REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, PETITIONER, VS. HON. COURT OF APPEALS AND ISABEL LASTIMADO, RESPONDENTS.

This is a Petition for Review (Appeal) by Certiorari filed
by the Republic of the Philippines
from the Decision of the Court of Appeals promulgated on September 30, 1974 in CA-G.R. No. Sp-01504
denying the State’s Petition for Certiorari and Mandamus.

Briefly, the facts of the case are as follows:

Private respondent, Isabel Lastimado,
filed on September 11, 1967,
in the Court of First Instance of Bataan, Branch I, a
Petition for the reopening of cadastral proceedings over a portion of Lot No.
626 of the Mariveles Cadastre, consisting of 971.0569
hectares, pursuant to Republic Act No. 931, as amended by Republic Act No.
2061, docketed as Cad. Case No. 19, LRC Cad. Rec. No. 1097.  In the absence of any opposition, whether
from the Government or from private individuals, private respondent was allowed
to present her evidence ex–parte.  On October
14, 1967, the trial Court rendered a Decision granting the Petition
and adjudicating the land in favor of private respondent.  The trial Court issued an Order for the
issuance of a decree of
registration on November 20, 1967,
and on November 21, 1967,
the Land Registration Commission issued Decree No. N-117573 in favor of private
respondent.  Eventually, Original
Certificate of Title No.N-144 was also issued in her favor.  Private respondent thereafter subdivided the
land into ten lots, and the corresponding titles.  Transfer Certificates of Title Nos. 18905 to
18914 inclusive, were issued by the Register of Deeds.

On June 3, 1968, or within one year from the entry of the decree
of registration, petitioner filed a Petition for Review pursuant to Sec. 38,
Act No. 496, on the ground of fraud alleging that during the period of alleged
adverse possession by private respondent, said parcel of land was part of the
U.S. Military Reservation in Bataan, which was
formally turned over to the Republic of the Philippines only on December 22,
1965, and that the same is inside the public forest of Mariveles,
Bataan and, therefore, not subject to disposition or
acquisition under the Public Land Law. 
Respondent filed an Opposition thereto, which was considered by the
trial Court, as a Motion to Dismiss, and on December 20, 1968, said Court
(Judge Tito V. Tizon, presiding) issued an Order
dismissing the Petition for Review mainly on the ground that the Solicitor
General had failed to file opposition to the original Petition for reopening of
the cadastral proceedings and was, therefore, estopped
from questioning the decree of registration ordered issued therein.  On January
28, 1969, petitioner moved for reconsideration, which was denied by
the trial Court in its Order
dated May 20, 1969, for
lack of merit.

Petitioner seasonably filed a Notice of Appeal and a Record on
Appeal, which was objected to by private respondent.  On July 15, 1972, or three years later,* the trial Court (Judge Abraham P. Vera, presiding)
refused to give due course to the appeal. 
Petitioner filed a Motion for Reconsideration but the trial Court denied
it in its Order of October 14, 1972 on the ground that the proper remedy of
petitioner was a Certiorari petition, not an ordinary appeal and that
the Order sought to be appealed from had long become final and executory as petitioner’s Motion for Reconsideration was pro–forma
and did not suspend the running of the reglementary
period of appeal.

On November 9, 1972, petitioner filed a Petition for Certiorari
and Mandamus with the Court of Appeals claiming that the trial Court
gravely abused its discretion, amounting to lack of jurisdiction when, without
the benefit of hearing, it summarily dismissed the Petition for Review; and since
said Petition raised certain issues of fact which cannot be decided except in a
trial on the merits, the dismissal of the Petition on the basis of private
respondent’s Opposition, considered as a Motion to Dismiss, constituted a denial of due process of law.  Petitioner then prayed that the Order of the
trial Court, dated December 20, 1968 dismissing the Petition for Review, be
declared null and void, and that
said trial Court be directed to give due course to the Petition for Review; or,
in the alternative, to give due course
to petitioner’s appeal.

