GREGORIO JANDUSAY, EUSEBIO JANDUSAY, DEMETRIA JANDUSAY AND LEONILA FABRO, PETITIONERS, VS. COURT OF APPEALS, EMETERIA SALVA, ESPERANZA SALVA, PEDRO LAZO, PAULA LAZO, BRIGIDO LAZ…

The controversy at bar concerns the ownership of one of two
pieces of land embraced in a Torrens title: 
Parcel No. 1 of Original Certificate of Title No. 61 of the Registry of
Deeds of Oriental Mindoro, issued on August 7, 1911
in the name of Jorge Lingon, married to Arcadia Ganibo.  The lot is
situated in Barrio Catiningan, Pola,
Oriental Mindoro and has an area of 84,964.25 square
meters, more or less.1 [As regards the other parcel
covered by the certificate of title, the record shows that Lingon
had been selling portions thereof to different individuals from 1938 to 1947, a
period of nine years, all said sales having been annotated on the title.2]
The protagonists are –

1) on the one hand, the collateral
relatives of Jorge Lingon, herein private
respondents, who — after the death of Lingon on
February 16, 1949 without issue (his wife, Arcadia Ganibo,
having died earlier) — adjudicated unto themselves the property covered by OCT
No. 61 in virtue of a Deed of Extrajudicial Partition executed on January 14,
1956 and thereafter caused cancellation of said title and the issuance of a new
one in their names, TCT No. T-5420;1 and

2) on the other, the
petitioners herein, the heirs of Dominga Marquez, who
claim that in January, 1915 Jorge Lingon had sold the
land embraced in OCT No. 61 to a certain Mariano Lontok
for P500 by a deed allegedly thumb-marked by Lingon
before the Justice of the Peace of Pola, Oriental Mindoro, which deed was not however registered; that by a
deed entitled “Escritura de Compraventa”
executed on April 30, 1917 and another entitled “Transfer of Real
Property” executed on July 24, 1918, Mariano Lontok
had conveyed the same property to Dominga Marquez;
and that Dominga Marquez and her children had
thereafter taken possession of the land and declared it for taxation purposes
since 1918.2

Litigation over said Parcel No. 1 of OCT No. 61 began with the
filing of a complaint for recovery of possession thereof in the Court of First
Instance of Oriental Mindoro by herein private
respondents, the heirs of Jorge Lingon, hereafter
collectively referred to simply as the SALVAS.3 The petitioners, hereafter
collectively referred to simply as the JANDUSAYS, instituted their own separate
action in the same Court, for annulment of title and reconveyance
of property.4
The cases were consolidated and jointly tried and decided.  The verdict of the Trial Court5
went against the SALVAS, the dispositive portion
thereof being as follows:

“WHEREFORE, a decision is hereby rendered in favor of the
JANDUSAYS and against the SALVAS:

1.       Dismissing the action
of the SALVAS against the JANDUSAYS in Civil Case No. R-667, with costs against
the former in favor of the latter;

2.       Declaring the
annulment and the consequent cancellation of Transfer Certificate of Title No.
T-5420 in the name of the SALVAS over the land in question, as to Parcel No. 1
described therein which is the land in litigation;

3.       Ordering the Register
of Deeds of Oriental Mindoro to issue a new Transfer
Certificate of Title on the same Parcel No. 1 of Transfer Certificate of Title
No. T-5420 in the name of JANDUSAYS, specifically, Gregorio Jandusay,
Demetria Jandusay, Eusebio Jandusay and Leonila Fabro, pro-indiviso in equal parts; and

4.       Condemning the SALVAS
in Civil Case No. R-668 to pay the costs thereof to the JANDUSAYS in said case.

No pronouncement as to damages in both cases, R-667 and
R-668.”

Both the SALVAS and the JANDUSAYS appealed to the Court of
Appeals.1
There, their appeals ran an uncertain course; there was no little divergence of
views among the magistrates regarding the merits of their appeals; first,
judgment was rendered in favor of the JANDUSAYS; but in the end, the SALVAS
prevailed.

