AQUILINA TACAS ET AL., PLAINTIFFS AND APPELLEES, VS. EVARISTO TOBON, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

This is an action to recover from the defendant the ownership and
possession of three parcels of land described in the sketch attached to
the complaint, together with the fruits collected by him during the
time he was in possession of said land that is, since January, 1912, it
being alleged that the defendant unlawfully took said parcels upon the
death of Francisco Dumadag, predecessor in interest of the plaintiffs;
and that he remained in possession, enjoying the fruits to the value of
P700 annually.

In his answer the defendant alleges that he is the owner of said
lands, having-purchased them from one Exequiel or Gil Tacas, deceased,
about fifteen years before the amended answer dated December 5, 1924.

At the trial the parties adduced their respective evidence, and
thereafter the trial court declared it sufficiently proven by a
preponderance of the evidence that the three parcels of land under
discussion, were parts of an estate belonging to Francisco Dumadag,
whose title is a possessory information recorded in the registry of
deeds of Ilocos Sur, having inherited them from his parents (Exhibit H)
; that during his lifetime, said Francisco Dumadag w,as in possession
of the land as owner for many years, until his death on November 17,
1911, enjoying its fruits, consisting in rice, corn, tobacco, and
vegetables; that said Francisco Dumadag had filed a declaration for tax
purposes in his own name; that the land tax had been paid by Francisco
Dumadag during the years 1908 and 1911, and in his name in the years
from 1912 to 1914 (Exhibits I to P); that in January, 1912, during the
season for planting tobacco immediately following the death of
Francisco Dumadag, Evaristo Tobon took possession of the three parcels
of land in question planting them with tobacco; that from 1912 up to
the present, the defendant Evaristo Tobon has been collecting the
fruits therefrom, consisting of 300 sheaves of rice and 300 manos of first, second, and third-class tobacco each year, at the approximate rate of P0.30 for each sheaf of rice, and P3 for each mano
of first-class tobacco, P2.50 for second-class tobacco, and P2 for
third-class tobacco. There is no evidence of record regarding the
amount and price of the corn collected by the defendant. And by virtue
thereof, the trial court declared the plaintiffs to be the absolute
owners of the three parcels of land in litigation, and ordered the
defendant Evaristo Tobon to deliver said parcels of land to the
plaintiffs, together with the fruits collected each year since 1912
until the complete termination of this case, and in default thereof, to
pay to said plaintiffs the sum of P1,040, which is the total value of
the rice and tobacco from 1912 to 1927, at P0.30 per sheaf of rice, and
P2 per mano of tobacco. From this judgment, the defendant
duly appealed in time, prosecuting his appeal to this court by the
proper bill of exceptions.

The appellant has made several assignments of error. In the first
place, he contends that the identity of the pieces of land in
litigation has not been established. We find no merit in this
contention. It appears from the allegations of the complaint and the
answer, that the case refers to the lands held by defendant and alleged
by the latter to have been purchased from one Exequiel or Gil Tacas,
brother to the plaintiff Aquilina Tacas.

With regard to the probatory value of the documents presented by the
parties, to wit, Exhibit H of the plaintiffs, and Exhibits 1 and 2 of
the defendant, it is well to note that Exhibit H is a possessory
information record duly approved on March 22, 1895 and inscribed in the
registry of deeds of Ilocos Sur on November 4, 1917 in favor of
Francisco Dumadag, covering some land situated in the sitio of Sisin, municipality of Magsingal, Ilocos Sur.

On the other hand, Exhibit 1 of the defendant is an instrument
executed on January 17, 1905 whereby one Exequiel or Gil Tacas sold
three parcels of farm land in the place called Sisin to Evaristo Tobon
for P300 conan. And Exhibit 2 of the same defendant is another
instrument executed on May 15, 1909 from which it appears that
Francisco Dumadag and his brother-in-law, Gil Tacas, agreed that the
three parcels of land belonging to the latter, together with the two
parcels of the former in Anteng, barrio of Carisquis, would be put in
Dumadag’s name in the possessory proceedings.

The court below made a detailed analysis of the signature of Ramon
G. Tolentino who, as justice of the peace, signed the ratification of
the document Exhibit 1, comparing it with the unquestioned signatures
of the same person, appearing in Exhibit 2, and concludes that the
instrument Exhibit 1 is false.

It is unnecessary to descend to the discussion of the
characteristics of Ramon G. Tolentino’s signature, he being the justice
of the peace who ratified the document Exhibit 1, for, even granting
that said instrument is genuine, it appears that Gil or Exequiel Tacas
could not validly convey the lands in question to the defendant
Evaristo Tobon, inasmuch as according to the possessory information,
said lands belong to and were in possession of Francisco Dumadag even
before 1895, until his death, which took place in November, 1911.

The document Exhibit 2 argues nothing against our conclusion, for it
is a contradiction to hold that in 1909 Francisco Dumadag agreed with
his brother-in-law, Exequiel Tacas, that the three parcels of land
belonging to the latter should be included in the former’s possessory
proceeding, considering that the latter had already been approved by
the order of March 22, 1895. In the ordinary course of events, if such
an agreement had really been entered into, it should have been at the
time of the institution of the possessory proceeding. Dumadag did not
know how to sign his name, and besides, no one has identified said
document, Exhibit 2.

