SECOND DIVISION
EDWARD V. LACSON, G.R.
No. 150644
Petitioner,
Present:
PUNO,
J., Chairperson,
- versus - SANDOVAL-GUTIERREZ,
AZCUNA, and
GARCIA,
JJ.
MAOWEE DABAN LACSON
and MAONAA DABAN Promulgated:
LACSON, represented by their
mother and guardian ad-litem,
LEA DABAN LACSON, August
28, 2006
Respondents.
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D E C I S I O N
GARCIA, J.:
Petitioner
Edward V. Lacson, father of the respondent sisters Maowee Daban Lacson and
Maonaa Daban Lacson and husband of their mother and guardian ad-litem, Lea
Daban Lacson, has come to this Court via this petition for review under Rule 45 of the
Rules of Court to seek the reversal and
setting aside of the Decision[1]
dated July 13, 2001 of the Court of Appeals (CA) in CA-G.R. CV No. 60203, as reiterated in its Resolution[2] of
October 18, 2001 denying his motion for reconsideration.
From
the petition and its annexes, the respondents’ reply thereto, and other pleadings, the Court gathers the following facts:
The sisters Maowee Daban Lacson and
Maonaa Daban Lacson are legitimate daughters of petitioner Edward V. Lacson and
his wife, Lea Daban Lacson. Maowee
was born on
It appears that from the
start of their estrangement, Lea did not badger her husband Edward for support,
relying initially on his commitment memorialized in a note dated
In
that complaint dated P400,000.00
to P600,000.00.
In
his Answer, Edward alleged giving to Maowee and Maonaa sufficient sum to meet
their needs. He explained, however, that his lack of regular income and the
unproductivity of the land he inherited, not his neglect, accounted for his
failure at times to give regular support. He also blamed financial constraint
for his inability to provide the P12,000.00
monthly allowance prayed for in the complaint.
As applied for and after due hearing,
the trial court granted the sisters Maowee and Maonaa support pendente lite at P12,000.00 per
month, subject to the schedule of payment and other conditions set forth in the
court’s corresponding order of May 13, 1996.[4]
Following
trial, the RTC rendered on
WHEREFORE, judgment is hereby rendered:
1)
Ordering defendant to compensate plaintiffs support in
arrears in the amount of TWO MILLION
FOUR HUNDRED NINETY-SIX THOUSAND (P2, 496,000.00) PESOS from
which amount shall be deducted ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FOUR (P124,000.00)
PESOS that which they received from defendant for two years and that which they
received by way of support pendent lite;
2) Ordering
defendant to pay TWENTY THOUSAND (P20,000.00) PESOS as attorney’s fees; and
3) Pay costs.
SO ORDERED.
Therefrom,
Edward appealed to the CA whereat his recourse was docketed as CA-G.R. CV. No. 60203.
Eventually,
the CA, in the herein assailed Decision dated
WHEREFORE, premises considered, the present appeal is hereby DISMISSED and the appealed Decision in Civil Case No. 22185 is hereby AFFIRMED.
Double costs against the defendant –appellant [Edward Lacson].
SO ORDERED. (Words in bracket added.)
In
time, Edward moved for reconsideration, but his motion was denied by the
appellate court in its equally assailed Resolution of
Hence,
Edward’s present recourse
on his
submission that the CA
erred -
I. XXX WHEN IT AFFIRMED THE GRANT OF SUPPORT IN ARREARS FROM 1976 TO 1994.
II. XXX IN AFFIRMING THE ALLEGED ADVANCES OF SUPPORT BY RESPONDENTS’ UNCLE NOEL DABAN.
III. XXX IN AFFIRMING THE AWARD OF SUPPORT EVEN IF PETITIONER IS NOT FINANCIALLY CAPABLE OF PROVIDING THE SAME TO … RESPONDENTS.
IV. XXX WHEN IT ORDERED PETITIONER TO PROVIDE SUPPORT TO XXX RESPONDENTS EVEN IF PETITIONER’S OBLIGATION TO PROVIDE SUPPORT HAD ALREADY BEEN COMPLETELY SATISFIED BY THE PROCEEDS OF THE SALE OF HIS EXCLUSIVE PROPERTY WHICH WERE ALL APPROPRIATED BY THE … RESPONDENTS.
The petition
lacks merit.
Petitioner
admits being obliged, as father, to provide support to both respondents, Maowee
and Maonaa. It is his threshold submission,
however, that he should not be made to pay support in arrears, i.e., from 1976 to 1994, no previous extrajudicial,
let alone judicial, demand having been made by the respondents. He invokes the
following provision of the Family Code to complete his point:
Article
203 – The obligation to give support shall be demandable from the time the
person who has a right to receive the same needs it for maintenance, but it
shall not be paid except from the date of judicial or extrajudicial demand.
