G.R. No. L-20047. June 30, 1967
PETRA HAWPIA, PETITIONER, VS. COURT OF APPEALS AND AURELIA ALTEA, RESPONDENTS.
DIZON, J.:
Appeal by certiorari taken by Petra Hawpia
from the decision of the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. No. L-11849-R modifying
that of the Court of First Instance of Quezon
Province in Civil Case No. 5271 and sentencing her to pay Aurelia Altea the, sum of P13,000.00 as actual and moral damages
and P4,000.00 and attorney’s fees.
Briefly, the facts are the following:
On August 2, 1932
Petra Hawpia purchased Lot No. 86 of the Cadastral
Survey of Atimonan, Tayabas
(now Quezon) from Valeriano Neala for the sum of
P490.00. The contract provided that Neala could repurchase the property within period of ten
years for the same amount.
Subsequently, Hawpia filed an
application with the Court of First Instance of Tayabas
for the registration of said lot in her name (Cadastral Proceedings No. 63,
G.L.R: Record No. 1019). In a decision rendered
on December 8, 1937, the
Court adjudicated the property to her, and after the decree of registration had
become final, Original Certificate of Title No. 43125 in her name was issued by
the Register of Deeds of Tayabas.
Subsequently, in Civil Case No. 1125 of the then Justice of the
Peace Court of Atimonan, Quezon,
Neala was sentenced to pay
the sum of P38.36 to Jose Escaga, alias Sia Chin Ting.
Having failed to satisfy the judgment, a writ of execution was issued,
and pursuant thereto Neala’s right to repurchase Lot
No. 8610 was levied upon and sold at public auction by the Provincial Sheriff
of Quezon for the sum of P490.00 on May 29, 1937 to
Aurelia Altea – the Filipina common-law wife of Jose Escasa, a Chinese subject and the final certificate of sale
was issued to her on June 10, 1938. The
amount of P490.00 paid by Altea to the Provincial
Sheriff was, in turn, deposited by the latter with the Clerk of Court but was
later on withdrawn by Hawpia.
Within one year from the issuance of the final decree of
registration in favor of Petra Hawpia, Altea filed in the same proceedings two petitions: one, for
the reopening and review of the decree, and another, for the issuance of an
order requiring Hawpia to execute a deed of reconveyance of the lot in question in her favor. After due hearing, the Cadastral Court
ordered the reopening of the decree of registration aforementioned and
afterwards ordered the cancellation of OCT No. 43125 issued in the name of Hawpia, and the issuance in lieu thereof of TCT No. 20400
in the name of Altea.
From this decision Hawpia appealed, first to
the Court of Appeals and later to this Court (G.R. Nos. 48209 & G. R. No. L-952). Both
appellate courts affirmed the decision of the lower court (Exhs.
9-A and 9-B).
Sometime in 1947 Jose Escasa and
Aurelia Altea, who had been living together as
husband and wife for 16 years and had begotten seven children, lived separately
for a period of four months due to jealousy.
During this period Escasa filed an action against Altea in the Court of
First Instance of Quezon (Civil Case No. 476) to
compel her to reconvey the 8 parcels of laud acquired
by them between 1937-1946, including Lot No. 8610, all in the name of Altea, in favor of their sin living children Norberto,
Gloria, Jose, Jr., Corazon, Fely and Zenaida, who were joined as party defendants. The complaint alleged the following among
other things:
“1. Que es mayor de edad, ciudadano chino, commerciante con
residencia actual en el barrio Summit, municipio de Atimonan, Quezon.
“La demandada es mayor de edad, soltera, residente actualmente en el barrio Poktol, municipio de Unisan, Quezon, donde pueda
ser emplazada de esta demanda.
“2 – Que las partes en esta causa, sin haberse casado, se unieron y convivieron como
marido y mujer por espacio de unos diez y seis
(16) años a esta fecha, hebiendo por tal motivo
tenido hijos cuyos nombres son los siguientes.
“1.
Ernesto Escasa, muerto
y sin heredero;
“2.
