TIMOTEO RUBLICO AND JULIANA MADRAZO, PETITIONERS-APPELLANTS, VS. FAUSTO ORELLANA, RESPONDENT-APPELLEE.

Appeal from an order of dismissal of a petition for annulment of
a judgment and/or review of a decree of registration of two cadastral lots
alleged­ly procured through fraud.

On 13 July 1957, the herein respondent-appellee,
Fausto Orellana, filed his
answer in Cadastral Case No. IL-N-2, L. R. C. Record No.
N-211 for Lots Nos. 1664 and 1665, with the Court of First Instance of Lanao, claiming ownership thereof and praying that the said
lots be adjudged and decreed in his favor. 
The herein petitioners-appellants, Timoteo Rublico and Juliana Madrazo, did
not file any answer.  After an order of
general default was entered, the court commissioned its clerk of court to
receive the evidence of claimants for non-contested lots.  Lots 1664 and 1665 were non-contested
(Exhibits “G”), so the clerk of court received the evidence for the
sole claimant, herein respondent-appellee Fausto Orellana.

On 20 November 1964, the court a quo approved the
report and recommendation of the clerk of court and rendered judgment
adjudicating Lots 1664 and 1665 in favor of respondent-appellee
Orellana.

On 19 July 1965, petitioners-appellants filed with the said
cadastral court a petition to annul the judgment and/or review the decree of
registration, alleging ownership of the lots adjudicated to the respondent;
that respondent, “by means of fraud, made the court to believe that he is
the owner” and that said judgment “was secured . . . . . . . . by means of fraud” (Record on Appeal, pages 3-4).

Respondent Orellana filed a motion to
dismiss the petition and the court, on 23 September 1965, sustained the motion,
holding that petitioners-appellants had no personality to file their petition
because they did not file an answer and were declared in default and that they
should have first secured the lifting of the order of general default, with
respect to themselves, before they filed their petition for review.

Petitioners-appellants interposed the present appeal.

The pertinent portion of Section 38 provides, as follows:

“. . . . . . . . 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. 
. . . . . . . .”

It will be noted that the essential requisites or elements for
the allowance of the reopening or review of a decree are:  (a) that the peti­tioner has a real or
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
(Ponce, The Phils. Torrens System, page 208).  It will also be noted from the provision that
“any person” may file the petition, provided the other requisites are
present; and that the provision does not require that the petitioner be an
original claimant who had filed an answer. 
And reasonably so, because fraud might inter­vene
precisely to prevent a person from filing an answer.  Thus, a party deprived of an estate in land
was accorded relief where the fraud con­sisted in deliberate failure to notify
the party entitled to notice (Salva vs. Salvador, 18
Phil. 193), or in inducing him not to oppose an application (Reyes vs. City of
Manila, 38 Phil. 350), or in misrepresentation to the true owner by an
applicant of the identity of the lot, causing the true owner to withdraw his
opposition (Marquiala, et al. vs. Ybañez,
et al., 92 Phil. 911).  Under these
rulings, it follows that a petitioner for review under Section 38 of Act 496,
as amended, need not be an original claimant in a cadastral proceeding and need
not secure the lifting of the order of general default with respect to himself.  The aim of
the law in giving aggrieved parties, victimized by registration pro­ceedings of
their estate in land by means of fraud, the opportunity to review the decree
would be defeated if such parties would be limited to those who had filed their
opposition to the petition for registration or to first require them to procure
the lifting of the order of general default before they could file a petition
for review.

The foregoing considerations notwithstanding, We
are of the opinion that the order of dismissal is substantially correct, for
the reason that the petition for review failed to state facts sufficient to
constitute a cause of action, as also contended by the appellees
in their motion to dismiss in the court below (Record on Appeal, pages 8 –
9).  The petition for review merely
alleges that respondent “by means of fraud made this Honorable Court
believe that he is the owner of said lots”.  This is not a sufficient allegation, for it
is a mere conclusion of law, and does not aver facts showing in what
acts the alleged fraud consisted. 
Certainly, to make the court believe that the respondent (claimant in
the cadastral case) was the owner of the lot concerned is not fraud; at the
most, the court might have committed an error in believing the claimant to be
the owner, but that would not justify a review of the decree of adjudication
and registration.  Review of the decree
demands a showing of actual (not constructive) fraud (Government vs. Tombis Triño, 50 Phil. 717),
i.e., actual malice, and there is nothing in the petition to show it.

WHEREFORE, the order of dismissal appealed from is
affirmed, without prejudice to the subsequent amendment of the petition
according to Rule 16, section 3, within 15 days from finality of this
decision.  Costs
against the appellants.

Concepcion, C.J., Dizon,
Makalintal, Zaldivar, Sanchez,
Castro, Fernando, Teehankee, and Barredo, JJ.,
concur.