THE DIRECTOR OF LANDS, APPLICANT, JOSE ABADA ET AL., CLAIMANTS; EMILIO GARCIA, APPELLANT, VS. MERCEDES J. DE BELZUNCE ET AL., APPELLEES.

On June 22, 1942, Jesusa Barrioso executed a deed of sale of
two lots or parcels of land described in transfer certificates of title Nos. 175
and 176 of the Province of Iloilo, together with the improvements thereon, in
favor of Emilio Garcia in consideration of the sum of P10,000 which the vendor
acknowledged to have received from the vendee. The deed was signed and
acknowledged before three instrumental witnesses but was not authenticated by a
notary public, it being stated therein that in view of the then existing war
conditions when there was no notary public duly authorized in the town of
Barotac Nuevo, Iloilo, the vendor promised to subscribe to any other document
that may be necessary as soon as normal conditions returned, to enable the
vendee to secure the transfer of the certificates of title in his name, and in
case she, the vendor, did not survive, she enjoined her heirs and successors in
interest to ratify and confirm the document in due form and have it
registered.

The vendor Jesusa Barrioso died without having ratified the
said deed of sale before a notary public. On October 25, 1945, the vendee Emilio
Garcia presented the deed of sale to the Register of Deeds of Iloilo with the
request that transfer certificates of title Nos. 175 and 176 be cancelled and
new ones issued in his name. That request was denied by the register of deeds on
the ground that the deed of sale had not been ratified before a notary public, hereupon the purchaser Emilio Garcia filed a petition in the cadastral case
wherein the said certificates of title had been issued, praying that the
Register of Deeds of Iloilo be ordered to register the deed of sale Exhibit A on
transfer certificates of title Nos. 175 and 176, to cancel said certificates of
title and issue new ones in his name.

To that motion Mercedes J. de Belzunce, administratrix of the
estate of Jesusa Barrioso, and the heirs of the latter filed oppositions on the
following grounds: (1) That the Court of First Instance of Iloilo as a cadastral
court had no jurisdiction to take cognizance of said petition; (2) that the deed
of sale Exhibit A, being a mere private document, cannot transfer real rights;
that the proper remedy for the purchaser, had Jesusa Barrioso not died, would
have been an ordinary action to compel her to execute the deed of sale in due
form as required by law and not a mere petition in the cadastral case; and (3)
that the execution of said deed of sale by Jesusa Barrioso was tainted with
fraud, undue influence and false representations, if not force and violence on
the person of Jesusa Barrioso; and that the supposed transaction was not
supported by a valid consideration, Jesusa Barrioso not having received the
price mentioned in the deed of sale.

The order appealed from denies the petition of Emilio Garcia,
“without prejudice to such other proper remedy or remedies as may be available
to him under the law with respect to the deed of sale in question.”

In view of the opposition to appellant’s petition filed in the
cadastral proceedings, whereby the intrinsic validity of the private deed of
sale sought to be registered is impugned or put in issue, we think the lower
court did not err in denying said petition without prejudice to a proper action
wherein the issue can be litigated and determined. The remedy provided in
section 112 of Act 496 is summary and not adequate for the litigation of issues
pertaining to an ordinary civil action. We have so decided in Irineo Castillo
vs. Hon. Anacleto B. Ramos et al., G.R. No. L-1031, promulgated July 31, 1947
(78 Phil., 809)

In that case the petitioners were the registered owners of
certain cadastral lots, covered by a certificate of title, which they mortgaged
to the Agricultural and Industrial Bank in 1940. During the Japanese occupation
they paid the loan secured by said mortgage as shown by a receipt issued by the
bank in favor of the petitioners, but due to the condition of things then
prevailing the bank could not execute the proper deed of release or cancellation
of the mortgage. The petitioners prayed the cadastral court to declare said
mortgage cancelled and of no force and effect, and that the bank be ordered to
return to the petitioners the owner’s duplicate of the original certificate of
title of the mortgaged property. The bank opposed the petition alleging that the
payment of the mortgage during the war in Japanese military notes was not valid.
Judge Anacleto B. Ramos acting as cadastral judge denied the petition on the
ground that he had no jurisdiction to order within the cadastral case what was
sought by the petitioners “because the question involved in their petition
should rather be the subject of an ordinary case to compel the Agricultural and
Industrial Bank to execute a deed of release of the above-mentioned mortgage.”
This Court denied the petition for mandamus to compel Judge Ramos to grant the
relief prayed for and sustained the order of the respondent judge denying said
Petition. Citing the case of The Bank of the Philippine Islands vs. Ty Camco, 57
Phil. 801, wherein this Court said that land registration proceedings are as
separate and distinct from ordinary civil actions as are the latter from
criminal actions, we held:

“If there is such a clear separation and distinction between
land registration proceedings and ordinary civil actions, what properly pertains
to the general jurisdiction of the courts in ordinary civil actions should not
be brought to them as courts of land registration with the limited and special
jurisdiction characteristic of such courts. When our land registration laws were
enacted our Courts of First Instance already possessed jurisdiction over cases
such as that which has arisen between the parties herein respecting the validity
of an alleged payment by a debtor of his debt to his creditor. Specifically, if
a case of the nature of the one now existing between the instant litigants had
arisen just before the enactment of Act No. 496, there could be no doubt that it
would have come under the original jurisdiction of the proper Court of First
Instance. And there is absolutely nothing in said Act nor in the subsequent ones
amending or supplementing the same to divest such court of that original
jurisdiction in order to transfer it to the Court of Land Registration
established by said Act No. 496, later to the Court of First Instance acting as
such court by virtue of the provisions of section 10 of Act No. 2347.

“We are clearly of opinion that the respondent court rightly
refused to grant the aforesaid petition within the cadastral proceeding.

“However, where a petition concerning the cancellation of any
encumbrance noted on a Torrens certificate of title is filed within the record
of the land registration case in which the basic decree was entered and there is
no substantial controversy in regard thereto between the petitioner and any
other interested party, such petition may be considered as a mere incidental
matter in such land registration case and may therein be acted upon by the
proper court.”

The order appealed from is affirmed, with costs.

Moran, C.J., Paras, Feria, Padilla, Tuason, Montemayor,
Reyes, and Torres, JJ., concur.

MORAN, C. J.:

Mr. Justice Bengzon voted for affirmance.