To petitioner, his obligation to pay under
the aforequoted provision starts from the filing of Civil Case No. 22185 in
1995, since only from that moment can it be said that
an effective demand for support was made upon him.
Petitioner’s above posture has little
to commend itself. For one, it conveniently glossed
over the fact that he veritably abandoned the respondent sisters even before
the elder of the two could celebrate her second birthday. To be sure, petitioner
could not plausibly expect any of the sisters during their tender years to go
through the motion of demanding support from him, what with the fact that even
their mother (his wife) found it difficult during the period material to get in
touch with him. For another, the requisite demand for support appears to have
been made sometime in 1975. It may be that Lea made no extrajudicial demand in
the sense of a formal written demand in terms and in the imperious tenor
commonly used by legal advocates in a demand letter. Nonetheless, what would
pass as a demand was, however, definitely made. Asking one to comply with his
obligation to support owing to the urgency of the situation is no less a demand
because it came
by way of a request or a plea. As it
were, the trial court found that a demand to sustain an award of support in arrears had been made
in this case and said so in its decision, thus:
From 1976, [respondents’] mother now and then
went to their [paternal] grandmother’s house by their father and asked for support;
this notwithstanding their father’s commitment for this purpose which the
latter embodied in a note dated
xxx xxx xxx
Last
December 10, 1975, [petitioner] committed self for the support of his children,
the [respondents] herein but failing, plaintiffs’ mother asked
extrajudicially for her children’s support since 1976, when she went to her
mother’s house. ….[8] (Words in bracket and underscoring added.)
The appellate court made a parallel finding on the demand
angle, formulating the same in the following wise:
We could not confer judicial approval upon
[petitioner’s] posture of trying to evade his responsibility to give
support to his daughters simply because their mother did not make a “formal”
demand therefor from him. [Petitioner’s] insistence on requiring a formal
demand from his wife is truly pointless, in the face of his acknowledgment of
and commitment to comply with such obligation through a note in his own
handwriting. Said note [stating that he will “sustain his two daughters Maowee
and Maonaa”] also stated
“as requested by their mother” thus practically confirming the
fact of such demand having been made by [respondents’] mother. The trial court
thus correctly ruled that [petitioner’s] obligation to pay support in arrears
should commence from 1976.[9]
(Words in bracket added).
The Court finds no adequate reason to disturb the factual
determination of the CA confirmatory of that of the trial court respecting the
demand Lea made on the petitioner to secure support for the respondents. As a
matter of long and sound appellate practice, factual findings of the CA are
accorded respect, if not finality, save for the most compelling and cogent
reasons.[10] Not one
of the well-recognized exceptions to this rule on conclusiveness of factual findings appear
to obtain in this case. Accordingly, the Court cannot grant the petitioner’s
plea for a review of the CA’s findings bearing on the actuality that, as basis
for an award of support in arrears, an extrajudicial demand for support had
been made on the petitioner as evidenced by the December 10, 1975 note adverted
to. Lest it be overlooked, the jurisdiction of the Court in a petition for
review, as here, is generally limited to correction of errors of law.
Complementing that postulate is the rule that the Court is not bound to analyze and weigh all over
again the evidence already considered in the proceedings below,[11] except
when, as earlier indicated, compelling reasons demand a review of the factual
conclusions drawn from such evidence.
Petitioner’s
second specification of error touches on the CA’s affirmatory holding that
respondents’ uncle, Noel Daban, advanced the money for their support. Again,
petitioner’s lament on the matter is a veritable call for review of factual
determinations of the two courts below. It need not, accordingly, detain us
long. Suffice it to state in that regard that, of their close relatives, the respondents
appeared to have stayed longest with their uncle, Noel Daban. Noteworthy also is the fact that petitioner,
from 1976 to 1994, only gave Maowee and Maonaa token amounts for schooling when
support comprises everything indispensable for sustenance, dwelling, clothing,
medical attendance and education,[12]
or, in short, whatever is necessary to keep a person alive. Logically, the sisters
would, thru their mother, turn to their uncle (Noel Daban) for their sustenance
and education when petitioner failed to give the same, a failing which stretched
from their pre-schooling days to their college years. Since such failure has
been established, it is not amiss to deduce, as did the trial court and the CA,
that Noel Daban who,
owing to consideration of kinship, had reasons to help, indeed lent his sister Lea
money to support her children.
