CECILIA DEL VALLE-TIONGSON, ET. AL., PLAINTIFFS-APPELLEES, VS. MELECIO HERNANDEZ, DEFENDANT-APPELLANT. ENRIQUE MATIBAG, ET. AL., INTERVENORS-APPELLANTS.

Appeal from a decision of the Court of First Instance of Quezon Province in its Civil Case No. 5799,
rendered in 22 April 1966,
resolving a conflict between the parties about rights to use the waters of the Taguan River
and the Noynoyin Creek in Tiaong
and Candelaria of the Province
of Quezon.

For the proper understanding of the controversy, it is important
to recall the general topography of the region. 
As shown in the defendants-appellants’ sketch plan, Exhibit
“10”, which was admitted and adopted by plaintiffs-appellees (t.s.n., page 879), the main source of the
water for the areas in dispute is the Taguan River
that enters the region from the north and flows south.  This Taguan River
divides into two main branches, one that flows southeast (called by the court
below “Taguan Segundo” and “Puntor” by appellants) and another branch called the Noynoyin, that
arches first southwest and later southeast, forming an arc with the concavity
to the east, and rejoins the other branch further south at the juncture
with the Aguirra creek or canal, that continues
southward.  Another river which is
pertinent to this case is the Cabay
River which is to the East of the Aguirra Creek and
bounds the irrigated riceland of plaintiffs-appellees Del Valle on the west and south.

In 1918, defendants were granted water appropriation rights on
The Taguan river by the Department of Commerce and
Communications, after due investigation (Ehxibit
“B”).  But in 1940, plaintiffs cons­tructed at
the mouth of the Aguirra, and across it, a concrete
dam (designated as Del Valle dam) that impeded and reduced the water flow into
the Aguirra. 
Later on, in 1952, plaintiffs-appellees
increased the height of this dam, shutting off completely the water supply of
the Aguirra creek (an old irrigation canal) so that
“only a flood or heavy rain can cause the water to overflow . . . . . the
crest of the concrete dam.^[1]

Plaintiffs are the owners of a parcel of irrigated riceland with an area of twenty (20) hectares, more or
less, situated in barrio Kinatihan, Candelaria, Quezon, which
property was inherited from their deceased grandfather, Manuel del Valle.  Plaintiffs, in their complaint dated 6
October 1955, allege having irrigated the above riceland
by means of water coming from Noynoyin Creek
in barrio Cabay, Tiaong, Quezon, since Spanish times up to the present, and they
claim having acquired by prescription, to the exclusion of all others, the use
of all the volume of the Noynoyin creek’s water
passing over the dam of one Nicolas Maralit which is in the upper part of that creek.

Defendant and intervenors (otherwise
known as the Cabay irrigators) are the owners of
irrigated ricelands that abut the Aguirra
Creek below the dam in controversy.  It
is their position that Noynoyin Creek is part
of the Taguan
River and, therefore, as prior appropriators of the Taguan River
waters by virtue of the 1918 administrative concession, Exhibit “B”, plaintiffs cannot deprive them
from the use of the same.  On 27 September 1955, defendant Melecio Hernandez dug a ditch on his property connecting the Noynoyin
and Aguirra Creeks to draw water therefrom.  This ditch was closed in the first week of January, 1956 when the parties
reached a temporary agreement in the case, by the terms of which the plaintiffs
on one hand, and the defendant and the intervenors on
the other, were to use the waters from the Noynoyin
Creek on a fifty-fifty basis.

