Republic of the
Supreme Court
FIRST DIVISION
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G.R. No. 164402 |
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AGUILAR, represented by |
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Present: |
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Petitioner, |
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VELASCO, JR., |
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- versus - |
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LEONARDO-DE CASTRO, |
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PEREZ, JJ. |
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SPOUSES EDERLINA B. ALFARO |
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and RAUL ALFARO, |
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Promulgated: |
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Respondents. |
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July 5, 2010 |
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D E C I S I O N
In an action for
recovery of possession of realty, who has the better right of possession, the registered
owner armed with a Torrens title or the occupants brandishing a notarized but unregistered
deed of sale executed before the land was registered under the
As we previously ruled in similar cases,[1] we
resolve the question in favor of the
titleholder.
Factual Antecedents
On
In 1994, Ignacio died
and his heirs decided to partition
Thus, petitioner filed
a case for accion publiciana praying
that respondents be ordered to vacate subject property, and to pay moral,
temperate, and exemplary damages, as well as attorney’s fees and the costs of
suit.
In their Answer with Counterclaims and Affirmative Defenses,[4] respondents
did not dispute that Ignacio was able to secure title over the entire
Respondents also raised the defense of prescription. They pointed out that accion publiciana or an action to recover the real right of
possession independent of ownership prescribes in 10 years. However, it took petitioner more than 25
years before she asserted her rights by filing accion publiciana. As
alleged in the complaint, they took possession of the disputed portion of
By way of counterclaim, respondents prayed that petitioner be directed
to execute the necessary documents so that title to the 367.5-square meter portion
of
In her Reply and Answer to Counterclaim,[7]
petitioner denied having signed the Kasulatan
sa Bilihan and averred that her signature appearing thereon is a forgery. She presented an unsworn written declaration
dated
During the trial, petitioner presented the testimonies of Orlando Aguilar
(Orlando) and Zenaida Baldeo (Zenaida). Orlando
testified that he has been staying in Lot 83 since 1960 and had built a house thereon
where he is presently residing; and, that his mother, herein petitioner, denied
having sold the property or having signed any document for that matter.
Zenaida also testified that in 1981, her father (Ignacio) and Ederlina had
a confrontation before the barangay during
which her father denied having conveyed any portion of
For their part, respondents offered in evidence the testimonies of
Estrella Bermudo Alfaro (Estrella), Ederlina, and Jose Tampolino (Jose). Estrella declared that she was present when
Ignacio and the petitioner affixed their signatures on the Kasulatan sa Bilihan, which was acknowledged before Notary Public
Juan Q. Dantayana on
Ederlina corroborated the declarations of Estrella. She also alleged that her parents occupied
the property in 1954 when they built a hut there, then later on, a house of
strong materials.
Jose corroborated the declarations of the other witnesses for the
respondents that the disputed portion of
Ruling of the Regional Trial
Court
In its Decision[9] dated
The dispositive portion of the trial court’s Decision reads:
WHEREFORE, and in the light of all the foregoing
considerations, judgment is hereby rendered in favor of plaintiff and against
the defendants, to wit:
1. Ordering the defendants and any person claiming
right under them to vacate the premises in question and surrender the
possession thereof to plaintiff;
2. To pay the amount of Ten Thousand Pesos (P10,000.00)
as and for reasonable attorney’s fees;
3. To pay the costs of this suit.
SO ORDERED.[10]
Ruling of the Court of Appeals
On
The CA likewise disagreed with the court a quo that respondents’ counterclaim should be dismissed on the
ground of indefeasibility of title. It
emphasized that the
The dispositive portion of the CA’s Decision reads:
IN VIEW OF THE FOREGOING, the decision appealed
from is REVERSED, and a new one ENTERED dismissing the complaint and
counterclaim.
