BENITO YLARDE, ET AL., PETITIONERS, VS. CRISANTO LICHAUCO, ET AL., AND THE HON. AMADO S. SANTIAGO, RESPONDENTS.

Petition for certiorari,
prohibition and mandamus, praying substantially, that the orders of the
Court of First Instance of Pangasinan, dated August 5 and 23, 1963, denying petitioners’ motion to
proceed with the hearing on the merits in Land
Case No. 1, Record No. 1 of said court be set aside, that the private respondents be
prohibited “from applying or moving for the issuance of a new decree and pursuant thereto the issuance of Transfer Certificate
of Title based on the Llobrera Plan”, and that the respondent Judge and the
private respondents be ordered to proceed with the hearing of the case on the merits.^[1]

In Land Case No. 1, G.L.R.O. Record No. 1 in the Court
of First Instance of Pangasinan^[2]
herein petition­ers,^[3]
who claimed to be the substituted parties and heirs of the original oppositors in said case, filed a petition, dated January
14, 1961, praying, among other things, that they be allowed, with police
protection, to locate, measure and survey their individual claims with­in the
closures of the Hacienda “EI Porvenir“, and
that any excess area found in the resurvey of the hacienda be surrendered to
them^[4].  Opposition thereto was filed by herein
respondents Amparo Nable
Jose and Asuncion Nable Jose^[5]
and by the Director of Lands^[6].  The court a quo, acting on the
petition and the opposition, issued an order, order dated February 15, 1961, denying the petition.

Herein petitioners then filed a motion, dated May 15, 1961, praying that the court
order the surveyor Segundo Llobrera to appear in person with the relocation survey^[7].  The court issued the order directing the
surveyor to submit the relocation plan (Rel-110) within 60 days from receipt
thereof^[8].

The relocation plan^[9]
and the final report covering the survey^[10]
having been submitted, herein petitioners filed their “opposition to the
consideration of the relo­cation survey plan Rel-110 and objections to the Llobrera Report”^[11]
on the grounds that the Llobrera survey plan was made with intentional departures
from the Rocafull Plan, and was, consequently, in
violation of the order of the Court of Land Registration of November 12, 1912,
and that the separate and adverse claims of the oppositors
were not plotted on the plan.

 Judge Amado
S. Santiago, who took cognizance of the case after Judge Pabalan
had inhibited himself, ordered the publication of the hearing of the case in
order to apprise all persons who might be affected by the considera­tion and
approval of the relocation plan.  Before
the scheduled hearing, herein petitioners filed with the court the names of the
individual claimants, together with the location, measurements and boundaries
of their claims, alledgedly within the closures or the estate covered by the Llobrera Plan.  Some
of these claims appear to be supported by titulo de compra, registered under the Spanish Mortgage Law^[12].

On 23 January, 1962, the
counsels for the applicants filed their opposition to the various
motions of opposi­tors^[13]
on the grounds that the latter’s prayer to enter the hacienda for the purpose of locating and surveying their claims had
already been denied, that no new relo­cation survey was allowable, and that the only issue before the court was whether the
land delimited in the Rocafull Plan is the same land
delimited in the Llobrera Plan.

After the hearing for the
consideration of the Llobrera Plan, and the
simultaneous filing by the parties of their memoranda, wherein petitioners
prayed for the disapproval, while respondents for the approval, of the Llobrera Plan, herein respondent Judge Amado
S. Santiago issued an order, dated March 12, 1963, “finding the relocation survey plan,
Rel-110 (Exh. A) prepared by Segundo Llobrera, District Land Surveyor of Pangasinan,
to be substantially in accordance with the decision of the Sup­reme Court of April
11, 1957 (Exh. O), and finding no sound reason and valid ground to
disapprove said relocation plan,
the Court hereby approves the same.”^[14]

Upon receipt of said
order, herein petitioners filed a “Motion to Proceed with the Hearing on the
Merits”, dated March 20, 1963^[15], alleging that the approval of the Llobrera Relocation Survey Plan, Rel-110, did not
necessarily adjudicate or vest upon the applicants the title to the land or
bring to an end the litigation; that the applicants had still “to
substantiate and prove their title to the estate”; that the oppositors, Benito Ylarde, et
al., be permitted to offer evidence upon their original case or in the instant
proceedings”; and that the ap­plicants are without or have no subsisting
certificate of title to any portion of the lands covered by the survey plan
because OCT No. 7 based on the Rocafull Plan had been
cancelled and all subsequent titles issued in favor of applicants had been
cancelled (Crisanto Lichauco,
vs. Director of Lands, et al., 70 Phil. 69).