Plaintiffs contend that Noynoyin Creek
is a waterway separate and independent of the Taguan
River, having its own sources of water,
so that while they wholly agree that defendant and the intervenors are listed in Exhibit “B” as prior
appropriators of the Taguan River waters, any such
right should not encroach on the Noynoyin Creek
waters which are not part of the Taguan River.  It is
alleged by plaintiffs that the Cabay irrigators
availed of the use of a flume (alulod) over
plaintiffs’ dam at the Aguirra Creek to catch all the
volume of water from the Taguan
River bed to make it fall into and
flow through the said creek to irrigate their own lands.  This practice originated allegedly from time
immemorial up to the last time that the Cabay
irrigators made use of Taguan
River waters.  It is
plaintiffs’ further contention that the Cabay
irrigators availed exclusively of the
said river waters for irrigation purposes and that with the digging of the
ditch by defendant Hernandez (already closed pursuant to a temporary agreement
between the parties) the whole volume of natural water of the Noynoyin Creek was diverted to the Aguirra
Creek, thus depriving plaintiffs of their own exclusive right to use the Noynoyin Creek waters.

Alleging that if defendant will not be immediately enjoined to
desist from diverting and using the Noynoyin Creek
waters they would be unable to plow and prepare their above riceland
for the planting season and
would suffer damages of no less than P 8,000.00
for palay crop that would not be harvested for the
year, the plaintiffs del Valle asked for P1,000.00 attorney’s fees and other
damages suffered; prayed for the immediate issuance of a writ of mandatory
preliminary injunction against the de­fendant to maintain the status quo
and restore to plaintiffs the exclusive use of the water of Noynoyin
Creek and a writ of perpetual injunction to issue against defendant after the
trial of the case.  Lastly, plaintiffs
prayed that they and their predecessor-in-interest be declared as having
acquired a prescriptive right for the exclusive use of Noynoyin
Creek waters below the dam of Nicolas Maralit. 

Defendant Hernandez and intervenors
contend that, prior to the cons­truction of the del Valle dam across the Aguirra Creek, there was plenty of water
flowing into the creek from two sources, namely: the Noynoyin
Creek and the bed of Taguan
River.  With the construction of the dam, there is no
more water (not just scarcity) flowing into the Aguirra
Creek.  It is, however admitted by
defendant that plaintiffs and their predecessor-in-interest used to irrigate
their riceland with water flowing along the Aguirra
Creek by diverting the said water from time
to time through an old canal which was connected with, and in
perpendicular position to, the Aguirra Creek, about
100 meters below the present concrete dam. 
This practice was allegedly due to an arrangement between plaintiffs and
defendant, his predecessor-in-interest and other Cabay
irrigators which was considered satisfactory and equitable.  Hence, defendant contends that all the said
parties shared a common interest, not adverse to each other, in the use of
water flowing along the Aguirra Creek coming from Noynoyin Creek and Taguan River.  The use of a flume is denied by both the
defendant and intervenors.

Because of the concrete dam constructed by plaintiffs (appellees), defendant and intervenors
asked that plaintiffs pay to them jointly and severally a total of P165,000.00 in moral damages and
P66,000 in exemplary damages; excluding such further damages which de­fendant
and intervenors may prove at the trial.

The lower court decided the case against the defendant and intervenors,
declaring that defendant Hernandez had
no right to dig his canal connecting the Noynoyin
to the Aguirra
and enjoined him from making any construction on his land the effect of which would reduce the water
accumulating at the “del Valle” dam across the Aguirra Creek. 
Plaintiffs were allowed to remove the water gate which impedes the flow
of water from the controversial dam to plaintiffs’ ricefields
and “to restore the del Valle dam to its condition at the beginning of the
suit”.  The lower court dismissed
plaintiffs’ claim for damages as well as the counterclaim of defendant and intervenors, but sentenced defendant to pay to plaintiffs
attorney’s fees in the sum of P500.00.

The defendant and intervenors appealed
from the decision, raising both questions of fact and law.  The value in controversy exceed P200,000.00,
exclusive of interest and costs, appellants’ total claim for damages caused by
the alleged public nuisance (the controversial dam) alone being P339,936.00.  Since this appeal was perfected prior to the effectivity of R. A. No. 5440 on 9 September 1968, this Court still retains
exclusive appellate jurisdiction over the same.

