ANTONIO VILLANUEVA, AND LIGAYA CABARUBIAS, PETITIONERS, VS. INTERMEDIATE APPELLATE COURT, AMPARO MORENO DE JESUS, AND EMILIO MORENO, RESPONDENTS.

This is a petition for review on certiorari seeking to set
aside the decision of the trial court which declared the private respondents as
absolute owners of the property in dispute
and which ordered the petitioners, among others, to vacate the property and
remove the improvements thereon.

The private respondents Amparo Moreno
de Jesus and Emilio Moreno filed an action for quieting of title and recovery
of possession with damages against the petitioners Antonio Villanueva and Ligaya Cabarubias.  In their complaint, the private respondents
alleged that they are two (2) of the
four (4) children of the late spouses Maximino Moreno
and Rosa Encarnacion who both died intestate in 1945 and 1972 respectively; that said deceased
spouses during their lifetime were absolute owners and possessors of the parcel
of land in question; that since their father’s death
until 1973, the private respondents took possession and control of the
property, exercising all rights of ownership thereon and were in actual, open,
continuous, adverse and notorious possession of the same in the concept of
owners; that sometime in October 1966, the petitioners were given permission to
reside and stay on the middle eastern portion of the land and since then up to
the present have been in possession thereof; that subsequently, petitioners
claimed the whole property as theirs
to the exclusion
of the respondents and their
co-heirs; and that petitioners, aside from exercising acts of possession and
ownership thereto adverse to the respondents, even sold a portion of the same property to several persons in utter deprivation of
respondents’ rights and interests.

The petitioners filed their answer with compulsory counterclaim
and as special and affirmative
defenses, alleged, among others, that the complaint states no cause of action as the portion which they
were cultivating was sold by the private respondents’ two other sisters on
installment basis to the petitioners who paid the amount of P5,755.00 with the
balance of P2,245.00 still remaining and that this portion of the lot occupied
by the petitioners was subsequently sold by them to their second cousin Florentino Villanueva who trusted the petitioners, so much
so that he bought the land without asking the document of ownership, and paid
the amount of P2,000.00 to petitioner Antonio Villanueva.

After both parties had presented their evidence, the trial court
made the following findings of facts:

1.  Antonio Villanueva (the
petitioner) is a second degree cousin of Florentino
Villanueva, who are both farmers of a parcel of land owned by Maximino Moreno, bounded on the north by public highways;
on the east by Fernando Viloria and Pantaleon Esteban, on the south by Heirs of Pantaleon Esteban and on
the west by Bartolome Cruz and mountain which
is a natural boundary;

2.  The parcel of land
tenanted by Antonio Villanueva, is situated in Manipa,
Castillejos, Zambales,
wherein he and Socorro Moreno and Magdalena Moreno, (the private respondents’ two other sisters)
jointly administered the property in question;

3.  As caretaker of the
property, Antonio Villanueva pleaded from the surviving heirs of Maximino Moreno that he will pay by installment a portion
of the property which he is occupying in the sum of ten thousand pesos  (P10,000.00);

4.  Antonio Villanueva made installment
in the amount of P5,755.000, but still is indebted to the plaintiffs
(respondents) in the amount of P2,245.00, although the purchase price was
allegedly reduced from ten thousand P10,000.00)
to eight thousand (P8,000.00) pesos;

5.  That
Antonio Villanueva took possession of the property and by his manipulation, he sold the same property to Florentino Villanueva for two thousand pesos, P2,000.00) notwithstandinhg the fact that he had not completed the installment payment to respondents;

6.  Antonio Villanueva was charged in
court under Crim. Case No. 2537 for the crime of estafa for selling the property to Florentino Villanueva. 
Antonio Villanueva, in fact, was convicted by this court on January 30,
1978 in Criminal Case No. 2537 for the said crime of estafa, for which he was sentenced to suffer imprisonment
of four (4) months of arresto mayor and to pay a fine of
four thousand pesos (P4,000.00) plus the payment of
indemnity to the offended party in the sum of P2,000.00 by way of civil
liability and the costs of the
proceedings; and

7.  The two (2) plaintiffs
(private respondents) are pro-indiviso
owners and possessors of the
subject property and together with the two (2) other sisters and their
predecessors in interest had been in open,
actual, continuous, notorious and adverse possession in the concept of
owners, (respondents) allowed the
defendants (petitioners) to stay and occupy a portion of the subject
property as tenants.

