PEDRO BASES, ET AL., PLAINTIFFS AND APPELLANTS, VS. FLAVIANO PILARTA, ET AL., DEFENDANTS AND APPELLEES.

Some twenty years before the Philippine-American War, Paulina Pilarta married
Lucio Perido, a widower, with whom she had no issue. Lucio had a son named
Dionisio by his first marriage. After the death of Lucio and his son—the latter
survived by his children named Jose, Rita and Catalina, all surnamed
Perido—Paulina contracted a second marriage with Damaso Venus, also a widower,
with whom she likewise had no children. By his first wife, however, Damaso had
several named Anacleta, Manuela, Faustina and Mariano. His death on March 3,
1929 was followed by that of Anacleta and Mariano. The first was survived by a
son, appellant Pedro Bases, while the second left a daughter, appellant Josefina
Venus.

The above facts are not disputed.

Appellants filed this action against appellees to recover from them their
alleged share in the two parcels of land described in their complaint. They
sought to prove during the trial that during the marital life of Lucio Perido
and Paulina Pilarta they bought from a Tinguian a parcel of land located at Bio,
Lagangilang, Abra, with an area of 32,130 square meters, and that during the
marital life of Paulina and her second husband, Damaso Venus, they also bought
from a certain Budas an adjoining parcel with an area of 96,794 square meters.
These two parcels are the subject of their action.

Appellants also endeavored to prove that sometime in 1921 the spouses Damaso
Venus and Paulina Pilarta decided to consolidate the two parcels mentioned above
and so they had them surveyed as one lot and subsequently applied for their
registration under Act No. 496. Because Damaso was apparently not certain of
living for many years more, he agreed to have the application in the name of his
wife, in whose favor, after proper proceedings, the property was decreed. As a
result, Original Certificate of Title No. RO-10(10) (Exhibit D) was issued on
November 26, 1921 in the name of Paulina Pilarta, “married to Damaso Venus”.

Upon the other hand, appellee’s defense was that the property in question,
which is the parcel described in the original certificate of title mentioned
above, belonged exclusively to Paulina Pilarta who owned it even prior to her
marriage with Lucio Perido; that Paulina was the grandmother of Flaviano Pilarta
because the father of the latter was Paulina’s nephew; that even before the
death of Damaso Venus, Flavian and his family lived with him and Paulina, and
continued to live with her when she became a widow for the second time; that
because she was in need of money, Paulina thought of disposing of the property
in question and actually offered to sell it to a certain Kapitan Ballao; that
when Flaviano came to know about this, he offered to buy it, as in fact he
bought it, the corresponding deed of absolute sale Exhibit 3 having been
executed on September 10, 1947 before the then Justice of the Peace and later
Governor Jose Varela, the deed having been duly registered subsequently; that as
a result the Original Certificate of Title in the name of Paulina was cancelled
and another was issued in the name of Flaviano Pilarta, married to Tiburcia
Batino (Exhibit 4); that Flaviano then declared the property in his name
(Exhibit 6) and had since then been paying the taxes due thereon (Exhibits 5,
5-A to 5-I); that even before the sale Flaviano had been the one working on the
land, although at that time only a small portion was under cultivation, the rest
having been cleared and improved by him after the sale.

After trial upon the issues stated above, the lower court rendered judgment
dismissing the complaint aid declaring the property in question to be the
conjugal property of appellees—the spouses Flaviano Pilarta and Tiburcia
Batino.

Appellants filed with the lower court a motion for reconsideration but the
same was denied. Thereafter and within the period provided by law they perfected
the appeal now before Us.

In the last paragraph of their record on appeal (p. 62), which is a sort of
notice of their intention to appeal, appellants expressly requested that the
case be elevated to this Court “together with all exhibits of the plaintiffs and
the defendants as well as testimonial evidence of both parties so that said
upper court may refer to them to verify the contention of the plaintiffs that
the findings and conclusions in the decisL on appealed from are contrary to law
for they are not supported by the evidence.”

The above statement shows that appellants had clearly announced their
intention and desire to question, if not all, several of the findings of fact
made by the lower court Indeed, to resolve the questions raised in their first
and second assignments of error; to decide whether part of the property in
question was conjugal property of the spouses Lucio Perido and Paulina Pilarta,
and the remaining part was conjugal property of the spouses Damaso Venus and
Paulina Pilarta, or the whole of it belonged exclusively to Paulina, it would be
necessary to pass upon or decide several questions of fact, among them the
following:

(a) Whether or not the spouses Lucio Perido and Paulina Pilarta bought
a parcel of land during their marriage, and whether or not the spouses Damaso
Venus and Paulina Pilarta also bought another parcel during their marriage;

(b) Whether or not Paulina Pilarta executed the public document
Exhibit A with full knowledge of its contents, or she was the victim of fraud in
connection therewith;

(c) Whether or not Flaviano Pilarta knew of the existence of the
public document Exhibit A when the deed of sale Exhibit 3 was executed in his
favor;

(d) Whether or not the deed of sale Exhibit 3 is fraudulent, and
whether or not the vendees therein paid the consideration for the sale.

As already stated heretofore, appellants and appellees maintain diametrically
opposed contentions in relation to the questions stated above.

Consequently, there being both questions of fact and law involved in this
appeal, and there being no claim or pretense that the value of the property in
question is more than P200,000.00, it is clear that jurisdiction over the case
belongs to the Court of Appeals.

Wherefore, it is hereby ordered that the record of this case be certified to
the Court of Appeals, there to be disposed of in accordance with
law.

Bengzon, C.J., Padilla, Bautista Angelo, Labrador, Concepcion, Reyes,
J.B.L., Paredes, De Leon, and Natividad, JJ., concur.