REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, PETITIONER, VS. HON. ADORACION G. ANGELES, PRESIDING JUDGE, RTC CALOOCAN CITY, BRANCH 121 AND SPOUSES ANGEL CRUZ AND ROSARIO CLARIDAD, RESPONDENTS.
GUARIÑA III, J.:
A brief but concise overview of the case is necessary.
In December 1986, the National Housing Authority filed civil case C-12725 with the Regional Trial Court of Caloocan City against the spouses Cruz to nullify and cancel their Transfer Certificate of Title No. T-37092 (M).[2] Derived from Original Certificate of Title No. O-6104 issued in April 1973, the title shows on its face that the covered property is situated in Barrio Gaya-Gaya, Municipality of San Jose del Monte, Bulacan. But it is physically and actually in Caloocan City. The NHA alleges that the property under T-37092 (M) encroaches on the Tala Estate titled in the name of the Commonwealth, now Republic, as TCT No. T-34626 and T-34629 issued in April 1938. Pursuant to Proclamation 843 in 1971, a 598-hectare portion of the Tala Estate which included the land was reserved for housing and resettlement under the administration of the NHA. The spouses were found to be intruding into this property, making their own constructions and resisting the development of the area by NHA.
In October 1989, the defendants Cruz filed an answer with a motion to dismiss.[3] Baring the history of their title, they admitted that the property with an area of one hectare was originally titled as O-6104. When it was subdivided into two lots, TCT No. T-72.353 and T-88.949 were issued to them. They contended that C-12725 should be dismissed because the property is located in San Jose del Monte, Bulacan, not Caloocan City, and that under the rules, the case should be filed in the proper court where the property is located. In August 1989, through a school owned and operated by them and known as Golden Valley Academy,[4] they filed an action to quiet title with the RTC of Bulacan to stop the Republic from occupying the property. It was docketed as civil case 427-M-89. They posited that the pendency of this case is another reason why C-12725 should be dismissed.
A pre-trial order was subsequently issued embodying the agreement of the parties on the background facts.[5] The defendants are the registered owners of a one-hectare property located at Gaya-gaya San Jose del Monte under TCT No. T-37092 (M) which is derived from O-6104. The property under T-37092 was subdivided into lots covered by T-72.353 (M) and T-88.949 (M) and are presently in their possession. They established a school on the property known as Golden Valley Academy and, in its name, filed case 427-M-89 against the Republic, through the NHA, with The RTC of Malolos Bulacan. An order was eventually issued by Branch 6 of the court dismissing the complaint.
The parties formulated the following issues for determination by the court : (1) whether or not the land in question is situated in Bulacan or Caloocan City and (2) whether or not this land is owned by the Government.
After trial, on November 8, 1991, the court rendered a decision. [6] In the light of the evidence, it upheld the position of the NHA that the Tala Estate was carved out a vast tract of land that was titled in the name of the government since the commonwealth era. In the course of developing the area, the NHA was drawn into conflict with the defendants over a one-hectare portion that was also registered in their names as T-72.353 and T-88.949. Through their school Golden Valley Academy, they sued NHA before the RTC of Malolos Bulacan in case 427-M-89. This action was dismissed by the court on July 17, 1990 – pursuant to a relocation survey report of a committee created by the court which stated that the lots under T-72.353 and T-88.949 are inside the Tala Estate in Caloocan City and not in San Jose del Monte, Bulacan, overlapping the lots of the Estate described in T-34626 and T-34629. The dismissal was thus anchored on wrong venue.
The court notes in addition the unrebutted testimony of an NHA employee connected with the Bagong Silang Settlement Project at Caloocan City that the property claimed by the defendants is in Phase VIII of the Project. It shares the conclusion that the property is in reality in Caloocan City despite the recitals in the titles of the defendants. The location plan of the spouses that attempt to show differently was of no help, since it did not contain boundaries, lacked the approval of the Bureau of Lands and was not identified by the surveyor who allegedly prepared it. The court encapsulates its judgment in these pithy words : the parcels of land in question are portions of the Tala Estate situated in Caloocan City whose titles issued in 1938 in the name of the Commonwealth are superior to the titles of the defendants which are of 1973 vintage. It decreed :
Wherefore, judgment is hereby rendered declaring defendants’ Transfer Certificate of Titles Nos. T-72.353 (M) and T-88.949 (M) null and void. There is no pronouncement as regards Transfer Certificate of Title T-37092 issued in the names of the herein defendants by the Register of Deeds of Meycauayan Bulacan, inasmuch as the same title had already been cancelled when the property was subdivided into two lots which were eventually covered and embraced by defendants’ aforesaid Transfer Certificate of Title Nos. T-72.353 (M) and T-88.949 (M).