Appellants claim that the lower court erred in holding that (a)
the Taguan River enters the region from the north
flowing generally to the south thus excluding the Noynoyin
Creek; (b) the Noynoyin Creek is an independent and
separate natural waterway from the Taguan River; (c)
the natural waterways Noynoyin Creek and Taguan Segundo end at the controversial dam; (d) the Aguirra Creek is an old irrigation canal that has been dug
running southwards; (e) there was preponderant evidence that plaintiffs
acquired a prescriptive right to use the Noynoyin
Creek waters; (f) the cement dam across the Aguirra
Creek may be restored and continued in use by plaintiffs; (g) the remedy of
defendant and intervenors is not against plaintiffs
but to institute proceedings under sections 4 and 2 of Irrigation Act No. 2125;
and (h) defendant is liable to pay to plaintiffs attorney’s fees in the amount
of P500.00 plus costs of suit.

The most important issue in this appeal is whether plaintiffs
indeed have acquired a prescriptive right over all the volume of the Noynoyin Creek waters that pass through the Maralit dam, to the exclusion of all others, as was in
effect held by the lower court when it found that “in 1925 and for more
than 20 years prior to 1912, plaintiffs had built the Valle and Cabay dams for the irrigation of plaintiffs’ ricefields“.  By
the Valle dam, the lower court obviously meant the controversial dam across the
Aguirre Creek^[2]
and by the Cabay dam, the lower court expressly
referred to the dam further east across the Cabay River.^[3]
The trial court’s conclusion is based
“(i) on the complaint in 1925 involving those
dams^[4] filed against
plaintiffs by Maria Ramos Sales
and Juan G. Ramos who then appeared to
have land abutting on the Aguirra; (ii) on the
official reports of Government Engineers Fernando E. V. Sison
(Exhibit “J-1”) and J.
V. Bagtas (Exhibit “J”); (iii) on the
affidavit of Manue del Valle (Exhibit
“I”); and (v) on the easement of buttress (see Solis v. Pujeda,
42 Phil. 697) which had existed for so many years on defendant’s land without objection from his
predecessors-in-interest”.

It can readily be seen in the foregoing that the lower court concluded
that the del Valle dam across the Aguirra Creek was
also a dam in dispute in 1925 when Maria Ramos Sales and Juan G. Ramos filed a
complaint against Manuel del Valle.  A
close examination, however, of Exhibit “J-1”, dated 14 September
1925, which is the report of engineer Sison regarding
said dispute investigated by him on 11 September 1925, shows that the stream
referred to therein, and from which diversion of water was to be made, was (and
still is) locally and officially called the Cabay
River.  Several sources of water of the
1925 irrigation system are mentioned in
the report, and they are (a) the ricefields at
sitio Noynoyin,^[5]  (b)
Talon Spring, and (c) ricefields at the north
side of the lot belonging to Mr. del Valle.^[6]
Paragraph 10 of the said report emphasized that the following should be
clearly understood^[7]:
(a) that water flowing through
the river above Dam B (which is the Cabay dam), and
through the irrigation canal Z (which
flows to the east from the Cabay dam, curving
to the south to connect with the Cabay River)^[8] are all coming from ricefields, and (b) that Talon Spring, under Dam B, constitutes mainly the source of the Cabay River proper.^[9]

While in the Sison 1925 Report, Exhibit “J-1”, Cabay River
is repeatedly mentioned, and its main source
of water used by del Valle is emphatically stated to be the Talon
Spring, no mention is made of
the Noynoyin Creek (which was already known to be such during the Spanish times) as a
source.  If the del Valle dam across the Aguirra
Creek was already an accessory to the whole del Valle irrigation system in 1925 and it was already
used to divert waters of Noynoyin Creek to irrigate plaintiffs’ ricelands in Sampaloc (as
subsequently reported by irrigation engineer Escobar in 1955, Exhibit “A”), engineer Sison could have readily mentioned it in his report, or at least
indicated the same in “Plan B”, attached thereto.  In one con­cluding
paragraph of his 1925 report, engineer Sison
said that “during the dry season, if the water available is not enough to
both the complainants and the respondent, privilege should be granted to Mr.
del Valle, the respondent, since he acquired the right of priority of
appropriations, having used the water uninterruptedly for more than 50
years”.  Since the report was
confined only to the Cabay River, the Cabay dam and the sources of water already
specified, of which Noynoyin Creek was never stated
to be one, it is erroneous for the trial court to conclude that the del Valle
dam in the present controversy was likewise existing, just like the Cabay dam,”in 1925 and for more
than 20 years prior to 1912″.