The three (3) justices of the division to which the appeal was
initially assigned could not agree on a unanimous verdict;2 hence, a special division of five
(5) had to be constituted.  The special
division’s joint judgment on the appeals was pronounced on November 8, 1976, on
a vote of three to two:  the ponente was Agcaoili, J.,
with whom concurred Fernandez and Domondon, JJ.,
and San Diego and Melencio-Herrera, JJ.,
dissented.  Said judgment affirmed the
decision of the Trial Court in toto.  The SALVAS moved for reconsideration on
November 29, 1976.3 Their motion remained unresolved
for about eight (8) months.  In the
interim Mr. Justice Fernandez was appointed to the Supreme Court and Mr.
Justice Domondon retired; and Messrs. Justices Hugo
Gutierrez, Jr. and Ricardo C. Puno were selected to
take their place, by a re-raffle.4 Thereafter the special division
(“Former Special Fourth Division”) deliberated on the SALVAS’ motion
for reconsideration.  Mr. Justice Agcaoili voted to deny the motion for reconsideration.  However, the four (4) others, Mme. Justices
San Diego and Melencio-Herrera, and Messrs. Justices
Gutierrez and Puno, voted to grant the motion.  On this basis, a Resolution was drawn up by
Mme. Justice Melencio-Herrera; but at the time of its
promulgation on February 28, 1978, Messrs. Justices Agcaoili
and Puno had already presented their candidacies for
the Interim Batasang Pambansa
and consequently ceased to be members of the Court of Appeals; hence, the
Resolution was signed only by the three (3) remaining Justices composing the
special division of five, it being pointed out that this number was, by the
way, sufficient for the pronouncement of a judgment in accordance with Section
2, Rule 51 of the Rules of Court.1

The Resolution overturned the Decision of November 8, 1976 and
disposed of the appeals as follows:

“WHEREFORE, granting the Motion for Reconsideration, the
judgment appealed from is hereby set aside, and another one entered 1)
dismissing Civil Case No. 668-R, the suit for Annulment of Title; and 2)
ordering Gregorio Jandusay et als.
to surrender possession of Parcel No. 1 covered by TCT No. T-5420, to Emeterio Salva et als., upon this Decision becoming final.

No costs in both instances.”

A motion for reconsideration was in due time submitted by the
JANDUSAYS, and one for amendment of the resolution, by the SALVAS.  The motions were disposed of by a Resolution
dated August 3, 1978,2 as follows:

“WHEREFORE, 1) the Motion for Reconsideration filed by the
JANDUSAYS is hereby denied for lack of merit;

2)      In respect of the
Motion for Amendment of our Resolution dated February 28, 1978, filed by the SALVAS, the Court
resolves:

a)         The
SALVAS are hereby authorized to withdraw the owner’s duplicate of Transfer
Certificate of Title No. T-5420 attached to the records of this case, under
proper receipt;

b)         The
petition to include compensatory damages in favor of the SALVAS is denied,
their entitlement to them not having been indubitably established.”

The JANDUSAYS are now before this Court, having timely filed a
petition for review on certiorari,3 seeking review and reversal of the
Appellate Court’s aforementioned Resolutions of February 28, 1978 and August 3, 1978. 
Their appeal was given due course by Resolution dated November 27,
1978.  Withal, their appeal must fail.

The JANDUSAYS argue that the challenged resolutions should be set
aside because tainted by several serious errors.

Their first contestation is that the resolutions reversing, and
sustaining reversal of, a special decision of five (5) — having been rendered
when there were only three (3) members of that special division, the other two
(2) having in the meantime ceased to be members of the Court of Appeals — are
“contrary to the letter and spirit of Paragraph 3, of Section 2, Article X
of the 1973 Constitution” which in part states that “no decision
rendered en banc or in division may be modified or reversed except by
the Court sitting en banc.” The theory is palpably
unmeritorious.  A reading of the cited
paragraph in the context of the others in the Section at once discloses that it
can have no reference except to the Supreme Court, and that indeed it cannot
possibly apply to the Court of Appeals since, in the exercise of adjudicatory
powers, that Court never sits en banc but only in divisions of three
justices (or special divisions of five).

The next point that the JANDUSAYS try to make is that the
resolutions (a) wrongly concluded that they had failed to establish by
preponderance of evidence:  (i) the due execution and delivery of the deed of sale of
the lot in question by Jorge Lingon in 1915 in favor
of Mariano Lontok, and the deed of sale by the latter
in 1917 of the same property to Dominga Marquez; and
(ii) “the loss and contents of the deed of sale executed in 1915 by Jorge Lingon in favor of Mariano Lontok
over the litigated property,” and (b) wrongly applied “the
survivorship disqualification rule and ** (disregarded) the rules on admission
by privy and declaration against interest made by Jorge Lingon”
testified to by Demetria Jandusay.1