On April 4, 1963, the
court a quo issued an order setting the case for hearing on the merits, to which order applicants filed their
opposition in the nature of a motion for reconsideration on the ground that the
matter of applying or moving for
the issuance of certificates of
title based on the Llobrera relocation survey depended
on the applicants and not on the oppositors^[16], and that the hearing on the merits
prayed for by the oppositors, in order that they may
present evidence in support of their
claims, would serve no useful purpose inasmuch as said claims had long been foreclosed by Decree of Regis­tration No.
1178 in this same registration case.^[17] The trial court directed the oppositors (herein petition­ers) to file a memorandum on
whether to proceed or not with
the hearing on the merits, which the oppositors did^[18].  The applicants (now respondents), likewise,
filed their memorandum.^[19]
The trial court, passing on the memoranda of the parties, issued, on August 5, 1963, an order recon­sidering
the order of April 4, 1963
which set the case for hearing.^[20]
This order of August 5, 1963
had the effect of denying the motion to proceed with the hearing on the
merits.  Herein petitioners then filed a
motion ex–parte — in effect a motion
to reconsider the order of August 5,
1963 — praying that the dates of hearing be reset, which motion the
court denied in its order dated August
23, 1963.^[21]

It is because of these orders of August 5, 1963 and of
August 23, 1963,
that the oppositors filed the instant petition
for certiorari, prohibition and mandamus.

The principal issue in the instant
case is whether or not the lower court erred in issuing the orders dated August
5, 1963 and August 23, 1963, which denied the motion of petitioners to proceed with the hearing on the merits in the
original registration case (Land Case No. 1, G.L.R.O. Record No. 1) that would
require the applicants (herein private respondents) to prove their title to the
land sub­ject of the registration proceedings and in order that the oppositors (herein petitioners) may present their evidence
to support their claims on
portions of the land included  in the Llobrera plan.

In resolving this issue
it is necessary to consider the pertinent facts as found in the decisions of
this Court on previous cases regarding Land Case No. 1, G.L.R.O.  Record No.
1, originally of the Court of
Land Registration, and later of the Court of First Instance of Pangasinan, to wit: 
Jose,et al. vs. Hon R. Baltazar,
et al., 101 Phil., 36; Lichauco, et
al. vs. Director of Lands, 70 Phil., 69; Lichauco, et al. vs. Herederos de Cayetano Corpus, et al.,
60 Phil., 211; Lichauco, et el. v. Lim, et
al., 6 Phil., 271.  The pertinent facts
are the following:

On January 20, 1903, Crisanto Lichauco, Salud Nable Jose, Amparo Nable Jose and Asuncion Nable Jose filed in the Court of Land Registration
an application for the registration or the
lands comprised in the hacienda
“El Porvenir“,
situated in the municipalities of Tayug, Natividad, San Quintin, and
Santa Maria, province of Pangasinan.  Oppositions were filed by some 150 individuals and by the Attorney General on behalf of the Insular Government.  After hearing, a decision was rendered
by the land registration court on May 1, 1905, which was appealed to, and
confirmed by, the Supreme Court in its decision of May 5, 1906, granting the adjudication and registration of the
hacienda “El Porvenir” in favor of Crisanto Lichauco and the three
sisters Salud, Amparo and Asuncion Nable Jose, in the propor­tion
of a pro-indiviso one-half interest for the first and
the remaining pro-indiviso half for the last three.  After the Supreme Court
promulgated its decision, the corresponding decree of registration No.
1178 was issued, and in accordance with this decree, Original Certificate of
Title No. 7 of the land records of Pangasinan was
issued in favor of Crisanto Lichauco
and the sisters Salud, Amparo,
and Asuncion Nable Jose in the proportion above
mentioned.

