G.R. No. 159595

SECOND DIVISION

REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, G.R. No. 159595

Petitioner,

Present:

QUISUMBING,

- versus - Chairperson,

CARPIO,

CARPIO MORALES,

TINGA, and

VELASCO, JR., JJ.

LOURDES ABIERA NILLAS,

Respondent. Promulgated:

January 23, 2007

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D E C I S I O N

Tinga, J.:

The central question raised in this Petition for Review is whether prescription or laches may bar a petition to revive a judgment in a land registration case. It is a hardly novel issue, yet petitioner Republic of the Philippines (Republic) pleads that the Court rule in a manner that would unsettle precedent. We deny certiorari and instead affirm the assailed rulings of the courts below.

The facts bear little elaboration. On 10 April 1997, respondent Lourdes Abiera Nillas (Nillas) filed a Petition for Revival of Judgment with the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Dumaguete City. It was alleged therein that on 17 July 1941, the then Court of First Instance (CFI) of Negros Oriental rendered a Decision Adicional in Expediente Cadastral No. 14, captioned as El Director De Terrenos contra Esteban Abingayan y Otros.[1] In the decision, the CFI, acting as a cadastral court, adjudicated several lots, together with the improvements thereon, in favor of named oppositors who had established their title to their respective lots and their continuous possession thereof since time immemorial and ordered the Chief of the General Land Registration Office, upon the finality of the decision, to issue the corresponding decree of registration.[2] Among these lots was Lot No. 771 of the Sibulan Cadastre, which was adjudicated to Eugenia Calingacion (married to Fausto Estoras) and Engracia Calingacion, both residents of Sibulan, Negros Oriental.[3]

Nillas further alleged that her parents, Serapion and Josefina A. Abierra, eventually acquired Lot No. 771 in its entirety. By way of a Deed of Absolute Sale dated 7 November 1977, Engracia Calingacion sold her undivided one-half (1/2) share over Lot No. 771 to the Spouses Abierra, the parents of Nillas. On the other hand, the one-half (1/2) share adjudicated to Eugenia Calingacion was also acquired by the Spouses Abierra through various purchases they effected from the heirs of Eugenia between the years 1975 to 1982. These purchases were evidenced by three separate Deeds of Absolute Sale all in favor of the Spouses Abierra.[4]

In turn, Nillas acquired Lot No. 771 from her parents through a Deed of Quitclaim dated 30 June 1994. Despite these multiple transfers, and the fact that the Abierra spouses have been in open and continuous possession of the subject property since the 1977 sale, no decree of registration has ever been issued over Lot No. 771 despite the rendition of the 1941 CFI Decision. Thus, Nillas sought the revival of the 1941 Decision and the issuance of the corresponding decree of registration for Lot No. 771. The records do not precisely reveal why the decree was not issued by the Director of Lands, though it does not escape attention that the 1941 Decision was rendered a few months before the commencement of the Japanese invasion of the Philippines in December of 1941.

No responsive pleading was filed by the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), although it entered its appearance on 13 May 1997 and simultaneously deputized the City Prosecutor of Dumaguete City to appear whenever the case was set for hearing and in all subsequent proceedings.[5]

Trial on the merits ensued. The RTC heard the testimony of Nillas and received her documentary evidence. No evidence was apparently presented by the OSG. On 26 April 2000, the RTC rendered a Decision[6] finding merit in the petition for revival of judgment, and ordering the revival of the 1941 Decision, as well as directing the Commissioner of the Land Registration Authority (LRA) to issue the corresponding decree of confirmation and registration based on the 1941 Decision.

The OSG appealed the RTC Decision to the Court of Appeals, arguing in main that the right of action to revive judgment had already prescribed. The OSG further argued that at the very least, Nillas should have established that a request for issuance of a decree of registration before the Administrator of the LRA had been duly made. The appeal was denied by the appellate court in its Decision[7] dated 24 July 2003. In its Decision, the Court of Appeals reiterated that the provisions of Section 6, Rule 39 of the Rules of Court, which impose a prescriptive period for enforcement of judgments by motion, refer to ordinary civil actions and not to “special” proceedings such as land registration cases. The Court of Appeals also noted that it would have been especially onerous to require Nillas to first request the LRA to comply with the 1941 decision considering that it had been established that the original records in the 1941 case had already been destroyed and could no longer be reconstructed.