Norberto Escasa de 13 años de edad;
“3. Gloria
Escasa de 12 años de edad;
“4. Jose Escasa, Jr. de 10 años de edad;
“5. Corazon Escasa de 8 años de edad;
“6. Fely
Escasa de 6 años de edad;
“7. Zenaida Escasa de 5 años de edad.
“3, – Que durante
el periodo de diez y seis -(16) años,
arriba mancionado, en que las partes
en esta causa convivieron, el demandante adquirio en compra las siguientes propiedades inmuebles, a saber:
x x x x x x x xx
“OCTAVA PARCELAS – Una parcela de terreno cocal dubierto por el certificado de transferencia, de titulo No.
20400, del registro
de la propiedad de esta provincia de Quezon.
El demandante adquirio
dicha parcela en la subasta publica llevada a cabo por el Sheriff provincial de este provincia por la suma de P150.00 con los gastos incidentales.
“4. – Que las propiedades descritas arriba fueron adquiridas
por el demandante de su propio peculio
y para sus hijos arriba nombrados,
pero los documentos correspondientes se otorgaron a nombre de la demandada tanto por razon de confianza
como por los motivos siguiented
(a) Porque la constitucion filipina no permite que los ciudadanos
chinos adquieran propiedades
inmuebles en estas Islas, x x x
x.” (pp. 2-3, Complaint, Exh. C).
Shortly after Altea had filed her
answer, the parties were reconciled and lived together again. Two years after the filing of the complaint,
however, a certain Atty. de Guzman prepared for Altea’s
signature a petition in Tagalog entitled: “Salaysay sa
Juzgado” which the latter signed in the belief –
as she was assured – that it was necessary avoid further litigation. Filed in courts on April 26, 1949, the document read as follows:
“Humaharap ngayong
ang demandada sa asuntong ito
at sa Kagalangalang ng Juzgado ay nagsasaysay:
1. Na tutoo at tinatangap
niya ang lahat at bawat isa sa anim na pangkat
na bumubuo ng demanda laban
sa akin ni Jose Escasa, na may fecha 8 de Mayo, 1947.
2. Na pumapayag ng
kusang loob na nombrahang Tutor si Jose Escasa ng mga bienes
na walong (8) parcela na binabangit
sa nasabing demanda, na pagaari
ng aming mga anak na
ang ngalan ay nababangit na sa
pangkat No. 2 ng naulit na demanda.
3. Na pumapayag na sentenciahan o pasiyahan ng Kagalanggalang
na Juzgado ang asuntong ito
susog sa kahilingan sa demanda
at sa hinaharap na kasagutan, na
walang costas.
Lucena, Quezon,
Abril 26, 1949.
Lubos na
gumagalang
(Sgd.) AURELIA ALTEA
Demandada
“Suscrito y jurado
ante mi por Aurelia Altea,
con certificado de residencia
No. A.-3037868, expedido
en Lucena, provincia de Quezon, el dia 16 Febrero, 1949, hoy a 26 de Abril, 1949.
(Sgd.) GREGORIO L. GONZALES
Escribano
JUZGADO DE PRIMERA
INSTANCIA DE QUEZON”
As consequence, judgment
was rendered by the Court on May 11,
1949 declaring that the 8 lots, including Lot No. 8610 were the property in
common and pro-indiviso of the seven minor children abovenamed, and should be registered in their names, and
ordering Escasa to institute within 30 days the
necessary guardianship proceedings.
Upon being informed by her counsel – who happened to come across
the record of Civil Case No. 4763 – that Altea was
merely a dummy of Escasa in the, purchase of lot
8610, Petra Hawpia and her husband, Sergio Tan See, a
naturalized Filipino filed on October 20, 1951 the present action (Civil Case
No. 5271) in the Court of First Instance of Quezon
Province against Altea and Escasa,
praying for the (1) cancellation of TCT No. 20400 and (2) for the re-conveyance
to them of Lot No. 8610. As ground for
the action they alleged that the purchase at the auction sale of said lot by Escasa, through his common-law wife, was tainted with fraud
and misrepresentation and was therefore null and void, it being furthermore violative of the provision of C.A. No. 108, as amended by
C.A. No. 421 end R.A. 134 in relation to Section 5, Article XII of the
Constitution.
