IRINEO FACUNDO, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLANT, VS. VALENTIN R. LIM ET AL., DEFENDANTS AND APPELLEES.

The appellant Irineo Facundo was the registered owner of a house and lot
located at No. 603 Zamora St., Pasay (now Rizal City), in the province of Rizal.
By a document executed on January 29, 1944 (Exhibit A), appellant agreed to sell
the said property to Hilaria Uy Isabelo for P130,000 “Philippine currency,” of
which P20,000 was paid to him in check on that same occasion, the check being
later cashed by him at the bank, while the remaining P110.000 was to be payable
within thirty days from the date of the document. In the same document,
appellant named C. S. Gonzales & Co. as his broker in the transaction, and
as is usual in these cases, the broker had the corresponding deed of absolute
sale (Exhibit B) prepared for the signature of the vendor. As Hilaria Uy Isabelo
was, according to her, buying the property not for herself but for the herein
appellee Valentin R. Lira, the latter was the one named vendee in the deed. The
deed also expressed the price of the sale in terms of “lawful circulating
currency.” Such as it was, the deed was signed by appellant in the office of the
broker on February 18, 1944, upon receipt by him of the balance of the agreed
purchase price, less P28,000 which was deducted therefrom to wipe out a mortgage
in favor of the Luzon Surety Company. The deed appears to have been acknowledged
before a notary public.

Agreeably with the terms of the deed, which permitted the seller to occupy
the property as tenant for one year, free of charge for the first two months and
for a monthly rental of P100 for the succeeding months, appellant remained in
the premises as tenant and paid in cash an advanced rental for five months
corresponding to the period from April 18 to September 18, 1944, and thereafter,
by means of a postal money order, the advanced rental for another five months’
period ending on February 18, 1945.

Because of appellant’s failure to pay subsequent rentals, the appellee
brought suit to eject him from the premises and a judgment to vacate was
rendered against him, which has already become final.

Following the filing of the ejection suit against him, appellant countered by
instituting the present action for the annulment of the deed of sale on the
ground of fraud, alleging that he had been induced to sign the said deed through
the misrepresentations of Mr. Gonzales of the C. S. Gonzales & Co., who
assured him, so it is alleged, that the said deed contained the same terms and
conditions as the document Exhibit A when such yes not the fact since the vendee
was changed from Hilaria Uy Isabelo to Valentin R. Lira, and the denomination of
the purchase price from Philippine currency” to “lawful circulating currency.”
At the trial appellant sought to amplify the ground for annulment by trying to
prove duress or intimidation with testimony to the effect that at the time he
signed Exhibit B in the office of the broker he noted that there was a Japanese
military officer just outside the room.

The trial court gave no credence to plaintiff’,s allegation of fraud and
intimidation and rendered judgment dismissing the complaint with costs. From
this judgment plaintiff took an appeal and, because of the amount involved, the
case has been elevated to this Court.

We find no merit in the appeal.

Appellant claims that he has been deceived and intimidated into signing the
deed of sale in question. But his evidence is far from sufficient to establish
that claim. Indeed, the preponderance of evidence is to the contrary. And while
appellant complains that the trial judge merely copied his conclusions of fact
from the pleading and memorandum of the appellee, thereby insinuating that the
trial judge had not personally-studied the evidence in the case, the record
shows that the said judge heard all the evidence. And we find that his findings
of fact are in accord therewith.

Not much weight can be accorded to appellant’s declaration that he signed the
deed without reading the same. Appellant was neither illiterate nor ignorant. It
is, therefore, not reasonable to suppose that he would sign a contract involving
a large sum without first being certain that it expressed his true will. His
allegation that he was not able to read the contract because he did not have his
glasses with him, even when reinforced with counsel’s argument that appellant’s
eyesight had been weakened by the lack of necessary vitamins during the Japanese
occupation, is but a flimsy excuse for this belated effort on his part to get
out of the deal. We see nothing that would have prevented him from sending for
his glasses before closing the transaction, and his own evidence also shows that
he was joined by his son, who is a lawyer, in the office of the broker on the
occasion when the contract was signed.

