TOMASA QUIMSON AND MARCOS SANTOS, PETITIONERS, VS. FRANCISCO ROSETE, RESPONDENT.

This is an appeal by certiorari from a decision of the Court of
Appeals reversing the judgment of the Court of First Instance of
Zambales. The case involves a dispute over a parcel of land sold to two
different persons.

The facts as found by the Court of Appeals are these:

“Esta finca pertenecia originariamente al hoy
difunto Dionisio Quimson, quien, en 7 de junio de 1932, otorgo,1a
escritura Exhibit A de traspaso de la misma a favor de su hija Tomasa
Quimson, pero continud en su posesion y goce. La vendio a los esposos
Magno Agustin y Paulina-Manzano en 3 de mayo de 1935,. con pacto de
recomprar dentro del plazo de seis años; y dos anos escasos despues, en
5 de abril de 1937, la volvi<5 a vender a Francisco Rosete, tambien
con paeto de retro por el termino de cinco anos, despues de haber
verificado su recompra de Agustin y Manzano, con dinero que le habia
facilitado Rosete, otorgandose a este efecto la escritura de venta
Exhibit 1. Desde entonces Rosete es el que esta en su posesion y
disfrute, de una manera pacifica y quieta, aaun despues de la muerte de
Dionisio Quimson, ocurrida en 6 de junio de 1939, hasta el enero de
1943, en que Tomasa Quimson acudio al Juez de Paz de San Marcelino,
Zambales, para que este interviniera en un arreglo con Rosete sobre
dicha finca, cuyo fracaso motivo una carrera hacia Iba, la capital de
Zambales, para ganar la prioridad del registro e inscripcion de las
escrituras de venta Exhibits A y 1 que Dionisio Quimson otorgara a
favor de Tomasa Quimson y Francisco Rosete, respectivamente, carrera
que aquella gand por haber llegado a la meta una hora antes, a las 9:30
a.m. del 17 de febrero de 1943, en tanto que este la alcanzo a las
10:30 a.m. de esa mismo dia.”

Two questions are raised: (1) What were the effects of the
registration of plaintiff’s document? and (2) Who was prior in
possession? The Court of Appeals’ answer to the first question is,
None, and to the second, the defendant or second purchaser.

We do not deem it necessary to pass upon the first issue in the
light of the view we take of the last, to which we will address
ourselves presently.

Articles 1462 and 1473 of the Civil Code provide:

“Art. 1462. The thing sold shall be deemed.delivered, when it is placed in the control and possession of the vendee.

“When the sale is made by means of a public instrument, the execution
thereof shall be equivalent to the delivery of the thing which is the
object of the contract, if from the said instrument the contrary does
not appear or may not be clearly inferred.

“Art. 1473. If
the same thing should have been sold to different vendees, the
ownership shall be transferred to the person who may have first taken
possession thereof in good faith, if it should be movable property.

“Should it be immovable property, the ownership shall belong to the person acquiring it who first recorded it in the Registry.

“Should there be no inscription, the ownership shall belong to the
person who in good faith was first in the possession; and, in the
absence of this, to the person who presents the oldest title, provided
there is good faith.”

In the case of Buencamino vs. Viceo (13 Phil. 97), Mr.
Justice Willard, speaking for the Court and citing Article 1462 says:
“Upon a sale of real estate the execution of a notarial document of
sale is a sufficient delivery of the property sold.”

In the case of Florendo vs. Foz, (20 Phil. 388), the
Court, through Mr. Chief Justice Arellano, rules that “When the sale is
made by means of a public instrument, the execution thereof is
tantamount to conveyance of the subject matter, unless the contrary
clearly follows or be deduced from such instrument itself, and in the
absence of this condition such execution by the vendor is per se
a formal or symbolical conveyance of the property sold, that is, the
vendor in the instrument itself authorizes the purchaser to use the
title of ownership as proof that the latter is thenceforth the owner of
the property.”

More decisive of the case at bar, being almost on all fours with it, is the case of Narcisa Sanchez vs.
Ramos, (40 Phil., 614). There, it appeared that one Fernandez sold a
piece of land to Marcelino Gomez and Narcisa Sanchez under pacto de retro
in a public instrument. The purchasers neither recorded their deed in
the registry of property nor ever took material possession of the land.
Later, Fernandez sold the same property by means of a private document
to Ramos who immediately entered upon the possession of it. It was held
that, according to Article 1473 of the Civil Code, Gomez and Sanchez
were the first in possession and, consequently, that the sale in their
favor was superior. Says the Court, through Mr. Justice Avanceña later
chief justice:

“To what kind of possession does this article (1473)
refer? Possession is acquired by the material occupancy of the thing or
right possessed, or by the fact that the latter is subjected to the
action of our will, or by the appropriate acts and legal formalities
established for acquiring possession (art. 438, Civil Code). By a
simple reasoning, it appears that, because the law does not mention to
which of these kinds of possession the article refers, it must be
understood that it Defers to all of these kinds. The proposition that
this article, according to its letter, refers to the material
possession and excludes the symbolic does not seem to be founded upon a
solid ground. It is said that the law, in the gradation of the causes
of preference between several sales, fixes, first, possession and then
the date of the title and, as a public instrument is a title, it is
claimed that the inference is that the law has deliberately intended to
place the symbolic possession, which the execution of the public
document implies, after the material possession. This argument,
however, would only be forceful if the title, mentioned by this
article, includes public instruments, and this would only be true if
public instruments are not included in the idea of possession spoken of
in said article. In other words, the strength of the argument rests.in
that this possession is precisely the material and does not include the
symbolic. Consequently, the argument is deficient for it is begging the
same question, because if this possession Includes the symbolic, which
is acquired by the execution of a public instrument, it should be
understood that the title, mentioned by the law as the next cause of
preference, does not include public instruments.

