JOSE MARIA SALVADOR AND MARIA PANIS, PLAINTIFFS-APPELLANTS, VS. ROSENDO FRIO AND JUAN VERDAD, DEFENDANTS-APPELLEES.

Appeal from orders of the Court of First Instance of Camarines Sur
granting defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ complaint on the ground of
failure to state a cause of action and denying plaintiffs’ motion for
reconsideration for an opportunity to file proper amendments to their
complaint.

Plaintiffs-spouses originally filed on February 7, 1962 their
complaint alleging that they are the absolute owners of a fenced parcel of land
containing an area of 2 hectares, 09 ares and 52 centares, declared under Tax
No. 2728 in the name of plaintiff Jose Maria Salvador; that their and their
predecessors’ possession of said land has for over 50 years now been
“quiet, peaceful, public, continuous, adverse to the whole world and in
concept of owner;” that just three (3) days ago, the defendants,
confederating together and acting in collusion with one another, without  any right at all and without any
justification whatsoever and under a false and malicious claim of ownership,
entered the land described above and
destroyed the fence of the plaintiffs and now by means of force, violence and
intimidation, threaten to expel the plaintiffs therefrom;” that “the
defendant, Juan Verdad, alleges ownership of the above-described parcel of land
by virtue of an alleged deed of sale executed in his favor by his co-defen­dant,
Rosendo Frio, who, in turn, claims ownership thereon under Free Patent No.
V-39104, Certificate of Title No. 5321;” that “the defendant, Rosendo
Frio, was never the owner and was never in possession of the above-described
parcel of land and therefore the inclusion of the same in Certificate of Title
No. 5321 is fraudulent and illegal;” and “consequently, the
defendant, Rosendo Frio has no right whatsoever to execute a deed of sale in
favor of his co-defendant, Juan Verdad, regarding the land in question x x.”
Alleging to have suffered damages of no less than P1,000.00 from defendants’
illegal acts, plaintiffs prayed for judgment declaring them the owners of the
land with right of possession, and for the court to order defendant Rosendo
Frio to reconvey to them the land, annulling whatever sale defendant Frio may
have executed in favor of his co-defendant Juan Verdad, as well as to sentence
both defendants jointly and severally to pay them damages of P1,000.00, plus
costs of suit, and praying for any other just and equitable relief.

Defendant Verdad filed on April 5, 1962 in due course his answer
traversing the allegations of plaintiffs’ complaint and setting up as an
affirmative defense that he had purchased in good faith the parcel of land,
with an area of 6.2761 hectares, declared under Tax No. 2511 and covered by
O.C.T. No. 5321 in the name of his co-defendant Frio, of which parcel a portion
of about 3 hec­tares was being claimed in ownership by plaintiffs who had on
February 9, 1962 forcibly expelled him therefrom.  Said def­endant thus claimed to be deprived
of P2,400.00 yearly repre­senting
the average rice yield of the land usurped and prayed for judgment on his
counterclaim against plaintiffs for said amounts, besides P2,000.00-attorneys’
fees, and to be restored in posses­sion of the disputed land.  Defendant Verdad further filed a cross-claim
against his co-defendant Frio for the latter to pay him the said damages
besides reimbursing him the sum of P1,500.00 representing the purchase price at
P500.00 per hectare that he had paid Frio for the 3-hectare portion claimed by
plaintiffs, should the court render judgment in plaintiffs’ favor.

The record does not show that defendant Frio ever filed an answer
to plaintiffs’ complaint or to defendant Verdad’s cross-claim against him.  Neither does the record show that any move was ever made by either plaintiffs
or defendant Verdad to declare defendant Frio in default by virtue
thereof.  Peculiar­ly, however, on
September 18, 1963, or over a year and 5 months after the filing of defendant
Verdad’s answer, his lawyers appear­ing now as counsels for both defendants
(rather than for defendant Verdad alone, per their, answer on his behalf) filed a motion to
dismiss the case on the ground that the complaint states no cause of action in
that allegedly it failed to state positively and directly that plaintiffs are
the owners of the property, that the
same has not been transferred to “an innocent purchaser for
value” and that the circumstances constituting the fraud commit­ted in
procuring the title to the property have not been stated with
particularity.  In their motion,
defendants further claimed that the property covered by O.C.T. No. 5321 in the name of defendant Frio
is “now covered by Transfer Certificate of Title No. 4960” in the
name of the co-defendant Verdad.