There is another reason why Exhibit 1 cannot prevail over Exhibit H,
namely, that supposing that a sale was made in favor of the defendant
in 1905, it was only in 1909 that Exhibit 2 was drawn in order to
legalize the alleged transfer. Besides, despite the transfer of the
lands in favor of the defendant having taking place in 1905, according
to Exhibit 1, the defendant did not enter upon the possession of said
lands until after the death of the original owner Francisco Dumadag,
which occurred in November, 1911.

Another error alleged by the appellant is that the trial court
ordered him to deliver to the plaintiffs the fruits of the land from
1912 to 1927, or to pay their value, P11,040.

The complaint in this case was filed on February 1, 1918. The bill
of exceptions does not show when the defendant was summoned but it does
show that the latter docketed his answer to the complaint on April 11,
1918.

Evidence being lacking to show that when he entered upon the
possession of the lands in question, he was aware of any flaw in his
title or mode of acquiring it, he is deemed a possessor in good faith
(article 433, Civil Code), and in accordance with article 451 of the
Civil Code, the fruits of said lands were his, until he was summoned
upon the complaint, or until he filed his answer thereto. (Saul vs. Hawkins, 1 Phil., 275; Javier vs. Javier, 6 Phil., 493; Cleto vs. Salvador, 11 Phil., 416; Valencia vs. Jimenez and Fuster, 11 Phil, 492; Araujo vs. Celis, 16 Phil., 329; Alcala and Alviedo S. Hernandez and Pacleb, 32 Phil., 628; Tolentino vs. Vitug, 39 Phil., 126; Aquino vs. Tafiedo, 39 Phil., 517; Rivera vs. Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila, 40 Phil., 717; and Velazquez vs. Teodoro, 46 Phil., 757.)

Article 451 of the same Code provides:

“ART. 451. Fruits received by one in possession in good faith before possession is legally interrupted become his own.

“Natural and industrial fruits are deemed to have been received as soon as they are gathered or harvested.

“Civil fruits are deemed to accrue from day to day, and belong to the possessor in good faith in this proportion.”

In his comments upon this article of the Civil Code, Manresa, among other things, says:

“But
to every possessor in good faith there comes a time when he is
considered a possessor in bad faith. When the owner or possessor with a
better right comes along, when he becomes aware that what he had taken
for granted is at least doubtful, and when he learns the grounds in
support of the adverse contention, good faith ceases. The possessor may
still believe that his right is more secure, because we resign
ourselves with difficulty to the sight of our vanishing hopes; but when
the final judgment of the court deprives him of the possession, all
illusion necessarily disappears. Although he may not have been
convinced of it before, the possessor becomes aware that his possession
is unlawful from the time he learns of the complaint, from the time he
is summoned to the trial. It is at this time that his possession is
interrupted, according to article 1945, and that he ceases to receive
the fruits, according to the first paragraph of article 451. The ruling
of the court retro acts to that time; but shall good faith be deemed to
cease then? Although there is a great difference between requiring the
possessor in good faith to return the fruits he received from the time
when his possession was legally interrupted, and considering him a
possessor in bad faith for all legal purposes from that time, the law
had to establish a definite rule in the matter, which is none other
than that deducible from a combination of articles 452, 1945, and 435.
Whether or not the defendant be a possessor in good faith, for there is
no doubt that he can be, and the law makes no attempt to deny it, from
the service of judicial summons, there exists an act that this
possessor knows that his right is not secure, that someone disputes it,
and that he may yet lose it; and if the court holds that restitution be
made, that time determines all the legal consequences of the
interruption, the time when the possession in good faith ceased to be
so before the law,

“The decisions of April 27, 1877, April
22, May 10, and June 13, 1878, February 11, and October 5, 1885, March
17, 1891, March 4, and May 17, 1893, held that good faith ceased when
the answer to the complaint was filed, taking this doctrine from the Partidos.
By analogy, the service of the summons, doubtless more certain and more
difficult to evade, is now admitted, according to articles 451 and 1945
of the Code, and it is in this sense that the decisions of the Supreme
Court of January 28, 1896, December 7, 1899, November 23, 1900, and
July 11, 1903, must be understood, all of them holding that even the
possessor in good faith must return the fruits received from the time
the answer to the complaint was filed, that is, from the time he became
aware that he was in undue possession” (Manresa, Commentaries on the
Spanish Civil Code, vol. 4, pp. 270, 271.)

By virtue of the foregoing, the judgment appealed from must be, as
it is hereby, affirmed in so far as it holds that the plaintiffs are
the owners of the lands in question, and that the defendant is bound to
return them to the former.

And with regard to the award of damages, said judgment is hereby
modified so that the defendant is only bound to return to the
plaintiffs the fruits received from April, 1918 to 1927, that is, 300
sheaves of rice and 300 manos of tobacco, with the right to
deduct the expenses of planting and harvesting (art. 365 of the Civil
Code), which shall be determined by the trial court, after hearing both
parties.

The appellant shall pay the costs of this trial. So ordered.

Avanceña, C. J., Johnson, Street, Johns, Romualdez, and Villa-Real, JJ., concur.