Defendants’ counterclaim is dismissed for lack of merit, and without pronouncement as to costs. [7]
The decision was appealed to the Court of Appeals as CA-GR CV No. 36471 and affirmed on August 31, 2001. [8] On the issue of whether the defendants’ lands were parts of the Tala Estate in Caloocan City, the appellate court made an affirmative finding based on the survey plan of the Director of Lands which the defendants failed to overcome with weak and hearsay evidence. But what is more, the fact that the land is located in Caloocan City in such a way that it encroaches on the Tala Estate had already been adjudicated in case 427-M-89. The Court declared that the principle of conclusiveness of judgment bars the defendants from re-opening the issue in the instant case.
The issue at center stage of the appeal was thus dealt with by the pronouncement that the land in question is part of and encroaches the Tala Estate in Caloocan City. There were four other assignments of error, but as the Court said, they hardly mattered to the primordial question of whose title was superior. It concurred in the view of the lower court that the older title of the government should prevail.
The CA decision became final and executory and was entered in the book of entries of judgments on September 29,2001. [9] As expected, the victorious plaintiff moved before the trial court for a writ of execution.[10] But the defendants, refusing to accept defeat, found a way to resist execution. Or so they thought. They came out with a June 22, 1998 resolution of the COSLAP that was rendered in a boundary dispute between the Municipality of San Jose del Monte and the NHA. Finding that the NHA had elevated this resolution to the Supreme Court, they plead the pending incident as a supervening event that should warrant the suspension of the decision. [11]
They remonstrated that by this resolution, the property of the defendants and other similarly situated lands were declared to be within the territorial boundaries of San Jose del Monte. This would mean that the Caloocan court had no jurisdiction over the land in question and no authority to take cognizance of case C-12725. We are told that since the resolution is pending review by the Supreme Court, we ought to suspend proceedings out of courtesy to the highest court, in the event it renders judgment that will oust the court of its jurisdiction in the case.
The trial court was persuaded by the argument and, in the disputed order of December 16, 2002, denied the motion for execution. [12] It made this disquisition :
“It is not for this Court to preempt the Supreme Court by ruling on the powers and jurisdiction of the COSLAP. Suffice it to state, however, that the resolution of the case before the Supreme Court relative to the boundary dispute between the city of San Jose del Monte, Bulacan and Caloocan City would spell out whether or not this Court has jurisdiction over the subject lands.
The controversy regarding the boundary of the two cities is indeed a supervening event that justifies the holding in abeyance of the proceedings in the instant case. The threshold issue of jurisdiction cannot just be brushed aside.
It is in the paramount interest of justice to suspend the issuance of a writ of execution in the instant case and maintain the status quo while the Supreme Court has not yet resolved the boundary dispute with finality.”
With the denial of its motion for reconsideration, [13] the Republic filed this petition. In pressing for enforcement of the writ, it clarified that while COSLAP may have delineated the boundary between two local government units, there was no adjudication of the ownership of the lands in dispute between the NHA and the spouses Cruz. The delineation of the boundary by COSLAP did not contradict the findings of the trial court which were affirmed on appeal and are now final and executory – that the land claimed by the respondents falls inside the Tala Estate which has been previously titled in the name of the Republic. Hence, even if the land is outside Caloocan City, it is still part of the Tala Estate owned by the Republic. [14]
Rarely does a case turn on a single insightful statement or stalwart phrase. The observation made by the petitioner effectively deconstructs the pretense of any connection between the civil case and the COSLAP ruling. It is luminously clear to us that there is no supervening event to excuse the trial court from its ministerial duty under the law and jurisprudence to implement a final and executory decision.
What is the COSLAP and how did it come to issue its resolution ? The COSLAP is an agency of the Executive Branch of the government under Executive Order 561. It was created in 1979 to replace the defunct PACLAP and vested with a limited jurisdiction to resolve land problems or disputes between the grantees or claimants of government lands and occupants or other similar land problems of grave urgency and magnitude. Davao New Town Development Corporation vs Commission On The Settlement of Land Problems ( COSLAP) 459 SCRA 491.
