Republic of the
Supreme Court
SECOND DIVISION
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Arsenio Olegario and |
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G.R. No. 147951 |
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HEIRS OF Aristoteles F. |
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Olegario, represented by |
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CARMELITA GUZMAN- |
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Present: |
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OLEGARIO, |
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Petitioners, |
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CARPIO,* J., Chairperson, |
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CARPIO-MORALES,** |
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LEONARDO-DE CASTRO,*** |
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- versus - |
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ABAD, JJ. |
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Pedro C. Mari, represented by |
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Lilia C. Mari-Camba, |
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Promulgated: |
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Respondent. |
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December 14, 2009 |
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D E C I S I O N
Possession, to
constitute the foundation of acquisitive prescription, must be possession under
a claim of title or must be adverse.
Acts of a possessory character performed by one who holds the property
by mere tolerance of the owner are clearly not in the concept of an owner and
such possessory acts, no matter how long continued, do not start the running of
the period of prescription.
In
the present Petition for Review on Certiorari,[1]
petitioners assail the April 18, 2001 Decision[2]
of the Court of Appeals (CA) in CA-G.R. CV No. 52124, reversing the October 13,
1995 Decision[3] of
the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Pangasinan, Branch 39. The CA declared the respondent herein as the
owner of Lot Nos. 17553, 17526 and 14356 of the Mangatarem cadastral survey.
Factual antecedents
As
early as 1916,[4]
Juan Mari, the father of respondent, declared his ownership over a parcel of
land in Nancasalan, Mangatarem for tax purposes. He took possession of the same by delineating
the limits with a bamboo fence,[5]
planting various fruit bearing trees and bamboos[6]
and constructing a house thereon.[7] After a survey made in 1950, Tax Declaration
No. 8048[8]
for the year 1951 specified the subject realty as a residential land with an
area of 897 square meters and as having the following boundaries: North - Magdalena Fernandez; South - Catalina
Cacayorin; East - Camino Vecinal; and West - Norberto Bugarin. In 1974, the subject realty was transferred
to respondent, Pedro Mari, by virtue of a deed of sale.
Meanwhile,
in 1947, Wenceslao Olegario, the husband of Magdalena Fernandez and father of
petitioner Arsenio Olegario, filed a new tax declaration[9]
for a certain 50-square meter parcel of land, indicating the following
boundaries: North - Cesario and Antonio Fernandez; South - Juan Mari; East -
In
the cadastral survey conducted from 1961 to 1962, the subject realty was identified
as Lot Nos. 17526, 17553 and 14356 of the Mangatarem Cadastre. At this time, Wenceslao Olegario disputed
Juan Mari’s claim over Lot Nos. 17526 and 17553. Hence, on the two corresponding survey notification
cards dated
Sometime
around 1988, respondent filed with the Department of Environment and Natural
Resources Regional Office in Pangasinan a protest against the petitioners
because of their encroachment into the disputed realty. After investigation, said office decided in
favor of the respondent and found the latter to be the owner of Lot Nos. 17526,
17553 and 14356. Petitioners did not
appeal and the said decision became final and executory.
In
1989, Arsenio Olegario caused the amendment of his tax declaration[12]
for the 50-square meter property to reflect 1) an increased area of 341 square
meters; 2) the Cadastral Lot No. as 17526, Pls-768-D;[13] and 3) the boundaries as: North-NE Lot 16385
& Road; South-NW-Lots 14363 & 6385, Pls-768-D; East-SE-Lot 17552, Pls-768-D
and West-SW-Lot 14358, Pls-768-D.
Proceedings
before the Regional Trial Court
In
1990, after discovering the amended entries in Arsenio Olegario's Tax
Declaration No. 4107-R, respondent filed a complaint[14]
with the RTC of Lingayen, Pangasinan, for Recovery of Possession and Annulment
of Tax Declaration No. 4107-R.
Respondent alleged, inter alia, that Juan Mari, and subsequently
his successor, was deprived by the Olegarios of the possession of portions of
subject realty which respondent owned.