In the present petition, the OSG strongly argues that contrary to the opinion of the Court of Appeals, the principles of prescription and laches do apply to land registration cases. The OSG notes that Article 1144 of the Civil Code establishes that an action upon judgment must be brought within ten years from the time the right of action accrues.[8] Further, Section 6 of Rule 39 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure establishes that a final and executory judgment or order may be executed on motion within five (5) years from the date of its entry, after which time it may be enforced by action before it is barred by statute of limitations.[9] It bears noting that the Republic does not challenge the authenticity of the 1941 Decision, or Nillas's acquisition of the rights of the original awardees. Neither does it seek to establish that the property is inalienable or otherwise still belonged to the State.

The OSG also extensively relies on two cases, Shipside Inc. v. Court of Appeals[10] and Heirs of Lopez v. De Castro.[11] Shipside was cited since in that case, the Court dismissed the action instituted by the Government seeking the revival of judgment that declared a title null and void because the judgment sought to be revived had become final more than 25 years before the action for revival was filed. In Shipside, the Court relied on Article 1144 of the Civil Code and Section 6, Rule 39 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure in declaring that extinctive prescription did lie. On the other hand, Heirs of Lopez involved the double registration of the same parcel of land, and the subsequent action by one set of applicants for the issuance of the decree of registration in their favor seven (7) years after the judgment had become final. The Court dismissed the subsequent action, holding that laches had set in, it in view of the petitioners' omission to assert a right for nearly seven (7) years.

Despite the invocation by the OSG of these two cases, there exists a more general but definite jurisprudential rule that favors Nillas and bolsters the rulings of the lower courts. The rule is that “neither laches nor the statute of limitations applies to a decision in a land registration case.”[12]

The most extensive explanation of this rule may be found in Sta. Ana v. Menla,[13] decided in 1961, wherein the Court refuted an argument that a decision rendered in a land registration case wherein the decree of registration remained unissued after 26 years was already “final and enforceable.” The Court, through Justice Labrador, explained:

We fail to understand the arguments of the appellant in support of the assignment [of error], except insofar as it supports his theory that after a decision in a land registration case has become final, it may not be enforced after the lapse of a period of 10 years, except by another proceeding to enforce the judgment or decision. Authority for this theory is the provision in the Rules of Court to the effect that judgment may be enforced within 5 years by motion, and after five years but within 10 years, by an action (Sec. 6, Rule 39). This provision of the Rules refers to civil actions and is not applicable to special proceedings, such as a land registration case. This is so because a party in a civil action must immediately enforce a judgment that is secured as against the adverse party, and his failure to act to enforce the same within a reasonable time as provided in the Rules makes the decision unenforceable against the losing party. In special proceedings[,] the purpose is to establish a status, condition or fact; in land registration proceedings, the ownership by a person of a parcel of land is sought to be established. After the ownership has been proved and confirmed by judicial declaration, no further proceeding to enforce said ownership is necessary, except when the adverse or losing party had been in possession of the land and the winning party desires to oust him therefrom.

Furthermore, there is no provision in the Land Registration Act similar to Sec. 6, Rule 39, regarding the execution of a judgment in a civil action, except the proceedings to place the winner in possession by virtue of a writ of possession. The decision in a land registration case, unless the adverse or losing party is in possession, becomes final without any further action, upon the expiration of the period for perfecting an appeal. x x x

x x x x There is nothing in the law that limits the period within which the court may order or issue a decree. The reason is xxx that the judgment is merely declaratory in character and does not need to be asserted or enforced against the adverse party. Furthermore, the issuance of a decree is a ministerial duty both of the judge and of the Land Registration Commission; failure of the court or of the clerk to issue the decree for the reason that no motion therefor has been filed can not prejudice the owner, or the person in whom the land is ordered to be registered.[14]

