LACHES SHOULD BE CLEARLY PRESENT FOR THE SIBONGHANOY DOCTRINE TO APPLY

In Regalado v. Go, the Court held that laches should be clearly present for the Sibonghanoy doctrine to apply, thus:

Laches is defined as the "failure or neglect for an unreasonable and unexplained length of time, to do that which, by exercising due diligence, could or should have been done earlier, it is negligence or omission to assert a right within a reasonable length of time, warranting a presumption that the party entitled to assert it either has abandoned it or declined to assert it.”

The ruling in People v. Regalario that was based on the landmark doctrine enunciated in Tijam v. Sibonghanoy on the matter of jurisdiction by estoppel is the exception rather than the rule. Estoppel by laches may be invoked to bar the issue of lack of jurisdiction only in cases in which the factual milieu is analogous to that in the cited case. In such controversies, laches should have been clearly present; that is, lack of jurisdiction must have been raised so belatedly as to warrant the presumption that the party entitled to assert it had abandoned or declined to assert it. (Celia S. Vda. De Herrera vs. Emelita Bernardo and Crisanto Bernardo, G.R. No. 170251, June 1, 2011, PERALTA, J.).