SO ORDERED.[12]
Issue
Without seeking reconsideration of the CA’s Decision, petitioner
interposed the present recourse raising the sole issue of:
WHETHER X X X THE HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS ERRED
IN UPHOLDING THE VALIDITY/GENUINENESS AND DUE EXECUTION OF THE PURPORTED DEED
OF
Petitioner contends that the CA grievously erred in upholding the
validity and genuineness of the Kasulatan
sa Bilihan. She alleges that she
wanted to take the witness stand to disclaim in open court her purported signature
appearing on respondents’ Kasulatan sa
Bilihan, but could not do so because she is too old, bed-ridden and has to
bear a tortuous five-hour drive to reach the court. Nevertheless, she executed a sworn statement declaring
that she and her husband never sold any portion of
Petitioner likewise argues that the CA erred in taking into
consideration the appearance and condition of the paper where the Kasulatan sa Bilihan is written. She posits that the fabrication of an ancient-looking
document nowadays is no longer difficult.
She also points to several circumstances which cast doubt on the
authenticity and due execution of the Kasulatan
sa Bilihan, but which the CA inexplicably
ignored
Furthermore, petitioner maintains that her title is indefeasible. And while there are exceptions to the rule on
indefeasibility of title,[14] she
emphasizes that respondents never disputed her title. With
regard to the tax declarations presented by respondents, petitioner asserts
that it has been the consistent ruling of this Court that tax declarations are
not necessarily proof of ownership.
In their comment, respondents assert that in petitions filed under Rule
45 of the Rules of Court, only questions of law can be raised. Factual issues are prohibited. From the arguments advanced by the
petitioner, however, it is clear that she is asking this Court to examine and
weigh again the evidence on record.
Our
Ruling
We grant the petition.
This case falls under the exceptions where the
Supreme Court may review factual issues.
As a rule, only questions of law may be raised in petitions for review
on certiorari.[15] It is settled that in the exercise of the
Supreme Court’s power of review, the court is not a trier of facts and does not
normally undertake the re-examination of the evidence presented by the
contending parties during the trial of the case.[16] This rule, however, is subject to a number of
exceptions,[17]
one of which is when the findings of the appellate court are contrary to those
of the trial court, like in the present case.
Nature and purpose of accion publiciana.
Also known as
accion
plenaria de posesion,[18] accion publiciana is an
ordinary civil proceeding to determine the better right of possession of
realty independently of title.[19] It refers to an ejectment suit filed after
the expiration of one year from the accrual of the cause of action or from the
unlawful withholding of possession of the realty.[20]
The objective of the plaintiffs in accion
publiciana is to recover possession only, not ownership.[21] However, where the parties raise the issue of
ownership, the courts may pass upon the issue to determine who between the
parties has the right to possess the property.
This adjudication, however, is not a final and binding determination of
the issue of ownership; it is only for the purpose of resolving the issue of
possession, where the issue of ownership is inseparably linked to the issue of
possession. The adjudication of the
issue of ownership, being provisional, is not a bar to an action between the
same parties involving title to the property.[22] The adjudication, in short, is not conclusive
on the issue of ownership.[23]
Guided by the foregoing jurisprudential guideposts, we shall now resolve
the arguments raised by the parties in this petition.
As against petitioner’s
It is settled that a
In the present case, there is no dispute that petitioner is the holder
of a Torrens title over the entire
Even if we sustain the petitioners’ arguments and
rule that the deeds of sale are valid contracts, it would still not bolster the
petitioners’ case. In a number of cases,
the Court had upheld the registered owners’ superior right to possess the
property. In Co v. Militar, the Court was confronted with a similar issue of
which between the certificate of title and an unregistered deed of sale should
be given more probative weight in resolving the issue of who has the better
right to possess. There, the Court held
that the court a quo correctly relied
on the transfer certificate of title in the name of petitioner, as opposed to
the unregistered title in the name of respondents. The Court stressed therein that the Torrens
System was adopted in this country because it was believed to be the most
effective measure to guarantee the integrity of land titles and to protect
their indefeasibility once the claim of ownership is established and
recognized.
Likewise, in the recent case of Umpoc v. Mercado, the Court declared
that the trial court did not err in giving more probative weight to the TCT in
the name of the decedent vis-à-vis the
contested unregistered Deed of Sale.
Later in Arambulo v. Gungab,
the Court held that the registered owner is preferred to possess the property
subject of the unlawful detainer case.
The age-old rule is that the person who has a Torrens Title over a land
is entitled to possession thereof. (Citations omitted.)
