking the reversal of the Resolutions of the Court of Appeals, dated 11 February 1994 and 23 August 1994, which denied due course to petitioners’ special civil action for certiorari. Misspped

The facts of this case are as follows:

Respondent Estate of the Spouses Toribio Teodoro and Marta Teodoro is presently pending settlement before the Regional Trial Court of Caloocan City, Branch 120. The court-appointed administrator of the said estate is respondent Prudencio Teodoro. Included in the inventory of properties of the estate is a 1,704 square meter parcel of land designated as Lot No. 214-A, covered by Transfer Certificate of Title ("TCT") No. (28232) 12039. In 1991, the Republic of the Philippines expropriated 337 square meters of the said lot for its C-3 Circumferential Road Project.1 [Records, pp. 59-61.] Thus, Lot 214-A was subdivided into Lot 214-A-1, covered by TCT No. 237325 and titled under the name of the Republic of the Philippines,2 [Id., at 62.] and Lot 214-A-2, covered by TCT No. 237325 and titled under the name of respondent estate.3 [Id., at 63.]

Subsequently, respondent administrator offered to sell Lot 214-A-2 to the City Government of Caloocan in order to have funds to finally settle the estate. However, the latter, through the City Engineer, public respondent Luciano R. Sarne, Jr., informed respondent administrator that the city government was not interested.4 [Id., at 67.]

Since the estate was already in debt due to accruing interests from estate taxes, at the rate of P1,200 per day, respondent administrator petitioned the probate court for an authority to mortgage or sell Lot 214-A-2. This was readily granted by the probate court in its Order dated 1 June 1992.5 [Id., at 68.] However, respondent administrator found it difficult to sell the said lot. As a remedy, he sought to sub-divide the lot into two (2) smaller lots. Thus, after obtaining a duly approved plan from the Bureau of Land Management, Lot 214-A-2 was sub-divided into Lot 214-A-2-A, covered by TCT No. 248052,6 [Id., at 70.] and Lot 214-A-2-B, covered by TCT No. 248053.7 [Id., at 71.]

Respondent Administrator then applied with the Caloocan City Engineer for a permit to fence the two lots. The City Engineer endorsed the application to the City Legal Officer, Zosimo Santiago, for appropriate action. The City Legal Officer then called a conference between respondent administrator and the owners of the properties adjoining the subject lots, the petitioners in the instant case. During the conference, petitioners opposed the issuance of the fencing permit on the claim that the subject lots are street lots and, as such, its fencing would mean the closure of their access to public roads. On 9 November 1992, the City Legal Officer, after concluding that the subject lots are street lots, recommended the denial of the fencing permit to the City Engineer.8 [Rollo, pp. 36-39.] Accordingly, the City Engineer denied respondent administrator’s application for a fencing permit.

This predicament prompted respondent administrator to file a petition before the probate court to order the Caloocan City Engineer to issue the fencing permit for the subject lots. After hearing, the probate court issued an Order, dated 30 June 1993, granting the petition. The said order reads:

On 2 July 1993, the City Engineer filed a Notice of Appeal questioning the order of the probate court.10 [Id., at 59.] However, on 12 October 1993, he withdrew the said appeal11 [Id.] and, consequently, issued the fencing permit on 15 November 1993.12 [Rollo, p. 18.]

When petitioner Magdalita Tang, a neighboring lot owner, noticed that the subject lots were already being fenced, she questioned the 30 June 1993 Order of the probate court by filing a special civil action for certiorari with prayer for preliminary injunction before the Court of Appeals. After the Court of Appeals granted her a temporary restraining order, the other petitioners, also neighboring lot owners, joined her cause in opposing the fencing of the subject lots. Accordingly, the petition was amended on 20 December 1993 to include the additional petitioners.13 [Records, pp. 82- 97.] On 11 February 1994, the Court of Appeals issued a resolution denying due course to the said petition on the ground that certiorari was not the proper remedy for petitioners to annul and set aside the order of the lower court. The pertinent portion reads:

Petitioners filed a motion for reconsideration but the same was denied by the Court of Appeals in its Resolution dated 23 August 1994.

Hence, the present petition where the following assignment of errors are raised:

We shall first discuss the last assignment of error since the determination of this crucial matter dictates the propriety of discussing the other issues in this petition.

Petitioners assert that since they were not parties in the proceedings before the probate court, they could not have possibly availed of the remedy of appeal so as to question the said order before the Court of Appeals.16 [Id., at 28-29.] Because of this, petitioners conclude that the only remedy available to them is the special civil action of certiorari under Rule 65.17 [Id., at 29.]

The Court agrees with petitioners that the remedy of appeal under Rule 42 is not available to them since this mode of appeal can only be availed by one who was a party in the proceedings before the lower court. However, the question remains, is the certiorari available to petitioners?