Both the decree of
registration No. 1178 and Original
Certificate of Title No. 7 were based on a plan prepared by the “Ingeniero de
Montes” Mr. Aurelio Diaz Rocafull in February,
1886,

On October 18, 1912, the
then Director of Lands, C. H.
Sleeper, petitioned the Court of Land Registration that, as it was impossible
to properly locate the proper­ties covered by OCT No. 7, from the tie lines,
and because the descriptions and
surveys were of doubtful accuracy in many instances, new tie lines surveys and
boundary surveys be executed, and for that purpose the registered owners be
required to point out to the surveyor on the ground the actual boundaries of
their lands.  The Court of Land
Registration promulgated an order, dated Novem­ber 12, 1912 granting the petition, in this wise:

“SE ORDENA.

(A) Que todos y cada
uno de los solicitantes arriba nombrados indiquen al agrimensor o agrimensores encargados de dicho trabajo en la fecha y hora que estos
designaran,
los limites correctos de las propiedades ocupados por los mis­mos
y que
se describen en los Certifica­dos de Titulo cuyos numeros se consignan a renglon seguido de sus nombres respec­tivos en el encabezimiento de la presente orden.”

The registered owners of the hacienda “El Porvenir” filed a motion on September 9, 1918 for the
amendment of the order dated November 12, 1912 such that it be allowed that the
new survey of the land covered by OCT No. 7 be made by any authorized private surveyor at the expense of the
owners.  The motion was granted, and the
owners caused a new survey of the hacienda by private surveyor Zoilo Garcia, who prepared
plan Psu-17590 and its corresponding technical description.  The plan Psu-17590 having been amended as
required by the General Land Registration Office, the court, by order of March 1, 1923 approved the new plan,
cancelled all certificates previously issued, and ordered the Register of Deeds of Pangasinan
to issue a new certificate of title to the title holders, Crisanto Lichauco and the Nable Jose sisters.  Transfer Certificate of Title No. 1776
was thereupon issued.

A partition agreement
having been entered into bet­ween the
title holders, TCT No. 1776 was cancelled, and two new titles, to wit, TCT No. 1788 was issued in the names
of Amparo Nable Jose and
Asuncion Nable Jose and TCT No. 1789 in the name of
the testamentary estate of Crisanto Lichauco.  (Salud Nable Jose died and all her
rights, interests and participation in the hacienda were inherited by her two
sisters; and Crisanto Lichauco
also died and his rights, interests and participation in the hacienda went to
his estate).  The last title, TCT No.
1789, was again cancelled and superseded by TCT No. 4109 in the name of the heirs of Crisanto
Lichauco.

Upon protest by interested parties on the ground that there had
been no publication and due notice of the motion asking for the approval of the
new plan (Garcia plan), the land registration court subsequently set aside its
previous order of approval, and on appeal such action was upheld by this Court.^[22]

The motion to approve the Garcia Plan having been renewed in the
lower court, the Government and private oppositors
objected thereto upon the ground
that the Garcia Plan as amended included lands of the public domain covered by
free patent applications, that the petitioners were bound by the Rocafull Plan and its technical descrip­tion which the
Garcia Plan did not follow, and that the petition was an attempt to reopen the decree issued on May 1, 1905 which
the court had no jurisdiction to do.  On
March 14, 1938, the court rejected the opposition, approved the Garcia Plan,
ordered the Register of Deeds of Panga­sinan to
cancel OCT No. 7 and to issue in lieu thereof two transfer certificates of
title in accordance with the amend­ed plan and description.  On appeal, this Court reversed the order of
the inferior court.^[23]
The records of this case were destroyed as a result of the battles for liberation, but were subsequently
reconstituted.  A petition for
clarification having been filed
by the counsel for the registered owners, this Court resolved on March 10, 1952 that there was still
the need for carrying out the order of November
12, 1912 of the Court of Land Registration.

