MAMERTO RAMIREZ ET AL., PETITIONERS, VS. FIDEL IBAÑEZ, JUDGE OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE OF LAGUNA, ET AL., RESPONDENTS.

PERFECTO, J.:


Petitioners allege in substance the following:

That Rev. P. Leo A. Cullum has instigated N.V. Sinclair to
disregard and violate the provisions of Act 3, Title 26, Book 1 of the
Novisima Recopilacion which provided for the expulsion from the
Philippines of the priests of the Company of Jesus and the confiscation of their
properties and temporalities and their incorporation to the Crom, and that
according to said provisions, put into effect by the Real Cedula of Queen
Isabel II, dated October 19, 1852, the said priests are perpetually prohibited
from recovering said properties which include the lands now known as the San
Pedro Tunasan Estate in the municipality of San Pedro, Laguna;

That N.V. Sinclair, under the name of “El Colegio de San
Jose,” which failed in 1915 to register as a unipersonal corporation, instituted
in the Court of First Instance of Laguna on December 10, 1947, an action against
53 persons for the recovery of the sum of P433,307.61 as alleged rents in
arrears due before the war from the properties involved in this case;

That no one of petitioners is a defendant in said action, civil
case No. 9039, and that petitioners are exclusive owners of their respective
lands in the municipality of San Pedro, and that their crops of palay in said
parcels are not litigated in said case;

That the new complaint, based on a decision previously rendered
in civil case No. 6663 against several residents of San Pedro, has been filed
with malice, in violation of Section 6 of Rule 39, Rules of Court—which requires
the filing of a new action based on the original claim—with knowledge of
plaintiff that the court lacks jurisdiction over the subject matter, that the
money claim falls under the law of moratorium, and after the cause of action
based on case No. 6663 was renounced in favor of the Commonwealth of the
Philippines by Rev. John F. Hurley (then the Superior of the Company of Jesus),
in a public document executed on September 27, 1939;

That said Rev. Leo F. Cullum and N.V. Sinclair, secured on
December 10, 1947, thru misrepresentation, the appointment ex parte as
receiver of respondent Segundo Mastrili, who, since December 15, 1947, with the
assistance of officers and soldiers of the military police, have prohibited
petitioners from gathering and taking a single grain of their crop of palay,
from picking any fruit from their trees, and from plowing or sowing any part of
their lands without the permission of said receiver, to the extent of detaining
without judicial warrant Ricardo Gerodias and Florencio Ambayec, of maltreating
Enrique Marcellana and causing contusions to Marcos Vierneza due to blows
inflicted on several parts of his body;

That as a result, about 3,500 cavanes of palay have been
exposed to destruction by the elements of nature and of being eaten by bird and
field animals;

That the MP officers and soldiers assisting the receiver have
been acting under the command of Brigadier General Castañeda and on orders of
the Secretary of Justice;

That instead of stopping the acts of the other respondents, the
respondent judge issued on December 16, 1947, an order requiring the persons
mentioned in the charge dated December 15, 1947, to appear in court on December
22, 1947, for an investigation of charges for contempt; and,

That should said order be allowed to continue in force, the
petitioners and their respective families will be put in danger of enduring
hunger, other sufferings and irreparable damages due to the acts of
respondents.

As remedies, petitioners pray that, not being parties in civil
case No. 9039, they be not held amenable to any order that may be issued in said
case, and that respondents be ordered not to interfere with or prevent
petitioners from harvesting their crops of palay in their respective lands.

Attached to the petition is a copy of the summons in case No.
9039 and of the order of December 10, 1947, appointing Segundo C. Mastrili as
receiver to take possession of the properties and improvements involved in case
No. 6663 (Jose H. Guevara, et al. vs. Carlos Young, et al.) whose judgment is
sought to be revived in said case, and also a copy of the complaint in case No.
9039.

Petitioners having prayed for the issuance of a writ of
preliminary injunction, respondents opposed the prayer alleging:

That there is no urgency for the issuance of said writ of
preliminary injunction because the crops are being harvested by the tenants
under the supervision of the receiver, and those already harvested, constitute
only one sixth of the total estimated crops, as the remaining five sixths are
not yet ready for harvest;

That the laborers or harvesters receive their share right in
the field immediately after the harvest, while the shares of the tenants or
lessees could not as yet be delivered because the palay has to be stacked and
dried and said shares are usually delivered after the threshing, sometime during
the months of February and March;

That in case No. 6663, the judgment of which is sought to be
revived, a receiver has also been appointed.

That the Colegio de San Jose did not transfer to the
Commonwealth of the Philippines its rights to the judgment in its favor in civil
case No. 6663 with respect to the agricultural lands which are now the subject
of controversy, but only its rights therein pertaining to the portion of the
hacienda used as homesites;

That since the judgment in case No. 6663 sought to be revived
orders the ejectment of the defendants due to their default in the payment of
the annual rentals, and the sum of P433,307.61 mentioned in the complaint
represents rents prior to liberation, and the rents from December, 1945
amounting to P90,000, the subject matter is not within the purview of the
moratorium; and,

That the petition for the issuance of a writ of prohibition is
premature because the motion for reconsideration of the order appointing the
receiver is still pending resolution by respondent judge.

On January 13, 1948, this Court allowed the intervention in
this case as co-petitioners of 75 other persons.

