Republic of the Philippines
Supreme Court
Baguio City
SECOND DIVISION
|
SPOUSES
NICANOR MAGNO and CARIDAD MAGNO, Petitioners, - versus - HEIRS
OF PABLO PARULAN, represented by EMILIANO PARULAN, DEPARTMENT OF AGRARIAN
REFORM, BALIUAG, BULACAN, OFFICE OF THE REGISTER OF DEEDS OF GUIGUINTO,
BULACAN, Respondents.
|
G.
R. No. 183916 Present: CARPIO,
BRION, PEREZ,
SERENO,
and REYES,
JJ. Promulgated: April
25, 2012 |
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D E C I S I O N
SERENO, J.:
For resolution is a Petition for
Review under Rule 45 assailing the 16 April 2008 Decision of the Court of
Appeals (CA) in CA-G.R. SP No. 100781,[1]
which affirmed the dismissal by the Department of Agrarian Reform Adjudication
Board (DARAB) of the petitioners Petition for Correction and/or Cancellation of the Original
Certificate of Title issued in the name of private respondents
predecessor-in-interest. Also
assailed in
this petition is the CA Resolution
dated 17 July 2008, which denied petitioners Motion for Reconsideration.
On 17 January 1972, petitioner
spouses Nicanor and Caridad Magno (petitioners) bought a 1.5520 hectare (or
15,520 sq. m.) riceland at Biang 1st, Bocaue, Bulacan from Emilia de
Guzman (Emilia), as evidenced by a notarized Deed of Sale.[2] According to the Deed of Sale, the purchased
lot is covered by Tax Declaration No. 2386 and is bounded by lots owned by the
following persons: in the north, by
Apolonio Santos; in the east, by Apolonio Santos and Eleuterio Santiago; in the
south, by Eleuterio Santiago; and in the west, by Apolonio Santos. Petitioners
further allege that the purchased lot is also described in the year 2000 Tax Declaration/Property
Index Number 020-04-006-03-010[3] in the name
of Emilia de Guzman, with the following boundaries: lots 1468 and 1469 in the
north; Lots 1303 and 1304 in the south; Lot 1306 in the east; and Lot 1301 in
the west.
The property was enclosed within
concrete posts and barbed wires when it was sold to petitioners. From the time of purchase, they occupied the
lot without interruption and devoted it to rice cultivation. In 1995, they filed before the Department of
Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) an Application for Free Patent, as
well as a Petition with the Community Environment and Natural Resources Office
(CENRO) to rectify the Cadastral Survey of Lot 1306, Cad 332, Bocaue Cadastre,
for the purpose of excluding a portion of their land from Lot 1306-B, which was
then being claimed by Pedro Lazaros heirs.
Subsequently, petitioners tenant and hired laborers were
prevented from working on the subject land by Emiliano Parulan (Emiliano), son
of Pablo Parulan (Pablo), whose heirs are named respondents herein. Petitioners
discovered that a 2,171 square meter portion of their land was included in the
5,677 square meter lot registered under Original Certificate of Title (OCT) No.
T-048-EP (EP No. 189669)[4] issued in the name of Pablo on 17
December 1999 and registered with the Register of Deeds on 5 January 2000.
Petitioners referred the matter to
the Provincial Agrarian Reform Office (PARO) Legal Officer I of Baliuag,
Bulacan, Homer Abraham, Jr. The latter issued a Report and Recommendation[5] dated 26 October 2000 to Miguel
Mendoza, the Officer-in-Charge (OIC) of PARO, Baliuag, Bulacan, recommending
the filing by the Magno spouses of a necessary petition for
cancellation/correction of Pablos Emancipation Patent (EP) before the DARAB.
Hence, on 15 December 2000,
petitioners filed with the Provincial Agrarian Reform Adjudicator (PARAD) of
Bulacan a Petition[6] for Correction of OCT No. T-048-EP,
(EP No. 189669) issued in the name of Pablo Parulan. Apart from the Deed of Sale and the two Tax Declarations,
petitioners adduced as documentary evidence the questioned EP/OCT,[7]
photographs of the property,[8]
as well as the Report and Recommendation of PARO Legal Officer I Abraham.