The records having been remanded, the lower court issued on February 16, 1953 an order commanding
the Direc­tor of Lands to resurvey the land in accordance with the Rocafull Plan.

The Director of Lands commissioned surveyor Zacarias
Gatchalian to carry out the order.  The surveyor submitted his plan, but inasmuch
as this plan was shown to be similar to the Garcia Plan, the lower court disapproved it, and again
ordered the Director of Lands to make a relocation survey making as a basis the
Rocafull Plan. 
The registered owners thereupon petitioned this Court for a writ of certiorari
and/or mandamus to order the lower court to allow petitioners to present
evidence on the Gatchalian plan or give due course to their
appeal.  In its decision, this Court declared that “the only survey
authorized by the final resolution of March 10, 1952 was a relocation survey, one that must retrace the footsteps of surveyor Rocafull as closely as possible, and should not depart therefrom
except where unavoidable in order to correct errors of closure or of
computation,” and denied the petition for certiorari, reserving,
however, to the petitioners the right to show, at the proper time, that the Gatchalian survey constituted a more accurate relocation
survey than the one ordered by the lower court.^[24]

Pursuant to the order of the lower court, a reloca­tion survey
was executed by surveyor Segundo Llobrera of the
Bureau of Lands, whose plan (Rel-110) was approved by respondent Judge Amado Santiago on March
12, 1963.  Herein petitioners
did not appeal from the order of res­pondent Judge approving the Llobrera plan.  After
the approval by Judge Santiago of the Llobrera plan
the op­positors in the court below (petitioners
herein) filed, on March 20, 1963,
a motion to proceed with the hearing of the registration case on the
merits.  The orders of the lower court,
of August 5, 1963 and August 23,
1963, deny­ing this motion are now questioned in the instant
petition.

Upon consideration of the antecedent facts, We find that the
lower court did not commit any error, nor did it abuse its discretion, when it
denied the motion of peti­tioners to proceed with the hearing on the merits in order that they might present evidence of their claims to certain portions of land
within the closures of the estate covered by the Llobrera
Plan of the Hacienda El Porvenir.  Consideration must be mad of the fact that:

First, the Hacienda “El Porvenir”
is covered by the Decree of Registration No.
1178 dated May 1, 1905.^[25]
This decree had become absolute and incontrovertible for all the purposes of
the law.  This decree binds the land,
quiets title thereto, is conclusive upon all persons, and cannot be reopened or
reviewed after the lapse of one year after entry of the decree.^[26]
To allow the presen­tation of evidence tending to prove that the registered
owners of the hacienda are not the owners of certain por­tions of land included
therein would render the legal
indefeasibility and conclusiveness of the decree of registration a meaningless
verbiage and would be tanta­mount to a reopening of the decree of registration
long closed and settled.  This Court had
held that

“. . . when a decree of registration is once made under the Torrens
system and the time has elapsed within which it may be contested, as in this
case, the same becomes perfect, conclusive, and irre­vocable (Reyes, et al. vs.
Judge Birbon, et al., 50 Phil. 591) and may no longer
be reopened.”^[27]

Second, petitioners herein claim that they “are the heirs
and substituted parties or the continuation of the legal personalities of the
original private oppositors, in Land Registration
Case No. 1 (GLRO) LRC No. 1.”^[28]
Since the claims and rights of the original oppositors
had been foreclosed by the decree of registration, it follows that the present oppositors’ pretended rights have also been barred.

The motion of herein petitioners for hearing on the merits is
based on their erroneous conception of the nature of the Llobrera
survey and the proceedings in the lower court. 
The Llobrera survey was not really a new
survey but only a relocation survey that should follow the old corners used in
the former survey in order to approach the same area and configuration.  It should be noted that in the case of Jose,
et al. vs. Hon. R. Bal­tazar, et al., 101 Phil. 36,
43, this Court stated:

“The result flowing from these pronouncements is that the only
survey author­ized by our final resolution of March 10, 1952
is a relocation survey, one that must retrace the footsteps of surveyor Rocafull as closely as possible, and should not depart therefrom except when unavoidable in order to correct
errors of closure of computation.”