In January 1998, some 7 years after the decision in C-12725 and 3 years before it was affirmed by the Court of Appeals,[15] the respondents Cruz joined the Municipality of San Jose del Monte in a complaint filed with the COSLAP against NHA. It was docketed as COSLAP case 98-038.[16] In taking cognizance of the case, COSLAP explicitly fixed the principal issue of the case – the true and correct boundary between San Jose del Monte and Caloocan City, and based on the evidence before it, declared the approved survey under CAD-267 Caloocan City, MBM 22 to 33 and BM 8 to 240, Tala Estate Caloocan, Rizal, as the recognized lot lines, to be the true and correct boundary between the Municipality of San Jose del Monte Bulacan and Quezon City. The two local government units (LGUs) were directed to take the necessary steps to implement the resolution. [17] It is this resolution which the respondents say is pending before the Supreme Court via an appeal by the NHA. [18]
The encompassing question on our turf is whether the COSLAP resolution as we have limned above can serve as a supervening event. There are two defining elements of the doctrine which cases have belabored over the years. First, the rule refers only to facts or circumstances that have supervened or transpired after the judgment has become final and executory. It does not relate to matters which are already in existence and hence available to the parties prior to or during the progress of the case. Secondly, to warrant a reopening of an already closed case, the supervening fact or circumstance must bear a direct effect upon the matters already litigated and settle or create a substantial change in the rights or relations of the parties which would render the execution of the final judgment unjust or inequitable. Lim vs Jabalde 172 SCRA 211, Serrano vs Court of Appeals 417 SCRA 415.
None of these prescriptions impinges on the present case. Having been issued in June 1998, the COSLAP resolution was a fact or circumstance in existence before the judgment in C-12725 became final. In fact, as we have noted, the books were to be closed on C-12725 only three years later in 2001. The Republic has correctly observed that it was not a fact or circumstance that transpired after the finality of C-12725 , nor a new matter that the parties could not have been aware of prior to or during the pendency of the case. [19]
The second criterion for a supervening event is also not satisfied. At bottom, the issue that the respondents want to resurrect by arguing for the suspension of execution is only improper venue. The question of venue is a procedural, not a jurisdictional issue, and there is nothing esoteric in what it means or signifies. Venue refers to the place of trial and is fixed by rules of procedure and not by the substantive law which determines the competence and jurisdiction to hear and decide cases of a particular category. [20] As Moran would point out, a court may have the jurisdiction over the subject matter of the litigation and the parties because of their voluntary appearance or service of summons on them, but if the venue is not properly laid, the action may be dismissed. But venue or place of trial may be waived or subject to agreement, so that when these events take place, the court may still hear the case, provided it has jurisdiction over the subject matter and persons. Thus an action over title to property located, say in Zamboanga City, may be brought and tried in the RTC of Manila if the defendant waives the venue fixed by law or does not object on time to improper venue. [21]
In pari passu, the issue of improper venue yields to res judicata, as do the substantive issues presented for trial. When matters have been definitively resolved by a court of competent jurisdiction in a judgment or order on the merits, they are deemed finally and conclusively settled between the parties. Equitable Philippine Commercial International Bank vs Court of Appeals 425 SCRA 544. In the interest of judicial stability, an action or suit must have to terminate at a determinate time.
The substantive issue of ownership of the land in question as part of a larger property that belongs to the government had been adjudicated with finality by the Caloocan court, and it is rightly asserted by the petitioner that the finding is unaffected by whether COSLAP draws the boundary line between the two LGUs one way or the other.[22] This observation amply convinces us that the COSLAP resolution, if we may call it supervening at all, does not have any direct effect on the matter already litigated.
In the ultimate analysis, the respondents are producing a red herring. They seek to cow the lower court with the thought that it might be pre-empting or undermining any ruling of the Supreme Court on the COSLAP resolution by going through with execution. We have practically little or no information about the status of the case with the High Court, but what we can be sure of, based on the arguments parlayed by the Republic with characteristic thoroughness, is that the decision adjudicating the ownership of the land in favor of the petitioner does not in any way detract from or interfere with the settlement of the boundaries of the two LGUs.
IN VIEW OF THE FOREGOING, the petition is granted. The assailed RTC orders of December 16, 2002 and March 25, 2003 are SET ASIDE and the lower court is directed to issue the writ of execution to implement the terms of the decision in C-12725 as affirmed in CA-GR CV No. 36471.
SO ORDERED.
Barrios, (Chairman) and Romilla-Lontok, JJ., concur.
[1] Rollo, at 27-28
[2] Ibid., at 30-34.
[3] Ibid., at 35-38.
[4] Ibid., at 51.
[5] Ibid., at 39-43.
[6] Ibid., at 44-54.
[7] Ibid., at 54.
[8] Ibid., at 107-125.
[9] Ibid., at 151.
[10] Ibid., at 126-128.
[11] Ibid., at 152-156.
[12] Ibid., at 27-28.
[13] Ibid., at 29. The motion was denied on March 25, 2003.
[14] Ibid., at 18.
[15] See note 9.
[16] See discussion accompanying note 11.
[17] Rollo, at 157-158.
[18] Ibid., at 154.
[19] Ibid., at 238.
[20] Moan, Comments on the Rules of Court, 1963, Vol. 1, at 412, citing cases.
[21] Ibid., at 190-191, 412-413.
[22] See note 14.