Based on the above findings, the trial court accordingly ruled:

“The sole issue to be determined in the case at bar is whether
or not the plaintiffs and their two (2)
other co-heirs are the absolute owners of the property left by their late father Maximino
Moreno.

Reassessing the situation as it now stands, and taking into
consideration the various tax declarations issued in the name of the plaintiffs and their co-heirs and tax
receipts for which they had been paying the land and realty taxes in the
concept of an owner, the Court is of the opinion and so holds that the defendants
have no legal right to claim ownership
of the whole subject property.  In the
first place, the defendant Antonio Villanueva is still indebted to the
plaintiffs in the amount of Two Thousand Two Hundred Forty Five Pesos (P2,245.00) and it is undeniable that the title to the property
has not yet passed to him nor had he that right to dispose of the same knowing
fully well that the land was encumbered at the time of the disposal.  Defendant Antonio Moreno (sic) was a mere
tenant at the time and such being the case, his occupation of the
property (sic) and legal basis
to claim the whole of the property involved
in this litigation.

By and large, plaintiffs have made out their case against the
defendants by overwhelming preponderance of evidence.

WHEREFORE, judgment is hereby rendered in favor of the plaintiffs
and against the defendants, as follows:

a)  Declaring the plaintiffs
as absolute owners of the property described in paragraph 2 of the complaint, in co-ownership with the other
co-heirs;

b)  Defendants are ordered to
vacate the premises they are illegally occupying and to remove their
improvements therein;

c)  Defendants are sentenced
to pay the sum of One Thousand
Five Hundred P1,500.00) per year of their occupancy of the land in question
since 1973, representing average annual
harvest of palay produced on the subject property,
until they vacate the same and return the possession thereof to the plaintiff;

d)  Defendants are ordered to
reimburse the amount of Sixty Thousand Pesos (P60,000.00)
representing the value of the sand and gravel extracted from the property and
sold by them;

e)  Ordering the defendants
to pay the plaintiffs the sum of Seven Thousand Pesos (P7,000.00)
by way of attorney’s fees; and

f)  To pay the costs of the
suit.

The above decision was rendered on January 14, 1983.

The petitioners appealed to the then Intermediate Appellate
Court, now Court of Appeals.

On August 8, 1983,
the office of the petitioners’ counsel received an order from the appellate
court dated August 1, 1983
to file the corresponding brief.  No brief was filed.  Hence, on November 23, 1983 the appellate court issued a resolution
dismissing the petitioners’ appeal for having failed to file the appellants’
brief within the reglementary period.  This order was received by petitioners’
counsel on December 5, 1983.

On January 20, 1984,
the counsel for petitioners filed an “Explanation And
Motion to Allow Appellant to File Brief” alleging excusable neglect.  According to the counsel, the appellate
court’s resolution dismissing the petitioners’ appeal was discovered by the
secretary of the counsel only on January
18, 1984 because it was misplaced and mixed with other papers at
the secretarial
pool, and
as of that date, the petitioners’ laywer had not
located the appellate court’s order to file brief.

On February 27, 1984,
the appellate court issued a resolution denying the petitioners’ motion for
lack of merit, adding that the Court had lost jurisdiction over the case.  The petitioners filed a motion for reconsideration.

On
March 23, 1984, the
appellate court issued another resolution expunging from the records, the
appellants’ brief which was filed on March
3, 1984.