As the titleholder, therefore, petitioner is preferred to possess the entire
1.
The date of its execution
unbelievably coincides with the date the buyer, Anastacia, died;
2.
Despite its alleged execution on
3.
The lawyer who notarized the Kasulatan sa Bilihan, as well as the
witnesses thereto, was not presented
in court; and,
4.
The District Land Officer who
signed OCT No. P-9354 by authority of the President is a public officer who has
in his favor the presumption of regularity in issuing said title.
Moreover, respondents’ attack on the validity of petitioner’s title by
claiming that their mother became the true owner of the southern portion of Lot
83 even before the issuance of OCT No. P-9354 constitutes as a collateral
attack on said title. It is an attack
incidental to their quest to defend their possession of the property in an accion publiciana, not in a direct
action whose main objective is to impugn the validity of the judgment granting
the title.[29] This cannot be allowed. Under Section 48 of Presidential Decree No.
1529, otherwise known as the Property Registration Decree, a certificate of
title cannot be the subject of collateral attack. Thus:
SEC. 48. Certificate not subject to collateral
attack. – A certificate of title shall not be subject to collateral
attack. It cannot be altered, modified,
or canceled except in a direct proceeding in accordance with law.
A collateral attack transpires when, in another action to obtain a
different relief and as an incident to the present action, an attack is made
against the judgment granting the title.[30] This manner of attack is to be distinguished
from a direct attack against a judgment granting the title, through an action
whose main objective is to annul, set aside, or enjoin the enforcement of such
judgment if not yet implemented, or to seek recovery if the property titled
under the judgment had been disposed of.[31] Thus, in Magay
v. Estiandan,[32] therein
plaintiff-appellee filed an accion
publiciana. In his defense,
defendant-appellant alleged among others that plaintiff-appellee’s Transfer
Certificate of Title No. 2004 was issued under anomalous circumstances. When the case reached this Court, we rejected
defendant-appellant’s defense on the ground that the issue on the validity of
said title can only be raised in an action expressly instituted for that
purpose. Also, in Co v. Court of Appeals[33] we
arrived at the same conclusion and elaborated as follows:
In their reply dated September 1990, petitioners
argue that the issues of fraud and ownership raised in their so-called
compulsory counterclaim partake of the nature of an independent complaint which
they may pursue for the purpose of assailing the validity of the transfer
certificate of title of private respondents.
That theory will not prosper.
While a counterclaim may be filed with a subject
matter or for a relief different from those in the basic complaint in the case,
it does not follow that such counterclaim is in the nature of a separate and
independent action in itself. In fact, its
allowance in the action is subject to explicit conditions, as above set forth,
particularly in its required relation to the subject matter of opposing party’s
claim. Failing in that respect, it
cannot even be filed and pursued as an altogether different and original
action.
It is evident that the objective of such claim is
to nullify the title of private respondents to the property in question, which
thereby challenges the judgment pursuant to which the title was decreed. This is apparently a collateral attack which
is not permitted under the principle of indefeasibility of a
The lower courts cannot pass upon or grant
respondents’ counterclaim for lack of jurisdiction.
Both the trial court and the appellate court considered respondents’
counterclaim as a petition for reconveyance.
In which case, it should be treated merely as a permissive counterclaim
because the evidence required to prove their claim differs from the evidence
needed to establish petitioner’s demand for recovery of possession. Being a permissive counterclaim, therefore,
respondents should have paid the corresponding docket fees.[34] However, there is no proof on record that
respondents paid the required docket fees.
The official receipts were neither attached to nor annotated on
respondents’ Answer with Counterclaims and Affirmative Defenses[35]
which was filed via registered mail[36]
on
On a final note, and as discussed above, we stress that our ruling in
this case is limited only to the issue of determining who between the parties
has a better right to possession. This
adjudication is not a final and binding determination of the issue of
ownership. As such, this is not a bar
for the parties to file an action for the determination of the issue of
ownership where the validity of the Kasulatan sa Bilihan and of OCT No. P-9354
can be properly threshed out.