Furthermore, we can not believe that appellant would have withheld his
signature to the contract just because the vendee had been changed from Hilaria
Uy Isabelo to Valentin R. Lim and the denomination of the purchase price from
“Philippine currency to “lawful circulating currency.” That is on the
supposition that he had really not been apprised of those changes. It should be
noted that appellant was selling his property through a real estate broker and
could not have been particular about the identity of the buyer because the
transaction was for cash. It was the price he was getting for his property and
not the person of the buyer that he was interested in. Whosoever was acquiring
the property was of no concern to him provided he was paid the price previously
agreed upon. And with respect to the change in the denomination of the purchase
price from “Philippine currency” to “lawful circulating currency,” it is a
matter of common knowledge that at the time the transaction in question was had
(February 18, 1944) the Japanese military notes were in Manila and suburbs the
only currency in general circulation, and the broker testified that according to
custom in real estate transactions in those days, the terms “Philippine
currency,” “lawful circulating currency,” and other similar expressions were
taken to mean the Japanese military notes. And to show that appellant was not
really concerned with the denomination of the currency and also that he could
not have expected to be paid P130,000 in genuine Philippine money instead of the
same amount of the same amount of Japanese military notes, we have it as a
proven fact that when he signed the first contract (the agreement to sell) he
received P20,000 in check as part of the consideration for which he must have
received at the bank where he cashed it the same amount of Japanese military
notes, it being also a well-known fact that in those days the banks were already
making their payments exclusively in that currency. Therefore, if appellant was
really not agreeable to the price as fixed in that currency, he should have
returned the check or the proceeds thereof to the broker and informed him that
the consideration for the sale was meant to be P130,000 in genuine Philippine
money. But this he did not do.

Appellant also claims that he was constrained to accept the Japanese military
notes because his son had called his attention to the presence of a member of
the Japanese military police just outside of the office of the broker where the
transaction took place. In other words, he claims that his consent to the
contract was vitiated by fear or intimidation. However, not only was the alleged
presence of the “kempei” denied by the broker but it is not even mentioned in
appellant’s original and amended complaint. This theory of intimidation came up
for the first time during the hearing. And while appellant, corroborated by his
son, testified on the presence of a member of the Japanese military police
outside of the office of the broker, that fact was categorically denied by the
witnesses for the appellee. In the circumstances, it is hard to believe that
appellant had really been intimidated into signing the deed of sale or into
receiving the consideration therefor, for, if that were the fact, he would
surely have set it up in his complaint.

Appellant also claims that
Hilaria Uy Isabelo and Valentin R. Lim, as aliens, could not legally acquire
real property in this country, so that the trial court erred in not permitting
questions tending to establish their nationality as Chinese. But it will be
noted that there is no allegation in the complaint on this point. The complaint
is for the annulment of a deed, predicated solely on the ground of fraud. The
nationality of the vendee and his consequent lack of right to acquire real
property were not put in issue in the action. The questions propounded by
appellant’s counsel in that connection were therefore irrelevant and hence
properly denied.

The point is also made that the pre-war assessed value of the property in
question was P31,510 and that, according to the broker Gonzales, the value of
real estate in Manila had risen from five to ten times the pre-war assessment,
so that it is not likely that appellant would have been willing to sell his
property for P130,000.00 in Japanese military notes, specially because at that
time one Pedro Armenia had offered to buy it for P300,000.00. But even supposing
that the broker’s rough estimate of the rise in value of real estate in 1944
would apply to this particular piece of property, still, considering that the
transaction under consideration had its inception in January of that year when
the rise in value would naturally be around the lower estimate or five times the
pre-war assessment, appellant’s property would, on that basis, be worth only in
the neighborhood of P150,000 in Japanese military notes, or one-sixth greater
than the price fixed in the deed of sale. And then it should also be remembered
that properties are not always sold at their market value, for much depends upon
the circumstances of the seller. In the present case, it would appear that the
seller was indebted to the Luzon Surety Company in the sum of P28,000, a debt
which was wiped out by the application of part of the purchase price paid by the
buyer, and it would also appear that the vendor was in need of a house where he
could live because he made it a condition of the deed of sale that he should be
allowed to occupy the property as tenant for one year, free of charge for the
first two months and for a monthly rental of P100 thereafter. The low rental
stipulated might give some indication as to the real value of the property and
might also have been one of the factors which induced appellant to part with his
property at the price fixed in the deed. The nature of the proof adduced in
connection with Armenia’s offer to buy the property for P300,000 is not such as
to produce the conviction that such an offer was really made and that the same
was rejected.

On the whole, we think that appellant’s conduct in connection with this
transaction belies . the claim that he has been deceived or intimidated into
signing the deed of sale Exhibit B. He accepted without protest the first
payment of P20,000 by check for which check he must have received from the
drawee bank the same amount in Japanese military notes. He allowed his
indebtedness to the Luzon Surety Co. and the broker’s fee to be paid out of the
purchase price paid by the vendee at the time of the signing of the deed. He
signed the deed and did not withhold its delivery despite his alleged
non-conformity to the purchase price fixed therein in Japanese military notes.
Lastly, he occupied the property as a mere tenant by paying rent to the vendee,
thus impliedly admitting that he was no longer the owner thereof. Not until he
had been ordered to vacate the property and the judgment of ouster become final
did it occur to him to come to court and ask for the annulment of the deed of
sale on the flimsy pretext, not supported by convincing proof, that he had been
deceived or intimidated into signing the same. Clearly, the action is without
merit.

Wherefore, the judgment appealed from is affirmed, with costs against the
appellant.

Moran, C. J., Ozaeta, Bengzon, Padilla, Tuason, Montemayor, and
Torres, JJ., concur.

Paras, Feria and Pablo, JJ., no part.