On May 23, 1984,
the petitioners, through their counsel, filed a “Notice of Appeal” before this Court.  In said notice, the petitioners sought to
justify the filing of their “intended petition for review” by stating
that “[p]urely questions of law specifically on
jurisdiction deserve a review by the highest court” and that “the reasons
and grounds why the brief was not
submitted on time were meritorious
enough to far outweigh the
technicality that the Court (IAC) lost jurisdiction over the case.” And
thus, they contended that the “acts of the Appellate Court (IAC) amounted
to grave abuse of discretion, amounting to lack of jurisdiction.”

On June 6, 1984,
the petitioners filed an “Appellants’ Petition” assailing the trial
court’s (not the Court of Appeals’) decision based on the following
assignments of errors:

I

IN
THE ASSAYING OF FACTS AND LAW ON THE PRINCIPAL ISSUE OF OWNERSHIP, THE
TRIAL COURT ERRED BY INTERJECTING EXTRANEOUS AND COLLATERAL MATTERS RESULTING
TO A GLARING MISAPPREHENSION OF FACTS AND LAW.

II

IN THE CALIBRATION OF THE TOTALITY OF
PROFFERED EVIDENCES, THE TRIAL COURT ERRED BY MISAPPREHENSION OF EVIDENCE AND
IT HAS PLAINLY OVERLOOKED CERTAIN FACTS OF SUBSTANCE AND VALUE, THAT IF
CONSIDERED MIGHT AFFECT RESULT OF CASE.

Apparently, the petitioners had a change of mind in that while in
their “Notice of Appeal, they alleged grave abuse of discretion on the
part of the appellate court for dismissing the appeal, in their present
petition, petitioners opted to attack the decision of the trial court on the basis of
alleged misapprehension of facts and law.

This procedure adopted by the petitioners is highly irregular, to
say the least, for instead of dealing with the issue of the propriety of the
appellate court’s dismissing the
appeal for their failure to file an appellants’ brief and to seasonably move to reconsider such dismissal, they
chose to file what seems to be a petition for review under Rule 45 of the Rules
of Court, assailing instead, the decision of the trial court.

Evidently, the petitioners want this Court to focus its attention
more on the decision of the trial court rather than the resolutions of the
appellate court which should have been
the subject of the instant petition in the first place.  If the petitioners wanted to appeal before
this Court on a petition for review under Rule 45 of the Rules of Court from
the decision of the trial court, they may have been
allowed to do so on a showing of
a meritorious petition, but in such
case, they could only raise
questions of law.  (See also
Philippine National Bank v. Romillo, Jr., 139 SCRA 320)

On the other hand, if the petitioners intended to assail the
decision or resolution of the appellate court, they
should have filed either a petition for review under Rule 45 raising questions
of law or a petition for certiorari
under Rule 65 on the ground of grave abuse of discretion or acts in excess of
jurisdiction.  But the petitioners cannot
choose to appeal before the appellate court and then, because of their
counsel’s own negligence, evade the consequence of a dismissal of said appeal
by trying to file a petition for review with this Court assailing this time the
decision of the trial court. 
To add to the confusion,
before filing their petition which was captioned as “Appellants’
Petition” and with “Amparo Moreno de Jesus,
et al., (Plaintiffs-Appellees) v. Antonio Villanueva,
et al., (Defendant-Appellants)” as parties, the petitioners filed a
“Notice of Appeal” (a pleading not required when filing a petition
before this Court).  They also made the Intermediate
Appellate Court as one of the respondents. 
In said notice, it was alleged that the appellate court committed grave
abuse of discretion amounting to lack of jurisdiction.  These procedural maneuvers whether purposely
resorted to in order to sow confusion or simply the product of ignorance of
counsel cannot be countenanced by this Court.

We cannot pass upon the issues raised in this petition because
the proper forum for the same is lodged with the appellate court which has
jurisdiction to decide questions of facts and law.  Even if we do decide to pass upon the merits
of this case and disregard this procedural defect, the petition itself, which is all but four and a half pages, is so poorly written that it is
difficult to comprehend the facts surrounding the case without relying on the
decision of the trial court.  This is not
to mention the fact, and it can be readily seen, that the petition was actually
the “Appellants’ Brief” which was filed by the petitioners below as
defendant-appellants which explains why the same was captioned as “Appellants’ Petition” and why it referred to
the parties as “plaintiff-appellees” and
“defendant-appellant.”

