CONSUELO MALALUAN VDA. DE RECINTO, PETITIONER, VS. RUPERTO INCIONG AND COURT OF APPEALS, RESPONDENTS.

Petition for review on certiorari of the decision of the Court
of Appeals which reversed the decision of the trial court in a suit for
recovery of possession of a parcel of land.

Ruperto Inciong
(hereinafter referred to as private respondent) is the registered owner of a parcel of land located in Barrio Santol, Mataasnakahoy, Batangas, with an area of 34,263 square meters covered by
Transfer Certificate of Title No. Rt-379 (T-211) of the Register of Deeds of Batangas.  The land
was formerly identified as Lot No. 8151 of the Cadastral Survey in the area during the cadastral
proceedings from 1936 to 1940.  Private
respondent acquired this land in 1946 by purchase from Matias
Amurao.  In
1961, after a relocation survey of the land
was effected it was discovered that its southern boundary covering an
area of 8,591 square meters was in the possession of petitioner, Consuelo Malaluan Vda. de Recinto.  In due time
private respondent filed an action for recovery of possession of the portion
held by the petitioner.  In her answer to
private respondent’s complaint, petitioner claimed to be the owner of the area
in question and as counter-claim demanded its reconveyance from the private respondent.

After trial, the lower court rendered judgment declaring the
petitioner to be the lawful owner of the land in question and ordering private
respondent to execute a deed of reconveyance over the
same in favor of petitioner.  However, on
appeal said judgment was reversed by the Court of Appeals in a decision the dispositive portion of which, reads:

“WHEREFORE, the judgment rendered by the trial court is hereby
ordered reversed, and another one entered, by ordering defendant-appellee to return that portion of 8,591 square meters of
the land in question to plaintiff-appellant; to pay damages in the sum of
P100.00 a month from the time of the filing of the action until the property is
returned; to pay further the sum of P1,000.00 for attorney’s fees; and for
defendant to pay the costs in both instances.”

A motion
to reconsider said decision proved unavailing.  Hence, this petition for review, petitioner
faulting the Court of Appeals –

I.   IN NOT CONSIDERING THAT IT WAS THRU ERROR
THAT THE AREA IN DISPUTE WAS INCLUDED IN THE TITLE OF RESPONDENT RUPERTO
INCIONG AND HIS PREDECESSORS, AND THAT THE DECREE OF REGISTRATION WAS NULL AND
VOID AB INITIO WITH RESPECT TO SAID AREA;

II.   IN
NOT CONSIDERING THAT THE LAND IN QUESTION WAS NOT INCLUDED IN THE SALE
BY MATIAS AMURAO TO RESPONDENT RUPERTO INCIONG, AND THAT IT HAS NOT YET PASSED INTO THE HANDS OF AN “INNOCENT
PURCHASER FOR VALUE”;

III.  IN NOT SEEING THAT RESPONDENT RUPERTO INCIONG,
IN CLAIMING THE LAND IN QUESTION, IS ACTING IN BAD FAITH AND TRYING TO ENRICH
HIMSELF AT THE EXPENSE OF PETITIONER;

IV. IN DECLARING IN EFFECT THAT PETITIONER’S EXHIBIT
“4”, DEED OF DONATION PROPTER NUPTIAS AND EXHIBIT “3-A”,
DEED OF SALE, ARE INVALID AND WITHOUT LEGAL FORCE AND EFFECT;

