Heirs of Yadao vs. Heirs of Caletina,
G.R. No. 230784, February 15, 2022
Lazaro- Javier J.
Case Digest
Subjects:
Remedial Law –
Jurisdiction and Evidence
Civil Law - LTD
Facts:
On June 22, 1993,
respondents, heirs of Juan Caletina filed before the RTC, Sanchez Mira,
Cagayan, a complaint for ownership and recovery of possession against
petitioners' predecessors-in-interest, namely: Angel Yadao and companions.
Respondents averred that they are
the grandchildren and surviving heirs of Juan, the registered owner of a parcel
of land denominated as Lot 1087 of Cadaster 317-D, located at Barangay Taggat
Norte, Claveria, Cagayan with a total area of 1,797 square meters and covered
by Original Certificate of Title (OCT) No. P-479 (S). Sometime in 1991,
petitioners occupied the subject land and refused to leave despite their
opposition and vigorous prohibition. Thus, they brought the matter to the
Barangay Captain of Taggat Norte. They failed to reach an agreement.
Petitioners countered that on September
28, 1962, their parents Josefina Yadao (Josefina) and Domingo Yadao
(Domingo) bought Lot 1087 for value and in good faith from Juan's
surviving heirs, i.e., his second wife Casiana Dalo, and
their sons Hospicio, Jose, and William. The sale was covered by a
Contrata written in Ilocano.
The contract provides the following:
We, Jose Calitina, Hospicio Calitina, William Calitina and our mother Marciana
Calitina, all of legal age, married and residents of this place, confirm
the truth of our agreement concerning our sale of the lot that we inherited
from our father who had died, which lot is located at Barrio Taggat, Claveria,
Cagayan.
The Contrata was not notarized. But Josefina and Casiana executed
another Deed of Absolute Sale on October 15, 1962 on the same Lot
1087 for the same price though this time had it notarized.
As alleged by petitioners, the owner's
duplicate copy of OCT No. P- 479 (S) was delivered to them. They
also averred, without any dispute, that from the time their parents bought
Lot 1087, they had been in public and continuous possession thereof. The
other defendants in the case below were their tenants in Lot 1087. Petitioners
maintained that even assuming that no sale was made on Lot 1087, the fact
remained that they had been in possession of the lot since 1962 to the present.
On the other hand, as petitioners stressed, respondents brought the matter
to court only on June 22, 1993 or more than thirty (30) years after they have
taken possession thereof on September 28, 1962. By petitioners' conclusion,
acquisitive prescription has ripened their de facto possession of Lot
1087 into legal possession and ownership.
To prove the allegations in the
complaint, Hospicio, Jr. and his mother Dolores Corpuz-Caletina
(Dolores) took the witness stand. Dolores, testified that Juan was her
father-in-law, being the father of her husband Hospicio, Sr. She admitted that
Jose and William were also heirs of Juan as his children. She knew Jose to be
Juan's child with another woman before he (Juan) got married to Nicetas.
William was also Juan's son from another woman during his marriage to Nicetas.
They were the half-brothers of Hospicio, Sr.
Interestingly, Dolores admitted against respondents' interest that after
Juan had died, they sold, at least going by her admission, a portion of Lot
1087 to petitioners' predecessors-in-interest Domingo and Josefina.
Notably, the owner's duplicate of
OCT No. P-479 (S) was delivered to petitioners' predecessors-in-interest.
Although it is not clear who gave the OCT to them, records bear that petitioners
were the ones who offered this document in evidence. The delivery and
voluntary cession of the OCT to their predecessors-in-interest and
petitioners' eventual possession thereof were not contested by respondents.
Respondents were able to offer in evidence only a certified copy
of OCT No. P-479 (S) from the Register of Deeds in Cagayan.
Petitioners' predecessors-in-interest
occupied and possessed Lot 1087 after its sale on September 28, 1962
and thereafter until the present time. Dolores did not deny
and has never denied this fact. She has known of their occupation
and possession since September 28, 1962.
