G.R. Nos. 162335 and 162605 (SEVERINO M.
MANOTOK, ET AL. v. HEIRS OF HOMER L. BARQUE, represented by TERESITA BARQUE
HERNANDEZ)
Promulgated:
August
24, 2010
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DISSENTING OPINION
SERENO, J.:
The
function of law in modern societies is to allow a people to forge its common
destiny and uphold its shared values in a predictable and orderly manner. Except in authoritarian regimes where the
consent of the governed is immaterial from the point of view of the ruler and
where illegitimate force compels obeisance, aspiring modern democracies
collectively assign to the State the function of keeping order, not only in the
streets, but in a more fundamental way – in meeting expectations that have been
spelled out in the legal system. The function of courts, especially that of the
Philippine Supreme Court within the State apparatus, is to issue judicial
edicts that consistently uphold legitimate expectations to promote stability
and not chaos. Thus a decision that introduces instability without an
overweening legal reason that has emanated from the people themselves or from
the legislature should instinctively be avoided by the Supreme Court. This the
majority failed to do.
The
Majority Decision accomplished only the following: (1) it
introduced a stale, formalistic technical requirement into the system of
acquisition of friar lands that trumps satisfaction of all the other elements
of lawful, effective possession and ownership thereof; (2) it imbued a rigid meaning into the term
“approval” by the Secretary of Agrarian and Natural Resources that ignores the
wealth of jurisprudence in administrative law including the notion of operative
facts and tacit approval; (3) it enabled
forgers of documents to land to take advantage of the antiquity of a land
system, or the fact that the land system had endured massive destruction of its
records due to fire, to attack land titles made vulnerable by these
circumstances; (4) it encouraged a
microscopic scrutiny of all the technical requirements 106 years after the
system of disposition of friar lands was set up, thus endangering the property
rights of all title holders to friar lands; and (5) it left open to attack the established legal
principles on sales and perfection of contracts. Contrary to the presumed intent of the
majority of my brethren, their opinion has not succeeded in clarifying the
legal regime on friar lands but has instead created dangers for the system of
property rights in the
Thus,
I lend my voice to the Dissenting Opinions of Justices Carpio and Carpio
Morales. The majority should have considered the reasoning and objectives
behind the Carpio and Carpio Morales Dissenting Opinions as promotive of
property rights. Without stability of property rights, the country’s economic
development process and the pursuit of each man’s right to happiness will in
the long run be negated. This in turn up-ends expectations on the part of the
body politic that transactions between property right holders and transferees
of such rights will be respected. This
respect for the sanctity of such transactions is supposed in turn to create a
virtuous cycle of commerce, the end result being that of a prosperous
wealth-creating system. What the
Majority Decision did is exactly opposite the intent of our Constitution, when,
in various provisions, it makes a stable market mechanism equivalent to economic
due process. In Article II, section 5 of
the Constitution, the protection of property is deemed essential for the
enjoyment by all the people of the blessings of democracy. The just and dynamic social order described
in Section 9 of the same Article envisions a market system where transactions
validly entered upon are upheld by courts.
Article II, section 1 in effect guarantees that the possession of all
the requisites for title-holding by persons not be disturbed save by superior
legal bases.
Should
the legal system fail to promote the stability of property rights, there will
be an increase in the uncertainty surrounding economic outcomes. If stability cannot be ensured and there is a
lack of credible commitment on the part of the ruling body to safeguard the
rights of the right-bearers (i.e the
holders of rights to property), the value of property is undermined by risk and
there is far less incentive for investment. The choices economic entities make
will be severely limited, being hampered by these disincentives, and as a
result, economic growth will drop.
Unpredictability and uncertainty with regard to future values, as well
as the inefficiencies of outcomes brought about by an uneven application of
distributive arrangements of property rights, will assail the very foundations
of our economic system. The Majority
Decision throws into disarray the functional order of property laws.
When
the Court in effect says that the following features of the Manotoks’ claims
are trumped by the lack of affixation of a signature ── which the
law in any case pronounces as but ministerial and thus superfluous ──
it in effect contradicts the logic of the
While
the private parties are expected to seek reconsideration of the Majority
Decision, the Government is faced with a choice created by the unexpected
windfall this Court has granted it in the form of the reverted land ── whether to live with and profit by the
Majority Decision, or to seek its reconsideration because of the over-all
danger that the decision poses to the system of property rights. It can assert
that DENR Memorandum Order No. 16-05 is the State’s remedial measure intended
to set to rest whatever doubts may have lingered regarding the legal
requirements on friar lands. It must carefully and correctly assess the situation arisen from the Majority
Decision that now confronts the State. After all, it will be the Government
that will need to face the economic fall-out from an unstable property rights
regime.
MARIA