V.  IN REVERSING THE DECISION OF THE TRIAL COURT.

It is evident from the records that the area in dispute is a part
of the land formerly owned by Petronilo Acar.  On March 11, 1918, Petronilo
Acar sold the same to the spouses Mariano Recinto and Marta Magsumbol
(Exhibit 3-A).  On July 2, 1931, said spouses conveyed the said
property by way of a donation propter nuptias to petitioner Consuelo Malaluan
Vda. de Recinto and her
late husband, Juanario Recinto.  Since then, petitioner and her late husband
have been in open, public and continuous possession of the entire property
including that portion now in question which adjoins private respondent’s land
on the north.  The adjoining lands have
since then been separated by a fence consisting of morado,
madre cacao, antipolo
and other kinds of living trees.  The
land north of the disputed area which is now in the name of the private
respondent was previously owned by Norberto Leyesa,
the Templos, Atty. Ponciano
Hernandez and Matias Amurao.  All of these previous owners of the land
admitted that they recognized the fence of the property in question and
disclaimed any interest or right over the disputed portion.  Private respondent acquired his land from Matias Amurao while the latter
purchased the same from Atty. Ponciano
Hernandez.  Atty. Hernandez disclosed
that the area he acquired from his predecessor-in-interest was only that parcel
north of the disputed area separated by the fence (Exhibit I) and that he never
exercised nor claimed any right over the land in question.  Said land was the same piece of land that he
sold to Matias Amurao who
also had only occupied the same area and did not go over the dividing
line.  The only boundary that Matias Amurao could point to the
private respondent as separating the land that he was then selling from that
owned by petitioner was the fence (Exhibit I). 
It was also the same parcel of land which Matias
Amurao conveyed to private respondent in 1946.  During the ocular inspection conducted by the
trial court it was found out that the disputed portion and the land adjoining
it on the north (private respondent’s) are separated by a long fence consisting
of morado, madre
cacao, antipolo and other kinds of trees
which could not be less than 25 years old, with a single line of a rusty barbed
wire.  Inside the disputed area were
coconut trees and other plants similar to those found in the land of the
petitioner but different from those improvements in the land of the private
respondent.  As found by the trial court
the preponderance of evidence shows that the area in question has been
erroneously included in the cadastral survey of Lot No. 8151 and in the
original certificate of title without the knowledge of the parties concerned.  As a result, the same description in the
original certificate of title was carried over into the succeeding transfer
certificates of title of the subsequent owners covering the same parcel of
land.  This is confirmed by the fact that
private respondent’s predecessors-in-interest and later, private respondent
himself, have all along treated the area in question as belonging to the
petitioner.  What seemed to have prompted
private respondent to get interested over the disputed area was when he came to
learn after the relocation survey in 1961 that said disputed area was included
in his title.  Obviously then, the
inclusion of said area in the title of Lot No. 8151 is void and of no effect
for a land registration Court has no jurisdiction to decree a lot to persons
who have put no claim in it and who have never asserted any right of ownership
over it.^[1]
The Land Registration Act as well as the Cadastral Act protects only the
holders of a title in good faith and does not permit its provisions to be used
as a shield for the commission of fraud, or that one should enrich himself at
the expense of another.  Resort to the
provisions of said Acts do not give one a better title than he really and
lawfully has.^[2]
In the case at bar, private respondent could not have acquired an area more
than what was actually conveyed to him by Matias Amurao which extended only as far as the dividing fence on
the south thereof (Exhibit I).  The mere
possession of a certificate of title under the Torrens
system does not necessarily make the possessor a true owner of all the property
described therein for he does not by virtue of said certificate alone become
the owner of the land illegally included.^[3]
It is evident from the records that the petititioner
owns the portion in question and therefore the area should be conveyed to
her.  The remedy of the land owner whose
property has been wrongfully or erroneously registered in another’s name is,
after one year from the date of the decree, not to set aside the decree, but,
respecting the decree as incontrovertible and no longer open to review, to
bring an ordinary action in the ordinary court of justice for reconveyance or, if the property has passed into the hands
of an innocent purchaser for value, for damages.^[4]
This was what petitioner did.  But was private respondent an innocent
purchaser for value?  We can hardly
consider private respondent one because at the time he purchased the land
covered by the certificate of title now in his hands he was aware that the disputed portion was not included in the
area conveyed to him by Matias Amurao.  This is clearly evident when he acknowleged as the true boundary the one (Exhibit I)
pointed to him by Matias Amurao
between his land and the disputed portion by not raising any question about it
and not disturbing the possession of the petitioner over the area in dispute
for almost 15 years.  A purchaser in good
faith is one who buys the property of another without notice that some other
person has a right to, or interest in, such property and pays a full and fair
price for the same, at the time of such purchase, or before he has notice of
the claim or interest of some other person in the property.^[5]

In its decision, the Court of Appeals underscored the alleged
defects in the deed of sale executed by Petronilo Acar in favor of the spouses Marta Magsumbol
and Mariano Recinto in 1918 (Exhibit 3-A) and of the
donation propter nuptias made
by the latter in favor of the petitioner and her late husband, Juanario Recinto, in 1931 as
having substantially weakened the case of the latter.  It appears that the deed of sale executed by Petronilo Acar was not registered
in the office of the Register of Deeds and that the donation propter nuptias was
only embodied in a private instrument. 
We note, however, that said alleged defects were not raised in issue by
the private respondent before the trial
court.  Hence, it was improper for the
Court of Appeals to have considered them as the same could not have even been
raised for the first time on appeal.^[6]