Presented
by petitioners as witnesses during the hearing before the PARAD were Cynthia
Mariano (Mariano), an Agrarian Reform Program Technologist (ARPT) of Bocaue,
Bulacan; and Fe Jacinto (Jacinto), the Municipal Agrarian Reform Officer (MARO)
of the same area. Mariano testified that she had been instructed by Jacinto to
conduct an investigation of petitioners landholding. On 3 May 2000, she, together with Barangay Agrarian Reform Committee
(BARC) Chairperson Ricardo Benedicto, conducted an ocular inspection of the
lot, with farmers from adjacent lots as witnesses. She thereafter prepared a report, which stated
that the subject lot
was fenced and that the actual
tiller was Renato de Guzman. Renato informed her that his father, Mariano
de Guzman, was the original tenant of the land; and that the adjacent lot
outside the fenced lot was being tilled by Emiliano Parulan. According to ARPT
Mariano, her ocular inspection yielded the finding that since 1976, the subject
lot which has an area of 2,162 sq. m., had actually been tilled by Renato de
Guzman, who had been paying lease rentals to spouses Nicanor and Caridad Magno. MARO Jacinto testified by identifying the report she had
prepared on the matter.
On the other hand, private respondents
presented the Kasunduan sa Pamumuwisan between Pedro and Pablo;[9] Pablos request for a survey of
Pedros land;[10] an endorsements to survey Pedros
property issued by ARPT Mariano,[11]
MARO Jacinto[12] and
PARO Linda Hermogino (Hermogino);[13]
DAR Regional Director Renato Herreras grant of Pablos request for survey;[14]
the Approved Subdivision Plan of Lot 1306, Cad 332, Bocaue Cadastre;[15] and the accompanying Lot Data
Computation for the land of Pedro Lazaro[16]
and Emilia de Guzman.[17]
Private respondents argued that the
June 1973 Kasunduan sa Pamumuwisan between Pablo and Pedro Lazaro
showed that the former was the agricultural lessee of the latter. In January
1999, Pablo requested the MARO for authority to survey the property of Pedro
pursuant to his EP Application over the land he was then tenanting. On 1
February 1999, Bocaue ARPT Mariano reported to Bocaue MARO Jacinto that, based on the formers investigation/ocular
inspection, Pedros 15,178 sq. m. property was covered by the Operation Land
Transfer under Presidential Decree 27. Since Pablo was the actual tiller of
the
land, the ARPT
recommended the grant of a Survey Authority and Approval as requested. This
recommendation was endorsed by MARO Jacinto to PARO Hermogino, who in turn
endorsed it to DAR Regional Director Renato Herrera. Director Herrera granted Pablos request for a
survey pursuant to the latters EP application.
As indicated in the resulting Approved
Subdivision Plan (of Lot 1306, Cad 332 Bocaue Cadastre),[18]
it was based on the Original Survey of Lot 1306 in May 1960. The Lot Data
Computation accompanying the Subdivision Plan denominated Emilias lot as Lot 1302 with an area of
9,604.82 sq. m.,[19] while that of Pedro was Lot 1306
with an area of 15,171.85 sq. m.[20] The Subdivision Plan also showed
that Lot 1306 was subdivided into Lot 1306-A (or Lot 4557) containing an area
of 7,601 sq. m.; Lot 1306-B (or Lot 4558) which had 5,677 sq. m.; and Lot
1306-C (or Lot 4559) with 1,900 sq. m. It
appears that Lot 1306-B or Lot 4558 was further subdivided into Lot 4558-A with
an area of 2,162 sq. m. and Lot 4558-B with an area of 3,508 sq. m. The
contested lot is Lot 4558-A. Clearly, private
respondents argued, OCT No. T-048-EP(M), EP No. 189669, was properly issued to
Pablo for his 5,677 sq. m. lot in Biang, which encompassed the contested 2,162
sq. m. lot.
After the parties filed their
respective pleadings with the attached Affidavits of witnesses and other
evidence, the PARAD issued a Decision[21] dated 26 February 2003 granting the Petition.
Relying on the Tax Declarations in the name of Emilia, the PARAD noted that
Emilia had owned a 1.5 ha. riceland in Biang 1st, which she sold to
petitioners. Meanwhile, the Rice and Corn Production Survey and the report of
ARPT Mariano showed that the contested lot was actually being tilled by Renato
de Guzman, the son of Mariano de Guzman, who was the registered tenant of
Emilia. Thus, the PARAD concluded that
in the EP issued in favor of Pablo, there were technical errors that encroached
upon petitioners property. The
dispositive portion of the PARAD Decision reads:
WHEREFORE, premises considered, judgment is hereby rendered in the following manner:
1. Ordering the correction and cancellation of OCT No. T-048-EP in the name of Pablo Parulan;
2. Ordering the correction of the approved subdivision plan of Lot 1306; Cad. 322, Bocaue, Cadastre Cad-03-012347-AR;
3. Ordering the DAR to conduct the necessary subdivision survey of Lot 4558 in the presence of both party-claimants to coincide with the actual and real possession and status of actual claimants of the two adjacent lots;
4. Ordering the Register of Deeds of Guiginto, Bulacan, to effect the correction and cancellation of EP No. 048 and register of the correct EP that will be issued by the DAR covering the corrected lot.
