ESTEBAN VILLANUEVA, PETITIONER, VS. MISAMIS LUMBER CO., INC., ET AL., RESPONDENTS.

PAREDES, J.:

In 1929, the Misamis Lumber Co., Inc. filed a petition (Land Registration
Case No. 110) for the registration under Act No. 496, of 11 parcels of land
contiguous to one another, with an area of 709 hectares, located in Misamis (now
Ozamiz City) Misamis Occidental. Title was premised on alleged deeds of sale
from Vicente L. Neri and Salvador L. Neri and from Jose K. Ledesma, Conception
Ledesma and Felicidad Ledesma who acquired the same from its primitive owner
Simeon Ledesma, a holder of a possessory information title, registered on March
31, 1894. Opposition was filed by the Attorney General against the registration
of 5 parcels with an area of 664.6605 hectares on the ground that the same were
Public lands. More than 58 other private individuals likewise opposed the
registration alleging ownership over Particular portions of the lot sought to be
registered. The Supreme Court, on appeal, promulgated on February 21, 1933, a
decision, dismissing the petition on the finding that at the time the applicant
(Misamis Lumber Co.) took possession of the land therein, it was covered with
forest and that the applicant failed to properly identify the land applied for.
This case is now reported as Misamis Lumber Co. vs. Director of Lands, 57
Phil 881.

On September 3, 1934, the Director of Lands filed Cadastral Proceedings
docketed as Case No. 17 G.L.R.O. Cad. Rec. No. 1640, covering Lot No. 5308,
before the CFI of Misamis Occidental, under sec. 1855 of the Adm. Code. On
August 14, 1935, the Director of Lands filed his claim over 18 lots including
Lot No. 5308, on the ground that said lots belonged to the public
domain.

On August 21, 1935, the Misamis Lumber Co., Inc. filed its answer to the said
petitions claiming ownership over a portion of Lot No. 5308, with a total area
of 3,711,460 square meters, more or less, basing its ownership thereof on the
same possessory information title, mentioned in the first case (57 Phil. 881,
supra).

Before the trial of the cadastral proceedings (Case No. 17) began, Esteban
Villanueva filed on October 19, 1945, Civil Case No. 859 against Sinforoso
Tagaytay and 15 others, seeking the recovery of possession and damages from
them, of a certain parcel of agricultural land included in the area covered by
the cadastral proceedings, over which Esteban Villanueva asserted ownership. On
November 12, 1945, defendants answered, alleging that their occupancy of the
land was based merely on con- tracts of tenancy with Misamis Lumber Co., Inc.
which was allegedly the owner of the parcel of land claimed by Esteban
Villanueva. On March 3, 1946, the Misamis Lumber Co. was joined as an
indispensable party defend- ant. Concepcion Ledesma and Felicidad Ledesma and
others, were also joined as party defendants. On November 7, 1947, the Director
of Lands in the Case No. 17, filed a complaint in intervention in the Civil Case
No. 859, thereby joining Esteban Villanueva, asserting that the lot claimed by
said Villanueva, was part of the public do- main but covered by sales
application No. 8210, filed by Villanueva with the Bureau of Lands on June
22, 1926, for an area of 48 hectares, more or less, which was the” pending
approval by said Bureau, and that Villanueva d been in actual, peaceful, open,
public and continuous possession of the said parcel of land, in the
concept of owner, since 1926 until 1936 or thereabouts, when the defend- ants
allegedly disturbed his possession and unlawfully deprived him thereof through
force, threat, strategy and stealth. Answers were filed to the complaint in
intervention, defendants therein asserting ownership over the land claimed by
Villanueva.

On November 4, 1948, Esteban Villanueva in Civil Case No. 859, filed his
separate claims over portions of Lot No. 5808, involved in Cad. Proc. No. 17,
asserting ownership over said portions, by reason of his sales application in
the area, of some 503,373 square meters and by purchase from one Jose Medina,
the alleged previous owner of another portion with an area of some 8 hectares
inside Lot No. 5308.

On September 17, 1948, a joint trial was held of Cad. Case No. 17 and Civil
Case No. 859. The CFI of Misamis Occidental rendered decision as follows:

“Premises considered, judgment is hereby rendered, declaring lot No. 5308 as
part of the public domain under the control, administration and
disposition of the Director of Lands and inasmuch its, according to the evidence
the portion of said lot No. 5308 marked with number 13 in blue pencil in Exhibit
‘X-4’ has already been awarded and adjudicated by the Director of Lands to the
plain- tiff Esteban Villanueva, said portion is now private property of Raid
Esteban Villanueva, ordering the defendants to vacate said land and to deliver
its possession to the plaintiff Esteban Villanueva; without special
pronouncement as to damages and costs, considering that in the opinion of this
Court the defendants in Civil Case No. 859 had occupied and possessed their
respective portions of the ‘and in question in good faith.”

