THE HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION OF EL DEPOSITO, BARRIO CORAZON DE JESUS, SAN JUAN, RIZAL, REPRESENTED BY ITS PRESIDENT NAPOLEON VILORIA, PANTALEON PENARANDA, JULIAN PENARANDA, PILAR …

Homeowners Association of El Deposito versus Municipality of San Juan

The Case

This is a petition for certiorari and prohibition with preliminary injunction filed by the Homeowners Association of El Deposito in Barrio Corazon de Jesus, San Juan, Rizal, led by its president Napoleon Viloria, together with several individual residents, against the Municipality of San Juan and its officials. The petitioners asked the Supreme Court to set aside the orders of the respondent judge denying their motion for a writ of preliminary injunction that would have stayed the demolition and removal of their houses and structures on a parcel of public land known since Spanish times as El Deposito. The case matters because it fixes the rule that constructions found to be public nuisances per se may be abated by summary proceedings without a judicial order, and that no grave abuse of discretion attends a court's refusal to enjoin such abatement.

Procedural History

The petitioners first filed before the Court of First Instance of Rizal an action for declaratory relief, asking that Municipal Ordinance Number 89, as amended, be declared null and void as ex post facto legislation. That ordinance prohibited squatting on public property and provided a penalty. Earlier, then Judge Andres Reyes, presiding over the same court, had denied the petitioners' bid for injunctive relief in an order dated September 19, 1968, and the Court of Appeals upheld that order in a decision dated February 4, 1969. The respondent court later issued the questioned orders of February 9, 1970 and March 30, 1970, denying the petitioners' motions for a writ of preliminary injunction. From those orders, the petitioners came to the Supreme Court on a petition for certiorari and prohibition with preliminary injunction. The Court issued a temporary restraining order on April 20, 1970, and the case was submitted for decision on the memoranda of the parties.

Facts

The petitioners occupied a parcel of public land in Barrios Corazon de Jesus and Halo Halo in San Juan, Rizal, popularly known as El Deposito. They built their houses and improvements there without building permits, contiguously to and liable to pollute one of the main water pipelines supplying potable water to the Greater Manila area, and without provision for the accumulation or disposal of waste matters. The Municipality of San Juan, invoking Ordinance Number 89, as amended, proceeded to demolish and remove their structures summarily.

The petitioners resisted, claiming a color of title and asserting that a petition for compulsory registration of the land was pending in the cadastral proceedings. That claim was later foreclosed. The Court of First Instance of Rizal, through Judge Emilio V. Salas, denied the reopening of the cadastral proceedings in an order dated August 20, 1971, noting that the case had been dismissed without prejudice in an order dated April 6, 1970, which the Supreme Court had affirmed and which became final and executory on September 1, 1970. A special civil action for certiorari and mandamus filed by the petitioners was dismissed for lack of merit, and reconsideration was denied.

The Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System, as successor in interest of Nawasa, asserted ownership of the property since its survey in 1910, and averred that within it are aqueducts and an underground reservoir. It had sold a portion to the Municipality of San Juan and leased portions to squatters and to the Pinaglabanan Commemorative Commission for the national shrine. The Court thus found that no proceedings, cadastral or otherwise, questioned the public character of the land.

Issues

• Whether or not the respondent court exceeded its authority and jurisdiction and gravely abused its discretion in denying the petitioners' motion for a writ of preliminary injunction to stay the demolition and removal of their houses and structures.
• Whether or not Municipal Ordinance Number 89, as amended, is valid and constitutional, or is void as ex post facto legislation.
• Whether or not the respondent engineer may remove or demolish the petitioners' houses without a special court demolition order under the challenged ordinance.
• Whether or not the pendency of the petition for compulsory registration of the land precluded the enforcement of the ordinance.

Applicable Provisions

The decision invokes the Civil Code provisions on abatement of nuisances, particularly Articles 694, 695, 700 and 705, which the Court cites as authority for abating the petitioners' constructions without judicial proceedings. The Court states the governing rule through the doctrine of Sitchon versus Aquino:

The police power of the state justifies the abatement or destruction by summary proceedings of public nuisances per se.

This rule bears on the case because it supplies an independent ground for the demolition, apart from the challenged ordinance.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the respondent court did not exceed its authority nor gravely abuse its discretion. The grounds for the injunction had already been raised and denied by Judge Reyes in his order of September 19, 1968, which the Court of Appeals upheld. The petitioners failed to show even a color of title, and the land is admittedly public. Their own tax declarations were the best proof that their possession was not adverse, and their shanties posed a veritable danger to public health. The respondent court itself noted that the issues were res judicata and that the land is clothed with a public purpose.

On the second issue, the Court held that the question of validity or unconstitutionality of the ordinance need not be resolved in this proceeding, as it should first be submitted to the lower court in the action below. The ordinance may not be faulted as ex post facto, since it does not punish an act done which was innocent before its passage, but rather punishes the present and continuing act of unlawful occupancy of public property.

On the third issue, the Court held that, independently of the ordinance, the petitioners' constructions, duly found to be public nuisances per se, may be abated without judicial proceedings under the Civil Code, as the police power of the state justifies summary abatement.

On the fourth issue, the Court held that the pendency of the registration petition no longer stood in the way, since the cadastral proceedings had been dismissed and the dismissal had become final and executory.

Doctrine

A Bar candidate must retain these rules. First, the police power of the state justifies the abatement or destruction by summary proceedings of public nuisances per se, independently of any municipal ordinance. Second, constructions built without permits, without provision for waste disposal, and contiguously to a main water pipeline supplying potable water are public nuisances per se and serious hazards to public health. Third, a court does not gravely abuse its discretion in denying a preliminary injunction where the applicants show no color of title and the land is admittedly public. Fourth, the constitutionality of a municipal ordinance is properly resolved in the action below, not in an incident on injunctive relief.

Disposition

The petition was dismissed, the temporary restraining order of April 20, 1970 was dissolved and declared immediately executory, and no costs were pronounced.

Remember This

Memorize the line that the police power of the state justifies the abatement or destruction by summary proceedings of public nuisances per se. Examiners use this case to test summary abatement of nuisances without judicial order and the requisites for a preliminary injunction against demolition on public land.