The doctrine that neither prescription nor laches may render inefficacious a decision in a land registration case was reiterated five (5) years after Sta. Ana, in Heirs of Cristobal Marcos, etc., et al. v. De Banuvar, et al.[15] In that case, it was similarly argued that a prayer for the issuance of a decree of registration filed in 1962 pursuant to a 1938 decision was, among others, barred by prescription and laches. In rejecting the argument, the Court was content in restating with approval the above-cited excerpts from Sta. Ana. A similar tack was again adopted by the Court some years later in Rodil v. Benedicto.[16] These cases further emphasized, citing Demoran v. Ibanez, etc., and Poras[17] and Manlapas and Tolentino v. Llorente,[18] respectively, that the right of the applicant or a subsequent purchaser to ask for the issuance of a writ of possession of the land never prescribes.[19]

Within the last 20 years, the Sta. Ana doctrine on the inapplicability of the rules on prescription and laches to land registration cases has been repeatedly affirmed. Apart from the three (3) cases mentioned earlier, the Sta. Ana doctrine was reiterated in another three (3) more cases later, namely: Vda. de Barroga v. Albano,[20] Cacho v. Court of Appeals,[21] and Paderes v. Court of Appeals.[22] The doctrine of stare decisis compels respect for settled jurisprudence, especially absent any compelling argument to do otherwise. Indeed, the apparent strategy employed by the Republic in its present petition is to feign that the doctrine and the cases that spawned and educed it never existed at all. Instead, it is insisted that the Rules of Court, which provides for the five (5)-year prescriptive period for execution of judgments, is applicable to land registration cases either by analogy or in a suppletory character and whenever practicable and convenient.[23] The Republic further observes that Presidential Decree (PD) No. 1529 has no provision on execution of final judgments; hence, the provisions of Rule 39 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure should apply to land registration proceedings.

We affirm Sta. Ana not out of simple reflex, but because we recognize that the principle enunciated therein offers a convincing refutation of the current arguments of the Republic.

Rule 39, as invoked by the Republic, applies only to ordinary civil actions, not to other or extraordinary proceedings not expressly governed by the Rules of Civil Procedure but by some other specific law or legal modality such as land registration cases. Unlike in ordinary civil actions governed by the Rules of Civil Procedure, the intent of land registration proceedings is to establish ownership by a person of a parcel of land, consistent with the purpose of such extraordinary proceedings to declare by judicial fiat a status, condition or fact. Hence, upon the finality of a decision adjudicating such ownership, no further step is required to effectuate the decision and a ministerial duty exists alike on the part of the land registration court to order the issuance of, and the LRA to issue, the decree of registration.

The Republic observes that the Property Registration Decree (PD No. 1529) does not contain any provision on execution of final judgments; hence, the application of Rule 39 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure in suppletory fashion. Quite the contrary, it is precisely because PD No. 1529 does not specifically provide for execution of judgments in the sense ordinarily understood and applied in civil cases, the reason being there is no need for the prevailing party to apply for a writ of execution in order to obtain the title, that Rule 39 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure is not applicable to land registration cases in the first place. Section 39 of PD No. 1529 reads:

SEC. 39. Preparation of Decree and Certificate of Title. — After the judgment directing the registration of title to land has become final, the court shall, within fifteen days from entry of judgment, issue an order directing the Commissioner to issue the corresponding decree of registration and certificate of title. The clerk of court shall send, within fifteen days from entry of judgment, certified copies of the judgment and of the order of the court directing the Commissioner to issue the corresponding decree of registration and certificate of title, and a certificate stating that the decision has not been amended, reconsidered, nor appealed, and has become final. Thereupon, the Commissioner shall cause to be prepared the decree of registration as well as the original and duplicate of the corresponding original certificate of title. The original certificate of title shall be a true copy of the decree of registration. The decree of registration shall be signed by the Commissioner, entered and filed in the Land Registration Commission. The original of the original certificate of title shall also be signed by the Commissioner and shall be sent, together with the owner’s duplicate certificate, to the Register of Deeds of the city or province where the property is situated for entry in his registration book.

