Sanchez vs.

Asingan

FACTS:
Municipality of Asingan is the owner of a triangular strip of land situated between the site of the
municipal school building and the provincial road wherein petitioner Sanchez occupied and paid
its rental to the municipal.
When the new local administration took effect in 1959, the municipal passed a resolution
notifying the occupants that the land was needed for certain public purposes (e.g parking space,
pedestrians among others), and that the occupants were advised to vacate the land within 5
months.
Instead of moving, petitioners filed a petition for prohibition to prevent the municipality from
ejecting them from the land and with an alternative prayer that if they will be ejected, appellee
be ordered to reimburse to them the rents which they have paid for total of P1,178.20 plus
damages and attorneys fees.
Petition was dismissed, and the court orders the appellants to vacate the land.
ISSUE:
(1) W/N the land in question belongs to the Province of Pangasinan and therefore appellee has no
right to order their ejectment?
(2) W/N appellants are entitled to reimburse the rental they have paid?
SC Held:
(1) The premise of the contention is incorrect for the clear and specific finding of the court a quo is
that the said land belongs to Municipality of Asingan. The statement that it is part of a broad
shoulder of the provincial road does not make the land provincial property, such statement
being merely a descriptive of its location and not indicative of its ownership.

(2) No. Appellees position herein is that the land in question is patrimonial character, not being
included in any of the categories of municipal properties for public use enumerated under Art.
424 namely streets, squares, fountains, etc. Consequently, the implied agreement of lease
between them was not null and void, although terminable. That being so, there is no ground on
which reimbursement of the rents may be ordered.

Even if the land in question is for public use, we see no justification for the stand maintained by
the appellants that having occupied said land and benefit therefrom they should be entitled to
recover what they have paid as a condition for their ejectment. That would be to enrich them
unduly to the prejudice of appellee.