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G.R.
No. 165287
Present: CARPIO, J., Chairperson, BRION, ABAD,* PEREZ, and SERENO, JJ. Promulgated: September 14, 2011 |
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PEREZ, J.:
Before the Court is an appeal by certiorari[1]
from the Decision[2] of the Fifteenth
Division of the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. CV No. 67702 dated 26 February
2004, granting the petition of Dolores Baas, herein respondent, to reverse
and set aside the Decision[3] of
the lower court.
The dispositive portion of the
assailed decision reads:
WHEREFORE,
premises considered, the instant appeal is hereby GRANTED. The decision of the court a quo is hereby
REVERSED AND SET ASIDE and in its stead another one is rendered GRANTING to
petitioner-appellants the right to redeem the subject property for the amount
of Php 60,000.00 within thirty (30) days from the finality of this decision.
The facts as gathered by the court
follow:
Respondent Baas is an heir of
Bartolome Baas who owns in fee simple Lot 4485, PLS-722-D situated in Hindi,
Bacacay, Albay. Adjoining the said lot
is the property of Vicente Medina (Medina), covered by Original Certificate of
Title No. VH-9094, with an area of 1,877 square meters. On 17 March 1997,
Medina offered his lot for sale to the adjoining owners of the property, the
heirs of Bartolome Baas, including herein respondent Dolores Baas,
Crispino Bermillo (Bermillo) and Isabela Bermillo-Beruela (Beruela)[4] Crispino Bermillo, as the representative of his
family, agreed to the offer of Medina, the sale to take place after the harvest
season.[5]
On 3 April 1997, Medina sold the
property to herein petitioner Armando Barcellano for P60,000.00. The following day, the heirs of Baas learned
about the sale and went to the house of Medina to inquire about it.[6] Medina confirmed that the lot was sold to
Barcellano. The heirs conveyed their
intention to redeem the property but P60,000.00
redemption amount to Medina.[8]
Aggrieved, the
heirs went to the Office of the Barangay
Council on 5 April 1997.[9] Medina sent only his tenant to attend the
proceeding. On 9 April 1997, the Baas heirs
and Barcellano, with neither Medina nor his tenant in attendance, went to the
Office of the Barangay Council to
settle the dispute. According to one of
the Baas heirs, Barcellano told them that he would be willing to sell the
property but for a higher price of P90,000.00.[10] Because the parties could not agree on the
price and for failure to settle the dispute, the Lupon issued a Certification to File Action.[11]
On 24 October
1997, Dolores Baas filed an action for Legal Redemption before the Regional
Trial Court. However, on 5 February
1998, the petition was withdrawn on the ground that:
xxx
considering the present worse economic situation in the country, petitioner
opted that the amount they are supposed to pay for the redemption be readily
available for their immediate and emergency needs.
On 11 March 1998,
Dolores Baas,
as represented by Bermillo, filed another action[12]
for Legal Redemption. It was opposed by
Barcellano insisting that he complied with the provisions of Art. 1623 of the
New Civil Code but Baas failed to exercise her right
within the period provided by law.
Trial ensued. On 15 March 2000, the
trial court dismissed the complaint of the Baas heirs for their failure to comply
with the condition precedent of making a formal offer to redeem and for failure
to file an action in court together with the consignation of the redemption
price within the reglementary period of 30 days.[13] The dispositive portion reads:
WHEREFORE,
premises considered, the complaint is hereby ordered DISMISSED.
On appeal, the Court of Appeals
reversed and set aside the ruling of the lower court and granted the heirs the
right to redeem the subject property.
The appellate court ruled that the filing of a complaint before the Katarungang Pambarangay should be
considered as a notice to Barcellano and Medina that the heirs were exercising
their right of redemption over the subject property; and as having set in
motion the judicial process of legal redemption.[14] Further, the appellate court ruled that a formal
offer to redeem, coupled with a tender of payment of the redemption price, and
consignation are proper only if the redemptioner wishes to avail himself of his
right of redemption in the future. The tender of payment and consignation
become inconsequential when the redemptioner files a case to redeem the
property within the 30-day period.[15]
Hence, this Petition for Review on Certiorari.
In this petition, Barcellano questions
the ruling of the appellate court for being contrary to the admitted facts on
record and applicable jurisprudence.
The Courts Ruling
Barcellano maintains
that the written notice required under Art. 1623 to be given to adjoining owner
was no longer necessary because there was already actual notice. Further, he asserts that the appellate court
erred in ruling that the tender of payment of the redemption price and
consignation are not required in this case, effectively affirming that the
respondents had validly exercised their right of redemption. Lastly, he questions as erroneous the
application of Presidential Decree No. 1508, otherwise known as Establishing a System of
Amicably Settling Disputes at the Barangay Level, thereby ruling that the
filing by the heirs of the complaint before the Barangay was an exercise of right of redemption.
