CIRIACO LANDA, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT, VS. FRANCISCO TOBIAS, MUNICIPAL MAYOR; EMILIANO DEL CAMPO, MUNICIPAL TREASURER; REGIO B. SUBONG, CHIEF OF POLICE; JUANITO PECATE AND JUANITO …

From an order of the
Court of First Instance of Iloilo dismissing the complaint in this case, plaintiff has come directly to the Supreme Court,
upon the ground that only questions of law would be raised in the appeal.

On June 23, 1962,
defendants Juanito Pecate
and Juanito Alfaro, members of the police force of Cabatuan, Iloilo, pur­porting to act pursuant to section
538 of the Revised Administrative Code,
seized from plaintiff Ciriaco Landa a carabao, for which he
produced a certificate of ownership in the
name of Pantaleon Elvas.  Said peace officers turned the carabao over to the municipal treasurer of Cabatuan, defendant Emiliano del Campo, who, on July 25, 1962, upon the authority of section 540 of said
Code, sold the animal at public auction, which was duly approved by the
Provincial Board on July 26, 1963.  In
an affidavit dated June 25, 1962, Landa tried to
explain that he had acquired the carabao, by barter
with an older carabao, from Marcelino
Mayormente, who, on August 1, 1962, was charged, in the Justice of the Peace
Court of Cabatuan, with swindling; but he has not
been apprehended up to the present.

On or about April 16, 1963, Landa
commenced in said court, the present action against Francisco Tobias, the Municipal
Mayor of Cabatuan, its Municipal Treasurer, Emiliano del Campo, its Chief of Police, Regio B. Subong, and the aforementioned
policemen, Juanito Pecate
and Juanito Alfaro, for the recovery of damages with
costs, upon the ground that he (plaintiff) had been wrongfully deprived of the
possession of the carabao above referred to.  In their answer, the defendants alleged, inter
alia, that the acts complained of had been
performed by them in accordance with law.

Said court having, in due course, rendered judgment in favor of
the defendants, plaintiff appealed to the Court of First Instance of Iloilo, in
which the parties submitted a partial stipulation of facts.  Later on, after the presentation of
plaintiff’s evidence, which consisted of his testimony and some exhibits, the
defendants moved to dismiss the case, which the Court of First Instance
granted.  Plaintiff’s subsequent motion
for new trial having been denied, he interposed the present appeal.

Plaintiff maintains that the lower court erred in holding that he had no title to the carabao, for non-compliance, on his part, with the
provisions of the Revised Administrative Code, requiring the registration of
cattle, prescribing the procedure for the transfer thereof, regulating
amendments to certificates of ownership, and establishing the necessity of
registration and issuance of a certificate of transfer in order that the same
may be valid.  He invokes the provision
of the Civil Code, governing contracts in general, to the effect that
“contracts shall be obligatory in whatever form they may have been entered
into provided all essential requisites for their validity are present.”^[1] In addition, to the essential requi­sites specified in the
Civil Code, the Revised Administrative Code prescribes, however, another
requisite, as regards the transfer of title to cattle, namely, the registration
of said transfer and the issuance to the transferee of the corresponding
certificate of transfer,^[2] neither of which has been proven in the case
at bar.

Although
plaintiff claimed to have the aforementioned certificate of transfer, but he
did not produce the same.  In fact, plaintiff could not possibly have
such certificate, for the carabao was allegedly
conveyed to him by Marcelino Mayormente,
whereas the registered owner is Pantaleon Elvas – and plaintiff knew this fact – and there is no
competent proof that Elvas had ever assigned the
animal to Mayormente. 
Again, the complaint for swindling filed against Mayormente
indicates that the carabao did not belong to
him.  Regardless of the aforementioned
provisions of the Revised Administrative Code, the title to the carabao could not have passed, therefore, to Landa, in consequence of his alleged transaction with Mayormente, who had no such title.  It may not be amiss to note that Mayormente might be no more than a figment of the
imagination, for he has neither taken the witness stand nor been found.

Apart from this, the certificate of ownership, Exhibit A,
produced by the plaintiff to patrolmen Pecate and
Alfaro, was not in plaintiff’s name and admittedly bore signs of tampering.  Although the blank spaces in said printed
form were filled with words and figures written in indelible pencil,
the spaces for the year of its issuance and the age of the animal described
therein have traces of erasures and the figures 59 and 3, respectively, are
written thereon in ink, to indicate that the certificate had been
issued in 1959 and that said carabao was then three (3) years of age.  The
original record of said document shows that it was issued in 1961 and the age
of said carabao was then one year and a half.

Under these circumstances, it is clear that the policemen had
reasonable grounds to suspect that plaintiff’s possession of the carabao was unlawful, as well as to seize the animal and de­liver
the same to the municipal treasurer as provided in Section 538 of the Revised
Administrative Code.^[3]
Pursuant thereto to Section 540 of the same Code,^[4]
said municipal treasurer had, not only the authority, but, also, the
“duty” to issue, post and cause to be served a notice of the seizure
or taking of said animal, and, if the owners thereof “fail to present themselves within the time specified in the notice and prove title to the animals
taken or seized as aforesaid, ” notice of such fact shall be given by said
officer to the provincial board, “which shall order said animals to be sold at public auction, ”
after giving the notice prescribed in said legal provision.  The “purchaser at such sale shall”
– in the language of Section 540 – “receive a good and indefeasible title
to the animal sold.”