As to the claim of private respondent that petitioner’s action
for reconveyance of the land in the form of a
counterclaim has long been barred by prescription, suffice it to state that
private respondent and his predecessors-in-interest have never possessed the
land in question nor claimed it to be their own and if private respondent ever
claimed it after fifteen (15) years from the time he acquired the land covered
by his title, it was because the same was erroneously included in his title.^[7]
Moreover, the defense of prescription interposed by the private respondent
cannot be entertained as it has been raised only for the first time in this
instance.^[8]

IN VIEW OF ALL THE FOREGOING, the decision of the
respondent Court of Appeals is hereby reversed and set aside and another one
entered, ordering private respondent to return to petitioner the disputed
portion of the land in question covering an area of 8,591 square meters; to pay
petitioner damages in the sum of P100.00 a month from the time of the filing of
the action until the property is returned and the sum of P1,000.00 for
attorney’s fees.  The Register of Deeds
of Batangas is further ordered to segregate said
disputed portion from the entire portion embraced by Transfer Certificate of
Title No. Rt-379 (T-211) and issue a new certificate of title in favor of
petitioner over said disputed portion and another new certificate of title over
the remaining portion of the land in question in favor of private respondent
after cancelling Transfer Certificate of Title No.
Rt-379 (T-211).  With costs against
private respondent.

SO ORDERED.

Teehankee, (Chairman), Makasiar, Antonio, and Muñoz Palma, JJ., concur.

^[1]
Director of Lands vs. Abache, 73 Phil. 117, citing P.I.
vs. Triño, 50 Phil. 708.

^[2]
Angeles vs. Samia, 66 Phil. 444, citing Gustilo vs. Maravilla, 48
Phil. 442; Angelo vs. Director of Lands, 49 Phil. 838.

^[3]
Ledesma vs. Municipality
of Iloilo, 49 Phil. 769.

^[4]
Marta Quiñano vs. Court of Appeals, et al., 39
SCRA 221, citing Cabanos vs. Register of
Deeds, 92 Phil. 826. Cf. Avecilla vs. Yatco, 103 Phil. 666; Nebrada vs.
Heirs of Alivio, 104 Phil. 126; Roco
vs. Gimeda, 104 Phil. 1011; Aragon vs.
Aragon, 105 Phil. 365; Republic vs. Heirs of Carle, 105 Phil. 1227; Moldero vs. Yandoc, 3 SCRA
246; Alzona vs. Capunitan,
4 SCRA 450; Juan vs. Zuñiga, 4 SCRA 1221; J.M.
Tuazon & Co. vs. Macalindong,
6 SCRA 938; Gonzales vs. Jimenez, 13 SCRA 80; also Palma vs. Cristobal, 77 Phil. 713; Manarpac
vs. Cabanatan, 21 SCRA 743, citing Casilan vs. Espartero, 95
Phil. 799; Caladiao vs. Vda.
de Blas, 10 SCRA 691.

^[5]
Cui and Joven vs. Henson, 51 Phil. 606; Fule vs. De Legare, 7 SCRA
351.

^[6]
Ng Chio Cio vs. Ng Diong, 1 SCRA 275; City of Manila vs. Ebay, 1 SCRA 1086; Republic vs. Aricheta,
2 SCRA 469; Zambales Chromite
Mining Co. vs. Robles, 2 SCRA 1051; Republic vs. Albert, 4 SCRA
173; Ferrer vs. Commissioner of Internal
Revenue, 5 SCRA 1022; Rebodos vs. WCC, 6 SCRA
717; J.M. Tuazon vs. Macalindong,
6 SCRA 938; Mendoza vs. Melia, 17 SCRA 788; Dirige vs. Biranya, 17
SCRA 840; Ramos vs. Pepsi-Cola Bottling Co., 19 SCRA 289; Sumerariz vs. DBP, 21 SCRA 1374; Manila Port Service
vs. Court of Appeals, 22 SCRA 1364; San Miguel Brewery vs. Joves, 23 SCRA 1093; Luzon Surety vs. De Garcia, 30
SCRA 111; De Tanedo vs. De la Cruz, 32 SCRA
63; Atlas Consolidated Mining and Development Corp. vs. WCC, 33 SCRA
132; Reparations Commission vs. Northern Lines, 34 SCRA 203; National
Marketing Corp. vs. Federation of United Namarco
Distributors, 49 SCRA 238; Arangco vs. Baloso, 49 SCRA 296.

^[7]
Angeles vs. Samia, supra.

^[8]
J.M. Tuason vs. Macalindong,
6 SCRA 938; Phil. Iron Mines vs. Abear, 21
SCRA 652; Blanco vs. WCC, 29 SCRA 8.