In the proceedings before the Trial Court, the JANDUSAYS could
not present in evidence the original of the deed of sale allegedly executed in
1915 by Jorge Lingon in favor of Mariano Lontok (from whom, in turn, the Jandusays‘
predecessor-in-interest had acquired the land in question).  It apparently had been lost.  They therefore submitted secondary evidence
to establish the sale, consisting of the sworn declarations of Mariano Lontok, Severo Geronimo (bilas of Lingon), Enrique Morente, Demetria Jandusay and Gregorio Jandusay.2
Whether or not this evidence satisfactorily proved the existence of the deed of
sale, its due execution, loss, and contents has been subject of considerable
disagreement and extensive analysis among the parties, of course, as well as
the Trial Court and, as already narrated, the Honorable Justices of the Court
of Appeals themselves.  The correctness
of those conclusions has also still been subject of debate among the parties
before this Court.  What is not subject
of disputation is the proposition that whatever deductions are drawn from the
evidence are conclusions of fact, and not of law.

Now, the findings in the Resolution of February 28, 1978 — ­to
the effect that the evidence had not satisfactorily established “the loss
of the deed of sale between JORGE and LONTOK,”3 or
the contents of the lost document,1 or that it was “the LITIGATED
PROPERTY (which) was, indeed, sold by JORGE to LONTOK, and that it was the
(same) LITIGATED PROPERTY which the latter had sold to DOMINGA,”2
and that, “(i)n the last analysis,” the
body of proofs adduced by the JANDUSAYS was not so clear and convincing as to
defeat the rights of the registered owner3 — are conclusions of fact.  These findings are quite clearly reasoned
conclusions, reached only after study and assessment of the proofs, an
appraisal of testimonial credibility of witnesses, and a weighing of
probabilities regarding the conduct and reaction of the parties to the alleged
sales on the basis of proven past acts and in light of human experience.  They cannot thus be said to be grounded
“entirely on speculation or conjecture,” or to have been arrived at
whimsically, capriciously or arbitrarily. 
Therefore, by established doctrine, they are binding on this Court and
may not be reviewed by it, as the petitioners would wish, absent, as here, any
of the recognized exceptions to the doctrine.4

The appealed Resolution correctly applied the so-called Surviving
Party Rule or the Dead Man’s Act to exclude the testimony of Demetria Jandusay relative to the
statement ascribed to Jorge Lingon that the Jandusays should “not ** insist in having the deed of
sale registered or annotated ** as according to him before he dies he would
sell his property and that in all probability we might as well buy his
remaining property.”5 The rule is found in Section 20,
Rule 130 of the Rules of Court and reads as follows:

“SEC. 20.  Disqualification
by reason of interest or relationship. – The following persons cannot
testify as to matters in which they are interested, directly or indirectly, as
herein enumerated:

(a) Parties or assignors of parties to a case, or persons in whose
behalf a case is prosecuted against an executor or administrator or other
representative of a deceased person, * * upon a claim or demand against the
estate of such deceased person * * cannot testify as to any matter of fact
occurring before the death of such deceased person * * ;

* * * *.”

There can be no doubt that the JANDUSAYS’ suit in the Trial Court
had for its essential object the enforcement of a deed of sale allegedly
executed by the deceased Jorge Lingon during his
lifetime; so that in truth, and adapting the language of the “Dead Man’s
Act,” the JANDUSAYS were parties or persons in whose behalf a case was
being prosecuted upon a claim or demand against the estate of Jorge Lingon.  For that
sale, supposedly executed about 40 years prior to the institution of the
action, was the definitive foundation of the JANDUSAYS’ asserted cause of
action, i.e., the cancellation of the title of the collateral heirs of the
vendor and the reconveyance of the property to them
by said heirs, the theory obviously being that at the time of the vendor’s
death, the property no longer formed part of his estate and therefore could not
possibly have been inherited by his heirs. 
Nor can there be any doubt that the suit was being prosecuted against representatives
of the deceased person, i.e., Lingon’s collateral
relatives, who had adjudicated the property to themselves as intestate heirs
and who, in the action were asserting a defense (denial of the sale) which the
deceased might have himself set up, if living.1 The heirs of Lingon
were not asserting their status as such heirs to defeat the JANDUSAYS’ action,
that not being the chief issue, but were basically contending that the property
in question still formed part of the estate of the decedent at the time of his
death and had not been segregated therefrom by sale
to the JANDUSAYS’ predecessor-in-interest.