Plaintiffs did not challenge either defendant Frio’s capacity to
file the motion and sudden appearance, notwithstanding his failure to file his
answer to the complaint for which he should have been defaulted, nor the
propriety of such a motion to dismiss long after the responsive pleading or
answer had already been filed by defendant Verdad, contrary to Rule 16, section
1.  Instead, they filed a regular
opposition that the title secured by defendants was of no avail because the land
claimed by them, as alleged in their complaint, was private land, and that
assuming that their complaint alleged insufficient facts they should be allowed
to amend the same.  The lower court,
however; issued on February 29, 1964 its order dismissing the complaint for the
reason that “it appearing that the plaintiffs did not allege in their
complaint the circumstances constituting the fraud committed by the defen­dant,
Rosendo Frio in procuring the Certificate of Title to the property, beside the
fact that it was also alleged in the said com­plaint that the same parcel of
land covered by a certificate of title has been transferred to the defendant, Juan
Verdad thru purchase, it is clear that the complaint states no cause of action
against the defendant in the present case for the reconveyance of real
property.”

Plaintiffs filed in due course their motion for reconsideration,
specifying the allegations in their complaint as to the vio­lation of their
rights of ownership and the fraudulent collusion between defendants and again
praying that if the court deem the alleged circumstances constituting the fraud
to be not definite enough, that they be allowed to file proper amendments.

Defendants filed their opposition thereto and the lower court
issued its Order of September 30, 1964 denying the mo­tion for reconsideration
as “without merit, the plaintiffs having failed to state with
particularity the circumstances constitut­ing the fraud allegedly committed in
procuring the title of the property in question which is mandatory requirement
under Sec­tion 5, Rule 8 of the Rules of Court, and to state that the same
property in question has not as yet been transferred to an inno­cent purchaser
for value in their complaint for the reconveyance of a real property covered by a title.”

In their appeal, plaintiffs allege that the lower court erred in
ordering the dismissal of their complaint and in not permitting them to amend
the same.

The appeal is manifestly meritorious for several reasons:

1.  The lower court’s ruling
that the complaint did not state with particularity the circumstances
constituting the fraud is not borne out by the pleadings.  Plaintiffs sufficiently alleged collusion
between the defendants and fraud on the part of defendant Frio in securing
title to the land of which “he was never the owner and was never in
possession.” Assuming that these allegations were not sufficiently
particular to satisfy the lower court, its proper course was not to dismiss the
complaint but to treat the motion as one for a bill of particulars and require
plaintiffs to submit a more definite statement or bill of particu­lars in
accordance with Rule 12, section 1 of the Rules of Court.^[1]

2.  The lower court’s other
ruling that plaintiffs’ complaint fails to stale a cause of action because it
failed to allege that the property has not as yet been transferred to an
innocent purchaser for value mistakes defendant Verdad’s defense of being such
an innocent purchaser for failure to state a cause of action.  Plain­tiffs alleged fraudulent collusion
between the defendants and the latter’s violating their rights “under a
false and malicious claim of own­ership,” particularly, that defendant
Frio fraudulently and illegal­ly secured title to their property and then
executed an alleged deed of sale in favor of defendant Verdad.  While imprecisely and imperfectly worded, it
was sufficient to challenge Verdad’s claim of being an innocent purchaser.  It was error for the lower court to require
that plaintiffs’ complaint should have specific­ally “stated that the same
property in question has not as yet been transferred to an innocent
purchaser for value” under penalty of dismissal.  This was defendant Verdad’s defense duly
averred in his answer and was a proper matter of evidence to be weighed and
determined upon trial on the merits.  The
mani­festation of defendants in their belated motion to dismiss that defendant
Verdad transferred the title to his name by virtue of Frio’s deed of sale in his
favor, over a year after the filing of the complaint and of his answer thereto,
has an important bearing on plaintiffs’ adverse claim of absolute ownership with over 50
years of uncontested possession over the same property.

