3RD Party asking for payment for services rendered without OUR KNOWLEDGE

Greetings,

Basically the whole problem stems from the fact that my wife's gender is erroneously indicated as MALE in her birthcert issued in BICOL (DAET). Of course we have already filed the appropriate petition in DAET and we have already gotten a court order (from RTC DAET) stating that the petition is sufficient in form and that we should "publish a copy of the said court order in an accredited newspaper of general circulation in the province once a week for three consecutive weeks." We have complied with this, we had a NATIONAL newspaper (REMATE)which is of general circulation in the province of bicol publish said order. HOWEVER we have recieved a bill from a LOCAL newspaper (PENINSULAR NEWS) for 3x the amount that we paid REMATE because they apparently also printed the court order for us. We have not spoken to anyone from that newspaper, never signed anything with anyone from that paper (they even have my wife's name wrong in the BILL they sent), don't even know that the said newspaper existed, and the court order never mentioned that the order be printed in that SPECIFIC newspaper. DO WE HAVE TO PAY THEM FOR SERVICES RENDERED WITHOUT OUR CONSENT? They are claiming that RTC LABO ordered them, but our petition and court orders are all filed or coming from RTC DAET (and PENINSULAR NEWS has not shown us any order from RTC LABO anyway).

Thank you for your help.

Aloy

didn't you retain a lawyer if you reached this far? you should discuss this with him

This is supposed to be a free advice forum. I already have advice from my lawyers, one lawyer says try to reach a settlement and the other says NO. We are asking for a 3rd opinion from you. The point is that Rule 1 of the Rules of Court state that courts shall construe the Rules liberally to promote their objectives of securing to the parties a just, speedy and INEXPENSIVE disposition of the matters brought before it... INEXPENSIVE is the keyword and as mentioned this publisher is asking 3x the amount of what we have paid the other newspaper. Other points that need to be addressed are: (1) There was never any mention of PENINSULAR news in any of the court orders we have recieved. (2) RTC DAET is the venue and yet PENINSULAR NEWS claims RTC LABO told them to print the notice (I have yet to see the court order). (3) There was no attempt by PENINSULAR NEWS to contact us or any of our lawyers (as we have 2) and advise them that they will be printing said publication (even if they did we would have told them no). The way I look at it is "MAY RUMARAKET SA RTC LABO" and is subverting the court to make a bit of money. I will end up spending more money on a principle rather than just pay PENINSULAR NEWS. If ever the case to have my wife's gender changed still needs to be resolved and then PENINSULAR NEWS can file a case against US for NON PAYMENT OF SERVICES RENDERED and I will meet them in an appropriate court. In fact I might be the one to file a case against them first. Pag ang tao walang principio walang mangyayari sa ating bayan.

Aloy

http://www.pinoylawyer.org/t1966-unethical

if the court will accept your remate publication, then don't pay the other publisher. but they are correct in saying that the RTC assigned it to them after a raffle, which is the required procedure in the RTC.

what i do is to monitor that raffle to make sure it doesn't fall into some overly expensive publisher.