It is not amiss to state in this connection that the challenged
Resolution refused to accord veracity to the statement attributed to Jorge Lingon supposedly asking for deferment of registration of
the sale in favor of the JANDUSAYS because it “runs counter to the fact
that the partial sales made by JORGE of Parcel No. 2 were all registered,”
and because the failure of the JANDUSAYS for an unreasonably long period to
resort to readily available legal remedies to compel the delivery of the
certificate of title and have the sale to them annotated thereon militated
against their averment that Lingon had indeed sold
the land to them had refused to lend them the title so that the sale could be
registered.2

The JANDUSAYS also argue that the failure of Jorge Lingon to dispossess them and their
predecessors-in-interest from the litigated property for a period of
thirty-four (34) years, and a like failure by the SALVAS to do so for seven (7)
years, justify the application of the equitable doctrine of laches
in their (the JANDUSAYS’) favor, as well as the ruling in Mejia de Lucas v. Gamponia, 100 Phil. 277; Pabalate
v. Echavari, Jr., 37 SCRA 518; and Heirs of Lacamen v. Heirs of Laruan,
“65 SCRA”.1 The argument is effectively
confuted by the following disquisition in the Resolution of February 28, 1978
to which this Court hereby confers sanction:

“If JORGE’s inaction in
dispossessing the JANDUSAYS of the LITIGATED PROPERTY can be alleged against
him in a question of title, the inaction of the JANDUSAYS or their
predecessor-in-interest in not compelling JORGE to formally transfer the title
to the LITIGATED PROPERTY to them for several years can also be alleged against
the JANDUSAYS in this controversy over title. 
Further, if, as alleged, ‘inaction of the SALVAS from 1949 when JORGE Lingon died, up to 1956 when they executed the
extrajudicial partition, betrayed their hesitancy in taking such step knowing
too well the weakness of their claim’ by the same token, the legal inaction,
the failure to take remedial steps of the JANDUSAYS from 1930 when they learned
of the existence of the title, up to JORGE Lingon’s
death in 1949, and thence up to 1956 when they filed their counter-suit against
the SALVAS only after the latter had instituted their action for recovery of
possession, could also be interpreted as an awareness on their part of the
weakness of their claim of title.  In
other words, ‘Laches‘ and inaction imputed to the
SALVAS may likewise be laid at the feet of the JANDUSAYS.  The ‘laches‘ of one
nullifies the ‘laches‘ of the other.  One who seeks equity must himself be
deserving of equity.  When parties are in
culpability similarly situated (‘in eodem loco’), it
is a general principle of law that one may claim no advantage over the other –
a principle consistently applied in the ‘pari delicto‘ rule imbedded in our legal system (Arts. 1411,
1412, 100, 453, Civil Code).

The cases of Mejia de Lucas v. Gamponia,
100 Phil. 277 (1956), that of Pabalate v. Echavari, Jr., ** 37 SCRA 518, which applied it, as well as
that of Heirs of Lacamen v. Heirs of Laruan, ** 65 SCRA 605 cannot be invoked herein to justify
a judgment in favor of the JANDUSAYS on the ground of laches,
due to fundamental differences:  1) the
first two cases involved the prohibition against the sale of free patents where
under the pertinent law, an original patentee is given seven years from
conveyance within which to bring an action to recover the property.  Plaintiffs therein failed to exercise that
right within the reglementary period but allowed 37
years (in the Mejia Case) and 32 years (in the Pabalate
Case) to lapse; hence, the Supreme Court ruling that the original owners’ right
to recover the possession of the property and the title thereto from the
defendants had, by patentee’s inaction and neglect, been converted into a stale
demand.  In contrast, an action to
recover possession of a registered land, such as that brought by the
SALVAS, never prescribes in view of Section 46 of the Land Registration
Act to the effect that no title to registered land in derogation of that of the
registered owner shall be acquired by prescription or adverse possession.  In fact, as held in J.M. Tuason
& Co. Inc. vs. Macalindong, L-15398, December 29,
1962, 6 SCRA 938, the right to file an action to recover possession based on a
Torrens Title is imprescriptible and is not barred
under the doctrine of laches.  And even if laches
were invocable, and that plaintiffs had ‘slept on
their rights,’ with equal vigor can it be said that defendants themselves are
chargeable with laches.  2) In the three mentioned cases, the fact of
sale of the litigated properties was admitted unlike in this case where such
sale has been challenged, nor has it even been proven.  3) In addition, the sale in this case to the
JANDUSAYS was not made by the original registered owner himself.  It is merely alleged that he had sold it to
LONTOK who, in turn, sold it to the JANDUSAYS.”