Trial thereafter ensued.
On
WHEREFORE, in the light of the foregoing
considerations, judgment is hereby rendered as follows:
1. Declaring the defendants-Olegario the owners
of Lots 17553 and 17526 of the Mangatarem cadastral survey.
2. Dismissing the plaintiff's Complaint on the
ground of prescription of action and on the further ground that [he] failed to
prove [his] ownership of any portion of the two lots mentioned in the next
preceding paragraph (assuming arguendo that [his] action has not
prescribed);
3. Ordering the plaintiff to pay the costs of
this suit. No damages are awarded by the
Court.
SO ORDERED.[15]
Proceedings
before the Court of Appeals
Respondent
appealed to the CA which reversed the trial court's findings. The CA found respondent to have adduced
stronger evidence of prior possession and ownership of the disputed
realty. The dispositive portion of the
CA Decision states:
WHEREFORE, the trial court's Decision dated
SO ORDERED.[16]
Petitioners,
without filing a motion for reconsideration of the CA Decision, thereafter
filed the present petition for review.
Issues
Petitioners
raise the following issues:
1. Whether or not there was
failure on [the part of] the Court of Appeals to appreciate and give weight to
the evidence presented by the petitioners;
2. Whether or not the Court of
Appeals erred in its decision in adjudicating ownership of the said lots in
favor of the respondent and [in] giving great weight to the respondent’s evidence;
3. Whether or not the Court of
Appeals erred in its failure to declare the action as barred by laches;
4. Whether or not the Court of
Appeals failed to find an[d] declare the petitioners as having acquired
ownership of the disputed lots by acquisitive prescription;
5. Whether or not the Court of
Appeals erred in adjudicating the lot in favor of respondent and also [in]
denying award of damages to petitioners.[17]
Petitioners' Arguments
Petitioners
contend that they have been in possession of the disputed lots since 1948 or
thereabouts, or for more than 30 years already.
Hence, they acquired ownership thereover by virtue of prescription. They also impute negligence or failure on the
part of respondent to assert his alleged rights within a reasonable time.
Respondent's Arguments
On
the other hand, respondent asserts that petitioners claim ownership over only a
certain 50-square meter parcel of land, as evidenced by their tax declaration
which consistently declared only such area.
It was only in September 1989 that petitioners sought to expand the area
of their claim to 341 square meters by virtue of a letter to the Provincial
Assessor of Pangasinan. Hence,
respondent asserts that prescription has not set in. Respondent also contends that petitioners'
occupancy has been illegal from the point of inception and thus, such
possession can never ripen into a legal status.
Our Ruling
The
petition has no merit.
Petitioners' Evidence is Weak
Considering
the conflicting findings of the RTC and the CA, a circumstance that constitutes
an exception[18]
to the general rule that only questions of law are proper subjects of a
petition under Rule 45, we shall assess and weigh the evidence adduced by the
parties and shall resolve the questions of fact raised by petitioners.
A
study of the evidence presented by petitioners shows that the CA did not err in
finding such evidence weaker than that of respondent. Arsenio Olegario testified that as early as
1937 their family had built a nipa house on the land where they lived. Yet he also testified that the former owner
of the land was his mother, Magdalena Fernandez.[19] Significantly, Magdalena Fernandez has never
claimed and was never in possession or ownership of Lot Nos. 17553, 17526 and
14356. Petitioners’ evidence thus
supports the conclusion that in 1937 they were in possession, not of Lot No.
17526, but of their mother’s land, possibly 50 square meters of it, which is
the approximate floor area of the house.
Conversely, petitioners' evidence fails to clearly prove that in 1937 they
were already occupying the disputed lots.
The records, in fact, do not show exactly when the Olegarios entered and
started occupying the disputed lots.
The
evidence shows that a hollow block fence, an improvement introduced by the
Olegarios in 1965, now exists somewhere along the disputed lots. Petitioners' claim that they were in
possession of the disputed lots even prior to 1965 based on the existence of the
bamboo fence on the boundary of their land preceding the existence of the
hollow block fence, however, holds no water.