From the foregoing judgment, apical was taken by the Misamis Lumber Co. and
its tenants. Esteban Villanueva, likewise appealed because of the failure of the
trial court to award him damages, rents, and cost.

The Court of Appeals entered the following:

“WHEREFORE, the judgment a quo is reversed, and another judgment entered:

(1) In CA-G.R. No. L-15472-R (Cad. Case No. 17, G.L.R.O. Record No. 1640),
adjudicating in favor of the Misamis Lumber Company, Inc. the southern portion
of Lot 0308 containing an area of 371 hectares, more or less, which is south of
Capucao river down to Lubolan creek, as shown in the sketch attached to the
answer of the company; ordering the Director of Lands to segregate the said
portion from Lot No. 5308, to be known as Lot No. 5308-A; and ordering the
registration of this segregated portion in the name of the Misamis Lumber
Company, Inc., Subject, however, to the claims of Elpidio Balodo, Ireneo Campos,
Simeon Sabrino, Heirs of Moises Gacasan, and Ramon Baomillas, which the company
has recognized. The record is remanded to the lower court for implementation of
our judgment and for compliance by the Director of Lands with our order.

(2) In CA-G.R. No. 15473-R (Civil Case No. 859), dismissing the complaint of
Esteban Villanueva and absolving the defendant-appellant Misamis Lumber
Company.

No special pronouncement as to costs in both cases.”

In appealing this case to Us, the appellants submit that the decision of the
Court of Appeals suffers from two defects, to wit:

1. It has completely disregarded the findings of the Supreme Court in the case
   of Misamis Lumber Co. vs. Director of Lands, 57 Phil. 881, thereby
   rendering at naught the principle that a matter once definitely adjudged shall
   be considered forever adjudicated between the parties (estoppel by judgment or
   res-adjudicata).
2. It has overlooked a settled land registration doctrine that only actual
   occupancy and possession of lands with imperfect incomplete title can ripen into
   ownership.

It appears that in Civil Case No. 859, entitled Esteban Villanueva
versus Misamis Lumber Co., Inc., et al., and in Cad. Case No. 17, the
land in issue is the southern portion of Lot No. 5308 of the Misamis Cadastre.
In Civil Case No. 859, the defendants may be divided into 3 categories: the
Misamis Lumber Co., Inc. (Company for short), those who were mere tenants of the
Company and those who claim their respective holdings as their own private
properties. In Cad. Case No. 17, the oppositors may be classified into 2
categories: those whose claims and oppositions are based on the contention of
the Director of Lands that the entire lot 5308 is a public land and those
who claim their respective holdings as their own individual properties.

The issue, as presented therefore, is whether the land In question is a
public land subject to Esteban Villanueva’s sales application
which has already been approved and awarded, or is the private property
of the Company and the other defendants. The Director of Lands maintains that
the entire lot 5308 is a public land and that the area covered by
Villanueva’s sales application is a portion thereof.

In Cad. Case No. 17, the Company claims only the southern portion of lot 5303
containing an area of 371 hectares more or less, which is that south of the
Capucao river down to Lubolan creek, with the Capucao river on the north and
Lubolan Creek on the south, as its natural and fixed boundaries. The defendant
Company asks that this portion be segregated to be known or identified as Lot
5308-A and adjudicated to it. In civil case 859, Villanueva seeks to recover
from the Company, the possession of a portion of the same southern part of lot
5308, south of the Capucao river, of an area of about 30 hectares.