All other claims and counter claims by the parties are hereby dismissed for lack of merit.
SO ORDERED.
Private respondents appealed[22] the PARAD Decision to the DARAB.
On 22 February 2007, the DARAB issued
a Decision[23] reversing the PARAD, to wit:
WHEREFORE, premises considered, the appealed decision dated February 26, 2003 is hereby REVERSED and SET ASIDE and a new Judgment rendered:
1. DISMISSING the instant petition for correction and/or cancellation of OCT No. T-048-EP (EP No. 189669) for lack of merit;
2. DECLARING the lot in question as part and parcel of lot 1306 as surveyed for Pablo Parulan (Annex I);
3. MAINTAINING and AFFIRMING the validity and integrity of OCT No. T-048-EP (EP No. 189669) in the name of the late Pablo Parulan;
4. ORDERING petitioners-appellees to vacate the premises in question and surrender the possession and cultivation thereof to herein private respondent heirs of the late Pablo Parulan. Moreover, petitioners-appellees are likewise ordered to remove the fence they have constructed on the lot in question at their own expense.
SO
ORDERED.
Petitioners
filed a Motion for Reconsideration, but it was denied by the DARAB in its
Resolution[24] dated 2 July 2007.
Undaunted,
petitioners appealed the DARAB Decision and Resolution to the CA.
In its
16 April 2008 Decision,[25] the CA affirmed in toto the
assailed Decision and Resolution of the DARAB.
Petitioners filed a Motion for
Reconsideration, which the appellate court denied in its 17 July 2008 Resolution.[26] Hence, petitioners filed with this Court the
present Petition for Review under Rule 45.
The issue for resolution is whether
the CA committed reversible error in affirming the DARABs dismissal of petitioners Petition for Cancellation and/or
Correction of OCT No. T-048-EP (EP No. 189969).
We deny the Petition.
Under
DAR
Administrative Order No. 02, Series of 1994, emancipation
patents may be cancelled by the PARAD or the DARAB for violations of agrarian
laws, rules and regulations. [27] The same administrative order
further states that administrative corrections may include non-identification
of spouse, correction of civil status, corrections of technical descriptions
and other matters related to agrarian reform; [28] and that the DARABs decision may include cancellation
of registered EP/CLOA, reimbursement of lease rental as amortization to ARBs,
reallocation of the land to qualified beneficiary, perpetual disqualification
to become an ARB, and other ancillary matters related to the cancellation of
the EP or CLOA.[29]
However, the DARs issuance of an
Emancipation Patent and the corresponding OCT covering the contested lot
carries with it a presumption of regularity.[30]
The Petition to correct/cancel Pablos Emancipation Patent can
prosper only if petitioners are able to present substantial evidence that a
portion of their lot was erroneously covered by the patent. Substantial
evidence refers to such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as
adequate to support a conclusion.[31]
As correctly held by the DARAB and the
CA, petitioners have failed to adduce substantial evidence to establish that
the contested lot was part of their property.
Petitioners claim that their
predecessor-in-interest, Emilia, became the owner of the lot in question by
virtue of acquisitive prescription. Acquisitive
prescription requires public, peaceful, uninterrupted and adverse possession of
the land in the concept of an owner.[32]
To prove this, petitioners offered in
evidence two tax declarations in the name of Emilia declaring her ownership of
a 1.552 ha. riceland in Biang 1st Bocaue, Bulacan for tax purposes.
However, the DARAB and the CA were not
swayed by these tax declarations, and rightly so. As we held in Republic v. dela Paz,[33]
Well settled is the rule that tax declarations
and receipts are not conclusive evidence of ownership or of the right to
possess land when not supported by any other evidence. The fact that the
disputed property may have been declared for taxation purposes in the names of
the applicants for registration or of their predecessors-in-interest does not
necessarily prove ownership. They are merely indicia of a claim of ownership.
A further examination of the tax
declarations further confirms their lack of probative value.
As
observed by the CA, Tax Declaration No. 2386 for the year 1967, like the 1972
Deed of Sale between petitioners and Emilia, did not contain any technical
description of the property. Hence, these documents fail to establish ownership
over the contested lot by Emilia or petitioners.
On
the other hand, the Tax Declaration for the year 2000 with Property Index
Number 020-04-006-03-010
showed that petitioners land is bound on the east by lot 1306. Hence, the
DARAB logically concluded that lot 1306, of which the contested lot is a part
of, is outside the boundaries of petitioners land. Notably too, both the DARAB
and the CA found it curious that the 2000 Tax Declaration was still in the name
of Emilia, considering that petitioners were supposed to have bought the land
from her 27 years ago. If petitioners exercise ownership over the land since
1972 when they purchased the same, it is they who should have been paying the
realty tax thereon.
