NATIONAL COCONUT CORPORATION, PETITIONER VS. JUDGE FRANCISCO GERONIMO AND SAGRADA ORDEN DE PREDICADORES DEL SANTISIMO ROSARIO DE FILIPINAS, RESPONDENTS.

From the allegations in the complaint filed with the Municipal
Court of the City of Manila (copy of which is attached to the petition) by the
Sagrada Orden de Predicadores against the petitioner herein, it clearly appears,
notwithstanding the plaintiff’s contention, that the possession of the property
in question by the Philippine Alien Property Custodian and of the petitioner to
whom said possession was transferred by the said Custodian in August 1946, was
in good faith (Arts. 434, 435, 436 and 1950 of the Civil Code); and it only lost
its character as such when the Court of First Instance rendered judgment in
Civil Case No. 5007 declaring null and void the sale of the property by the
respondent Sagrada Orden de Predicadores to a Japanese corporation, from which
the Philippine Alien Property Custodian, predecessor in interest of the
petitioner, obtained the said property in accordance with law.

Under Art. 451 of the Civil Code the fruits received by one in
possession in good faith before the possession is legally interrupted, becomes
his own (White vs. Williams & Co., 5 Phil., 571), and the possession in good
faith of the petitioner and its predecessor in interest, the Philippine Alien
Property Custodian, was not interrupted upon the filing of the complaint
against, arid service of summons upon, the latter; because the Philippine Alien
Property Custodian was not the purchaser of the property and, under the
circumstances, was not supposed to be aware of any vice which may have attended
the sale of the property by the Sagrada Orden de Predicadores to the Japanese
corporation. The possession of the petitioner lost its character of possession
in good faith from the rendition of the judgment against the Philippine Alien
Property Custodian, and the latter or his successor in interest is liable from
that time to pay the rents or fruits of the property until the possession of the
property has been delivered to the adjudged owner thereof.

The possession of the property by the petitioner became illegal
only from the time she was notified or required by the Sagrada Orden de
Predicadores to return said possession to it and the former failed to do so,
because before said notice or demand was made the possession of the petitioner
was legal or consented, to without prejudice to the obligation of said
petitioner to pay the reasonable compensation for the use and occupation of the
premises from the time the latter’s possession ceased to be in good faith. From
the notice to vacate the premises up to the filing of the complaint of illegal
detainer against the petitioner by the respondent Sagrada Orden de Predicadores,
one year had not elapsed, and therefore the respondent Municipal Judge or Court
has jurisdiction to try and decide the case.

To uphold the contention of the dissenting opinion that the
possession of the petitioner was illegal since August 1946, would be to hold
that an action of illegal detainer could have been successfully instituted by
the Sagrada Orden de Predicadores within one year from that date, that is,
before the sale of the property by said Sagrada Orden de Predicadores to the
Japanese corporation has been set aside, and therefore while the ownership
thereof was still vested in the petitioner’s predecessor in interest, which is
absolutely untenable.

Petition for prohibition with preliminary injunction is
therefore denied. So ordered.

Moran, C.J., Pablo, Bengzon, Tuason, Montemayor, and
A. Reyes, JJ., concur.

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DISSENTING

PARAS, J.:

The complaint for ejectment filed in the Municipal Court admits
that the plaintiff (respondent Sagrada Orden de Predicadores del Santisimo
Rosario de Filipinas) has been deprived of the premises in question since 1946,
and that the defendant (petitioner National Coconut Corporation) has had that
possession since that year. The claim for P93,000 represents damages from
August, 1946 to February, 1949. The result is that, under the very allegations
of the complaint for ejectment, more than one year has elapsed between the
commencement of the alleged illegal deprivation of possession and the filing of
the complaint in the Municipal Court. The one-year period specified in the Rules
of Court—that confers jurisdiction on the Municipal Court—does not refer to the
time when a plaintiff in a forcible entry and detainer case shall have acquired
proprietary rights, but principally to the possession of the actual occupant. If
the respondent Sagrada Orden de Predicadores wanted the judgment in the case
against the Philippine Alien Property Custodian to be binding against the
petitioner, the latter should have been included as party defendant in the case.
Again, the 5-day notice given to the defendant in an illegal detainer case
refers to the class of persons expressly enumerated in section 2 of Rule of
Court No. 72, to which the petitioner plainly does not belong.

Perfecto, J., concurs in this dissent.