In their answer the defendants set up the affirmative defenses of
prescription and the indefeasibility of their Torrens
title, and pleaded a counterclaim for damages, legitimate expenses and
attorney’s fees in the sum of P17,000.00.
After trial, the lower Court rendered judgment on February 24, 1953 dismissing the
complaint, with costs against the plaintiffs, as well as defendants’ counterclaim,
for lack of merit. Both parties appealed
to the Court of Appeals.
On June 18,1962 the Court of Appeals rendered the appealed
judgment, the dispositive portion of which is as
follows:
“With all these circumstances, it can easily be gleaned that,
indeed, plaintiffs-appellants’ purpose in filing the present action was merely
to harass herein defendants-appellants.
As a consequence, defendants incurred not only actual but also moral
damages, aside from attorney’s fees. We,
therefore, sentence plaintiffs-appellants to pay defendants-appellant the sum
of P13,000.00, as actual and moral damages and the
further sum of P4,000.00 as attorney’s fees.
“‘WHEREFORE, except as above modified the judgment appealed
from is hereby affirmed, with costs against plaintiffs appellants.”
In support of her appeal, petitioner raises the following
questions: (1) that the Court of Appeals erred in not declaring that Lot No.
8610 of the Cadastral Survey of Atimonan, province
of Quezon, was bought by Jose Escasa
and that the latter being then a Chinese citizen, the transaction was null and
void; (2) that, as a consequence, it also erred in not ordering Jose Escasa, Aurelia Altea and their
children to reconvey said lot to petitioner; and
lastly, that the Court of Appeals erred in sentencing petitioner to pay damages
to Aurelia Altea.
Upon the facts stated heretofore, We
find the present appeal to be without merit.
Petitioner’s theory is that while Aurelia Altea
appeared to be the highest bidder at the auction sale of lot 8610, the real
purchaser was her common-law husband Jose Escasa, and
that whatever donation is claimed to have been intended in favor of their
children was a mere subterfuge to go around the constitutional prohibition
against the acquisition of agricultural lands by aliens. The Court of Appeals, however, held – and
with this we agree that petitioner utterly failed to prove this contention by
substantial evidence.
Moreover, as stated above, as a result of the petitions filed by
Aurelia Altea in Cadastral Case No. 63, G.L.R.O.
Record No, 1019, the Court of First Instance of Quezon
Province reopened the registration proceedings and, after hearing the parties,
ordered the cancellation of Original Certificate of Title No. 43125 issued in
the name of petitioner Petra Hawpia any ordered the
issuance, in lieu thereof, of a transfer certificate of title over the same
property in favor of Aurelia Altea, to whom in fact
Transfer Certificate of Title No. 20400 was thereafter issued. From said decision petitioner appealed to the
Court of Appeals where the decision was affirmed. Not yet satisfied, petitioner appealed to us,
but we, likewise affirmed the decision rendered by the Court of Appeals. It is, therefore, inevitable that we must
accept the fact that the lot already referred to was purchased by and belonged
to Aurelia Altea, although it was subsequently
transferred to her children.
In connection with the portion of the judgment under review
sentencing herein petitioner to pay damages, it appears that aside from the
case at bar, petitioner, with blind persistence, had filed case after case and
complaint after complaint against Aurelia Altea and
her common-law husband. Among others,
she filed the following cases against them: Criminal Case No. 11153 in the
Court of First Instance of Quezon; Criminal Case No.
5836 of the Court of First Instance of Quezon;
Criminal Case No. 5898 of the same Court; Criminal Case No. 121 of the
Municipal Court of Atimonan, Quezon
Province; Criminal Case No. 1125 of the Court of First Instance of Quezon; Criminal Case No. 11025 of the same Court, later on
elevated to the Court of Appeals as G. R. No. 12844-R. Not a single case, among those enumerated,
prospered. That petitioner harassed and
embarrassed Aurelia Altea in particular and thereby
made her suffer actual damages and moral suffering and anxiety is, therefore,
beyond doubt.
WHEREFORE, the decision appealed from being in accordance
with law and the evidence, the same is affirmed, with costs.
Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Makalintal, Bengzon, J.P., Zaldivar, Sanchez, and
Castro, JJ., concur.