Also, we do not lose sight of the
fact that the 2000 Tax Declaration was made only after the subject EP/OCT had
already been issued. A mere tax declaration cannot defeat a certificate of
title.[34]
Petitioners also presented ARPT
Mariano and MARO Jacinto to prove their claim that they were the owners of the
contested lot. However, as noted by the PARAD, ARPT Marianos report relied
only on the allegations of petitioners, and her ocular inspection was made in
the absence of private respondents. Meanwhile, MARO Jacinto never verified ARPT
Marianos ocular inspection.
In
contrast to the evidence adduced by petitioners, the EP /OCT they sought to
impugn contained a technical description of the metes and bounds of Pablos property. Moreover, that technical
description was based on a
1999
Approved Subdivision Plan following the original May 1960 Cadastral Survey of
Lot 1306, Cad 332, Bocaue Cadastre. The process by which this subdivision plan
came into existence was also established by the documents showing the series of
endorsements by the various government officials who acted on Pablos
application and request.
We
therefore affirm the CA ruling that the evidence presented by petitioners was
insufficient to controvert the accuracy of the technical description of the
land properly covered by the subject EP/OCT. As pointed out by the DARAB, petitioners should have presented
expert witnesses or initiated a relocation survey of Lot 1306 to establish the alleged errors in the
technical description of the subject EP.
WHEREFORE,
premises considered, the Petition is DENIED
for lack of merit. The 16 April 2008
Decision and 17 July 2008 Resolution of the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. SP No.
100781 are AFFIRMED.
SO ORDERED.
MARIA LOURDES P. A. SERENO
Associate Justice
WE
CONCUR:
Chairperson
ARTURO D. BRION JOSE
PORTUGAL PEREZ
Associate Justice Associate Justice
BIENVENIDO
L. REYES
Associate Justice
A T T E S T A T I O N
I attest that the conclusions in the
above Resolution had been reached in consultation before the case was assigned
to the writer of the opinion of the Courts Division.
Chairperson,
Second Division
Pursuant to Section 13, Article VIII of the
Constitution and the Division Chairpersons Attestation, I certify 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.
RENATO C.
CORONA
[1] The assailed Court of Appeals (CA) Fifth Division Decision was penned by Justice Andres B. Reyes, Jr. and concurred in by Justices Jose C. Mendoza (now a Member of this Court) and Arturo G. Tayag, rollo, pp. 35-45.
[2]
Rollo, pp. 82-83.
[3]
Id. at 81.
[4]
Id. at 84-85.
[5]
Id. at 90-91.
[6]
The petition was docketed as DARAB Case No.
12275 (Regular Case No. R-03-02-2318-00).
[7] Rollo, pp. 84-85.
[8] Id. at 86-89.
[9]
Id. at 109.
[10]
Id. at 110.
[11] Id. at 111.
[12] Id. at 112.
[13] Id. at 113.
[14] Id. at 114.
[15]
Id. at 97, 115-117.
[16] Id. at 120-121.
[17] Id. at 119.
[18] Id. at 97, 115-117.
[19]
Id. at 119.
[20]
Id. at 121.
[21]
Id. at 143-153. The Decision was rendered by Provincial
Adjudicator Toribio E. Ilao, Jr.
[22]
Private respondents appeal to
the DARAB was docketed as DCN R-03-02-231800.
[23]
The DARAB Decision was penned by
Assistant Secretary/Vice Chairperson Augusto P. Quijano and concurred in by
Nasser C. Pangandaman, Nestor R. Acosta and Narciso B. Nieto, rollo, pp.
64-72.
[24]
Rollo, pp. 75-76.
[25]
See note 1.
[26]
Rollo, p. 47.
[27]
DAR Administrative Order No. 02,
Series of 1994 [Rules Governing the Correction and Cancellation
of Unregistered Emancipation Patents (EPs), and Certificates of Land Ownership
Awards (CLOAs) due to Unlawful Acts and Omissions or Breach of Obligations of
Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARBs) and for Other Causes], Part IV, A.
[28]
Id. at Part IV, C.
[29] Id. at Part IV, D.
[30] Rules
of Court, Rule 131, Sec. 3 (m).
[31] Ang Tibay v. The Court of Industrial Relations, 69 Phil. 635 (1940).
[32] Imuan v. Cereno, G.R. No. 167995, 11 September 2009, 599 SCRA 423.
[33] G.R. No. 171631, 15 November 2010, 634 SCRA 610.
[34] Hemedes v. Court of Appeals, 374 Phil. 692 (1999).