The provision lays down the procedure that interposes between the rendition of the judgment and the issuance of the certificate of title. No obligation whatsoever is imposed by Section 39 on the prevailing applicant or oppositor even as a precondition to the issuance of the title. The obligations provided in the Section are levied on the land court (that is to issue an order directing the Land Registration Commissioner to issue in turn the corresponding decree of registration), its clerk of court (that is to transmit copies of the judgment and the order to the Commissioner), and the Land Registration Commissioner (that is to cause the preparation of the decree of registration and the transmittal thereof to the Register of Deeds). All these obligations are ministerial on the officers charged with their performance and thus generally beyond discretion of amendment or review.

The failure on the part of the administrative authorities to do their part in the issuance of the decree of registration cannot oust the prevailing party from ownership of the land. Neither the failure of such applicant to follow up with said authorities can. The ultimate goal of our land registration system is geared towards the final and definitive determination of real property ownership in the country, and the imposition of an additional burden on the owner after the judgment in the land registration case had attained finality would simply frustrate such goal.

Clearly, the peculiar procedure provided in the Property Registration Law from the time decisions in land registration cases become final is complete in itself and does not need to be filled in. From another perspective, the judgment does not have to be executed by motion or enforced by action within the purview of Rule 39 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure.

Following these premises, it can even be posited that in theory, there would have been no need for Nillas, or others under similar circumstances, to file a petition for revival of judgment, since revival of judgments is a procedure derived from civil procedure and proceeds from the assumption that the judgment is susceptible to prescription. The primary recourse need not be with the courts, but with the LRA, with whom the duty to issue the decree of registration remains. If it is sufficiently established before that body that there is an authentic standing judgment or order from a land registration court that remains unimplemented, then there should be no impediment to the issuance of the decree of registration. However, the Court sees the practical value of necessitating judicial recourse if a significant number of years has passed since the promulgation of the land court's unimplemented decision or order, as in this case. Even though prescription should not be a cause to bar the issuance of the decree of registration, a judicial evaluation would allow for a thorough examination of the veracity of the judgment or order sought to be effected, or a determination of causes other than prescription or laches that might preclude the issuance of the decree of registration.

What about the two cases cited by the Republic, Shipside and Heirs of Lopez? Even though the Court applied the doctrines of prescription and laches in those cases, it should be observed that neither case was intended to overturn the Sta. Ana doctrine, nor did they make any express declaration to such effect. Moreover, both cases were governed by their unique set of facts, quite distinct from the general situation that marked both Sta. Ana and the present case.

The judgment sought belatedly for enforcement in Shipside did not arise from an original action for land registration, but from a successful motion by the Republic seeking the cancellation of title previously adjudicated to a private landowner. While one might argue that such motion still arose in a land registration case, we note that the pronouncement therein that prescription barred the revival of the order of cancellation was made in the course of dispensing with an argument which was ultimately peripheral to that case. Indeed, the portion of Shipside dealing with the issue of prescription merely restated the provisions in the Civil Code and the Rules of Civil Procedure relating to prescription, followed by an observation that the judgment sought to be revived attained finality 25 years earlier. However, the Sta. Ana doctrine was not addressed, and perhaps with good reason, as the significantly more extensive rationale provided by the Court in barring the revival of judgment was the fact that the State no longer held interest in the subject property, having divested the same to the Bases Conversion Development Authority prior to the filing of the action for revival. Shipside expounds on this point, and not on the applicability of the rules of prescription.

Notably, Shipside has attained some measure of prominence as precedent on still another point, relating to its pronouncements relating to the proper execution of the certification of non-forum shopping by a corporation. In contrast, Shipside has not since been utilized by the Court to employ the rules on prescription and laches on final decisions in land registration cases. It is worth mentioning that since Shipside was promulgated in 2001, the Court has not hesitated in reaffirming the rule in Sta. Ana as recently as in the middle of 2005 in the Paderes case.