The testimony of Marcelino Gutierrez shows that formerly there was a
bamboo fence demarcating between the land of the Olegarios and the Maris and
that in 1964 or 1965 a hollow block fence was constructed. He did not say, however, that the place where
the hollow block fence was constructed was the exact same place where the
bamboo boundary fence once stood. Even the testimony of Arsenio Olegario was
ambiguous on this matter, viz:
Q When
was the [concrete] hollow block [fence] separating your property [from] the
property of Juan Mari constructed?
A It
was constructed in 1965.
Q Before
the construction of that concrete hollow block fence between your land and the
A Bamboo
fence, sir.[20]
Arsenio merely testified that a
bamboo fence was formerly the visible boundary between his land and the
On
the other hand, there is ample evidence on record, embodied in Tax Declaration
No. 9404 for the year 1947; the survey sketch plan of 1961; and the survey plan
of 1992, that the boundary claimed by the Olegarios kept moving in such a way
that the portion they occupied expanded from 50 square meters (in the land of
his mother) to 377 square meters.[21]
Viewed in relation to the entire body of evidence presented by the parties in
this case, these documents cannot plausibly all be mistaken in the areas
specified therein. As against the bare
claim of Arsenio[22]
that his predecessor merely made an inaccurate estimate in providing 50 square
meters as the area claimed by the latter in 1947 in the tax declaration,[23]
we find it more plausible to believe that each of the documents on record
stated the true area measurements of the parties' claims at the particular time
each document was executed.
As
correctly found by the CA, the earliest that petitioners can be considered to
have occupied the disputed property was in 1965 when the concrete hollow block
fence was constructed on the disputed lots.
Ownership and Prescription
As
previously mentioned, respondent's predecessor, Juan Mari, had declared the
disputed realty[24]
for tax purposes as early as 1916. The
tax declarations show that he had a two storey house on the realty. He also planted fruit bearing trees and
bamboos thereon. The records[25]
also show that the 897-square meter property had a bamboo fence along its
perimeter. All these circumstances
clearly show that Juan Mari was in possession of subject realty in the concept
of owner, publicly and peacefully since 1916 or long before petitioners entered
the disputed realty sometime in 1965.
Based
on Article 538 of the Civil Code,[26]
the respondent is the preferred possessor because, benefiting from his father's
tax declaration of the subject realty since 1916, he has been in possession
thereof for a longer period. On the
other hand, petitioners acquired joint possession only sometime in 1965.
Despite
25 years of occupying the disputed lots, therefore, petitioners did not acquire
ownership. Firstly, they had no just
title. Petitioners did not present any document to show how the titles over Lot
Nos. 17526 and 17533 were transferred to them, whether from respondent, his
predecessor, or any other person.[27] Petitioners, therefore, could not acquire the
disputed real property by ordinary prescription through possession for 10
years. Secondly, it is settled that
ownership cannot be acquired by mere occupation. Unless coupled with the element of hostility
towards the true owner, occupation and use, however long, will not confer title
by prescription or adverse possession.[28] In other words, possession, to constitute the
foundation of a prescriptive right, must be possession under claim of title,
that is, it must be adverse.[29]
Petitioners'
acts of a possessory character - acts that might have been merely tolerated by
the owner - did not constitute possession.
No matter how long tolerated possession is continued, it does not start
the running of the prescriptive period.[30] Mere material possession of land is not
adverse possession as against the owner and is insufficient to vest title,
unless such possession is accompanied by the intent to possess as an
owner. There should be a hostile use of
such a nature and exercised under such circumstance as to manifest and give
notice that the possession is under a claim of right.[31]
Petitioners
have failed to prove that their possession was adverse or under claim of title
or right. Unlike respondent, petitioners
did not have either the courage or forthrightness to publicly declare the
disputed lots as owned by them for tax purposes. Tax declarations "prove that the holder
has a claim of title over the property.