The circumstances obtaining in this present case are indeed peculiar. The persons who elevated the questioned order of the probate court to the Court of Appeals, through the special civil action of certiorari, were not parties in the proceedings before the probate court. The respondent impleaded in the petition before the probate court, herein public respondent City Engineer of Caloocan, did not pursue his appeal and the ones who elevated the questioned order are merely a group of individuals who, being the owners of the lots adjoining Lots 214-A-2-A and 214-A-2-B, claim to have an interest in the fencing of the subject lots.

Although Section 1 of Rule 65 provides that the special civil action of certiorari may be availed of by a "person aggrieved" by the orders or decisions of a tribunal, the term "person aggrieved" is not to be construed to mean that any person who feels injured by the lower court’s order or decision can question the said court’s disposition via certiorari. To sanction a contrary interpretation would open the floodgates to numerous and endless litigations which would undeniably lead to the clogging of court dockets and, more importantly, the harassment of the party who prevailed in the lower court. Nexold

In a situation wherein the order or decision being questioned underwent adversarial proceedings before a trial court, the "person aggrieved" referred to under Section 1 of Rule 65 who can avail of the special civil action of certiorari pertains to one who was a party in the proceedings before the lower court. The correctness of this interpretation can be gleaned from the fact that a special civil action for certiorari may be dismissed motu proprio if the party elevating the case failed to file a motion for reconsideration of the questioned order or decision before the lower court.18 [Philippine National Construction Corporation vs. NLRC, 277 SCRA 91, 100 (1997); Labudahon vs. National Labor Relations Commission, 251 SCRA 129, 133 (1995)] Obviously, only one who was a party in the case before the lower court can file a motion for reconsideration since a stranger to the litigation would not have the legal standing to interfere in the orders or decisions of the said court. In relation to this, if a non-party in the proceedings before the lower court has no standing to file a motion for reconsideration, logic would lead us to the conclusion that he would likewise have no standing to question the said order or decision before the appellate court via certiorari.

Another factor, which militates against the availability of certiorari to petitioners, is the principle that the Court will only exercise its power of judicial review if the case is brought before it by a party who has the legal standing to raise the legal question. "Legal standing" denotes a personal and substantial interest in the case such that the party has sustained or will sustain direct injury as a result of the act that is being challenged.19 [Joya vs. Presidential Commission on Good Government, 225 SCRA 568, 576 (1993)] The term "interest" means material interest as distinguished from a mere incidental interest.20 [Ibid.]

In the present case, aside from the fact that petitioners were not parties in the proceedings before the lower court, they have not cited any acceptable or valid basis to support their legal standing to question the probate court’s order. Since respondent estate is the undisputed owner of the subject private lots, the right of the administrator to have the same fenced cannot be questioned by petitioners who do not have any vested right over the subject lots. The fact that petitioners are neighboring lot owners whose access to public roads will allegedly be affected by the fencing of the subject lots, merely gives them an incidental interest over the questioned order of the probate court and cannot serve as basis to support their legal standing to elevate the order of the probate court to the Court of Appeals and before this Court.

Although petitioners maintain that their legal basis for filing the special civil action of certiorari with the Court of Appeals and the present petition before this Court is Section 22 of Presidential Decree No. 957,21 [Id., at 27; Sec. 22. Alteration of Plans. - No owner or developer shall change or alter the roads, open spaces, infrastructures, facilities for public use and/or other form of subdivision development as contained in the approved subdivision plan and/or represented in its advertisements, without the permission of the Authority and the written conformity or consent of the duly organized homeowners association, or in the absence of the latter, by the majority of the lot buyers in the subdivision.] otherwise known as the "The Subdivision and Condominium Buyers’ Protective Decree," the said section is evidently inapplicable to the present case since it pertains to the proscription imposed upon a subdivision owner or developer. In the present case, respondent estate is not a subdivision owner or developer but merely the owner of a neighboring lot. Clearly, the aforementioned law cannot serve as their basis for claiming legal standing in elevating the order of the probate court to the Court of Appeals and, consequently, before this Court.

In this regard, it is worth mentioning that the only person who can rightfully oppose the issuance of the fencing permit is the City Engineer of Caloocan. However, after initially opposing the issuance of the fencing permit, he is now convinced of the propriety of issuing the said permit as shown by his Comment22 [Rollo, pp. 69-71.] to the petition, to wit:

In conclusion, although petitioners are correct in claiming that the Court of Appeals erred in finding that appeal is the proper remedy to question the orders of the probate court, they are, however, mistaken in claiming that the special civil action of certiorari is available to them.

Having determined that the remedy of certiorari is not available to petitioners, the rest of the issues need no longer be discussed.

WHEREFORE, premises considered, the instant petition is hereby denied.

SO ORDERED. Maniks

Davide, Jr., C.J., (Chairman), Puno, Pardo, and Ynares-Santiago, JJ., concur.