Petitioners filed a motion to
dismiss the complaint on ground of lack of jurisdiction. They averred that the
RTC had no jurisdiction over the subject matter because the assessed value of
Lot 1087 was only P5,390.00.
Trial court at first granted the
motion to dismiss; but upon the Motion for Reconsideration filed by the
respondents; trial court granted respondents' motion for reconsideration and
reinstated the complaint. It held that the motion to dismiss was filed at the
tail end of the hearing when only one witness of petitioner had not testified.
Thus, it would be the height of injustice to dismiss the complaint on ground of
lack of jurisdiction at that late time of the day.
RTC decided in favor of respondent. The
RTC held that there was no evidence to prove the alleged sale of Lot
1087 to the Yadaos. The Contrata signed by Hospicio, Sr., Jose,
William, and Casiana was not notarized, hence, it was only a private
document which was unenforceable. The notarized Deed of Absolute
Sale, on the other hand, was signed by Casiana who had no authority to do so as
she was not a legal heir of Juan Caletina, being his non-marital partner. The
RTC also opined that Lot 1087 was acquired during the marriage of Juan to
Nicetas. CA affirmed the decision of the
RTC.
Issue 1:
Whether
RTC has jurisdiction over the present case?
Held:
Petitioners
are already estopped from questioning the jurisdiction of the RTC over the
subject matter of the present case. The general rule is that the issue on
jurisdiction over the subject matter may be raised at any time in the
proceedings, even on appeal. By way of an exception, however, Tijam v.
Sibonghanoy has ruled that estoppel by laches may bar a party from invoking
lack of jurisdiction when the issue is raised later in the proceedings of the
case and only after the party raising the argument has actively participated
during trial and lost.
The
delay in raising the argument and the moving party's participation in the
proceedings has led the court and the opposing party of the waiver of this
issue, and as a result, the belated claim if considered and more so if granted
would be inefficient and iniquitous as it is opportunistic. The trial was on going for
years. In fact, petitioners, as defendants, was about to present their last
witness.
Issue 2:
Did petitioners acquire
ownership of the subject lot through acquisitive prescription?
Held:
No; Section
47 of Presidential Decree No. 1529 (PD 1529) declares that "no title to
registered land in derogation of the title of the registered owner shall be
acquired by prescription or adverse possession." Heir of Cardenas v. The
Christian and Missionary Alliance Churches of the Philippines, Inc. ruled that
the ownership and possession of registered land cannot be obtained or acquired
by prescription no matter the length of time of one's physical occupation and
exercise of juridical rights of possession over the land.
Hence, since ownership
cannot be gained through this means, it follows that the registered owner is
not automatically dispossessed of the registered land and foreclosed from
getting it back through the passage of time as the registered owner may resort
to appropriate remedies to recover the property. Appropriateness,
however, requires that the rule on extinctive prescription as explained below
has not set in.
Issue 3:
Is respondents' action
already barred by prescription?
Held:
Yes; extinctive prescription
refers to the rule that bars even the registered owner from availing
of remedies to vindicate their right over the subject lot. It is a shield
rather than a sword – the mere fact that the party seeking recovery
can no longer sue the party in possession does not mean automatically
that the latter already has the right to possess or own. The present
case demonstrates the legal principle that the law aids the vigilant, not
those who slumber on their rights. Vigilantibus, sed non dormientibus jura
subverniunt.
There are two kinds of prescription
provided in the Civil Code. One is acquisitive, that is, the acquisition of a
right by the lapse of time as expounded in paragraph 1, Article 1106.
Acquisitive prescription is also known as adverse possession and usucapcion.
The other kind is extinctive prescription whereby rights and actions are lost
by the lapse of time as defined in paragraph 2, Article 1106 and Article 1139.
Another name for extinctive prescription is litigation of action. These two
kinds of prescription should not be interchanged.
In a plethora of cases, the Court
has held that Section 47 of P.D. No. 1529 covers acquisitive prescription. A
registered land therein can never be acquired by adverse possession. In the
case at bench, however, it was extinctive prescription, and not acquisitive
prescription, which barred the action of petitioners. As the CA correctly held,
the action must fail, not because respondents adversely occupied the
property, but because petitioners failed to institute their suit within
the prescriptive period under Article 1144 of the Civil Code.