We now turn to Heirs of Lopez, wherein the controlling factual milieu proved even more unconventional than that in Shipside. The property involved therein was the subject of two separate applications for registration, one filed by petitioners therein in 1959, the other by a different party in 1967. It was the latter who was first able to obtain a decree of registration, this accomplished as early as 1968.[24] On the other hand, the petitioners were able to obtain a final judgment in their favor only in 1979, by which time the property had already been registered in the name of the other claimant, thus obstructing the issuance of certificate of title to the petitioners. The issues of prescription and laches arose because the petitioners filed their action to enforce the 1979 final judgment and the cancellation of the competing title only in 1987, two (2) years beyond the five (5)-year prescriptive period provided in the Rules of Civil Procedure. The Court did characterize the petitioners as guilty of laches for the delay in filing the action for the execution of the judgment in their favor, and thus denied the petition on that score.

Heirs of Lopez noted the settled rule that “when two certificates of title are issued to different persons covering the same land in whole or in part, the earlier in date must prevail x x x,” and indeed even if the petitioners therein were somehow able to obtain a certificate of title pursuant to the 1979 judgment in their favor, such title could not have stood in the face of the earlier title. The Court then correlated the laches of the petitioners with their pattern of behavior in failing to exercise due diligence to protect their interests over the property, marked by their inability to oppose the other application for registration or to seek enforcement of their own judgment within the five (5) -year reglementary period.

Still, a close examination of Heirs of Lopez reveals an unusual dilemma that negates its application as precedent to the case at bar, or to detract from Sta. Ana as a general rule for that matter. The execution of the judgment sought for belated enforcement in Heirs of Lopez would have entailed the disturbance of a different final judgment which had already been executed and which was shielded by the legal protection afforded by a Torrens title. In light of those circumstances, there could not have been a “ministerial duty” on the part of the registration authorities to effectuate the judgment in favor of the petitioners in Heirs of Lopez. Neither could it be said that their right of ownership as confirmed by the judgment in their favor was indubitable, considering the earlier decree of registration over the same property accorded to a different party. The Sta. Ana doctrine rests upon the general presumption that the final judgment, with which the corresponding decree of registration is homologous by legal design, has not been disturbed by another ruling by a co-extensive or superior court. That presumption obtains in this case as well. Unless that presumption is overcome, there is no impediment to the continued application of Sta. Ana as precedent.[25]

We are not inclined to make any pronouncements on the doctrinal viability of Shipside or Heirs of Lopez concerning the applicability of the rules of prescription or laches in land registration cases. Suffice it to say, those cases do not operate to detract from the continued good standing of Sta. Ana as a general precedent that neither prescription nor laches bars the enforcement of a final judgment in a land registration case, especially when the said judgment has not been reversed or modified, whether deliberately or inadvertently, by another final court ruling. This qualifier stands not so much as a newly-carved exception to the general rule as it does as an exercise in stating the obvious.

Finally, the Republic faults the Court of Appeals for pronouncing that the 1941 Decision constituted res judicata that barred subsequent attacks to the adjudicates’ title over the subject property. The Republic submits that said decision would operate as res judicata only after the decree of registration was issued, which did not happen in this case. We doubt that a final decision’s status as res judicata is the impelling ground for its very own execution; and indeed res judicata is more often invoked as a defense or as a factor in relation to a different case altogether. Still, this faulty terminology aside, the Republic’s arguments on this point do not dissuade from our central holding that the 1941 Decision is still susceptible to effectuation by the standard decree of registration notwithstanding the delay incurred by Nillas or her predecessors-in-interest in seeking its effectuation and the reasons for such delay, following the prostracted failure of the then Land Registration Commissioner to issue the decree of registration. In this case, all that Nillas needed to prove was that she had duly acquired the rights of the original adjudicates – her predecessors-in-interest-in order to entitle her to the decree of registration albeit still in the names of the original prevailing parties who are her predecessors-in interest. Both the trial court and the

Court of Appeals were satisfied that such fact was proven, and the Republic does not offer any compelling argument to dispute such proof.