3.  The lower court’s grave
error was in not adhering to the time-honored doctrine that where defendants move to dismiss a complaint on the
ground of failure to state a cause of action, the ground must appear on the
face of the complaint, and that to determine the sufficiency of the cause of
action, only the facts alleged in the complaint — which are deemed
hypothetically ad­mitted by defendants-movants — and no other allegations,
should be considered.^[2]
Thus viewing the allegations of
the complaint, their constituting a sufficient cause of action upon which the
court could render a valid judgment as prayed for can­not be gainsaid.  The matters raised by defendants in their
Motion to dismiss for lack of cause of action as well as in their brief, such as Verdad’s
being an innocent purchaser for value and inde­feasibility of title and
prescription of action after the one-year period from date
of issuance and registration of title to the pro­perty, are matters of defense which may
properly be considered after trial on the merits (with the exception of the
last two defen­ses which were not even raised in defendant Verdad’s
answer).  The same holds true of
defendants’ argument that since Frio is alleged to have obtained fraudulently a
free patent to the pro­perty, it therefore pertained to land of the public domain and could not be
private land, as alleged in the complaint. 
The cha­racter of the land would have to be determined at the trial, in
view of plaintiffs’ allegations that it is private land.  Plaintiffs’ allegations may still be
substantiated at the trial, for it would not be the first time that private
land is shown to have been fradulently or erroneously titled under a “free
patent” or public land, already awarded to one applicant and therefore
withdrawn from the disposable land of the domain is wrongfully titled to
another under a void grant.^[3]

4.  Finally, assuming that
the lower court had basis for granting defendants’ motion to dismiss on the
grounds stated in its orders, it should have granted plaintiffs’ repeated
prayers to be allowed to file proper amendments should it find their allegations
inadequate, in accordance with the mandate of the Rules of Court that
amendments to pleadings are favored and should be liberally allowed,
particularly in the early stages of the lawsuit, “so that the actual merits of
the controversy may speedily be determined without regard to technicalities,
and in the most expeditious and inexpensive manner.”^[4]
As stated in
the early case of Macapinlac vs. Repide,^[5] “it has been
repeatedly held to be reversible error on the part of a Court of First Instance
to dismiss a cause immediately upon sustaining a demurrer (now a motion to dismiss), without
giving the plaintiff an opportunity to amend, if he so desires.” Of course, the accepted
procedure would have been for plaintiffs, after the order of dismissal, to file their
amended complaint with a motion for its admission so that the lower court could
properly rule on their propriety and admissibility,^[6] viz,
whether or not the motion was made with intent to delay the action or the cause
of action is substantially altered,^[7] and should the
lower court deny the amendment, the appellate courts would have before them the
rejected amendment and be in a position to rule on the issue of its propriety
and admissibility.^[8] But with the Court’s find­ing that the grounds
relied upon by the lower court for its dismis­sal order were erroneous, plaintiffs‘ failure to follow the proper procedure has become a
moot point, not to mention that there is ground to excuse their failure in this
regard in view of the lower court’s orders rejecting their pleas to be given an
opportunity to file suitable amendments.

ACCORDINGLY, the orders appealed from are reversed and the case is hereby remanded to
the lower court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this decision and
for decision on the merits of the case after trial and recep­tion of the
evidence of the parties.  With costs in both instances
against defendants.

SO ORDERED.

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, Dizon, Makalintal, Zaldivar, Fernando,
Barredo, and Villamor, JJ., concur.

Castro, J., on leave.

^[1]
“SECTION 1.  Motion for bill of
particulars.  — Before responding to
a pleading, or if no responsive pleading is permitted by these Rules, within
ten (10) days after service of the pleading upon him, a party may move for a
more definite statement or for a bill of parti­culars of any matter which is
not averred with suf­ficient definiteness or particularity to enable him
properly to prepare his responsive pleading or to prepare for trial.  Such motion shall point out the defects
complained of and the details desired.”

^[2]
I Moran’s
Comments, 418 et seq and cases cited.

^[3]
De los
Angeles vs. Santos, G.R. No. L-19615, Dec. 24, 1964, 12 SCRA 622 and cases cited.

^[4]
Rule 10,
section 1.  See Constantino vs. Reyes, G.R. No. L-16870, June 29, 1963, 8
SCRA 379; Guirao vs. Ver, G.R. No. L-18570, Apr. 29, 1966, 16
SCRA 638; Malayan Ins. Co. vs. Delgado Shipping Agencies, G.R. No. L-22811, May 19,
1966, 17 SCRA 176; Dauden-Hernaez vs. Angeles, G.R. No. L-27010, Apr. 30, 1969,
27 SCRA 1276; Sing vs. Rep. of Phil. G.R. No. L-30149, Aug. 28,
1969, 29 SCRA 132.

^[5]
43 Phil. 770
(1922), citing Molina vs. La Electricista, 6 Phil. 519 and Aldecoa vs. Fortis, 17 Phil.
82; notes in
parentheses supplied

^[6]
Breslin vs. Luzsteveco, 84 Phil.
618.

^[7]
Rule 10, sec. 3.

^[8]
Constantino vs.
Reyes, supra, fn. 4.