The main basis for engineer Sison’s
conclusion that Mr. del Valle had been using the water uninterruptedly for more
than 50 years, and, consequently, also that of engineer Bagtas
when he approved engineer Sison’s report (Exhibit
“J”, “J-1”), was the attached statement of Mr. del Valle,
dated 9 September 1925.^[10]
An analysis of this statement will show that it
speaks of “a dam in question which is an old existing dam more than fifty
(50) years old”.  Mr. del Valle
stated as having repaired it and “extended both ends so as to close the Cabay River.”^[11]
There is only one dam mentioned in the statement and the same clearly
referred to the Cabay dam, east of the Taguan.  Again, there
is no mention of Noynoyin Creek in Exhibit “L”,
hence, there is no basis at all to conclude that the Noynoyin Creek waters were also
being referred to.  Therefore, plaintiffs
have not acquired a prescriptive right over the said waters on the basis of
said Exhibit “L”.

The report of engineer Escobar (Exhibit “X”) dated 18 April 1955 was presented by plaintiffs to prove that an earthen dam across the Aguirra
Creek was already an accessory to the del Valle irrigation system in 1925.  The existence of such a dam was merely conjectured, and the same
author of that report, engineer Dionisio N. Escobar (who was plaintiffs’ own
witness in court) testified on cross-examination
that the dam across the Aguirre, now in controversy, was not
a part of the del Valle irrigation system in 1925; that said dam was
constructed only in 1940 and that there
is no record to show that said dam existed in 1925^[12]
(t.s.n., pages 493-494; 26 March1958).  The same witness categorically denied that the source of the del Valle irrigation system in
1925 was the Noynoyin Creek or the Taguan River, because he said that “according to the
record it comes from Cabay river” (t. s. n.,
page 500, Id).  Witness Escobar
thus reversed previous statements made by him on these material points in his
earlier report, Exhibit “A”, relied upon by plaintiffs del Valle.  He
further clarified that “the source of the present system^[13] is from Noynoyin
Creek and the Taguan Creek as per sketch”.  The sketch referred to is Exhibit “K” prepared in April, 1955 by one Jose P. Peralta and accompanied
still another report, dated 11 April 1955, of government engineer Vicente G. Alcañeses.^[14] This Exhibit “K” is a modification of the old plan prepared by engineer Sison in 1925^[15] and already embodies those subsequent
improvements actually seen during the course of engineer Alcañeses’
ocular inspection in 1955.  A close look at Exhibit “K” will reveal that the old canal “X” indicated in the 1925
“Plan B” still appears.  In the
1925 report, engineer Sison^[16]
had stated that “the water flowing thru X (see attached plan B) comes from the ricefields
at sitio Noynoyin;
and the water flowing thru Y is
that of course from X in addition to that flowing from Talon Spring . . .
.” This canal “X” is clearly different from the
“man-made-canal” shown on Exhibit “K” (marked “Exhibit
2” therein) connecting the Aguirra Creek and Cabay dams.  Both, as
already stated, appear on Exhibit
“K”, canal “X” being
lower.  Hence, while it is clear that the canal, Exhibit “2”, diverts the waters of the Noynoyin
Creek eastward towards the Cabay dam from the del
Valle dam across the mouth of the Aguirra Creek, its
existence in 1925 is by no means established; for the plan attached to the 1925
Sison report (Exhibit “4) does not show it, That connecting canal can not be the canal “X” in Exhibit “4”, since the arrows indi­cate that the flow of water in the latter comes from the south and
not from the west.