Aside from manifesting a sincere desire to obtain title thereto, they
announce the holder's adverse claim against the state and other interested
parties".[32] Petitioners' omission, when viewed in
conjunction with respondent's continued unequivocal declaration of ownership
over, payment of taxes on and possession of the subject realty, shows a lack of
sufficient adverseness of the formers’ possession to qualify as being one in
the concept of owner.
The
only instance petitioners assumed a legal position sufficiently adverse to
respondent's ownership of the disputed properties was when they declared Lot No.
17526 for tax purposes in their name in 1989.[33] Since then and until the filing of the
complaint for recovery of possession in 1990, only one year had elapsed. Hence, petitioners never acquired ownership
through extraordinary prescription of the subject realty.
On
the other hand, being the sole transferree of his father, respondent showed
through his tax declarations which were coupled with possessory acts that he,
through his predecessor, had been in possession of the land for more than 30
years since 1916. "Open, exclusive and undisputed possession of alienable
public land for the period prescribed by law creates the legal fiction whereby
the land, upon completion of the requisite period - ipso jure and
without the need of judicial or other sanction, ceases to be public land and
becomes private property."[34] Ownership of immovable property is acquired
by extraordinary prescription through possession for 30 years.[35] For purposes of deciding the instant case,
therefore, the possession by respondent and his predecessor had already ripened
into ownership of the subject realty by virtue of prescription as early as
1946.
Laches
Petitioners
cannot find refuge in the principle of laches.
It is not just the lapse of time or delay that constitutes laches. The essence of laches is the failure or
neglect, for an unreasonable and unexplained length of time, to do that which,
through due diligence, could or should have been done earlier, thus giving rise
to a presumption that the party entitled to assert it had earlier abandoned or
declined to assert it.
The
essential elements of laches are: (a) conduct on the part of the defendant, or
of one under whom he claims, giving rise to the situation complained of; (b)
delay in asserting complainant's rights after he had knowledge of defendant's
acts and after he has had the opportunity to sue; (c) lack of knowledge or
notice by defendant that the complainant will assert the right on which he
bases his suit and (d) injury or prejudice to the defendant in the event the
relief is accorded to the complainant.[36]
In
the instant case, the second and third elements are missing. Petitioners had notice and knew all along the
position of the respondent and his predecessor Juan Mari - they were standing
pat on his ownership over the subject realty.
This stand of respondent and his predecessor was recorded and clearly
visible from the notification survey cards.[37] From 1968, the date of the cards, until 1989
there was nothing to indicate any change in the position of any of the
parties. Moreover, that respondent had
not conceded ownership and possession of the land to petitioners is clear also
from the fact that Pedro Mari continued to declare the entire 897-square meter
property in his name and pay taxes for the entire area after his father
transferred the property to him.
On
the other hand, it was petitioners who suddenly changed their position in 1989
by changing the area of the property declared in their name from 50 square
meters to 341 square meters and specifying the details to make it appear that
the tax declaration for the 50-square meter property pertained to Lot No. 17526. As previously discussed, it was only at this
point, in 1989, that it can be clearly stated that petitioners were making
their claim of ownership public and unequivocal and converting their possession
over Lot No. 17526 into one in the concept of owner.
Upon
discovery of this clear and unequivocal change in status of petitioners’
position over the disputed land respondent immediately acted. He filed in 1990 the complaint for recovery
of possession and nullification of tax declaration. Hence, we find no laches in the instant case.
In
conclusion, we find no reversible error on the part of the CA in recognizing
the ownership and right of possession of respondent over Lot Nos. 17526, 17553
and 14356. There is, thus, also no basis
for an award of damages and attorney’s fees in favor of petitioners.
WHEREFORE,
the instant petition is DENIED. The assailed Decision of the Court of
Appeals dated
SO
ORDERED.
MARIANO C.
