G.R. No. L-6003. April 26, 1954

This is an action for foreclosure of mortgage.

The complaint alleges in substance that “on or about or previous to
November 22, 1948” the defendants borrowed from plaintiffs the sum of
P20,000 and secured payment thereof with a mortgage on real property,
but that they have failed to comply with the terms of the mortgage and
the debt (two years interests excepted) has remained unpaid though
already long overdue.

Ordered to specify the date of the transaction, plaintiffs amended
their complaint by making it state that the loan was contracted on
November 22, 1948, whereupon defendant filed a motion to dismiss
alleging that they borrowed no money from plaintiffs on November 22,
1948, though they did borrow from them P35,000 “in worthless Japanese
war notes” on August 15, 1944, but as that was during the Japanese
occupation, plaintiffs’ action to collect was barred by the debt
moratorium law.

At the hearing of this motion, counsel for both parties made certain
admissions from which the court deduced that on August 15, 1944,
defendants obtained from plaintiffs by “way of loan the sum of P35,000
in Japanese military notes on the security of a chattel mortgage, and
that on November 22, 1948 the parties substituted the chattel mortgage
with a mortgage on real property but reducing the loan to P20,000,
Philippine currency, and making it payable two years from that date.
And holding that an agreement which made a debt contracted during the
Japanese occupation payable before the lifting of the debt moratorium
was null and void as an open violation of the moratorium law and that
the said debt was not demandable until Congress should enact a law
lifting the debt moratorium, the court dismissed the complaint with
costs.

From this order of dismissal plaintiffs have appealed to this Court,
contending that the lower court erred in ordering them, in deference to
a motion for a bill of particulars, to specify the exact date when the
loan of P20,000 was contracted, in holding that the agreement reducing
defendants’ debt of P35,000 in Japanese war notes to P20,000,
Philippine currency, and making it payable within 2 years was violative
of the moratorium law, in holding that the debt is not demandable until
the moratorium is lifted, and in not holding that defendants had waived
their right to the moratorium.

As to the first error assigned, we see no harm in having a litigant
specify in his complaint the date on which the obligation sued upon was
contracted. We, therefore, cannot siy that the lower court in this case
committed a reversible error when it acceded to defendants’ motion for
particulars in that respect.

With respect to the other errors assigned the ruling complained of
is grounded on the law and executive orders on moratorium, and as all
of these have been declared void in the case of Royal L. Rutter vs.
Placido J. Esteban,^[*] 49 Off. Gaz. 1807, the said ruling can no longer stand.

Wherefore, the order of dismissal is hereby revoked and the case
remanded to the court below for further proceeding. With costs against
the appellees.

Paras, C. J., Pablo, Bengzon, Montemdyor, Jugo, Bautista Angelo, Labrador, and Concepcion, JJ., concur.

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^[*] 90 Phil., 415.