Finally, engineer Escobar testified that he could not definitely
say whether this “man-made-canal” (Exhibit “2”, supra)
connecting the Aguirra Creek dam and the Cabay dam existed when “Plan B” was prepared in
1925.  He said that if that existed at
the time, it would have been placed on the said plan.

Escobar’s testimony is further strengthened by the report of
engineer Vicente Alcañeses dated 11 April 1955^[17]
that “the decision handed down by the then District engineer, J. V. Bagtas^[18],
con­cerning the water rights of del Valle over the Cabay River cannot be applied to the present
dispute”.  Alcañeses
found it clear, as a result of his ocular inspection, that the dam in controversy in the present del
Valle-Hernandez case could not have been the dam under litigation in the
Ramos-Sales vs. del Valle case of 1925, inasmuch as the dam in controversy in
the present appeal was found by him to have
been cons­tructed only in 1940, with improvements and repairs done in April,
1952.

It is indeed remarkable that among the concessionaires of
appropriators of water from the Taguan
River listed in the Govern­ment
concession of 1918 (Exhibit “B”), the name of del Valle does not
appear, while those of appellants are specified.  The attempted explanation of appellees, and their witnesses, that appellants drew water
exclusively from the Taguan and Taguan
Segundo (or Puntor) by means of a wooden flume (alulod) over the Noynoyin can not
be true, for the Government concession, Exhibit “B”, makes no mention
thereof, despite its manifest importance for excluding the waters of the Noynoyin Creek from those of the Taguan
River granted to appellants.  Neither is
any such structure mentioned in the Sison-Bagtas
report of 1925, or in the Alcañeses report of
1955.  Such an unusual device could not
have escaped the attention of the engineers that inspected the site in 1918,
1925 and 1955.

Clearer still against the del Valles‘
claim of exclusive use of the waters of the Noynoyin
Creek is the undenied fact that Nicolas Maralit, one of the water concessionaires of the Government
in 1918 (No. 2 in Exhibit “B”) had his own diversion dam in the Noynoyin Creek above the mouth of the Aguirra
(shown in the Plan, Exhibit “10”, with the label “Sala Maralit“).  And there is no evidence that the del
Valles ever protested against the construction of
this dam.

At any rate, the abusiveness of the erection (and subsequent
elevation) of the del Valle dam across the mouth of the Aguirra,
to the detriment of appellants who derive from the latter the water for their
own ricefields, is the remark of plaintiffs-appellees‘ own witness,
engineer Escobar, in his report, Exhibit “A”, paragraph 4:

“But with the construction of the Aguirra dam, Mr. Del Valle is not only appropriating water
from the Noynoyin River but also from the Taguan River, allowing only water which overflows
for the use of the irrigation (irrigators) below the dam in controversy.”
(Emphasis supplied)

The other basis for the lower court’s conclusion that plaintiffs-appellees acquired a prescriptive right over the Noynoyin Creek is the easement of buttress (Solis vs. Pujeda, 42 Phil. 697) which allegedly existed on the land
of defendant-appellant Hernandez for many years without objection on his
part.  The easement of buttress is
specifically provided for under Article 143 of the Law of Waters, which states
that –

“If the dam is for the use of public waters the Government shall
make an investigation of record, and upon granting the concession, shall
after hearing the owner of the land, decree also the compulsory easement of
buttress.  If the waters are of private ownership, the easement shall
be imposed by the governor of the province subject to the procedure established
for the easement of conduit.”

