Aranda vs.

Republic, 24 August 2011

FACTS

ICTSI Warehousing, Inc. (ICTSI-WI) filed a petition for original registration of a9,103-square meter parcel
of land in San Andres, Malvar, Batangas beforethe Regional Trial Court (RTC). The Office of the Solicitor
General opposed thepetition, saying that the land is part of the public domain and the applicant has not
acquired a registrable title thereto. ICTSI-WI later amended theapplication to make the petitioner Ramon
Aranda, the vendor. Aranda alleged open, continuous, public, and adverse possession of the subject land
in the concept of owner for more than 30 years. Petitioner’s sister, Merlita A.Enriquez, testified that their
father, Anatalio Aranda, donated the land topetitioner in 1965. The document signifying the donation
was however eatenby rats. Witness, Luis Olan, testified that they had open, peaceful, continuousand
adverse possession of the land in the concept of owner until his father, Lucio Olan, sold the land in 1946
to Anatalio. Luis had no copy of thedocument of sale since it was given by his mother to Anatalio. The
trial courtgranted the petition but the Court of Appeals (CA) reversed the trial court.

ISSUE

Did the CA err in reversing the trial court and dismissing the application forjudicial confirmation of title?

RULING

No. The Property Registration Decree (P.D. No. 1529) provides for originalregistration of land in an
ordinary registration proceeding. Under Section14(1) thereof, a petition may be granted upon
compliance with the followingrequisites: (a) that the property in question is alienable and disposable
landof the public domain; (b) that the applicants by themselves or through theirpredecessors-in-interest
have been in open, continuous, exclusive andnotorious possession and occupation; and (c) that such
possession is undera bona fide claim of ownership since June 12, 1945 or earlier. In this case, thestatus
of the land applied for as alienable and disposable was not clearlyestablished. Moreover, the court found
out that petitioner started payingtaxes on the land just three years before the filing of the application
fororiginal registration. As a rule, tax declarations or realty tax payments ofproperty are not conclusive
evidence of ownership, nevertheless they aregood indicia of possession in the concept of owner, for no
one in his rightmind would be paying taxes for a property that is not in his actual orconstructive
possession. Petitioner thus failed to meet the quantum of proofrequired by law and his petition must be
denied.
DCD CONSTRUCTION v. REPUBLIC, GR No. 179978, 2011-
08-31

Facts:

On January 19, 2001, petitioner DCD Construction, Inc., through its

President and CEO Danilo D. Dira, Jr., filed a verified application for
registration[4] of a parcel of land situated in Taytay, Danao City

It was alleged that applicant which acquired the property by purchase,

together with its predecessors-in-interest, have been in continuous, open,
adverse, public, uninterrupted, exclusive and notorious possession and
occupation of... the property for more than thirty (30) years. Thus,
petitioner prayed to have its title judicially confirmed.

After compliance with the jurisdictional requirements, the trial court

through its clerk of court conducted hearings for the reception of
petitioner's evidence. Based on petitioner's documentary and testimonial
evidence, it appears that although designated as Cadastral Lot No.

5331-part, the approved technical description indicated the lot number as

Lot 30186, CAD 681-D which is allegedly identical to Lot 21225-A, Csd-07-
006621 consisting of 3,781 square meters. Lot 5331-part (4,493 sq. ms.)
was subdivided into two (Lots 21225-A and 21225-B) so... that the 712
square meters (Lot 21225-B) can be segregated as salvage zone pursuant
to DENR Administrative Order No. 97-05.[

Andrea Batucan Enriquez, one of the six (6) children of Vivencio and
Paulina Batucan, testified that her parents originally owned the subject
land which was bought by her father after the Second World War.

On December 22, 1993, they executed a Deed of Extrajudicial Settlement

With Absolute Sale whereby they sold the property to Danilo C. Dira,... Sr.,
petitioner's father.[6

Danilo D. Dira, Jr. testified that the subject land declared under Tax
Declaration (TD) No. 0400583 in the name of Danilo C. Dira, Sr. was among
those properties which they inherited from his father

On June 26, 2000, his mother, brothers and sisters executed a Deed of
Absolute Sale whereby the subject land was sold to petitioner. Thereafter,
petitioner declared the... property for tax purposes and also paid realty
taxes. His father had possessed the land beginning 1992 or 1994, and
presently petitioner is in possession thereof.
On appeal by respondent Republic of the Philippines, the CA reversed the
trial court. The CA ruled that the evidence failed to show that the land
applied for was alienable and disposable considering that only a notation
in the survey plan was presented to show the status... of the property. The
CA also found that petitioner's evidence was insufficient to establish the
requisite possession as the land was bought by Vivencio Batucan only
after the Second World War or in 1946, further noting that the earliest tax
declaration submitted was issued only... in 1988. As to the testimony of
witness Andrea Batucan Enriquez, the CA held that it did not prove open,
continuous, exclusive and notorious possession under a bona fide claim of
ownership since June 12, 1945.

