Appellate courts have discretionary power to waive non-assignment of errors

We have ruled in a number of cases that the appellate court is accorded a broad discretionary power to waive the lack of proper assignment of errors and to consider errors not assigned. It is clothed with ample authority to review rulings even if they are not assigned as errors in the appeal. Inasmuch as the Court of Appeals may consider grounds other than those touched upon in the decision of the trial court and uphold the same on the basis of such other grounds, the Court of Appeals may, with no less authority, reverse the decision of the trial court on the basis of grounds other than those raised as errors on appeal. We have applied this rule, as a matter of exception, in the following instances: (1) Grounds not assigned as errors but affecting jurisdiction over the subject matter; (2) Matters not assigned as errors on appeal but are evidently plain or clerical errors within contemplation of law; (3) Matters not assigned as errors on appeal but consideration of which is necessary in arriving at a just decision and complete resolution of the case or to serve the interests of justice or to avoid dispensing piecemeal justice; (4) Matters not specifically assigned as errors on appeal but raised in the trial court and are matters of record having some bearing on the issue submitted which the parties failed to raise or which the lower court ignored; (5) Matters not assigned as errors on appeal but closely related to an error assigned; and (6) Matters not assigned as errors on appeal but upon which the determination of a question properly assigned, is dependent. [G.R. No. 112519. November 14, 1996]