In the above-cited case of Solis vs. Pujeda,
it was held that, by Article 143
of the Law of Waters, an easement of buttress can be imposed by administrative
authority with respect to land lying adjacent to public or private waters; but
in such case it is required
that an investigation of record shall be made before the easement of buttress
is decreed.^[19]  The Court further said that –

“For the
purpose of this decision it may be
taken for granted that the Bureau of Lands is the proper repository of the
administrative authority conferred in said article with respect to the
decreeing of the easement in case of public waters, and the Director of Lands
may be assumed to be the proper official to conduct the investigation and make
the appropriate order.  Nevertheless,
the making of the investigation of record is an essential prerequisite to the
exercise of the power.  This implies
that the interested parties shall have an opportunity to be heard and that
record be made of the proof adduced with reference to the proposed servi­tude
and the damage to result therefrom.  These for­malities are essential;
otherwise, the decreeing of the servitude would be obnoxious to the constitutional provision which forbids
the taking of property without due process of law.  The
administrative in­vestigation contemplated in article 143 of the Law of Waters
must proceed along the lines of a judicial inquiry, at least to the extent of
giving the parties an opportunity to be heard and making record of the proof
pertinent to their respective contentions.” (Underscoring supplied)

Defendant Melecio Hernandez in his
deposition^[20]
stated that the concrete dam was constructed in 1940 stealthily and without his
knowledge and that when he discovered the same about one-half year later after
its construction, he requested the overseer of Mr. del Valle to have the dam
opened, but the request went unheeded.  Instead, the
dam was increased in height in April, 1952, thereby closing the source of water
of the Aguirre Creek.  The defendant
stated that he was angered when he learned of the dam being abutted to his riceland but he was unable to do anything after its
discovery because of the disorder during the Japanese times.  However, a petition by the Cabay irrigators was later on filed with the local
municipal authorities^[21]
a copy of which was subsequently presented to the PCAC, Malacañan,
with an accompanying letter of Atty. Francisco Hernandez^[22],
but no effective redress was obtained.  Instead,
an endorsement of the previous findings
of engineers J.V. Bagtas and E.V. Sison^[23], already discussed, was made.

Plaintiffs tried to prove notice to the appellees
of the construction of the concrete dam through witness Anastacio de Rosales, but this
witness’ credibility becomes doubtful when he testified that he contacted
Sebastian Rodriguez, overseer of Dionisio Cabuniag (among other Cabay
irrigators), in May, 1940 and
talked to him (t.s.n., page 49, 10 December 1956), but
Sebastian Rodriguez turned out to be dead as early as 4 February 1956, as shown in his death certificate,
Exhibit “I”.

The applicable laws on prescription
require 20 years adverse uninterrupted possession.

“ART. 39.  The right to
enjoy in perpetuity the waters of
springs and creeks is acquired by the owners of lower estates, and in the same way by those adjoining
estates when they have appropriated said waters without interruption for a space of twenty years.” (Spanish
Law of Waters of 3 August 1866)

“ART. 194.  Any person who has enjoyed the use of public waters for a term of twenty
years without objection on the part of the authorities or of any third person,
shall continue in its enjoyment, even
though he may not be able to show that he
secured proper permission.” (Id.)

“ART. 409.  The use of public waters is acquired:

(1)  
By administrative concession.

(2)   By prescription of twenty years.”

(Civil Code of 1889, now Art. 504, N.C.C.)

For prescription to set in, the
possession must be adverse, continuous, public and to the exclusion of all other
persons.^[24]

This Court finds no clear, preponderant evidence that plaintiffs
have been using the waters of Noynoyin Creek uninterruptedly
for twenty years or more, much less to the exclusion of all others.  Hence, they cannot be declared to have acquired a prescriptive right
over the said waters.  Such preponderance must be clear, to nullify
the 1918 Government grant of water rights in favor of appellants herein.

Plaintiffs’ theory that the Aguirre Creek dam was an accessory to
the whole del Valle irrigation system in
1925 must be rejected as without basis. 
The only clear proof is that appellees del
Valle started to appropriate Noynoyin Creak waters
exclusively for themselves only in 1940 when a concrete dam was constructed at
the mouth of the Aguirre Creek.  Since
only about 15 years have elapsed from the time the waters were first
appropriated by the appellees in 1940 up to the
filing of the complaint in October, 1955, it is this Court’s opinion that the
parties shared jointly in the use of Noynoyin Creek
waters before 1940 and, therefore, the use by appellees
del Valle was not ex­clusive nor adverse to others.  Under the facts, defendant Hernandez must be
absolved from the liability to pay attorney’s fees to plaintiffs.