Pursuant
to Article 207 of the Family Code, Noel Daban can rightfully exact
reimbursement from the petitioner. The provision reads:
When
the person obliged to support another unjustly refuses or fails to give support
when urgently needed by the latter, any third person may furnish support to the
needy individual, with right of reimbursement from the person obliged to give
support.
Mention
may also be made that, contextually, the resulting juridical relationship
between the petitioner and Noel Daban is a quasi-contract,[13]
an equitable principle enjoining one from unjustly enriching himself at the
expense of another.
As
for the amount of support in arrears, there is also no reason to disturb the absolute
figures arrived at by the two courts below, appearing as they do to be
reasonable and proper. Arbitrariness respecting the determination of the final
numbers cannot plausibly be laid on the doorsteps of the CA, and the trial
court before it, considering that they fixed such amount based on the varying
needs of the respondents during the years included in the computation and to the
financial resources of the petitioner, as proved by the evidence adduced below.
As a matter of law, the amount of support which those related by marriage and
family relationship is generally obliged to give each other
shall be in proportion to the resources or means of the giver and to the needs
of the recipient.[14]
Petitioner
closes his petition by urging the Court, as it did the CA earlier, to consider
a transaction that transpired after the trial court had rendered judgment. We
refer to the sale by Lea of half of what petitioner claims to be his exclusive
or capital property. As the petitioner would have this Court believe, Lea and
the respondent sisters appropriated the P5 Million proceeds of the sale for
themselves. Pressing on, he alleged that the amount thus received from the sale
is more than enough to fully satisfy – thus release him from complying with- the underlying judgment for support, assuming ex
gratia argumenti his obligation to pay support in arrears.
Petitioner’s
above submission is flawed by the premises holding it together. For firstly, it assumes as a fact that what was sold for P5
Million was indeed his exclusive property. But, as the CA aptly
observed, “there is no showing whether the property subject of the transaction
mentioned by [the petitioner] is a conjugal property or [his] exclusive
property,” as in fact “[respondents’] mother asserts that she and [petitioner]
had separately sold their respective shares on said property.”[15]
Secondly,
the respondent sisters were not party to the sale aforementioned. Petitioner’s
suggestion, therefore, that part of the proceeds of the sale went to them and
may be set off for what petitioner owes them by way of support in arrears is
unacceptable, being at best gratuitous and self-serving.
Petitioner,
unlike any good father of a family, has been remiss in his duty to provide respondents
with support practically all throughout their growing years. At bottom, the
sisters have been deprived by a neglectful father of the basic necessities in
life as if it is their fault to have been born. This disposition is thus nothing
more than a belated measure to right a wrong done the herein respondents who
are no less petitioner’s daughters.
WHEREFORE, the instant petition is DENIED and the appealed CA decision and
resolution are AFFIRMED.
Costs against petitioner.
SO ORDERED.
CANCIO C. GARCIA
Associate
Justice
WE
CONCUR:
REYNATO S.
PUNO
Associate Justice
Chairperson
|
ANGELINA SANDOVAL-GUTIERREZ Associate
Justice |
RENATO C. CORONA Associate
Justice |
ADOLFO S. AZCUNA
Associate Justice
A T E S T A T I O N
I attest that the conclusions in the above decision were
reached in consultation before the case was assigned to the writer of the
opinion of the Court’s Division.
REYNATO S. PUNO
Associate
Justice
Chairperson,
Second Division
C E R T I F I C A T I O N
Pursuant to Article VIII, Section 13 of the Constitution,
and the Division Chairperson's Attestation, it is hereby certified that the
conclusions in the above decision were reached in consultation before the case
was assigned to the writer of the opinion of the Court.
ARTEMIO V. PANGANIBAN
Chief Justice
[1] Penned by Associate Justice Martin S. Villarama, Jr., with Associate Justice Conrado M. Vasquez, Jr., and Associate Justice Sergio L. Pestaño (ret.) concurring; Rollo, pp. 44-49.
[2]
[3]
[4] Page 2 of CA
Decision;
[5]
[6] Supra note 1.
[7] Supra note 2.
[8] Page 14 of RTC Decision; Rollo, p. 79
[9] CA Decision, p.
4;
[10] Republic
v. CA, G.R. No. 116372,
[11] Velasquez, Jr. v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 138480, March 25, 2004, 426 SCRA 309, citing cases.
[12] Art. 194 of the Family Code.
[13] Sta. Maria, Persons and Family Relations Law, 3rd [1999] ed., p. 684.
[14] Art. 201, Family Code; Baltazar v. Serfino, No. L. 17315,
[15] CA Decision, pp. 5-6; Rollo, pp. 48-49.