ANGELITA M. MARTINEZ, PETITIONER, VS. REGIONAL TRIAL COURT OF DIGOS CITY, DAVAO DEL SUR, BRANCH 20, PRESIDED BY HON. JUDGE ALBERT S. AXALAN, SPOUSES ALFREDO C. ORTIZ AND JEANETT…
INTING, J.:
WHEREFORE, premises considered, the lost owner’s duplicate copy of Transfer Certificate of Title No. T-34522, in the name of Alfredo C. Ortiz is hereby declared NULL and VOID, and the Register of Deeds of Davao del Sur is hereby directed to issue another owner’s copy of said title, in lieu of the lost one, under the same terms and conditions as in the original, after payment of the required fees.
SO ORDERED.
The facts of the case are as follows:
Version of the Petitioner[3]
Private respondent Alfredo C. Ortiz (Alfredo) is the registered owner of a parcel of land covered under TCT No. T-34522. On August 28, 1998, the land was sold by Alfredo with conformity of his wife Jeannette S. Ortiz (Jeannette) to petitioner Angelita M. Martinez (Angelita). Upon execution of the Deed of Sale, Alfredo delivered TCT No. T-34522 to Angelita.
On July 31, 2001, Jeannette executed an Affidavit of Loss stating that the owner’s duplicate copy of TCT No. T-34522 was lost. The affidavit was annotated by the Register of Deeds on the copy of the title in its office. On January 24, 2002, Jeannette, through her Attorney-in-fact Engr. Joseph C. Fernandez, filed a Petition for the Issuance of Owner’s Duplicate of TCT No. T-34522 before the RTC. The affidavit and the petition provide:
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Affidavit of Loss[4]
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Petition for the Issuance of Owner’s Certificate[5]
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That while she was going through her records where she placed the TCT, she was surprised to notice that the envelope containing the TCT was nowhere to be found
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TCT was lost in the possession of Engr. Fernandez because it was included in the envelope which was stolen while the motorcycle of Engr. Fernandez was parked at a public market
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She never delivered the title to any person or entity
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She is the widow of Alfredo Ortiz
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YET during the trial, Alfredo Ortiz testified in court
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The RTC ruled in favor of Jeannette.
The decision became final and executory on March 24, 2003. The Register of Deeds issued a new owner’s duplicate copy of TCT No. T-34522 in the name of Alfredo.
Angelita learned of the petition and of the decision on November 12, 2009 when she asked her employee Darlene Embodo (Embodo) to check the title of the property. She then asked, through Embodo, the RTC for a copy of the decision and the records of the case but was not allowed by the RTC. On various dates between November 2009 and January 2010, requests for the copies of the decision and records were not available as the RTC is still rummaging through their files, until such time that they were told that the RTC could not find the records of the case.
Meanwhile, Angelita executed an Affidavit of Adverse Claim on December 4, 2009 and had it annotated in the Register of Deeds.
On December 28, 2009, counsel of Angelita wrote a letter-request to the RTC for copies of the decision and the records of the case. On January 26, 2010, the copies of the decision and the petition of the Jeannette were provided to Angelita. The other records of the case were not available.
Petitioner then filed the instant petition for annulment of judgment on the ground of lack of jurisdiction.
Version of the Private Respondents[6]
Estrella J. Magdangal (Estrella), mother of petitioner, has a business relationship with private respondent Jeannette Ortiz whereby La Estrella Lending Investor would grant loans to Jeannette’s employees and other clientele. These loans are secured either by a post dated check or titles of real estate covered by deeds of conveyance to guarantee the payment.
TCT No. T-34522, the subject TCT, was used as a security for the loan of Atty. Alma Naidas-Enriquez (Atty. Alma) because Atty. Alma failed to surrender her title over her own parcel of land. The Spouses signed the Deed of Sale, as routinely done in the business arrangement, in favor of Angelita Martinez, pursuant to the instructions of Estrella. TCT No. T-34522 was only used as a security until Atty. Alma delivers her own title as security for her loan. There is no consideration for the alleged sale of TCT No. T-34522 to Angelita Martinez. The deed of sale is not notarized.