Appellants’ claim for damage to their crops must be denied for
the reason that they are already sharing in the use of the waters pursuant to
an arrangement agreed upon during the trial of the case in January, 1956, and
their evidence of crop losses during the previous years is far from satisfactory.  It is not only the shares of the tenants that
must be deducted from the value of the crops allegedly lost, but also the land
taxes and production costs shouldered by them, and there is no proof of their
import.  Moreover, the law places on the shoulders
of the party suffering loss or injury the duty of exercising the diligence of a
good father of a family to minimize his damages (Civil Code of the Philippines,
Article 2203, Castelvi vs. Cia
General de Tabacos, 49 Phil. 998); and it is clear
from the record that appellees herein only sought remedy in December,
1954.  Nevertheless, considering that
plaintiffs-appellees del Valle, not content with
reducing the water available for the appellants’ fields by the cons­truction of
the dam in controversy, deliberately blocked totally their water supply by
increasing the elevation of the
dam in 1952, without appellants’ consent and without government authorization,
this Court finds that said appellants are entitled to recover moral damages
pursuant to the first part of Article 2220 of the Civil Code of the
Philippines, providing that –

“ART. 2220.  Willful injury to property may be legal
ground for awarding moral damages if the court should find that under the
circumstances such damages are justly due.”

These damages are assessed at P2,000.00 for each of the
appellants, defendant as well as intervenors.

In addition, justice and equity demand that plaintiffs-appellees be further sentenced to pay appellants P5,000.00
by way of attorneys’ fees,
since appellants, who are small landholders, were forced to enter into a litigation that they could ill afford
in order to protect their interests (Article 2208, paragraphs 2 and 11, Civil
Code).

WHEREFORE, the decision appealed from is reversed, and a
new one entered dismissing the complaint and sentencing plaintiffs-appellees del Valle to demolish at their expense the dam
they erected at the confluence of the Noynoyin and Aquirra creeks in the municipalities of Tiaong
and Candelaria, Quezon
Province, within ninety (90) days from the finality of this decision; to pay
jointly and severally
to defendant-appellant Melecio Hernandez P2,000.00
by way of moral damages, and a like sum to each and every intervenor-appellant.  In addition, said appellee
shall pay P5,000.00 attorneys’ fees, and the costs.

Dizon, Makalintal,
Zaldivar, Ruiz Castro, Fernando, Teehankee,
Barredo, and Makasiar, JJ., concur.

Concepcion, C.J., on official leave.

Villamor, J., did not take part.

^[1]
Exhibit “3”.

^[2]
Point “E”, Exhibit
“10”.

^[3]
Point “0-1”, Id.

^[4]
Emphasis supplied; Decision, Record on Appeal, page 2.

^[5]
Exhibit “J-2”.

^[6]
Exhibit “5”.

^[7]
Emphasis supplied.

^[8]
See Exhibit “4”.

^[9]
Emphasis supplied.

^[10]
Exhibit “L”.

^[11]
Underscoring supplied.

^[12]
Emphasis supplied.

^[13]
Underscoring supplied.

^[14]
Exhibit “3”, supra.

^[15]
“Plan B”, Exhibit “4”, supra.

^[16]
Exhibit “J-1”, supra.

^[17]
Exhibit
“3”, supra.

^[18]
Exhibit “J”,
ante.

^[19]
Emphasis supplied.

^[20]
Exhibit “7-B”.

^[21]
Exhibit “F-1” (Undated).

^[22]
Exhibit “F”, dated 7
December 1954.

^[23]
Exhibits “J” and “J-1”, respectively.

^[24]
Corpuz vs. Padilla, 5 SCRA 814.