Associate
Justice
WE CONCUR:
ANTONIO T. CARPIO
Associate Justice
Chairperson
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CONCHITA CARPIO MORALES Associate Justice |
TERESITA J. LEONARDO-DE CASTRO Associate Justice |
ROBERTO A. ABAD
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.
ANTONIO T.
CARPIO
Associate Justice
Chairperson, Second Division
C
E R T I F I C A T I O N
Pursuant to Section 13,
Article VIII of the Constitution, and the Division Chairperson’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
* Per
Special Order No. 775 dated
**
In lieu of Justice Arturo D. Brion who
is on leave per Special Order No. 807 dated
***
Additional member per Special Order No.
776 dated
[1] Rollo, pp. 18-43.
[2] CA rollo, pp. 81-92; penned by Associate Justice Fermin A. Martin, Jr. and concurred in by Associate Justices Portia Aliño-Hormachuelos and Mercedes Gozo-Dadole.
[3] Records, pp. 280-286; penned by Judge Eugenio G. Ramos.
[4] Tax
No. 17893.
[5] Records,
p. 68.
[6]
[7] See
tax declarations.
[8] This
cancelled Tax No. 32661 which in turn cancelled Tax No. 17893.
[9] Exhibit
“12”, records, p. 216.
[10] Exhibit
“R”, id. at 220.
[11] Exhibits
“A” and “B”, id. at 202-203.
[12] No. 4107-R.
[13] Prior
to 1989 this item remained blank.
[14] Records, pp. 1-4.
[15]
[16] CA rollo,
pp. 91-92.
[17] Rollo,
pp. 200-201.
[18] Philippine Phosphate Fertilizer
Corporation v. Kamalig Resources, Inc., G.R. No. 165608, December 13, 2007,
540 SCRA 139, 151; Republic v. Enriquez, G.R. No. 160990, September 11, 2006, 501 SCRA 436, 442.
[19] TSN,
[20] TSN,
[21] 341
square meters of Lot No. 17526 plus 36 square meters of Lot No. 14356.
[22] He
testified that the 50-square meter area was just an estimate of the floor area
of the house but not of the entire lot area claimed by them.
[23] Significantly,
the same area of 50 square meters was mentioned in the Deed of Quit-Claim of
Unregistered Real property dated
[24] Surveyed
as Lots No. 17553, 17526 and 14356.
[25] Records,
p. 68.
[26] Art.
538 of the Civil Code states:
Possession
as a fact cannot be recognized at the same time in two different personalities
except in the cases of co-possession.
Should a question arise regarding the fact of possession, the present
possessor shall be preferred; if there are two possessors, the one longer in
possession; if the dates of the possession are the same, the one who presents a
title; and if all these conditions are equal, the thing shall be placed in
judicial deposit pending determination of its possession or ownership through
proper proceedings.
[27] What
is on record is a “Deed of Quitclaim of Unregistered Real Property” over a 50-square
meter realty, which has not been proven to be the same as Lots 17526 and 17533.
[28] Cequeña
v. Bolante, 386 Phil. 419, 430 (2000).
[29] Bogo-Medellin
Milling Co., Inc. v. Court of Appeals, 455 Phil. 285, 298-299 (2003).
[30] Larena
v. Mapili, 455 Phil. 944, 954-955 (2003).
[31] Bogo-Medellin
Milling Co., Inc. v. Court of Appeals, supra note 29 at 300; The Director
of Lands v. Court of Appeals, 367 Phil. 597 (1999).
[32] Cequeña
v. Bolante, supra note 28 at 430, citing Republic of the Phils. v. Court of Appeals, 328 Phil. 238, 248 (1996).
[33] Exhibit
“U”, records p. 223.
[34] San
Miguel Corporation v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 57667, May 28, 1990, 185
SCRA 722, 724-725.
[35] Civil Code, Art. 1137.
[36] Bogo-Medellin
Milling Co., Inc. v. Court of Appeals, supra note 29 at 302 citing Avisado
v. Rumbaua, 406 Phil. 704 (2001).
[37] Exhibits
“A” and “B”, records, pp. 202-203.