To determine the applicable period of
extinctive prescription, the nature and circumstances of the case should be
considered. According to petitioners, the owner's duplicate certificate of
title was given to Conrado for safekeeping in 1945. Allegedly, Conrado employed
fraud and bad faith when he drafted the Adjudication and Absolute Sale of a
Parcel of Registered Land on January 9, 1949, and transferred the title of the
land to his name with the issuance of TCT No. 35282 on June 17, 1965; and
because of the purported fraud committed by Conrado against petitioners, an
implied constructive trust was created by operation of law, with Conrado as
trustee and Aurora as cestui que trust.
Constructive trusts are created by
the construction of equity in order to satisfy the demands of justice and
prevent unjust enrichment. Article 1456 of the Civil Code provides that a
person acquiring property through fraud becomes, by operation of law, a trustee
of an implied trust for the benefit of the real owner of the property. It is
now well-settled that the prescriptive period to recover property obtained by
fraud or mistake, giving rise to an implied trust under Article 1456 of the
Civil Code, is 10 years pursuant to Article 1144. The prescriptive period to
enforce the constructive trust shall be counted from the alleged fraudulent
registration or date of issuance of the certificate of title over the property.
The ten-year prescriptive period applies only if there is an actual need to
reconvey the property as when the plaintiff is not in possession of the
property.
In this case, the ten-year prescriptive period is squarely
applicable because Conrado and his family, not petitioners, were in possession
of the property. The subject property was registered in the name of Conrado
on June 17, 1965, and this should be the starting point of the ten-year period.
Petitioners, thus, had until June 17, 1975 to enforce the implied trust and
assert their claim over the land. As properly held by the CA, petitioners
belatedly instituted their judicial claim over the land on May 9, 1996. Indeed,
with the lapse of the prescriptive period to file an action, petitioners could
no longer seek relief from the courts.
Hence, the result of the successful
invocation of this rule is that while the registered owner keeps their
substantive right over the lot, since acquisitive prescription is not a mode of
acquiring ownership of a registered land, they are nonetheless prevented by law
from invoking the legal remedies otherwise available to them. When extinctive prescription
sets in, the damage done to the registered owner is not recognized as a legal
injury – a legal case of damnum absque injuria – and they do not stand
to enjoy any legal relief so far as their property (in both senses of title
or right and the tangible lot) is concerned.
The rule is that extinctive prescription does
not lie against the heirs of the registered owner seeking recovery of the
disputed lot in two instances: first, if the heirs are in actual possession of the lot; and second,
if the conveyance to the party in possession of the lot is unlawful, void, or
non-existent. In either of these instances, the action to recover the lot is
imprescriptible.
As registered owners of the lots in question,
the respondents have a right to eject any person illegally occupying their
property. This right is imprescriptible. Even if it be supposed that they were
aware of the petitioner's occupation of the property, and regardless of the
length of that possession, the lawful owners have a right to demand the return
of their property at any time as long as the possession was unauthorized or
merely tolerated, if at all. This right is never barred by laches.
Case law teaches that those who
occupy the land of another at the latter's tolerance or permission, without any
contract between them, are necessarily bound by an implied promise that the
occupants will vacate the property upon demand. The rule of imprescriptibility
protects not only the registered owner but also the latter's heirs because they
step into the shoes of the decedent by operation of law and are the
continuation of the personality of their predecessor-in-interest.
These truths, however, do not affect the
validity and enforceability of the presumably unregistered and factually
unnotarized sale. An unregistered and unnotarized sale is valid and enforceable
against the parties to the sale. Hospicio, Sr.,
respondents' predecessor-in-interest, is bound by the sale.
