THE GOVERNMENT OF THE PHILIPPINES, PETITIONER, VS. THE COURT OF APPEALS, EZRA P. NABUS, TOMAS NABUS, JUDITH BAYOTE, GADGAD COSTINA, BETTY CHACHAKEN, SIMY VISAYA, CHALMIS DAKIAS,…

This is a petition by certiorari to reverse the decision of the
Court of Appeals in CA-G. R. No. 11808-R, Government of the Philippines
vs. Ezra P. Nabus, et al., dismissing the appeal instituted by
the defendants-appellants against a judgment of the Court of First
Instance of Baguio, Hon. Hermogenes Concepcion, presiding, ordering the
defendants to vacate a parcel of land subject of the action and
prohibiting them from interfering with and disturbing the plaintiff and
its agents in the enjoyment and possession of the land in question.

The subject of the action, which originated in the justice of the
peace court as a forcible entry and detainer, is a portion of land
about five hectares in area, which is included in the Trinidad
Agricultural High School reservation, reserved for school purposes and
utilized by said school partly for planting grasses for cattle and
partly for the planting of vegetables. The school reservation was
created by Executive Order Nos. 26 and 99 as early as 1914, although
the defendant Ezra Nabus claims that she had always possessed it,
having inherited it from her predecessors. She presented tax receipts
for the years 1929, 1931, 1932, 1933 and 1934 to prove her alleged
possession. The Court of First Instance found that the claim of the
defendants of possession is not true because of the existence of
improvements in the form of canals built on the land by students of the
school. So it rendered the judgment above mentioned on March 17, 1953.

The case was appealed to the Court of Appeals in April, 1953 and the
Record on Appeal bears a certificate of the clerk dated September 11,
1953.

On March 7, 1956 defendants-appellants filed a motion in the Court
of Appeals alleging that the case has be came moot and academic for the
reason that the land in question was declared alienable and disposable
by Proclamation No. 209 of the President of the Philippines on October
21, 1955; that defendant filed an application for free patent on June
7, 1954 and on December. 1, 1955 a free patent was issued in favor of
the defendant-appellant.

In view of the above facts, the Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal in the following language:

“It is, therefore, our considered opinion that this
appeal should be dismissed because further discussion of the case on
the merits has become academic, if not unnecessary. It is well-settled
that dismissals of appeals on grounds other than the ones mentioned in
Section 1, Rule 52 of the Rules of Court may be ordered for causes
arising after the decision from which the appeal is taken or ‘whenever
they are the necessary effect of. the conditions under which the ease
is placed by special circumstances, as for instance, where the
questions submitted on appeal have become moot ones.’ (Moran’s Comments
on the Rules of Court, Vol. I, 1957 ed., citing the case of Puyat and
Sons Co., Inc. vs. Farol, 81 Phil., 346).”

Then it adds the following dispositive part:

“Wherefore, the Original Certificate of Title No.
P-124 issued by the Register of Deeds for the City of Baguio on
December 1, 1955 in favor of appellant Ezra P. Nabus should be, as it
is hereby, declared in full force and effect and the instant case is
dismissed, without costs.”

The Solicitor General makes the following assignments of error before this Court:

I

THE COURT OF APPEALS
ERRED IN CONSIDERING AND APPRECIATING EVIDENCES WHICH WERE NOT
PRESENTED AT THE HEARING BEFORE THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE OF BAGUIO
CITY.

II

THE COURT OF APPEALS
ERRED IN RELYING AND BASING ITS DECISION ON PROCLAMATION NO. 209 OF THE
PRESIDENT DATED OCTOBER 21, 1955; ON THE FREE PATENT APPLICATION No.
V-10741 OF EZRA P. NABUS DULY APPROVED BY THE BUREAU OF LANDS ON JUNE
7, 1954; AND ON FREE PATENT No. V-23743 DATED DECEMBER 1, 1955 ISSUED
BY THE BUREAU OF LANDS IN THE NAME OF EZRA P. NABUS.

There is no question that since the President of the Philippines has
excluded about ten hectares of land from the Trinidad School
Reservation, within which the five hectares subject of the action of
forcible entry and detainer is included, an act of the plaintiff has
supervened that renders continuance of the action unnecessary. The
dismissal of the appeal is no pronouncement that petitioner has no
longer any cause of action or that respondents now have a meritorious
defense. The dismissal is a pronouncement that it is unnecessary for
the court to decide the case or any issue therein. Mr. Justice
Moreland’s comments in Velasco vs. Rosenberg, 29 Phil. 212, 214, explain the nature of the dismissal; thus:

“Nor will an appellate court consider a fictitious
case submitted merely for the purpose of testing the right to do a
particular thing. Therefore, if, pending an appeal, an event occurs
which renders it impossible for the appellate court to grant any
relief, the appeal will be dismissed no matter whether such condition
arise from the act of the appellant or from the act of the appellee;
and the result will be the same if the same condition arise from an act
of the court a quo, as where, pending appeal, some order or
judgment issued in the case renders the determination of the questions
presented by the appeal unnecessary. Such a condition may arise also by
act of the law or by mere lapse of time, as where, pending an appeal
from an order of the court in a case involving an infringement of a
patent, the acts or tenure of a public or election officer, or other
matter, the patent expires the official term comes to an end, the
election is held, or an order of the court is executed. Similarly where
a litigation has ceased to be between parties having an adverse
interest, the appeal will be dismissed; and where all substantial
interest in the controversy has been parted with or extinguished, the
court will not hear the appeal simply to determine the right to costs.”

We find, however, that the dispositive part of the decision of the
Court of Appeals is without justification or cause or reason. The said
court could not consider the fact of the proclamation and the fact of
the supposed issuance of the patent for the purpose of declaring the
title of defendant-appellant as in full force and effect, for that
would be a settlement of a fact which was never in issue in the trial
court and over which issue the petitioner has not had its day in court.
The Court of Appeals should have limited itself to dismissing the
appeal without the additional pronouncements contained in the
dispositive part of the decision.

Wherefore, the dispositive part of the decision of the Court of
Appeals is hereby set aside and the appeal is hereby dismissed. Without
costs. So ordered.

Paras, C. J., Bengzon, Padilla, Montemayor, Bautista Angelo, Concepcion, Barrera, and Gutierrez David, JJ., concur.