As found by the Court of Appeals, Simeon Ledesma acquired a possessory
information title to a parcel having as natural and fixed boundaries,
Capucao river on the north and Lubolan creek on the south, containing an area of
278 hectares, more or less, and situated in barrios Liposong, Dalapang and
Capucao, Municipality or Misamis (now City of Ozamiz), province of Misamis (now
Misamis Occidental). The title was registered in the Registry of Deeds of
Cagayan de Misamis (now Cagayan de Oro City) on March 31, 1894.
The title states that Simeon Ledesma was in possession of the land since
1887. The Court of Appeals found that there existed “sufficient reliable
oral and documentary evidence that he (Simeon Ledesma) was actually in
possession of the land.” From the moment of his death in 1900, the inheritance
having been accepted in the corresponding intestate proceeding (Exh. 4), the
title to, and possession of, the land was transmitted to his children,
Conception, Felicidad and Jose, all surnamed Ledesma. The Court also found that
there is “sufficient reliable oral and documentary evidence that the said
children were in actual possession of the land after their father’s death.”
On July 28, 1925, by means of a public instrument, the Ledesmas
sold 2/3 undivided share and interest in the land to Salvador Neri and Vicente
Luis Neri (Exh. 4) who thereafter sold said share and interest on April 23, 1928
to the Misamis Lumber Company also by means of a public instrument
(Exh. 7). The remaining 1/3 undivided share and interest was sold by the
Ledesmas to the same company on May 31, 1929 by means of a public
instrument (Exhs. 6 and 8-a). The Court of Appeals, likewise found that the
evidence “amply shows that the Company took actual possession of a considerable
portion of the land sold, or an area of about SO hectares, by clearing the area
of trees and cultivating the same, through tenants.” The land was declared for
taxation purposes by the Ledesmas in 1906 and thereafter (Exhs. 9, 9-a, 9-b, 9-c
and 9-d) and in 1925 and 1929 by the purchasers, the Neris (Exh. 9-e) and the
Company (Exhs. 9-g and 9-h).

Predicated, therefore, upon the above findings of facts, to which We are
bound, it is evident that the possessory information title registered on March
31, 1894, of Simeon Ledesma could, as it did, ripen into a title of ownership on
April 1, 1914, that is after 20 years of continuous possession, from the date of
entry by him and from the moment of his death by his children, there being no
evidence that the said possession had in the meantime been legally interrupted.
We said in Smith, Bell & Co. vs. Director of Lands, 50 Phil. 882;

“It may further be noted that unless the defendant’s possession of the land
in the meantime had been legally interrupted the possessory information recorded
in April, 1804, became convertible into a title in 1914, and Hint therefore the
land cannot now be considered public and subject to the provision of the
Public Mineral Land Laws.”

Petitioner-appellant Villanueva urges that the respondent Court of Appeals
“has overlooked a settled land registration doctrine that only actual occupancy
and possession of the land with imperfect-incomplete title can ripen into
ownership.” In the first place, when the Neris, to whom the Ledesmas, as owners,
had sold on July 28, 1925, 2/3 of the land, conveyed the same to the Company by
means of a public instrument, and when the Company acquired the remaining
1/3 of the same land from the Ledesmas on May 31, 1929, also by means of a
public instrument, such conveyances by symbolic tradition, were coupled
by immediate possession, for factually, as has been definitely found by the
Court of Appeals, the Company took actual possession of the land by clearing 30
hectares and cultivating the same through tenants, in the exercise of its right
of ownership previously acquired. (Art. 1463, Old Civil Code; Florendo
vs. Foz, 20 Phil. 388.) And such possession and cultivation of a part, is
a constructive possession of the whole (Ramos vs. Dir. of Lands, 39 Phil.
175.), let alone the payment of taxes by the Company and its predecessors, since
1906, until the present.

Because of the Supreme Court’s findings in the case of Misamis Lumber Co.
vs. Director of Lands, supra, that as late as the year 1925 moat
of the land involved on the said proceedings with an area of 709 hectares “was
covered with forest,” appellant Villanueva now con- tends that such
finding “is indicative of the lack of occupancy and possession thereof by the
Company and its predecessors-in-interest, and that the land was a public
forest. In that decision, however, there was no finding that it was covered with
virgin forest (Li Sin Guiap & Co. vs. Director of Lands, 55 Phil.
693). The decision said most of the 709 hectares were covered with forest, not
all. And the possessory information title which was registered on March 31, 1894
relates that Simeon Ledesmawas in possession of the land since
1887. At least there is a strong presumption of possession since 1887,
arising from such possessory information title.