As a result, we cannot accept
Justice Caguioa's claim that there was no valid or even enforceable
sale of Lot 1087 to petitioners and their predecessors-in-interest, or
that the sale was only for a portion thereof. As stated, the unnotarized
Contrata signed by Hospicio, Sr. and his half-brothers sold to
petitioners' predecessors-in-interest the whole of Lot 1087 for P850,
and not only for 400 square meters as subsequently intercalated in the
notarized Deed of Sale that Hospicio, Sr. witnessed. But whether for the whole
of Lot 1087 or 400 square meters thereof, Hospicio, Sr. more likely than not
agreed to these series of sales since the certificate of title for the
whole of Lot 1087 was delivered to petitioners' predecessors-in-interest as
they too at once occupied the entire lot, and collected rentals
from the lessees of the portions they did not occupy – without objection
from Hospicio, Sr. and Dolores.
Given these factual circumstances,
petitioners' present occupation and possession of Lot 1087 is not unlawful,
void, or based on non-existent claim. They have long planted
themselves on Lot 1087 under the series of sales by the heirs of
the registered owner – without any objection from any of them until
1993 when the relevant parties are long dead, truthful memory has faded and
compromised, and crucial evidence may no longer be availed of. For this reason,
respondent's action to recover the lot is definitely not
imprescriptible. It will be both inefficient and unfair to the truth-seeking
and grievance-redressing functions of the courts to insist that prescription
has not set in.
To stress, respondents are now barred from assailing
the sale of Lot 1087 and petitioners' possession of this lot by
reason of extinctive prescription. The
reckoning point for extinctive prescription to set in was when the right of
respondents' predecessors-in-interest, i.e., Hospicio, Sr. as Dolores'
spouse and respondents' father, who was the heir of Juan, accrued and was
violated. This was when Juan died and Hospicio, Sr. acquired property (in the
sense of rights) by succession to Lot 1087 and when this lot was sold to
and possessed and openly occupied by petitioners' predecessors-in-interest,
whichever came later.
Here, this means that the starting
date for extinctive prescription was September 28, 1962 and has since been
interrupted only on June 22, 1993 when the complaint was filed with the RTC.
Hospicio, Sr. could not have but known of his right to Lot 1087 and the
violation of his right because –
(i) he himself sold this lot to
petitioners' predecessor-in-interests on September 28, 1962, and
(ii) they at once openly possessed Lot 1087
by physical occupation for their own use and by leasing portions thereof to
other individuals.
Issue 4:
Is there a valid and binding
contract selling Lot 1087 to the Yadaos?
Held:
In
sum, the fact that the Contrata was not notarized does not mean that there was
no sale of Lot 1087 between the Caletina's (or Calitina) and the Yadaos. As
discussed, even an oral sale of a real property is valid and binding between
the parties, their heirs, and assigns.
More important, the Court cannot
turn a blind eye to the other pieces of evidence proving that: (i)
respondents' privies themselves in fact sold supposedly a portion
of Lot 1087 to petitioners' predecessors-in-interest; (ii) the owner's
duplicate copy of the OCT for the whole of Lot 1087 was delivered
contemporaneously to petitioners' predecessors-in-interest; and (iii) on
September 28, 1962, contemporaneously with the execution of the Contrata,
petitioners started their occupation and possession of the entirety
of Lot 1087 with respondents' privies' knowledge and without
complaints from them and their successors-in-interest until well into June
22, 1993.
All in all, what is clear from the
evidence is that the heirs of Juan sold Lot 1087 to petitioners'
predecessors-in-interest and petitioners and their successors occupied and
possessed the entire lot. There were admissions to this effect from
respondents themselves and respondents did not complain for thirty-one (31)
years until June 22, 1993. By then, respondents have compromised the truth-seeking
and grievance-redressing functions of the RTC as a result of the fact
that relevant parties are long dead, truthful memory has faded and compromised,
and crucial evidence may no longer be availed of. It is thus now too late
for respondents to assail and for the courts to upend the validity
and enforceability of the Contrata. As we have concluded above, since
there is nothing in and about the Contrata that makes it invalid
and unenforceable, and in view of the presence of all the elements of a
valid and enforceable sale, the Contrata must be upheld in
toto to affirm the validity of petitioners' ownership including of course
possession of the whole of Lot 1087.