CASIANO AGOLTO AND MARIA ASUNCION AGOLTO, PETITIONERS, VS. THE COURT OF APPEALS, PLACIDA DIAZ, ENDOCIA DIAZ, MARIO DIAZ, AND TERESITA DIAZ, RESPONDENTS.

The ownership of a parcel of land, a little more than a hectare
in area, located in the municipality of San Luis, province of Pampanga, was awarded in favor of the respondents Placida, Endocia, Mario and Teresita, all
surnamed Diaz, by the Court of First Instance of Pampanga
in cadastral case 57 of San Luis, that province.  All of the said private respondents are
children of the original claimant, Pilar Carlos, and
were substituted in her place, upon the latter’s death, in the course of the
proceedings in the trial court.

The other claimants to the same parcel of land are the petitioners
Casiano and Maria Asuncion, both surnamed Agolto.  Losing in
the legal battle they waged in the trial court, the Agol­tos
elevated their cause to the respondent Court of Appeals which in turn affirmed
the decision a quo.  This
case is now with us on appeal by certiorari by the petitioners.

A brief recital of the common genealogy of the litigants should
complete the entire picture of this case. 
Servando Agolto, who
is the deceased father of the petitioners Casiano and
Maria Asuncion Agolto, had three sisters, namely, Vicenta, Lucia, and Macaria,
likewise all surnamed Agolto.  Both Vicenta and
Lucia died without issue.  Macaria had three sons, Juan, Cipriano,
and Gregorio, all surnamed Carlos.  Pilar Carlos (substitu­ted in this case by her children, the
respondents Diaz) was Juan’s daughter. 
Gregorio was survived by his son Pedro Carlos.

The respondent Court of Appeals, in support of its conclu­sion
that the ownership of the land in dispute should pertain to the respondents
Diaz, relied on (a) the deed of partition dated March 11, 1934, and (b) acquisitive prescription in favor of the respondents Diaz.  Both matters are the subject of the present
appellate review.

1.  The respondent appellate
court gave full credit to the deed of partition entered into on March 11, 1934 by and between the
petitioners Casiano and Maria Asuncion Agolto on the one hand, and Cipriano
Carlos, Pedro Carlos, and the mother of the respondents Diaz (Pilar Carlos) on the other. 
The deed recites that the several parcels of land therein mentioned were
inherited by the parties from their ascendants, and that they were now agreed
to apportion these parcels.  Lot 3051 of
the San Luis ca­dastre, which is admittedly the land now under litigation, was
adjudicated, in that instrument of partition, to Cipriano
Carlos, to his nephew Pedro Carlos, and to his niece Pilar
Carlos.

While no evidence appears on record, it seems clearly assumed by
the parties that both Cipriano and Pedro Carlos had
assigned or transferred their rights over lot 3051 to Pilar
Car­los, the predecessor-in-interest of the respondents Diaz.

It is admitted, however, that while the name of the peti­tioner
Maria Asuncion Agolto was included in the deed of
parti­tion adverted to above, she did not actually participate in its execution.  The deed itself reveals this fact as it
declares that illness or some other unavoidable circumstance caused the ab­sence
of petitioner Maria Asuncion Agolto.  Added to this reci­tal, however, is a
statement that she was to be represented by her brother, the petitioner Casiano Agolto, and that moreover
her husband Leoncio de Castro, whose signature
appears on the instrument, was to bear witness to the execution of the
instrument.

The petitioners insist nevertheless, and we agree with them, that
the deed of partition of March 11, 1934 is not binding upon the petitioner
Maria Asuncion Agolto.  No written power of attorney in favor of her
brother Casiano was presented nor was any pretension
made as to its existence.  The respon­dents
Diaz offered no proof that the deed of partition was subsequently ratified by
the absent party.^[1]
It was therefore error on the part of the respondent appellate court to rely
upon this ins­trument as a basis for adjudicating, as it did, the ownership of
the land in question, more so when the respondents Diaz them­selves, in their
brief, appear to be hesitant in invoking this deed of partition.  This instrument, according to them, was
intended by the parties thereto merely to confirm in writing the division of
ownership then already existing among them.

Thus the respondents Diaz predicate their claim to own­ership
basically on acquisitive prescription in their favor.

2.   The respondent Court of Appeals found that
even prior to March 11, 1934, the date when the deed of partition was exe­cuted,
the respondents predecessor-in-interest, Pilar
Carlos, had already been in possession of the land in dispute and had been
paying the irrigation fees thereon.  It
likewise declared that upon the death of Pilar
Carlos, the respondents Diaz assumed and carried forward the possession as her
heirs.

The petitioners assail the correctness of the respondent court’s
conclusion that lot 3051 belongs to the respondents Diaz by virtue of
acquisitive prescription.  It behooved us
therefore to scrutinize the record to determine whether there was indeed a
grave misapprehension of facts on the part of the respondent court.

Pedro Carlos testified that lot 3051 was among several parcels of
land previously held and owned in common by the bro­ther and sisters Servando, Macaria, Vicenta and Lucia, all sur­named Agolto.  These properties were subsequently
apportioned among their surviving heirs, and it was in the year 1914 that Pilar Carlos, the respondents Diaz’ mother, took possession
of lot 3051 as her share in the partition. 
Pilar’s possession conti­nued until her death
on April 26, 1950 when her heirs, the res­pondents Diaz, forthwith took
over.  Eliseo Calma, a witness for the respondents Diaz, testified that
since 1925, when he started cultivating lot 3051 as tenant thereof, he has been
delivering the landowner’s share of the harvest to Pilar
Carlos whose owner­ship has, to his knowledge, never been doubted.  Joaquin Diaz, Pilar’s
husband, testified that even prior to his marriage to Pi­lar,
the latter had all along been recognized in their barrio as the sole
owner of lot 3051.  Exhibits submitted by
the respon­dents Diaz show that the irrigation fees over the land were paid by
either Pilar or her uncle Cipriano
Carlos.