On September 30, 1974,
the Court of Appeals upheld the trial Court’s dismissal of the Petition for
Review stating:

“x x x We
cannot find any allegation in the petition for review which shows that private
respondent had committed fraud against petitioner.  Its representations and officials were duly
notified of private respondent’s petition for reopening and registration of
title in her name.  In said petition, the
technical descriptions of the portion of Lot No. 626 of the Mariveles
(Bataan) Cadastre,
subject-matter of the petition were expressly stated, the boundaries, specifically
delineated.  The alleged ground that the
land forms part of a forest land exists at the time petitioner was duly
notified of said petition.  Failure to
file opposition is in effect, an admission that the petition is actually not
part of a forest land.  Indubitably,
therefore, no justifiable reason exists for the annulment of the Order, dated December 20, 1968 (Annex D-Petition)
of the lower court dismissing herein petitioner’s petition for review of the
decree issued favor of private respondent Lastimado.”^[1]

The Court of Appeals then disposed as follows:

“WHEREFORE, finding that the respondent Judge has not
committed any grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack of jurisdiction in
the issuance of an Order, dated December
20, 1968 (Annex D-Petition) dismissing herein petitioner’s petition
for review, the present petition for review is hereby denied.

The issuance of the writ of mandamus as prayed for in the
petition is no longer necessary as this Court, in the exercise of its appellate
jurisdiction and authority to supervise orderly administrative of justice, has
already resolved on the merits the question whether or not the dismissal of the
petition for review had been done with grave abuse of discretion amounting to
lack of jurisdiction.”^[2]

From this Decision, petitioner filed the present Petition for
Review (Appeal) by Certiorari assigning the following errors to the
Court of Appeals and to the trial Court:

1.     The Lower Court as well as the Court of
Appeals erred in finding that there can be possession, even for the purpose of
claiming title, of land which at the time of possession is subject to a
military reservation.

2.     The Lower Court as well as the Court of
Appeals erred in finding that such land which is subject to a government
reservation, may appropriately be the subject of cadastral proceedings, and
hence, also of a petition to reopen cadastral proceedings.

3.     The Lower Court as well as the Court of
Appeals erred in finding that a parcel of land which is part of the public
forest is susceptible of occupation and registration in favor of private
individual.

4.     The Lower Court as well as the Court of
Appeals erred in not finding that the Republic of the Philippines is not estopped from questioning the decree of registration and the
title issued pursuant thereto in favor of respondent Lastimado
over the parcel of land in question.

5.     The Lower Court erred in dismissing the
petition for review of the Republic of the Philippines.

6.     The Court of Appeals erred in denying
Petitioner’s petition for certiorari and mandamus.

Section 38 of the Land Registration Act (Act 496) provides:

“Section 38.  Decree of
registration, and remedies after entry of decree.

If the court after hearing finds that the applicant or adverse
claimant has title as stated in his application or adverse claim and proper for
registration, a decree of confirmation and registration shall be entered.  Every decree of registration shall bind the
land, and quiet title thereto, subject only to the exceptions stated in the
following section.  It shall be
conclusive upon and against all persons, including the Insular Government and
all the branches thereof, whether mentioned by name in the application, notice
or citation, or included in the general description ‘To all whom it may
concern’.  Such decree shall not be
opened by reason of the absence, infancy, or other disability of any person
affected thereby, nor by any proceeding in any court for reversing judgments or
decrees; subject, however, to the right of any person deprived of land or of
any estate or interest therein by decree of registration obtained by fraud to
file in the competent Court of First Instance a petition for review within one
year after entry of the decree provided no innocent purchaser for value has
acquired an interest.  x x x.”^[3]

The essential elements for the allowance of the reopening or
review of a decree are:  a) that the
petitioner has a real and dominical right; b) that he has been deprived
thereof; c) through fraud; d) that the petition is filed within one year from
the issuance of the decree; and e) that the property has not as yet been transferred to an innocent
purchaser.^[4]

However, for fraud to justify the review of a decree, it must be
extrinsic or collateral and the facts upon which it is based have not been controverted or resolved in the case where the judgment
sought to be annulled was rendered.^[5]
The following ruling spells out the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic
fraud:

“Extrinsic or collateral fraud, as distinguished from
intrinsic fraud, connotes any fraudulent scheme executed by a prevailing
litigant “outside the trial of a case against the defeated party, or his
agents, attorneys or witnesses, whereby said defeated party is prevented from
presenting fully and fairly his side of the case.” But intrinsic fraud takes
the form of “acts of a party in a litigation during the trial, such as the use
of forged instruments or perjured testimony, which did not affect the
presentation of the case, but did prevent a fair and just determination of the
case.”^[6]

The fraud is one that affects and goes
into the jurisdiction of the Court.^[7]

In its Petition for Review filed before the trial Court,
petitioner alleged that fraud was committed by private respondent when she
misrepresented that she and her predecessors-in-interest had been in possession
of the land publicly, peacefully, exclusively and adversely against the whole
world as owner for more than forty years when, in fact, the subject land was
inside the former U.S. Military Reservation, which was formally turned over to
the Republic of the Philippines only on December 22, 1965, and that she
likewise contended that her rights, as derived from the original and primitive
occupants of the land in question, are capable of judicial confirmation under
existing laws, when the truth is, said parcel of land is within the public
forest of Mariveles, Bataan,
and is not subject to disposition or acquisition by private persons under the
Public Land Law.