Petitioner contends that the foregoing declaration of Belleza conclusively

proves that the LMS itself had approved and adopted the notation made
by Ibañez on the survey plan as its own. Such approval amounts to a
positive act of the government indicating that the land... applied for is
indeed alienable and disposable... x x x petitioners cite a surveyor-
geodetic engineer's notation x x x indicating that the survey was inside
alienable and disposable land. Such notation does not constitute a
positive government act validly changing the classification of the land in
question.

Verily, a mere surveyor has no authority to reclassify lands of the public

domain. By relying solely on the said surveyor's assertion, petitioners
have not sufficiently proven that the land in question has been declared
alienable.[26]

Issues:

Petitioner contends that the foregoing declaration of Belleza conclusively

proves that the LMS itself had approved and adopted the notation made
by Ibañez on the survey plan as its own. Such approval amounts to a
positive act of the government indicating that the land... applied for is
indeed alienable and disposable

Ruling:

this Court finds and so holds that the applicant DCD CONSTRUCTION INC.,
has a registerable title to Lot No. 5331-A with an area of 3,781 square
meters as part of Lot 5331, CAD-681-D, under Csd-072223-003891 which...
is identical to Lot No. 21225-A as part of Lot No. 21225, CAD-681-D, under
Csd-07-006621, and is covered by Tax Declaration No. 0-0400469 situated
in Taytay, Danao City, hereby confirming the same and ordering its
registration under Act 496, as amended by Presidential Decree No.
1529, strictly in line with the Technical Description of Lot 30186, Danao,
CAD-681-D, identical to Lot 21225-A, Csd-07-006621, upon finality of this
decision.

WHEREFORE, the petition for review on certiorari is DENIED. The

Decision dated June 25, 2007 and Resolution dated September 10, 2007 of
the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. CV No. 77868 are AFFIRMED.

Principles:

Applicants for confirmation of imperfect title must prove the following: (a)
that the land forms part of the disposable and alienable agricultural lands
of the public domain and (b) that they have been in open, continuous,
exclusive and notorious possession and occupation of the... same under a
bona fide claim of ownership either since time immemorial or since June
12, 1945.[12]

Under Section 2, Article XII of the Constitution, which embodies the

Regalian doctrine, all lands of the public domain belong to the State - the
source of any asserted right to ownership of land.

All lands not appearing to be clearly of... private dominion presumptively

belong to the State.[14] Accordingly, public lands not shown to have been
reclassified or released as alienable and disposable agricultural land or
alienated to a private person by the State remain part of the... inalienable
public domain.[15] Incontrovertible evidence must be presented to
establish that the land subject of the application is alienable or
disposable... ence, the certification issued by the Regional Technical
Director, FMS-DENR, in the form of a memorandum to the trial court, has
no probative value.

Further, it is not enough for the PENRO or CENRO to certify that a land is
alienable and disposable. The applicant for land registration must prove
that the DENR Secretary had approved the land classification and
released the land of the public domain as alienable and... disposable, and
that the land subject of the application for registration falls within the
approved area per verification through survey by the PENRO or CENRO. In
addition, the applicant for land registration must present a copy of the
original classification approved by... the DENR Secretary and certified as
a true copy by the legal custodian of the official records. These facts
must be established to prove that the land is alienable and disposable.
Respondent failed to do so because the certifications presented by
respondent do not, by... themselves, prove that the land is alienable and
disposable.
ertificate of Title. However, in a Deed of Absolute Sale Muoz' purportedly sold the
subject property to her sister, Emilia M. Ching. As a result, TCT No. 186306 was
cancelled and TCT No. 186366 was issued in Emilia M. Ching's name.Emilia M.
Ching, in a Deed of Absolute Sale sold the subject property to spouses Go Song
and Tan Sio Kien (spouses Go), hence, TCT No. 186366 was cancelled and
replaced by TCT No. 258977 in the spouses Go's names.
Muoz registered her adverse claim to the subject property on TCT No. 258977 of
the spouses Go.uoz filed a complaint for the annulment of the deeds of absolute
sale and the cancellation of TCT No. 258977 in the spouses Go's names, and the
restoration and revival of TCT No. 186306 in Muoz's name. Muoz caused the
annotation of a notice of lis pendens on TCT No. 258977 of the spouses Go.

