DOLORES D. ALBERTO, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. TAN C. SING AND DEE BUN, DEFENDANTS AND APPELLEES. ALEXANDRA Y. DE PASCUAL AND RAMON PASCUAL, INTERVENORS AND APPELLANTS.

BENGZON, J.:


In June 1945 the plaintiff Dolores F. Alberto was the owner of a
parcel of land with improvements in San Juan, Rizal. On the 21st of
that month she sold it for twenty thousand pesos (P20,000.00) to
defendant Tan C. Sing, whose wife is the other defendant Dee Bun. On
April 7, 1947, Tan C. Sing conveyed the same property to Alexandra Y. de
Pascual married to Ramon Pascual, Filipino citizen, for the purchase
price of P24,000.

On January 8, 1948 Dolores F. Alberto commenced this litigation
against the Sing spouses to annul the sale, upon the ground that they
were Chinese citizens, disqualified by the Constitution from acquiring
private agricultural lands.

Ramon Pascual with his wife intervened to defend the legality
of his acquisition.

After hearing the parties, the court of first instance of
Manila annulled both transfers holding that under our Krivenko decision
Tan C. Sing had acquired no right to the land and conveyed none to the
Pascual spouses.

The latter appealed, maintaining that even if the sale by
Alberto to Sing violated the Constitution, the seller could not recover
the property thus sold, especially, because the property had been
subsequently transferred to Filipino citizens. Their attorneys maintain
that when a foreigner acquires land in violation of the Organic Act, he
may hold such land against all persons, except the State. And until
the State takes action, the alien “may dispose of his interest either by
conveyance or devise and his grantees or devises will thereupon acquire
title notwithstanding his alienage.” (2 C. J. 1053)

This appeal may be disposed of without enunciating the
governing principle where proceedings are instituted by the State. For
the present it is enough to apply the ruling we have recently
promulgated to the effect that the seller of reality to a Chinese
citizen has no right to recover his property and annul the sale invoking
the Krivenko decision, both parties being, in the eyes of the law, in
pari delicto ^[1].
Consequently it was error for the trial judge to permit Dolores Alberto
to recover the property she had sold in 1945. The fact that Tan C. Sing
and Dee Bun have not appealed is no obstacle to this pronouncement,
they being nominal parties, the real parties affected being the
intervenors-appellants.

The appealed decision will therefore be reversed, and the complaint
dismissed with costs. So ordered.

Paras, C. J., Tuason, Montemayor, Jugo, Bautista Angelo and Labrador,
JJ., concur.
Padilla and Reyes, JJ., no part.