The petitioner Casiano Agolto, upon the other hand, tes­tified that lot 3051 was
part of a bigger parcel of land which he, together with the other petitioner,
Maria Asuncion Agolto, inhe­rited from their father, Servando Agolto.  The petitioners were still of tender age when
their parents died, and they had to be placed, together with their properties,
under the care of their aunt Macaria Agolto.  The
petitioners came to know that lot 3051 belonged to them because their
relatives, including Macaria, had told them so.  When Macaria died,
her son Cipriano request­ed the petitioners to allow
him to cultivate the land in order to help him tide over his financial
difficulties.  The petitioners granted
the request upon the condition that Cipriano was to
pay the fees and taxes on the land.  The
petitioner Casiano Agolto,
together with Leoncio de Castro, the husband of
petitioner Ma­ria Asuncion Agolto, in addition,
disowned the deed of partition of March
11, 1934 as having been procured through fraud and
misrepresentation.

Further, the petitioners press the argument that the actual
possession enjoyed by the predecessor-in-interest of the respondents Diaz was
consistent with the petitioners’ position that lot 3051 was being held by the
Carlos family only in trust for the petitioners.  The trust agreement, it is argued, stays the
running of the statute of limitations and bars every form of ac­quisitive
prescription in favor of the trustee until that trust is repudiated openly and
positively and brought home to the know­ledge of the cestui
que trust or beneficiary.

While we concede to the petitioners the validity of the legal
implications drawn by them,^[2]
we cannot say the same with respect to their factual premises.  The possession credited by the respondent
Court of Appeals, and the trial court for that matter, to the
predecessor-in-interest of the respondents Diaz was, to all intents and
purposes, possession in the concept of ownership.  Upon the other hand, the possession which the
peti­tioners attribute to Pilar Carlos is possession
by a trustee for the benefit of a cestui que trust. 
One necessarily contradicts the other, and both cannot co-exist in a
common factual setting.  Ultimately,
therefore, when opposing litigants present conflict­ing evidence for these two
kinds of possession, there arises the need of assessing the credibility or the
witnesses and the proba­bility or improbability of the conflicting situations
presented.  This the trial court and the
Court of Appeals did.  The trial court
dismissed the petitioners’ evidence on the point as unten­able; and the
respondent Court of Appeals agreed, declaring the preponderance of evidence in
favor of the respondents.  Be­cause in
our review of the record, we have found no substantial reason on which to base
a disagreement with the findings thus made, we are loath to discredit the same.^[3]

In sum, we find more than adequate basis in the record for sustaining the ownership of the respondents
Diaz.  Their mo­ther, Pilar
Carlos, acquired lot 3051 by inheritance. 
Her pos­session, which began in the year 1914, or, at the very least, in
1925, was in the concept of ownership, adverse, public, peaceful and
uninterrupted, and lasted until January
20, 1941 when the pe­titioners filed their adverse claim in the
cadastral proceedings.  Consequently, she
must be adjudged the owner of lot 3051 by or­dinary acquisitive prescription.^[4]

The petitioners raise one other issue which, although not
directed at the merits of the case, deserves our attention.  They roundly assail the decision of the
respondent Court of Ap­peals for not meeting head-on the several factual and
legal is­sues posed in that court, inspite of these
issues having been ela­borately discussed in their brief, reiterated in their
memoran­dum, and insisted upon in their motion for reconsideration.

A perceptive reading of the decision in question indeed imparts
the impression that the same is a more or less re­hashed version of the
decision of the trial court.  After
reciting virtually the same facts as those shaped out by the trial court, the
respondent appellate court’s decision proceeded to enume­rate the petitioners’
assignments of error, and then ended with an unadorned statement that they are
all without merit.

It may indeed be that a good measure of time and effort on the
part of the respondent Court of Appeals went into its stu­dy of this case and
that the conclusion it reached is fully justi­fiable, but we find its decision
wanting in full exposition.

All judges must needs remember, and this we stress once again,
that courts of justice find warrant in what they do only to the extent that
their decisions rest on reason that is the law. 
We are not so naive as to put our faith wholly in articula­ted
reason.  We know that a great deal more
is caught up in a judge’s mental processes than his opinion reveals.  We know how slender a reed reason is.  Still, it is only to the extent that a judge
strives to expose fully and clearly the reasons for his de­cision that he
fulfills his office.  Decisions that are
well-written and well-argued go a long way toward minimizing appeals and promoting
public understanding of and faith in the
actions, man­dates and judgments of courts of justice.

ACCORDINGLY, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
affirmed.  No pronouncement as to costs.

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

Reyes, J.B.L., J., concurs
separately.

Villamor, J., on leave.

^[1]
See article 1403, par. (1), Civil Code of the Philippines.

^[2]
Manalang, et al. vs. Canlas,
et al., 94 Phil. 776; Laguna vs. Levantino, et
al., 71 Phil. 566.

^[3]
Lim vs. Calaguas and Alcaraz,
83 Phil. 796.

^[4]
See articles 1118, 1119, 1127, 1128, 1129 and 1134 of the Civil Code of the Philippines.

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