The spouses Go obtained a loan of P500,000.00 from BPI Family Savings Bank
When the spouses Go defaulted on the payment of their loan, BPI Family
foreclosed the mortgage. BPI Family executed in favor of the spouses Samuel Go
Chan and Aida C. Chan (spouses Chan) a Deed of Absolute Sale. Consequently,
TCT No. RT-54376 (370364) in the name of BPI Family was cancelled and TCT
No. 53297 was issued in the spouses Chan's names on January 28, 1991.

G.R. No. 142676

Muoz' instituted before the MeTC a Complaint for Forcible Entry with Prayer for
Preliminary Mandatory Injunction against Samuel Go Chan and Atty.
Yabut.Muoz' alleged in her complaint that she had been in actual and physical
possession of the subject property since January 10, 1994.Muoz prayed for the
issuance of a writ of preliminary mandatory injunction directing Samuel Go Chan
and Atty. Yabut and all persons claiming right under them to vacate the subject
property.

The MeTC adjudged that the final judgment in Civil Case No. Q-28580 was
already executed against the spouses Chan and there was, indeed, a turn-over of
possession of the subject property to Muoz'. Accordingly, the MeTC granted
Muoz's prayer for the issuance of a writ of preliminary mandatory injunction,
restoring possession of the subject property to Muoz.

According to the RTC-Branch 88, the MeTC failed to distinguish the issue of
finality of the judgment of the RTC-Branch 95 in Civil Case No. Q-28580 from
the assertions of Samuel Go Chan and Atty. Yabut that the spouses Chan are not
covered by said final judgment because they are not successors-in-interest,
assigns, or privies of the spouses Go and they are purchasers of the subject
property in good faith.

The Court of Appeals held that the MeTC should have dismissed the forcible
entry case on the ground of "lis pendens"; that the spouses Chan were not parties
in Civil Case No. Q-28580, and impleading them only in the execution stage of
said case vitiated their right to due process; that the order of the RTC-Branch 95
involving the spouses Chan in Civil Case No. Q-28580 was null and void,
considering that they are strangers to the case, and they are innocent purchasers
for value of the subject property; that the notice of lis pendens was already
cancelled from the spouses Go's certificate of title at the time they mortgaged the
subject property to BPI Family; and that the title to the subject property was
already free of any and all liens and encumbrances when the spouses Chan
purchased the said property from BPI Family.

G.R. No. 146718

Meanwhile, Muoz' filed before the RTC-Branch 95 in Civil Case No. Q-28580 a
Motion to Cite the Register of Deeds in Contempt of Court for the failure of the
Register of Deeds to restore Muoz's TCT. The Register of Deeds could not cancel
the spouses Chan's TCT No. 53297, the subsisting certificate of title over the
subject property, absent any authority or directive for him to do so.

The RTC-Branch 95 denied all of Muoz's motions.The RTC-Branch 95 was of the

view that Samuel Go Chan's title should be litigated in another forum, not in Civil
Case No. Q-28580 where the judgment had already become final and
executory.The RTC-Branch 95 also stressed that since the judgment in Civil Case
No. Q-28580 had long become final and executory, it could no longer be changed
or amended except for clerical error or mistake.

Attributing grave abuse of discretion on the part of the RTC-Branch 95 in issuing

its Orders Muoz' filed before this Court a Petition for Certiorari and Mandamus,
which was remanded to the Court of Appeals.The Court of Appeals agreed with
the RTC-Branch 95 that the spouses Chan could not be covered by the alias writ
of execution considering that they were not impleaded in Civil Case No. Q-
28580.The cancellation of TCT No. 53297 in the spouses Chan's names could not
be done apart from a separate action exclusively for that matter.The spouses
Chan are deemed buyers in good faith and for value as the certificate of title
delivered to them by BPI Family was free from any liens or encumbrances or any
mark that would have raised the spouses Chan's suspicions.

ISSUE: Is Muoz the rightful owner of the subject property?