The counsel for petitioners did not even bother to change the
date of the petition because while the same was actually filed on June 6, 1984 before this Court, the petition was dated February
27, 1984.  Although this Court does not generally dwell
on these minute details, we deem it worthwhile to mention them in this case if
only for the edification of lawyers appearing before this Court and also to
lend credence and justification to the appellate court’s dismissal of the
petitioners’ appeal based on their failure to file brief.  While we, at times, allow a liberal interpretation of the Rules, the petition before us does not
merit such liberality.  The reason
advanced by the petitioners before the appellate court is not sufficient cause for the allowance of their appeal. 
In Gregorio v. Court of Appeals, (72 SCRA 120, 123) we ruled:

“1. 
It is provided in Section 15, Rule 46 of the Revised Rules of Court that
“Extension of time for the filing of briefs will not be allowed, except for good and sufficient cause, and only if the motion for extension is filed
before the expiration of the time sought to be extended.” This indicates
that if good reasons are shown, the
Appellate Court may grant as
many extensions as may be allowed if the following requisites are complied
with: (1) the motion must state good and sufficient cause; and (2) it must be
filed before the expiration of the time sought to be extended.  x x
x.”

In the case at bar, aside from the fact that there was no good and sufficient cause for
petitioners’ failure to file brief, they subsequently filed the same long after the court had issued
the order to dismiss the appeal for having been deemed abandoned. If the counsel for petitioners found himself in a predicament where he
could no longer revive the appeal
he has only his own negligence
to blame.  As we have ruled in the case of Philippine Suburban Development Corporation v. Court of Appeals,
(100 SCRA 109, 113-114):

“Counsel pleads for a liberal interpretation of the Rules of
Court to allow the reinstatement of his appeal. 
The failure of counsel to file brief within the reglementary
period and the dismissal of his appeal was of his own doing.  He failed to receive the notice to file brief
because he transferred his law office without giving the proper notice therefor,
or making the necessary arrangements to assure that notices sent to his old
address (which was likewise that
of his client, the petitioner) would be forwarded to his new address.  There was also an apparent failure to check periodically, as an act of prudence, the status of the
pending case before the Court of Appeals. 
x x x.”

The Court, therefore, finds that the respondent Court of Appeals
committed no grave error or abuse of discretion in dismissing the appeal which
would justify the exercise of this
Court’s supervisory powers.  Suffice it
to state, finally, that even as of this late hour, petitioner has not submitted
any pertinent pleading nor copy of the questioned decision nor tendered an
appellant’s brief that would show a lawful and valid defense and compelling
reasons that would justify the issuance of the corrective writ of certiorari.”

The exercise of ordinary prudence or foresight should have
prompted the petitioners’ counsel to check why his office had not received any
order from the appellate court in January, 1984 when he had filed the notice of
appeal as early as July, 1983.  In the
case of Philippine Suburban Development Corporation (supra) citing Juane v. Garcia (25 SCRA 801) we
further said:

xxx                xxx                   xxx

“xxx It is
only when some such situation comes about that the negligent lawyer comes to
realize the grave responsibility that he has incurred to his client and
to the cause of justice.  It is then that
the lawyer is reminded that in his oath of office he solemnly declared that he ‘will conduct’ himself ‘as a lawyer according to the best of his knowledge and discretion.’  Too late.  Experience
indeed is a good teacher.  To a lawyer,
though, it could prove very expensive.”

WHEREFORE,
the petition is hereby DISMISSED for lack of merit.  The questioned orders of the appellate court
are AFFIRMED.

SO ORDERED.

Fernan, (Chairman), Bidin, and Cortes, JJ., concur.

Feliciano, J., on leave.