The respondent Judge, in his order of March 12, 1963 approving the Llobrera
Plan, declared that the re­location survey embodied in the Llobrera
Plan was in accordance with the decision of this Court in the above-mentioned case of Jose, et al. vs. Hon. R. Baltazar, et al., supra.  In other words, the Llobrera
Plan was more or less a reproduction of the Rocafull
Plan.

The proceeding was not a new registration proceed­ing which would
require the applicants to prove their ownership of the land.  The land was already covered by a final and conclusive decree of
registration based on the Rocafull plan, and, as We
have adverted to, the Llobrera plan was more or less
a reproduction or the Rocafull plan.  As has been said, that decree binds the land
and quiets title thereto, and the question of owner­ship of the land cannot be relitigated again in the same registration proceeding.

The allegation of the petitioners that the private respondents no
longer have any certificate of title covering the land in the Hacienda “El
Porvenir” is not correct.  The OCT No. 7 based on the decree of registra­tion No. 1178 has remained
valid and effective.  This Court has
declared null and void all certificates of title that were intended to supplant
OCT No. 7, because they were based on erroneous or invalid resurvey plans.^[29]
It follows that when the certificates of title which sup­planted OCT No. 7 were
declared null and void, the basic title — OCT No. 7 — remained valid and it
served as the basis of the title of the private respondents over the land
comprised within the Hacienda “El Porvenir“,
as shown in the Llobrera plan which was approved by
the lower court.

During the pendency of this case before
this Court, petitioners filed a motion praying that a writ of preli­minary
injunction issue to restrain the Court of First Instance of Pangasinan,
Tayug and Urdaneta Branch,
from entertaining the petition of the heirs of Crisanto
Lichauco for the issuance of a new owner’s duplicate
of TCT No. 11089 upon the ground that said duplicate had been lost, and also
from entertaining the petition of Amanda de la Cruz for the approval of the
subdivision plan PSU-93864 and the issuance of a new certificate of title covering Lot No. 4-B-8, a part
of the land covered by TCT No. 11089.^[30] Likewise, petitioners filed an omnibus
petition for mandamus and contempt of court to compel the Land Registration Commission
and the Register of Deeds of Pangasinan to cancel TCT No. 11089 issued in favor
of the heirs of Crisanto Lichauco,
which was based on TCT No. 4109 that was
declared null and void by this Court on June 29, 1934; and to cite for
contempt of Court Hon. Amado S. Santiago, the Hon. S.
del Rosario, the Commissioner of the Land Registration Commission, the
respondent heirs of Crisanto Lichauco
and their at­torneys of record, for allegedly having conspired in securing the
issuance of the decree of registration No.
105369 and OCT No. 18489, on September 30, 1965, in favor of the heirs
of Crisanto Lichauco on the
land covered by the survey plan, Rel-110, subject matter of the present special
civil action before this Court.^[31]

In a resolution of September
16, 1969, this Court resolved to consider the matters, raised in
the motion for preliminary injunction and the omnibus petition, when this case
is taken up on the merits.

The basic reason of petitioners in filing the motion for
preliminary injunction and the omnibus petition for mandamus and
contempt of court is their contention that the matter regarding the title of
the private respondents over the land covered by the Llobrera
plan was not yet definite, because there was yet pending for resolution by this
Court the question of whether or
not a hearing on the merits should be held to prove the rights of the private
respondents as well as of the petitioners over the land covered by the Llobrera plan.  In
other words, the stand of the petitioners is that while this case is pending,
the private respondents herein should not make any move to secure the issuance
or any certificate of title over the land, or a portion of it, covered by the Llobrera plan.  In
view, however, of Our ruling in this decision that the lower court had
correctly denied the motion of petitioners for hearing on the merits, We do not
consider it necessary any more to rule the questions brought about by the
injunction and the omnibus mandamus and for contempt of court.

IN VIEW OF THE
FOREGOING, the instant petition is dismissed, and the writs prayed for are
denied, with costs against the petitioners.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, Makalintal, Ruiz Castro, Fernando, Teehankee,
Barredo, Villamor, and Makasiar, JJ., concur.