“Furthermore, our interpretation of this article 1473 is more in
consonance with the principles of justice. The execution of a public
instrument is equivalent to the delivery of the realty sold (art. 1462,
Civil Code) and its possession by the vendee (art. 438). Under these
conditions the sale is considered consummated and completely transfers
to the vendee all of the vendor’s rights of ownership including his
real right-over the thing. The vendee by virtue of this sale has
acquired everything and nothing, absolutely nothing, is left to the
vendor. From this moment the vendor is a stranger to the thing sold
like any other who has never been its owner. As the thing is considered
delivered, the vendor has no longer the obligation of even delivering
it. If he continues taking material possession of it, it is simply on
account of vendee’s tolerance and, in this sense, his possession is
vendor’s possession. And if the latter should have to ask him for the
delivery of this material possession, it would not be by virtue of the
sale, because this has been already consummated and has produced all
its effects, but by virtue of the vendee’s ownership, in the same way
as said vendee could require of another person although same were not
the vendor. This means that after the sale of a realty by means of a
public instrument, the vendor, who resells it to another, does not
transmit anything to the second vendee and if the latter, by virtue of
this second sale, takes material possession of the thing, he does it as
mere detainer, and it would be unjust to protect this detention against
the rights to the thing lawfully acquired by the first vendee.

“We are of the opinion that the possession mentioned in article 1473
(for determining who has better right when the same piece of land has
been sold several times by the same vendor) includes not only the
material but also the symbolic possession, which is acquired by the
execution of a public instrument.”

The Supreme Court of Spain and Sr. Manresa are of the same opinion.
On pp. 157, 158, Vol. X, of his treatise on the Spanish Civil Code,
Manresa comments:

“II. Observacion comun a la venta de muebles y a la de inmuebles.—Hemos
interpretado el precepto del art. 1.473, en sus parrafos 1.° y 3.°, en
el sentido ma’s racional, aunque no tal vez en el mas adecuado a las
palabras que se emplean. Las palabras tomar posesion, y primero en la
posesion, las hemos considerado como equivalentes a la de la tradicion
real o fingida a que se refieren los articulos 1.462 al 1.464, porque
si la posesion material del objeto puede otorgar preferencia en
cuestiones de posesid’n, y asl lo reconoce el articulo 445, no debe
darla nunca en cuestiones de propiedad, y de la propiedad habla
expresamente el art. 1.473. Asi, en nuestra opinion, robustecida por la
doctrina que rectamente se deriva de la sentencia de 24 de Noviembre de
1894, vendida una finca a A. en escritura publica, y despues a B.,
aunque se incaute materialmente este del inmueble, la propiedad
pertenece a A., primero en la tradicion, con arreglo al art. 1.462,
puesto que a partir del otorgamiento de la escritura que envuelve la
entrega de la cosa, el vendedor carecfa ya de la facultad de disponer
de ella.”

The statement of Sr. Manresa which is said to sustain the theory of
the Court of Appeals, expresses, as we understand that statement, the
literal meaning of Article 1473, for the decision of November 24, 1894
reflects, according to the learned author, the intention of the
lawmaker and is in conformity with the principles of justice. Now,
under both the Spanish and the Philippine rules of interpretation, the
spirit, the intent, of the law prevails over its letter.

Counsel for defendant denies that the land was sold to plaintiff
Tomasa Quimson or that the Court of Appeals so found. All that the
latter court declared, he says, was that a deed of sale of the land was
executed by the original owner on June 7, 1932.

The finding that a deed of conveyance was made by Dionisio Quimson
in favor of his daughter could have no other meaning, in the absence of
any qualifying statement, than that the land was sold by the father to
his daughter. Furthermore this was the trial court’s explicit finding
which was not reversed by the Court of Appeals and stands as the fact
of the case. Looking into the document, itself, Exhibit A states
categorically that the vendor received from the vendee the
consideration of the sale, P250, and acknowledged before the notary
public having executed the instrument of his own free will.

The expression in this Court’s decision in the case of Cruzado vs.
Escaler (34 Phil. 17), cited by the Court of Appeals, apparently to the
effect that physical possession by the purchaser is essential to the
consummation of a sale of real estate, is at best obiter dictum;
for the Court distinctly found that the sale to plaintiff Cruzado’s
father was a sham, executed with the sole purpose of enabling the
senior Cruzado to mortgage the property and become procurador.
And with reference to the failure of the second vendee, Escaler, to
register his purchase, the Court disregarded the omission as well as
the entry of the first sale in the registry because that entry was made
by the plaintiff, son and heir of the first supposed vendee, more than
a score years after the alleged transaction, when the plaintiff “was no
longer or had any right therein (in the land), because it already
belonged to the defendant Escaler, its lawful owner.” When Escaler, the
second purchaser was sued, he had become the owner of the land by
prescription. The defendant’s possession in the present case fell far
short of having ripened into title by prescription when the plaintiff
commenced her action.

For the reasons above stated, we are constrained to set aside the
decision of the Court of Appeals. Because the Appellate Court found for
the defendant, it made no findings on damages for the latter’s use of
the property in controversy. Not being authorized in this appeal to
examine the evidence, we have to accept the trial court’s appraisal of
the damages. Judge Llanes assessed the damages at P180 for the
occupation of the land for the agricultural years 1943-44, 1944-45 and
1945-46, and P60 a year thereafter until the possession of the property
was restituted to the plaintiffs.

Let Judgment be entered in accordance with the tenor of this decision, with costs against the defendant.

Moran, C.J., Ozaeta, Pablo, Bengzon, and Montemayor, JJ., concur.