The JANDUSAYS next attack the very title of the SALVAS.  They contend that the property covered by OCT
No. 61 was conjugal property of the spouses Jorge Lingon
and Arcadia Ganibo; that upon the latter’s death, the
widower, Jorge Lingon, inherited only one-half
thereof in usufruct “while the naked ownership could be inherited” by
the decedent’s collateral relatives; that the SALVAS are “not collateral
relatives by blood of Jorge Lingon,” and could
not therefore have validly inherited from him and in truth acquired nothing by
their execution of a deed of extrajudicial partition of Lingon’s
estate, the execution thereof being, in addition, attended by fraud.1
The attack is pointless.  Even if
consistent with the demonstrated facts, a doubtful proposition at best, it
would not enhance the petitioners’ cause one whit.  Absence of title over the property in
question in Jorge Lingon, or substantial defect
thereof, would not in any manner whatever show valid acquisition of ownership
of said property by the JANDUSAYS.  On
the contrary, it would demonstrate invalidity or defect in their own claim of
title.  Similarly, absence of the status
of heirship in the SALVAS vis-a-vis
Jorge Lingon is utterly inconsequential as far as
concerns the JANDUSAYS’ claim of conveyance by Lingon
to their predecessor-in-interest. 
Moreover, being heirs of neither Jorge Lingon
nor Arcadia Ganibo, they have no personality or
standing to question the succession to the estate of either.  In any event, the Court is satisfied that the
Appellate Court has properly upheld the SALVAS’ title to the property in
question.

WHEREFORE, finding no error in the Resolutions subject of
appeal, dated February 28, 1978
and August 3, 1978, the same
are hereby AFFIRMED in all respects. 
Costs against petitioners.

SO ORDERED.

Cruz, Gancayco, Griño-Aquino,
and Medialdea,
JJ., concur.

1
Rollo, pp. 62-63, 86

2
Id., p. 89

1
Rollo, pp. 63-64, 86

2
Id., pp. 64, 86

3
Id., p. 71.

The case was docketed as Civil Case
No. R-667-P:  Record on Appeal (Rollo, p. 57)

4
Id., pp. 71-72; the case
was docketed as Civil Case No. 668-P: 
Record on Appeal, supra

5
Rendered on April 25, 1969
by Hon. Pascual M. Beltran:  Rec. on App., Rollo,
pp. 57 et seq.

1
Rollo, pp. 9-10.  The SALVAS’ appeal was docketed as CA-G.R.
No. 44618-R; that of the JANDUSAYS, CA-G.R. No. 44619-R

2
Id., pp. 70 et seq.  The dissent of Mme. Justice Melencio-Herrera (now an Associate Justice of the Supreme
Court) precluded unanimity in the decision.

3 Id.,
p. 84

4 Id.,
pp. 84-85

1 Rollo, pp.
85-86.  The ponente
was Mme. Justice Melencio-Herrera.  Concurring was Mme. Justice San Diego.

Also concurring was Mr. Justice Gutierrez, Jr.

2 Id.,
pp. 101-102

3 Pursuant to Rule 45 of the Rules of Court

1 Rollo, pp. 18 et
seq.:

Id., p.
149:  Brief for the Petitioners, at pp.
27-37

2 Id.

3 Id.,
pp. 88-90

1 Id.,
p. 91

2 Id.,
pp. 90-91

3 Id.,
pp. 97-98

4 SEE Vallarta v. IAC, 151 SCRA 679 and the
cases therein cited

5 Rollo, p. 186.  Quoted in its entirety, the relevant
testimony runs as follows:  “In the
year 1930 when my mother was still living, my brother, Gregorio Jandusay, went to Jorge Lingon
requesting him to lend us his title covering the land in question for the
purpose of having our deed of sale registered, to have the sale annotated at
the back thereof, but he told us not to insist in having the deed of sale
registered or annotated at the back of the title as according to him before he
dies he would sell his property and that in all probability we might as well
buy his remaining property.” TSN, Dec.
15, 1959, pp. 82-83.  N.B.
The declaration implies that it was only Gregorio who had gone to see Jorge Lingon; and so, whatever knowledge Demetria
might have of Lingon’s statements to Gregorio could
only have been derived from the latter. 
There is, too, some implication in Lingon’s
supposed statement that the sale was to be perfected at a future time,
“before he dies.”

1 SEE Moran, Comments on the Rules of Court, 1963 ed.,
Vol. 5, p. 154

2 Rollo, p. 94

1 Brief for Petitioners, pp. 77-83 Rollo,
p. 149

1 Rollo, pp. 90-110