^[1]
Words in quotation marks are as copied from the prayer of the petition, p. 69
of the Record.

^[2]
Entitled “Crisanto Lichauco,
et al., applicants, vs. Director of Lands, et al., Oppositors.”

^[3]
The private oppositors in Land Case No, 1, G.L.R.0.
Record No. 1 are enumerated in Annex “Y” to the Peti­tion (Record,
pp. 198-243) in the following order: 
Benito Ylarde, Bruno Joaquin, Maximiano P. Alias,
Candida Tullao, Cornelia Rimas,
Severina Binoya, Bonifacio B. Perez, Mauro Goluya,
Damian Nasuli, Valentina Pioquinto, Florencio Lazo, Leon Serrano, Martin Sanchez, Jose Aquino, Flaviano Flores,
Magdalena Salcedo, Lazaro Severino, Bruno Ylarde, Petronila de Vera, Hermenegildo Ebreo Dionisio Almuete, Fiorentino Aquino, Florencio Lazo, Juan Boncato, Dionisio Costales, Luciano Aquino, Primitiva Fariñas, Severino Tejada, Benito Vidal,
Pedro Tejada, Juan Retonda,
Valentin Arquiza, Dominador Tejada, Vicente Juego, Antonio Estioco, Maria
Vidal, Tomas Villaruz, Cristina Ylarde,
Beatriz Urbano, Pedro Villanueva, Rafael Ebreo, Dionisio Caloza, Sinfroniana Dacanay Bacalso, Hipolita Agbunag, Silvina Munar, Fernanda Malinit, Venancio Salcedo, Juan Boncato,  Nemesio Ylarde, Esperidion Ebreo, Catalino Cacayan, Damian Nasuri, Juan Boncato,
Bonifacio       Perez,
and Quirino Cejalvo.

^[4]
Annex “B” to Petition, Record, pp. 76-82.

^[5]
Annex “E” to Petition, Record, pp. 87-88.

^[6]
Annex “F” to Petition, Record, pp. 89-91.

^[7]
Annex “J” to Petition, Record, pp. 111-116.

^[8]
Annexes “K” and “M” to
Petition, Record, pp. 117-118; 121.

^[9]
Annex “N” to Petition, Record, 122

^[10]
Annex “0” to Petition, Record,  123-150.

^[11]
Annexes “P” and “P-1” to Petition, Record, pp. 151-172.

^[12]
Annex “Y” to Petition, Record, pp. 198-243.

^[13]
Annex “ZB” to Petition, Record, pp. 271-285.

^[14]
Annex Record, pp. 333-358.  (See Jose, et
al., vs. Hon. R. Baltazar,
et al., 101 Phil. 36.

^[15]
Annex “ZG”, pp. 359-363, Record.

^[16]
Annex “ZH”, Record,
pp. 364-378.

^[17]
Annex “ZI”, Record, pp.
379-383.

^[18]
Annex “ZJ”, Record, pp. 384-420.

^[19]
Annex “ZK” and “ZL”, Record,
pp. 421-449.

^[20]
Annex “ZM”, Record, pp. 450-457.

^[21]
Page 60, Record.

^[22]
Lichauco vs. Heirs of Corpus, 60 Phil. 211;
Jose, et al. vs. Hon. F. Baltazar, et al., 101
Phil. 36, 38-39.

^[23]
Lichauco, et al. vs. Director of Lands, 70
Phil. 69; Jose, et al., vs. Hon. R. Baltazar,
101 Phil. 36, 39.

^[24]
Jose, et al. vs. Hon. R. Baltazar, et al., 101,
Phil. 36, 43.

^[25]
Record, pp. 512-514.

^[26]
Sec. 38, Act. No. 496.

^[27]
Lichauco, et al. v. The Director of Lands, et
al., 70 Phil., 69, 82

^[28]
Quoted from Petition, Record, p. 1.

^[29]
Lichauco, et al. vs. Herederos de Corpus, 60 Phil. 212; Lichauco, et al. vs. Director of Lands, et al. 70
Phil. 69.

^[30]
Page 621, Record.

^[31]
Page 633, Record.