WHEREFORE, the petition is GRANTED. The
assailed Decision of the Court of Appeals dated June 7, 2004 is REVERSED and SET ASIDE and the September 21, 1998 Decision of Regional
Trial Court, Branch 46, San Jose, Occidental Mindoro, insofar as it orders the
respondents to vacate the premises is REINSTATED and AFFIRMED.
SO ORDERED.
MARIANO
C.
Associate
Justice
WE
CONCUR:
RENATO C. CORONA
Chief Justice
Chairperson
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PRESBITERO
J. VELASCO, JR. Associate
Justice |
TERESITA J. LEONARDO-DE CASTRO Associate
Justice |
JOSE
Associate Justice
C E R T I F I C A T I O N
Pursuant
to Section 13, Article VIII of the Constitution, 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.
RENATO C. CORONA
Chief
Justice
[1] Co v. Militar, 466 Phil. 217 (2004); Umpoc v. Mercado, 490 Phil. 118; Arambulo v. Gungab, G.R. No. 156581, September 30, 2005, 471 SCRA 640; Pascual v. Coronel, G.R. No. 159292, July 12, 2007, 527 SCRA 474.
[2] Records, pp. 1-4. The case was raffled to Branch 46 and docketed as Civil Case No. R-924.
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11] CA rollo, pp. 82-89; penned by Associate Justice Mario L. Guariña III and concurred in by Associate Justices Rodrigo V. Cosico and Santiago Javier Ranada.
[12]
[13] Rollo, p. 201.
[14] Such as when a land in possession of a rightful possessor in the concept of owner is fraudulently registered in the name of another.
[15] Rules of Court, Rule 45, Section 1.
[16]
[17] The recognized
exceptions are: (1) when the inference made is manifestly mistaken, absurd or
impossible; (2) when there is a grave abuse of discretion; (3) when the finding
is grounded entirely on speculations, surmises or conjectures; (4) when the
judgment of the CA is based on misapprehension of facts; (5) when the findings
of fact are conflicting; (6) when the CA, in making its findings, went beyond
the issues of the case and the same [are] contrary to the admissions of both
parties; (7) when the findings of the CA are contrary to those of the trial
court; (8) when the findings of fact are conclusions without citation of
specific evidence on which they are based; (9) when the CA manifestly
overlooked certain relevant facts not disputed by the parties
and which, if properly considered, would justify a different conclusion; and
(10) when the findings of fact of the CA are premised on the absence of
evidence and are contradicted by the evidence on record. (Sering v. Court of
Appeals, 422 Phil. 467, 471-472; Fuentes v. Court of Appeals, 335
Phil. 1163, 1168 (1997)).
[18] Bejar v. Caluag, G.R. No. 171277,
[19] Bejar v. Caluag, id.; Sps. Cruz v. Torres, 374
Phil. 529, 533 (1999); Bishop of
[20] Encarnacion v. Amigo, G.R. No. 169793, September 15, 2006, 502 SCRA 172, 179; Lopez v. David, Jr., G.R. No. 152145, March 30, 2004, 426 SCRA 535, 543.
[21] Natalia Realty, Inc. v. Court of Appeals, 440 Phil. 1, 25 (2002).
[22] Rivera v. Rivera, 453 Phil. 404, 412 (2003).
[23] Umpoc v. Mercado, 490 Phil. 118, 136 (2005).
[24] See Baloloy v. Hular, 481 Phil. 398, 410 (2004).
[25] Carvajal v. Court of Appeals, 345 Phil. 582, 594 (1997).
[26] Supra note
24.
[27] G.R. No. 156581,
[28] G.R. No. 159292,
[29] Ugale v. Gorospe, G.R. No. 149516, September 11, 2006, 501 SCRA 376, 386; Caraan v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 140752, November 11, 2005, 474 SCRA 543, 550; Baloloy v. Hular, 481 Phil. 398, 410 (2004) and Civil Code, Article 428.
[30] Teoville Homeowners Association, Inc. v.
Ferreira, G.R. No. 140086,
[31]
[32] 161 Phil. 586, 587 (1976).
[33] 274 Phil. 108, 116 (1991).
[34] See Alday v. FGU Insurance Corporation, 402 Phil. 962 (2001).
[35] Records, pp. 12-16.
[36]
[37] Sun Insurance Office v.
[38]