The trial Court ruled, and was upheld by the Court of Appeals,
that no fraud was committed by private respondent, which deprived petitioner of
its day in Court as there was no showing that she was aware of the facts
alleged by the Government, so that she could not have suppressed them with
intent to deceive.  The trial Court also
noted that petitioner had failed to file an opposition to the reopening of the
cadastral proceedings despite notices sent not only to the Solicitor General as
required by Republic Act No. 931, but to the Bureau of Lands and the Bureau of
Forestry as well.  It then concluded that
“the remedy granted by section 38 of the Land Registration Act is designed
to give relief to victims of fraud, not to those who are victims of their own
neglect, inaction or carelessness, especially when no attempt is ever made to
excuse or justify the neglect.” With the foregoing as the essential basis,
the trial Court dismissed the Petition for Review.

We find reversible error. 
Although there was an agreement by the parties to submit for resolution
the Opposition to the Petition for Review, which was treated as a motion to
dismiss, the trial Court, in the exercise of sound judicial discretion, should
not have dismissed the Petition outright but should have afforded petitioner an
opportunity to present evidence in support of the facts alleged to constitute
actual and extrinsic fraud committed by private respondent.  Thus, in the case of Republic vs. Sioson, et al.,^[8]
it was held that “the action of the lower Court in denying the petition
for review of a decree of registration filed within one year from entry of the
decree, without hearing the evidence in support of the allegation and claim
that actual and extrinsic fraud upon which the petition is predicated, is held
to be in error, because the lower Court should have afforded the petitioner an
opportunity to prove it.”

If the allegation of petitioner that the land in question was
inside the military reservation at the time it was claimed is true, then, it
cannot be the object of any cadastral proceeding nor can it be the object of
reopening under Republic Act No. 931.^[9]
Similarly, if the land in question, indeed, forms part of the public forest,
then, possession thereof, however long, cannot convert it into private property
as it is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Bureau of Forestry and beyond
the power and jurisdiction of the cadastral Court to register under the Torrens
System.^[10]

Even assuming that the government agencies can be faulted for
inaction and neglect (although the Solicitor General claims that it received no
notice), yet, the same cannot operate to bar action by the State as it cannot
be estopped by the mistake or error of its officials
or agents.^[11] Further, we cannot lose sight of the
cardinal consideration that “the State as a persona in law is the
juridical entity, which is the source of any asserted right to ownership in
land” under basic Constitutional precepts, and that it is moreover charged
with the conservation of such patrimony.^[12]

WHEREFORE, the
Decision of the Court of Appeals dated September 30, 1974, dismissing the
Petition for Certiorari and Mandamus filed before it, as well as
the Order of the Court of First Instance of Bataan
(Branch I) dated December 20, 1968, dismissing the Petition for Review, are
hereby set aside and the records of this case hereby remanded to the latter
Court for further proceedings to enable petitioner to present evidence in
support of its Petition for Review.

No pronouncement as to costs.

SO ORDERED.

Teehankee, (Chairman), Fernandez,
Guerrero, and De Castro, JJ., concur.

Makasiar, J., no part.

* The delay was due to the fact
that soon after the filing of the Record on Appeal, the entire records of the
case were transmitted to the Department of Justice in connection with the
administrative investigation of Judge Tito V. Tizon.

^[1]
pp. 18-19 of CA Decision at pp. 54-55, Rollo.

^[2]
p. 19 CA Decision at p. 55, Rollo.

^[3]
As amended by Sec. 3, Act No. 3621; and Sec. 1, Act No. 3630.

^[4]
Libudan vs. Gil, 45 SCRA 17 (1972).

^[5]
Ibid.

^[6]
Ibid.

^[7]
De Almeda vs. Cruz, 84 Phil. 636, 641, 643
(1949); Sterling Investment Corporation vs. Ruiz, 30 SCRA 318 (1969).

^[8]
9 SCRA 533 (1953).

^[9]
Republic vs. Marcos, 52 SCRA 238 (1973).

^[10]
Director of Lands vs. Abanzado, 65 SCRA 5 (1975).

^[11]
Republic vs. Marcos, supra.

^[12]
Ibid.