WHEREFORE, the Petition is DENIED. No pronouncement as to costs.

SO ORDERED.

DANTE O. TINGA

Associate Justice

WE CONCUR:

LEONARDO A. QUISUMBING

Associate Justice

Chairperson

ANTONIO T. CARPIO CONCHITA CARPIO MORALES

Associate Justice Associate Justice

PRESBITERO J. VELASCO, JR.

Associate Justice

ATTESTATION

I attest that the conclusions in the above Decision had been reached in consultation before the case was assigned to the writer of the opinion of the Court’s Division.

LEONARDO A. QUISUMBING

Associate Justice

Chairperson, Second Division

CERTIFICATION

Pursuant to Section 13, Article VIII of the Constitution, and the Division Chairman’s Attestation, it is hereby certified that the conclusions in the above Decision had been reached in consultation before the case was assigned to the writer of the opinion of the Court’s Division.

REYNATO S. PUNO

Chief Justice

[1]Penned by Judge Patricio C. Ceniza.

[2]The pertinent portions read:

“x x x x

Previa vista celebrada, las personas que mas abajo se mencionada han probado ser dueñas de sus respectivos lotes habiendolos poseido desde tiempo immemorial.

EN SU VIRTUD, el Juzgado les adjudica los lotes a que tienen derecho, a saber:

x x x x

“SE ORDENA, FINALMENTE, el Jefe de la Oficina General del Registro de Terrenos, que, una vez firme esta decision, de lo cual se le avisara oportunamente mediante una orden expresa en el formularia Judicial No. 115, y despues de recibidos por el los planos finales preparados por la Oficina de Terrenos segun los terminos de esta decision, expida los decretos de inscripcion de titulo correspondientes. ENTENDIENDOSE, SIN EMBARGO, que el citado Jefe de la Oficina General del Registro de Terrenos podra expedir, de conformidad con el plano original obrante en autos, los decretos de inscripcion de titulo correspondiente a aquellos lotes que no han sido objeto en enmienda en la presente decision.

ASI SE ORDENA.

Sibulan, Negros Oriental, [J]ulio 17, 1941.” (Rollo, pp. 61, 63-64, emphasis supplied)

[3] Rollo, p. 62.

[6]CA rollo, pp. 10-11 and 37-38. Penned by Judge Fe Lualhati D. Bustamante, Presiding Judge, Branch 33.

[7]Rollo, pp. 8-15. Penned by Associate Justice Remedios Salazar-Fernando of the Sixth Division, concurred in by Associate Justices Delilah Vidallon-Magtolis and Edgardo F. Sundiam.

[12]See Vda. de Barroga v. Albano, G.R. No. L-43445, 20 January 1988, 157 SCRA 131. See also Heirs of Cristobal Marcos, etc., et al., v. De Banuvar, et al., 134 Phil. 257, 265 (1968).

[16]No. L-28616, 22 January 1980, 95 SCRA 137.

[19]See also Vda. de Barroga v. Albano, G.R. No. L-43445, 20 January 1988, 157 SCRA 131.

[22]G.R. No. 147074, 15 July 2005, 463 SCRA 504, 526-527.

[23]Rollo, p. 33; citing Section 34, P.D. No. 1529.

[24]The narration in Heirs of Lopez does not indicate when the certificate of title was issued in favor of the other party, though the petitioners therein did seek the judicial cancellation of the titles in the name of the contrary party.

[25]Different principles may apply if the final judgment in the land registration case were to be affected not by another court ruling but by subsequent legislation. It bears noting that since the final judgment-applicant is no longer required to perform any act to perfect ownership over the property, said applicant bears a vested property right that cannot be generally impaired by law, much less without any proceedings that do not bear the hallmark of due process. Still, we decline for now to make any definite pronouncement on that question.