We need only to discuss the requirement
of notice under Art. 1623 of the New Civil Code, which provides that:
The
right of legal pre-emption or redemption shall not be exercised except within
thirty days from the notice in writing by the prospective vendor, or by the
vendor, as the case may be. The deed of sale shall not be recorded in the
Registry of Property, unless accompanied by an affidavit of the vendor that he
has given written notice thereof to all possible redemptioners.
Nothing in the records and pleadings submitted by the parties
shows that there was a written notice sent to the respondents. Without a written notice, the period of
thirty days within which the right of legal pre-emption may be exercised, does
not start.
The indispensability of a written
notice had long been discussed in the early case of Conejero v. Court of Appeals,[16] penned by Justice J.B.L. Reyes:
With regard to the written notice, we agree with petitioners that such
notice is indispensable, and that, in view of the terms in which Article of the
Philippine Civil Code is couched, mere knowledge of the sale, acquired in some
other manner by the redemptioner, does not satisfy the statute. The written
notice was obviously exacted by the Code to remove all uncertainty as to the
sale, its terms and its validity, and to quiet any doubts that the alienation
is not definitive. The statute not having provided for any alternative, the
method of notification prescribed remains exclusive.
This is the same ruling in Verdad v. Court of Appeals:[17]
The written notice of sale is mandatory. This Court has long established the rule that
notwithstanding actual knowledge of a co-owner, the latter is still entitled to
a written notice from the selling co-owner in order to remove all uncertainties
about the sale, its terms and conditions, as well as its efficacy and status.
Lately, in Gosiengfiao Guillen v. the Court of Appeals,[18] this
Court again emphasized the mandatory character of a written notice in legal
redemption:
From these premises, we
ruled that [P]etitioner-heirs have not lost their right to redeem, for in
the absence of a written notification of the sale by the vendors, the 30-day
period has not even begun to run. These premises and
conclusion leave no doubt about the thrust of Mariano: The right of
the petitioner-heirs to exercise their right of legal redemption exists, and
the running of the period for its exercise has not even been triggered because
they have not been notified in writing of the fact of sale. (Emphasis supplied)
The petitioner argues that the only
purpose behind Art. 1623 of the New Civil Code is to ensure that the owner of
the adjoining land is actually notified of the intention of the owner to sell
his property. To advance their argument,
they cited Destrito v. Court of Appeals
as cited in Alonzo v. Intermediate Appellate
Court,[19] where
this Court pronounced that written notice is no longer necessary in case of
actual notice of the sale of property.
The Alonzo case does not apply to this case. There, we pronounced that the disregard of the mandatory
written rule was an exception due to the peculiar circumstance of the
case. Thus:
In
the face of the established facts, we cannot accept the private respondents'
pretense that they were unaware of the sales made by their brother and sister
in 1963 and 1964. By requiring written proof of such notice, we would be
closing our eyes to the obvious truth in favor of their palpably false claim of
ignorance, thus exalting the letter of the law over its purpose. The purpose is
clear enough: to make sure that the redemptioners are duly notified. We are
satisfied that in this case the other brothers and sisters were actually
informed, although not in writing, of the sales made in 1963 and 1964, and that
such notice was sufficient.
Now,
when did the 30-day period of redemption begin?
While
we do not here declare that this period started from the dates of such sales in
1963 and 1964, we do say that sometime between those years and 1976, when the
first complaint for redemption was filed, the other co-heirs were actually
informed of the sale and that thereafter the 30-day period started running and
ultimately expired. This could have happened any time during the interval of
thirteen years, when none of the co-heirs made a move to redeem the properties sold.
By 1977, in other words, when Tecla Padua filed her complaint, the right of
redemption had already been extinguished because the period for its exercise
had already expired.
The
following doctrine is also worth noting:
While
the general rule is, that to charge a party with laches in the assertion of an
alleged right it is essential that he should have knowledge of the facts upon
which he bases his claim, yet if the circumstances were such as should have
induced inquiry, and the means of ascertaining the truth were readily available
upon inquiry, but the party neglects to make it, he will be chargeable with
laches, the same as if he had known the facts.
It
was the perfectly natural thing for the co-heirs to wonder why the spouses
Alonzo, who were not among them, should enclose a portion of the inherited lot
and build thereon a house of strong materials. This definitely was not the act
of a temporary possessor or a mere mortgagee. This certainly looked like an act
of ownership. Yet, given this unseemly situation, none of the co-heirs saw fit
to object or at least inquire, to ascertain the facts, which were readily
available. It took all of thirteen years before one of them chose to
claim the right of redemption, but then it was already too late.[20]
x x x x
The
co-heirs in this case were undeniably informed of the sales although no notice
in writing was given them. And there is no doubt either that the 30-day period
began and ended during the 14 years between the sales in question and the
filing of the complaint for redemption in 1977, without the co-heirs exercising
their right of redemption. These are the justifications for this exception.
