ALFREDO FRIAS, ET AL., APPLICANTS AND APPELLEES VS. SANTIAGO ESQUIVEL, ET AL., OPPOSITORS AND APPELLANTS.

On March 26, 1952, appellee spouses Alfredo N. Frias and Belen
Lustre filed in the Court of First Instance of Nueva Ecija an
application to register a residential lot situated in Jaen, Nueva
Ecija, containing an area of about 2,974 square meters, more
particularly bounded and described in plan Psu-131405 Exhibit A.

On September 22, 1952, Santiago Esquivel and his sisters, Felisa,
Rosalia, Rosa, Ceferina, and his sister-in-law, Perpetua Pada-Esquivel,
widow of their brother; Alvaro, as legal guardian of her minor
children, Ricardo, Vicente, Aurelio, Raymundo and Prudencio (Reynaldo),
all surnamed Esquivel, opposed the application claiming ownership of a
portion of 1,357 square meters of the land sought to be registered,
having inherited the same from their parents, Victoriano Esquivel and
Catalina Villamanca. They also sought the postponement of the
proceedings pending final determination of Civil Case No. 998 of the
same court between themselves as plaintiffs and the applicants as
defendants, involving the ownership and possession of the land subject
of their opposition.

In the civil case mentioned above, the plaintiffs alleged that
they, together with their youngest sister, Anastacia Esquivel de Yambao
(who refused to be joined as a party in the action), inherited
pro-indiviso from their parents, Victoriano Esquivel and Catalina
Villamanca, a parcel of land with improvements thereon situated at
Jaen, Nueva Ecija, containing an area of about 1,357 square meters;
that while said property was still owned in common, on or about July
16, 1951, without their knowledge and consent, Anastacia Esquivel de
Yambao sold the whole of it to the defendants, the Frias spouses, who
knew, at the time of the sale, that their vendor owned only a part
thereof; that the defendants had taken possession of the land and had
refused to reconvey it to them despite repeated demands therefor.

On September 30, 1952, the Court issued an order postponing the
hearing on the application until after final adjudication of Civil Case
No. 998, but on March 24, 1953 issued an order of general default
except as against the oppositors and the Director of Lands.

On April 20, 1956 we rendered judgment in Civil Case No. 998 (G.R.
No. L-8825) declaring the deed of sale executed by Anastacia Esquivel
valid insofar as Santiago, Felisa, Ceferina and Anastacia, all surnamed
Esquivel, were concerned, but invalid with respect to the minor heirs
of the late Alvaro Esquivel. In our decision we found the following
facts as having been established: The parcel of land in question
originally belonged to the spouses Victoriano Esquivel and Catalina
Villamanca who had seven children, namely, Santiago, Felisa, Rosalia,
Rosa, Ceferina, Anastacia and Alvaro. Alvaro died on December 19, 1940
leaving his widow, Perpetua Pada, and their children, Ricardo, Vicente,
Aurelio, Raymundo and Prudencio (Reynaldo). Victorino Esquivel died on
January 7, 1943 leaving considerable real estate in Jaen, Nueva Ecija,
consisting of rice and residential lands, which were extra-judicially
partitioned by and amongst his heirs sometime in 1946, the land in
question having been adjudicated to Anastacia, who sold it to the Frias
spouses on July 16, 1951. The minor heirs of the late Alvaro Esquivel
were represented in the partition by their mother, Perpetua Pada, who
was neither their legal guardian nor the administratrix of their
property. As the partition was made in 1946, the applicable law was
found to be Section 553 of the Code of Civil Procedure which provided
that the father or mother is only deemed to be the natural guardian of
his or her minor children and not of his estate unless appointed by the
court. As a result, the land in question was declared to be common
property of Anastacia Esquivel and the minor heirs of Alvaro Esquivel
at the time of its sale by the former to the Frias spouses.

It appears that, subsequent to our decision, that is, on February
15, 1957, the children of the deceased Alvaro Esquivel—who had attained
the age of majority, with the exception of Alvaro and Reynaldo—and
their mother, Perpetua Pada de Zaragosa (remarried to Eduardo
Zaragosa), as natural guardian of the two minors, executed a deed of
sale conveying their one-seventh participation in the land to the Frias
spouses. (Exhibit I)

On October 2, 1957, in the aforesaid registration proceedings,
after due notice and hearing, the Court rendered judgment adjudicating
the land described in the plan Exhibit A in favor of the applicants and
ordering its registration in their name. After the same had become
final and executory, the Court ordered the issuance of the Decree of
Registration, and on December 11, 1957 the Chief of the General Land
Registration Office issued Decree of Registration No. 60798 in favor of
the Frias spouses.

On December 8, 1958, Rosario Esquivel-Gonzales, as the duly
appointed guardian of the minors Reynaldo and Ricardo Esquivel, filed a
verified petition to reopen the decree of registration on the ground of
fraud committed,— according to the petition—as follows:

“5. That the herein applicants committed fraud in
obtaining said decree of registration, and such fraud consists of the
following: the herein applicants had falsely represented to this
Honorable Court during the hearing of their application that they were
the owners of the entire residential lot included in their plan marked
as Exhibit “A” and now covered by the decree of registration, when at
that time they knew fully well they were not the owners thereof in its
entirety; that they were aware of such fraudulent representation when
they made it because they were parties in Civil Case No. 998 of this
Court involving precisely the validity of their title to the
aforementioned lot; they also knew that on appeal the case became G.R.
No. L-8825 of the Supreme Court which, in a decision promulgated on
April 20, 1956, held that the title (a deed of sale) to that
residential lot claimed by the herein applicants is invalid with regard
to the minor heirs of the late Alvaro Esquivel’, one of them being
Reynaldo Esquivel, your petitioner’s ward, in whose behalf this
petition is being presented;

“6. That your petitioner has
been informed, believes the information, and therefore alleges that in
order to perpetrate the aforesaid fraud upon this Court and upon your
petitioner’s ward, Reynaldo Esquivel, the herein applicants had
maneuvered sometime in February of 1957 the execution in their favor of
a deed of sale of the share in the oft-repeated residential lot
pertaining to the minor heirs of the late Alvaro Esquivel, and that
deed of sale signed by Perpetua P. Zaragoza, widow and mother of the
Esquivel minors, but who has remarried many years before she was made
to sign it and who has taken up residence in Asingan, Pangasinan, since
her remarriage, away from her minor children aforesaid, particularly
from the minor Reynaldo Esquivel who had to be taken care of
alternately by his uncle and his aunts;”

On February 22, 1960, the Court denied the above mentioned petition. Hence the present appeal.

To justify the setting aside or review of a decree of registration
under Section 38 of Act No. 496, the party seeking relief must allege
and prove, inter alia, that the registration was procured through
fraud—actual and extrinsic. It has been held in this connection that if
the fraud alleged in the petition to set aside the decree is involved
in the same proceedings in which the party seeking relief had ample
opportunity to assert his right, to attack the document presented by
the applicant for registration, and to cross-examine the witnesses who
testified relative thereto, then the fraud relied upon is intrinsic.
The fraud is extrinsic if it was employed to deprive a party of his day
in court, thus preventing him from asserting his right to the property
registered in the name of the applicant (Bagoyboy vs. Director of Lands, 37 Off. Gaz., 1956).

Upon consideration of the facts relied upon by appellants to
justify a review of the decree in question, we find that the same do
not constitute the extrinsic fraud required as justification for the
granting of the relief sought by them.

Wherefore, the decision appealed from is affirmed, with costs.

Bengzon, C. J., Padilla, Labrador, Concepcion, Barrera, Regala, and Makalintal, JJ., concur.