On March 22, 1948, by majority resolution, this Court denied
petitioners’ prayer for the issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction.

This case was heard on the merits in Baguio on May 19, 1948, at
which hearing the parties submitted a written agreement which reads as
follows:

“Ambas partes convienen:

“El depositario retendra los 30 por ciento de la cosecha
(sujeto a las ordenes del Juzgado, la cosecha liquida sera retenida por el
depositario) y dejara los 70 por ciento como participacion del aparcero al que
labran actualmente el terreno. Y los que actualmente laborean el terreno
continuaran trabajandolo su respective parcela, bajo la administracion,
supervision y control del depositario, entendiendose sin embargo que todo aqui
constatado no afectara el resultado del asunto pendiente en el Juzgado de
primera instancia de Laguna; y ambas partes firmaran un recibo en duplicado de
la participacion que ha recibido cada uno.

“Baguio, Mayo 19, 1948.

“Conforme:

“(Fdo.) JUAN S. RUSTIA

“(Fdo.) MANUEL A. CALANOG

“(Fdo.) DEOGRACIAS REYES

“(Fdo.) JOSE M. LUISON

“(Fdo.) ROBERTO GUIANZON”

On April 8, 1948, petitioners filed a motion for
reconsideration of the resolution of this Court of March 22, 1948, which denied
the issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction. That motion was kept under
advisement to be considered upon the decision of the case on the merits.

Petitioners also filed a petition on August 7, 1948, praying
that respondents be enjoined from acting on a petition filed with the Court of
First Instance of Laguna by the receiver for the issuance of a writ of
preliminary injunction to prohibit Attorney Rustia and the mayor of San Pedro,
Laguna, as well as all their attorneys, agents, employees, privies and/or
representatives from going into the fields under the administration of the
receiver, and in a resolution of August 13, 1948, this Court ordered that said
petition be acted upon when the case is decided on the merits.

Because all the questions involved in this case have been
practically disposed of by the resolution of this Court dated March 22, 1948,
the same is reproduced here-under, together with the dissenting opinion of the
writer of this decision:

“The ‘Reiteracion de la Peticion de Interdicto Prohibitorio
Preliminar’ filed by counsel for petitioners in L-1873, Ramirez et al. vs. Judge
Ibañez, et al., is denied, it appearing that respondent Judge had given the
parties a chance to be heard on the question of privity and identity of the
land, and that, instead of arguing at the hearing, the present case was
immediately brought here. Mr. Justice Perfecto dissented in a separate
opinion.

DISSENTING

“PERFECTO, J.:

“The fact that due course has been given to this case is an
evidence that, upon the pleadings, this Court has found that the petition is
meritorious. Otherwise, this Court would have dismissed the petition from the
very beginning, without causing respondents the trouble of appearing and showing
their side of the question.

“Upon the above premise, the wit of preliminary injunction
prayed by petitioners appears to be necessary so as to save petitioners from
further irreparable damages.

“Petitioners’ contention that they have never been a party in
the original case, upon the decision of which the receivership proceedings
through which they are being deprived of the products of their labor, the crops
that cost them time, effort, work, capital, is based, appears to be well taken
and fully supported by the very pleadings in the lower court. It will be
extremely unjust not to maintain the status quo, and to condemn them to
starvation Tantalian wise, at the very sight of the crops they raised, even to
touch which they are prohibited by the physical force at respondents’
command.

“Respondents’ plight appears to be more pitiable by the
attitude shown by respondents at the hearing of this case, in which the receiver
made the express commitment to allow petitioners to take their respective crops
upon condition that they will furnish the receiver data as to the amount of said
crops for record purposes. Petitioners accepted the condition, and the parties
were allowed to withdraw from the hearing so as to put in writing the verbal
agreement made before us. When both parties submitted their pleadings on
February 16, 1948, the very date of the hearing, the receiver appeared to have
backed out from the agreement, disregarding completely the commitment made
before us in open court. This showing of bad faith should not be ignored by the
Supreme Court nor rewarded by a denial of the petition for a writ of preliminary
injunction.

“It has been said repeatedly that party litigants must appear
before the courts of justice with clean hands to deserve hearing and remedy. In
this case, the respondent receiver has appeared before us with hands tainted
with bad faith, and the victims of the dirty trick, wantonly performed before
our own eyes, are deprived of the remedy they are entitled to.

“We dissent from the majority resolution.”

The main purpose of petitioners in this case is to enjoin
respondents from depriving said petitioners of the possession of the lands
claimed by them and of the crops therein, involved in the receivership in case
No. 9039, upon the main theory that petitioners are not parties to said case nor
parties or privies of the parties in case No. 6663, whose judgment is intended
to be revived in case No. 9039.

The majority of this Court are of opinion that, before
petitioners can seek any remedy from this Court, they must wait for the final
action of respondent judge on the two questions, namely, as to whether or not
petitioners are privies of the defendants in cases Nos. 6663 and 9039 of the
lower court, and as to the identity of the lands in question in said cases, it
appearing that respondent judge had given the petitioners a chance to be heard
on said questions.

For all the foregoing, with the writer of this opinion
dissenting, the petition is dismissed, with costs. In view of this result, the
two pending incidental petitions are also denied.

Moran, C. J., Pablo, Bengzon, Briones, and Tuason,
JJ., concur.
Paras, J., concurs in the result.
Feria,
J., concurs in the dismissal of the petition.