Even if plaintiff were
hypothetically the true owner of the carabao in
question, his only remedy was, accordingly, to claim it before the municipal
treasurer and prove to the latter his (plaintiff’s) title thereto, either prior
to or at the time of the auction sale. 
Not having done so, plaintiff can not now make such claim judicially and
try to prove his title – which, after all, he has failed to establish -much less
seek indemnity from the public officers who, by reason of their official
duties, had a hand in the seizure and sale of the carabao.

Considering the
stipulation of the parties herein, to the effect that said sale had been “duly
approved by the Provincial Board, ” apart from the legal presumption
“that official duty has been regularly performed,”^[5] we must assume that defendants herein had
complied with the requirements of the legal provisions above referred to, and,
consequently, they can not be held liable for the aforesaid seizure and sale.

Plaintiff further alleges
that the lower court erred in not de­claring that the public auction of the carabao in question as “astray” is against the
law, because the animal was taken or seized from him, not found astray.  This pretense is groundless.  It is not borne out by paragraph 3 of the
partial stipulation of facts cited by him in support thereof.  The sale at public auction was held pursuant
to the aforementioned Section 540, captioned “Sale of unclaimed” – not
astray – “animal, ” although referring to “all estray and all animals recovered from thieves or taken
by peace officers from persons unlawfully or reasonably suspected of being
unlawfully in possession of the same” – which are the subject-matter of Section
538 – the owners of which “fail to present themselves within the time
fixed in the notice and prove title to the animals taken or seized
as aforesaid. ” Such is, precisely, the situation obtaining in the case at bar.

WHEREFORE, the order appealed from is hereby affirmed,
with costs against plaintiff-appellant,
Ciriaco Landa.

Reyes, J.B.L., Dizon, Makalintal, Zaldivar, Sanchez,
Castro, and Angeles, JJ.,
concur.

^[1]
Article 1356.

^[2]
See Section 529 of the Revised Administrative Code.

^[3]
“SEC. 538. 
Impounding of estrays and
stolen cattle.  – All estrays and all animals recovered from thieves or taken by
peace officers from persons unlawfully or reasonably suspected of being
unlawfully in the possession of the same, shall be delivered to the treasurer
of the municipality where found, and it shall thereupon become the duty of such
treasurer properly to care for and maintain such animals and to post for at
least ten consecutive days at the door of the municipal building in the
municipality holding the animals and to forward immediately to the recorder of
the provincial board, written notices in Spanish and in the local dialects of
the finding of such estrays or of the seizure or
taking of the animals delivered to the municipal treasurer, together with the
class, sex, age, brands, knots or radiated hair commonly known as remolinos or cowlicks, and other marks of identification of
the estrays or of the animals seized or taken from
persons not entitled to the possession hereof, and notifying owners of such
animals to present themselves within twenty days after date to the municipality
and establish title thereto.  It shall be
the duty of the provincial secretary to send copies of the notice herein
provided for the municipal mayors of the province concerned, whose duty it
shall be to order said notice published by bandillo
in all the barrios of their respective municipalities once a week during said
period of twenty days.

^[4]
[2] “SEC. 540.  Sale of unclaimed
animal.  – Should the owners of
such animals fail to present themselves within the time fixed in the notice and
prove title to the animals taken or seized as aforesaid, immediate notice of
that fact shall be given by the municipal treasurer to the provincial board of
the province, which shall order said animals to be sold at public auction and
shall give notice of the sale at least fifteen days before the date of sale by
posting notice thereof at the door of the provincial building and at the door
of the municipal building where such animals are held, and by bandillo in the barrios of said municipality.  The notice of the sale shall contain a
statement of the class, sex, age, brands, knots of radiated hair commonly known
as remolinos or cowlicks, and other marks of
identification of the animals to be sold, the place where found or seized, and
the date, hour, and place of sale.  The
place of sale shall be fixed, in the discretion of the provincial board, either
at the provincial capital or in the municipality where such animals are held.

“Animals ordered to be sold by
the provincial board in accordance with the provisions of this section shall be
sold for cash to the highest and best bidder therefor
at public auction by verbal bidding, and the purchaser at such sale shall
receive a good and indefeasible title to the animal sold: Provided, however,
That notwithstanding the provisions of the preceding sections, the owner
appears at or during the time of the auction and proves his title, the sale
shall be suspended and the animal shall be delivered to him upon payment of the
maintenance and transportation expenses.

“A record of any such sale
shall be made in the municipality in which the sale took place and a
certificate shall be issued as in ordinary sales, except that the entry and
certificate shall show that the sale was made by the municipality in conformity
with this section, and the signature of the owner shall be omitted from the
entry and certificate”

^[5]
Section 5[m], Rule 131 of the Rules of Court.