The Court clarified that:
We realize that in arriving at our conclusion today, we are
deviating from the strict letter of the law, which the respondent court
understandably applied pursuant to existing jurisprudence. The said court acted
properly as it had no competence to reverse the doctrines laid down by this
Court in the above-cited cases. In fact, and this should be clearly stressed,
we ourselves are not abandoning the De Conejero and Buttle doctrines. What we
are doing simply is adopting an exception to the general rule, in view of the
peculiar circumstances of this case.[21]
(Emphasis supplied)
Without the peculiar circumstances
in the present case, Alonzo cannot
find application. The impossibility in Alonzo of the parties not knowing about
the sale of a portion of the property they were actually occupying is not
presented in this case. The strict
letter of the law must apply. That a
departure from the strict letter should only be for extraordinary reasons is clear
from the second sentence of Art. 1623 that The deed
of sale shall not be recorded in the Registry of Property, unless accompanied
by an affidavit of the vendor that he has given written notice thereof to all
possible redemptioners.
Justice Edgardo Paras, referring to the
origins of the requirement, would explain in his commentaries on the New Civil
Code that despite actual knowledge, the person having the right to redeem is STILL entitled to the written
notice. Both the letter and the spirit
of the New Civil Code argue against any attempt to widen the scope of the
written notice by including therein any other kind of notice such as an oral
one, or by registration. If the intent
of the law has been to include verbal notice or any other means of information
as sufficient to give the effect of this notice, there would have been no
necessity or reason to specify in the article that said notice be in writing,
for under the old law, a verbal notice or mere information was already deemed
sufficient.[22]
Time
and time again, it has been repeatedly declared by this Court that where the
law speaks in clear and categorical language, there is no room for
interpretation. There is only room for
application.[23] Where the language of a statute is clear and
unambiguous, the law is applied according to its express terms, and
interpretation should be resorted to only where a literal interpretation would
be either impossible or absurd or would lead to an injustice. The law is clear in this case, there must
first be a written notice to the family of Baas.
Absolute Sentencia Expositore Non Indiget, when the language of the law is
clear, no explanation of it is required.[24]
We find no need to rule on the other
issues presented by the petitioner. The
respondent Baas has a perfect right of redemption and was never in danger of
losing such right even if there was no redemption complaint filed with the barangay, no tender of payment or no consignation.
WHEREFORE, the appeal is DENIED.
The 26 February 2004 Decision of the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. CV No. 67702, granting to petitioner-appellants
the right to redeem the subject property for the amount of Php60,000.00 within
thirty (30) days from the finality of this decision is hereby AFFIRMED. No cost.
SO ORDERED.
JOSE PORTUGAL PEREZ
Associate Justice
WE CONCUR:
ANTONIO T. CARPIO
Associate Justice
Chairperson
ARTURO D. BRION ROBERTO A. ABAD
Associate Justice Associate
Justice
MARIA LOURDES P. A. SERENO
Associate Justice
A T T E S T A T I O N
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 Courts Division.
ANTONIO
T. CARPIO
Associate Justice
Chairperson
CERTIFICATION
Pursuant to Section 13, Article VIII
of the Constitution, and the Division Chairpersons 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
Courts Division.
RENATO C. CORONA
Chief Justice
* Per Special Order No. 1077-A dated 12 September 2011.
[1] Under
Rule 45 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure.
[2] Penned
by Associate Justice Rodrigo V. Cosico with Associate Justices Vicente Q. Roxas
and Mariano C. Del Castillo (now a member of this Court), concurring. Rollo, pp.
108-112.
[3] Dated 26 February 2004.
[4] Testimony of Isabela Beruela. TSN, 16 February 1999, p. 6.
[5] Testimony of Vicente Medina. TSN, 14 July 1999, p. 6.
[6] Id.; Testimony of Isabela Beruela. TSN, 16 February 1999, p. 6.
[7] Id. at 7.
[8] Testimony of Vicente Medina. TSN, 14 July 1999, p. 6.
[9] Testimony of Isabella Beruela. TSN, 16 February 1999, p. 8.
[10]
[11]
[12] The
action was originally titled as Heirs of
Bartolome Baas v. Armando Barcellano and Vicente Medina but it was later
amended as Dolores Baas v. Armando
Barcellano and Vicente Medina because the Original Certificate of Title was
issued in the name of Dolores Baas married to Bartolome Baas only.
[13] Decision
of RTC. Rollo, p. 56.
[14] CA
Decision. Id. at 112.
[15] Id.
at 113.
[16] 123
Phil. 605, 610 (1966).
[17] 326 Phil.
601, 607 (1996).
[18] G. R. No. 159755, 18 June 2009, 589 SCRA 399.
[19] 234
Phil. 267 (1987).
[20] Id. at 274-275.
[21] Id. at 275.
[22] Edgardo L. Paras, Book V, CIVIL CODE OF THE PHILIPPINES, pp. 280-281(1998-2000).
[23] Cebu Portland Cement Co. v. Municipality of Naga, 133 Phil. 695, 699 (1968); Ruben E. Agpalo, STATUTORY CONSTRUCTION, p. 62 (2003).
[24] Rolando A. Suarez, STATUTORY CONSTRUCTION, p. 171 (2007).