HELD: G.R. No. 146718: Civil Case No. Q-28580 is an action for reconveyance
of real property. An action for declaration of nullity of title and recovery of
ownership of real property, or re-conveyance, is a real action but it is an action in
personam, for it binds a particular individual only although it concerns the right
to a tangible thing.Any judgment therein is binding only upon the parties
properly impleaded.

Since they were not impleaded as parties and given the opportunity to participate
in Civil Case No. Q-28580, the final judgment in said case cannot bind BPI
Family and the spouses Chan.The effect of the said judgment cannot be extended
to BPI Family and the spouses Chan by simply issuing an alias writ of execution
against them.No man shall be affected by any proceeding to which he is a
stranger, and strangers to a case are not bound by any judgment rendered by the
court.In the same manner, a writ of execution can be issued only against a party
and not against one who did not have his day in court. Only real parties in
interest in an action are bound by the judgment therein and by writs of execution
issued pursuant thereto.

Although the RTC-Branch 95 had declared with finality in Civil Case No. Q-
28580 that the titles of Emilia M. Ching and the spouses Go were null and void,
there is yet no similar determination on the titles of BPI Family and the spouses
Chan.The question of whether or not the titles to the subject property of BPI
Family and the spouses Chan are null and void, since they are merely the
successors-in-interest, assigns, or privies of Emilia M. Ching and the spouses Go,
ultimately depends on the issue of whether or not BPI Family and the spouses
Chan obtained their titles to the subject property in bad faith, i.e., with notice of
Muoz's adverse claim and knowledge of the pendency of Civil Case No. Q-
28580.The latter is a factual issue on which we cannot rule in the present
petition, not only because we are not a trier of facts, but more importantly,
because it was not among the issues raised and tried in Civil Case No. Q-28580.

Muoz's legal remedy is to directly assail in a separate action the validity of the
certificates of title of BPI Family and the spouses Chan.

G.R. No. 142676: There is forcible entry or desahucio when one is deprived of
physical possession of land or building by means of force, intimidation, threat,
strategy or stealth. In such cases, the possession is illegal from the beginning and
the basic inquiry centers on who has the prior possession de facto. In filing
forcible entry cases, the law tells us that two allegations are mandatory for the
municipal court to acquire jurisdiction: first, the plaintiff must allege prior
physical possession of the property, and second, he must also allege that he was
deprived of his possession by any of the means provided for in Section 1, Rule 70
of the Rules of Court, i.e., by force, intimidation, threat, strategy, or stealth. It is
also settled that in the resolution thereof, what is important is determining who is
entitled to the physical possession of the property. Indeed, any of the parties who
can prove prior possession de facto may recover such possession even from the
owner himself since such cases proceed independently of any claim of ownership
and the plaintiff needs merely to prove prior possession de facto and undue
deprivation thereof.

Based on the foregoing, we find that the RTC-Branch 88 erred in ordering the
dismissal of Civil Case No. 8286 even before completion of the proceedings
before the MeTC.At the time said case was ordered dismissed by RTC-Branch 88,
the MeTC had only gone so far as holding a hearing on and eventually granting
Muoz's prayer for the issuance of a writ of preliminary mandatory injunction.

Nonetheless, even though the peculiar circumstances extant herein do not justify
the dismissal of Civil Case No. 8286, they do require limiting pro hac vice the
reliefs the MeTC may accord to Muoz' in the event that she is able to successfully
prove forcible entry by Samuel Go Chan and Atty. Yabut into the subject property
(i.e., that the sheriff actually turned-over to Muoz' the possession of the subject
property on January 10, 1994, and that she was deprived of such possession by
Samuel Go Chan and Atty. Yabut on February 2, 1994 by means of force,
intimidation, threat, strategy, and stealth). Taking into account our ruling in G.R.
No. 146718 - that the final judgment in Civil Case No. Q-28580 does not extend
to the spouses Chan, who were not impleaded as parties to the said case - the
MeTC is precluded from granting to Muoz' relief, whether preliminary or final,
that will give her possession of the subject property.Otherwise, we will be
perpetuating the wrongful execution of the final judgment in Civil Case No. Q-
28580.Based on the same reason, Muoz' can no longer insist on the
reinstatement of the MeTC Order dated May 16, 1994 granting a preliminary
mandatory injunction that puts her in possession of the subject property during
the course of the trial. Muoz' though may recover damages if she is able to prove
wrongful deprivation of possession of the subject property from February 2, 1994

until the finality of this decision in G.R. No. 146718.

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