In this connection, it is further claimed that the land in question is not
identified with the land described in the possessory information title, because
of discrepant areas. As found by the Court of Appeals, the pertinent oral and
documentary evidence sufficiently establish the identity of the land. It is
quite true that the possession information title described the land, as
containing an estimated area of 278 hectares, according to the Spanish plan, and
having as natural and fixed boundaries Capucao river on the north and Lubolan
creek on the south. This land has a computed area of 371 hectares, according to
the cadastral plan of that portion of lot 5308 south of the Capucao river down
to Lubolan creek (sketch Exh. 17, attached to the answer of the Company). The
configuration of the land in both the Spanish plan and the cadastral plan, the
existence of the natural and fixed boundaries, and the oral and documentary
evidence of record show the identity of the land. (Sideco vs. Heirs of
Balajadia, et al., 65 Phil. 364.) The difference between 371 and 278 or 93
hectares, areas shown in the two surveys, is attributable to the fact that the
area in the Spanish survey was estimated, while the area in the Bureau of
Lands survey was actually computed. The difference in this case is smaller than
that encountered in Smith, Bellvs. Dir. of Lands (509 Phil. 882) which
was 167 hectares (667 minus 500), between the old and the new survey. In the
latter case, the registration of the land involved therein was ordered. And this
must be so, because a piece of land is generally and better identified by its
natural and fixed boundaries, such as creeks and rivers, like the present case,
and not by its actual area. There are, of course, changes in the boundarymen of
the land in question, particularly on the east and west. It should be noted,
however, that more than 35 years had elapsed between the two surveys; “the
population in the locality was of unsettled character,” and the many changes of
adobe would be likely to occur. (Smith, Bell & Co. vs. Dir. of Lands,
supra.) Hermogenes Mejia, a licensed land surveyor who made a survey of
the land in June and July of 1926, and whose survey was approved by the Acting
Director of Lands on January 22, 1929 (Exh. 2), testified that the land
mentioned in the possessory information title, is the land in question.

And even if there had been no registered possessory information title over
the land, the Company’s continuous possession, in the concept of owner, tacked
to that of its predecessors-in-interest, which had begun as far back as 1887, is
sufficient to confer upon it effective title of ownership which is registerable
under the land registration laws. (Ch. VI, Act No. 926, as amended by Act No.
2874; Susi vs. Razon and Dir. of Lands, 48 Phil. 424.) Premises
considered, We hold that when Villanueva’s sales application was filed with the
Bureau of Lands on June 22, 1926 or thereabouts, the land in question was
already a private property of the Misamis Lumber Company, the pronouncements of
the Bureau of Lands or the Bureau of Forestry, to the contrary
notwithstanding.

Appellant Villanueva lastly claims that the decision in the said case of
Misamis Lumber Co. vs. Dir. of Lands, supra, estoppel by judgment
or res adjudicata, now operates against the Company in the present case,
because this Court in said civil case found that “as late as the year
1925, most of the land involved in the present proceedings, with an area
of 709 hectares, according to the opposition presented by the Director of Lands
and also according to the decision of the court below, was covered with forest *
* *; “that at the time the applicant took possession of the land in question it
was covered with forest,” the determination of the fact of occupancy, in said
case is definitive and conclusive. In other words, appellee can not now validly
claim that it had ever had actual possession or occupancy of the land earlier
than 1925 and, therefore, what the possessory information title states that
since 1887, Simeon Ledesma began possessing or occupying the land, lacks
verity.

It should be recalled, however, that the denial of the application therein
was principally based on the ground that the applicant failed to properly
identify the land applied for. Whereas the possessory information title on which
the Company based its claim showed an area of only 278 hectares, the area
applied for was 668 hectares or almost 2-1/3 times as large. It cannot be
gainsaid the fact that the denial of the application on that ground, was without
prejudice. Moreover, it can not be said that the area covered with forest in
that big tract of land mentioned in the former case, is the very same area
identified as part of lot No. 5308, object of the present proceedings. The said
decision states most (not all) of the area involved therein was covered
with forest. It was not specified whether any of the area covered with
forest, is the one now under consideration. Verily, there being no identity of
the subject matter, the defense of estoppel by judgment or res judicata
fails.

With respect to the area of 30 hectares, subject of the suit to recover
possession, in civil case 859, claimed by Villanueva, to have been purchased by
him under a miscellaneous sales application from the Bureau of Lands* We have
examined the pertinent documentary evidence mid We agree, on the basis thereof,
with the Director of Lands, that it is a part of lot 5308. However, it is the
same* area that the Misamis Lumber Company cleared of trees and cultivated
through tenants, soon after it purchased two-thirds of the land in 1925, and is
part of the land acquired by the said company from the Ledesma children through
the Neri brothers. In view hereof, Villanueva’s action in civil case 859 to
recover possession of 30 hectares of land from the Company must necessarily
fall, for it is obvious that the Bureau of Lands could not validly sell land
which was not part of the public domain, land which already belonged to a
private person, in this case, the Misamis Lumber Company (Garcia vs.
Dinero, 80 Phil., 474; Lecaste vs. Dir. of Lands, 63 Phil., 654; Lizaga
vs. Omauano, 59 Phil, 547, 555).

In view of all the foregoing, the judgment of the Court of Appeals, should
be, as it is hereby affirmed with costs against petitioner-appellant Esteban
Villanueva.

Bautista Angelo, Concepcion, Dizon, Barrera, Regala, Bengzon, J. P.
and Zaldivar, JJ. concur.