When Atty. Alma delivered her own title to secure her loan, the husband of Estrella received the title and issued an acknowledgment receipt[7] stating that the title of Atty. Alma is the replacement for TCT No. T-34522. Estrella then committed to send TCT No. T-34522 to Jeannette’s house. But when Jeannette checked her files, the title cannot be found.
Years later, Jeannette filed a complaint for legal separation against her husband which required her to make an inventory of their properties. Since TCT No. T-34522 cannot be found, she executed her Affidavit of Loss and had it annotated in the Register of Deeds. All this time Estrella would say that she already returned the title to her. Since Jeannette could no longer locate the title, she executed an SPA in favor of Engr. Fernandez to file the petition before the RTC.
The Spouses remained in possession of the subject property, harvested coconuts and paid realty taxes thereon.
Anent the alleged discrepancies, Spouses Ortiz state that Engr. Fernandez made a mistake in the petition filed before the RTC when he alleged that Alfredo was dead and that he lost the title.
The Spouses then argues that Martinez is guilty of fraud or estopped in asserting that she has a copy of the TCT and that the deed of sale has no legal effect.
Pursuant to a Resolution dated May 23, 2011, both parties submitted their pre-trial briefs.[8]
Meanwhile, petitioner filed a motion to allow her to present the Certificate of Title in her possession to the Land Registration Authority for examination and determine its genuineness.[9]
In a Resolution dated February 13, 2012[10], the Parties were directed to inform the Court within 5 days from notice of the status of the certificate of title as verified from the records of the LRA.
Petitioner then filed her Manifestation and Compliance[11] of the dated August 2, 2012 attaching the Report of the LRA. The Report[12] states, among others, that:
In their Comment[13] to the Manifestation and Compliance of petitioner, the Spouses allege, among others, that: (1) the report does not contain any declaration whether the title is genuine or fake but merely stated observations; (2) the opinion of the LRA investigator is not entitled to any credence and must not be given weight; and (3) even if the LRA will declare the title to be genuine, the fact remains that this same title in the possession of petitioner is a mere collateral to a loan.
In a Resolution dated February 26, 2013[14], the Court directed the parties to file their Memorandum and dispensed with the preliminary conference in view of the submission of the LRA Report. The parties then filed their Memoranda.
In a Resolution dated October 17, 2013, the Court recalled the February 26, 2013 Resolution and set the continuation of the pre-trial conference on November 6, 2013 to determine from the parties’ themselves if they are willing to submit the case for summary judgment pursuant to Rule 47 Section 6 in relation to Rule 18 Section 2(g) of the Rules of Court.[15]
On the scheduled pre-trial conference, petitioner’s counsel manifested that he will file a motion for summary judgment. Respondent and/or her counsel did not attend the hearing. But they were given a period of thirty (30) days from receipt of the motion for summary judgment to file their comment/opposition.[16]
Petitioner filed her motion for summary judgment dated December 5, 2013.[17]
Per Judicial Records Division Report, the Spouses filed no comment/opposition to the motion and thus in a Resolution18 dated March 19, 2014, the Court resolved to deem the Spouses to have waived their right to file their comment/opposition to the motion. The motion for summary judgment was also declared submitted for resolution.
Our Ruling
The motion is meritorious. The assailed judgment is annulled for lack of jurisdiction.
“Summary judgment is resorted to in order to avoid long drawn out litigations and useless delays. When affidavits, depositions and admissions on file show that there are no genuine issues of fact to be tried, the Rules allow a party to pierce the allegations in the pleadings and to obtain immediate relief by way of summary judgment. In short, since the facts are not in dispute, the court is allowed to decide the case summarily by applying the law to the material facts.[19]“
In the instant case, the annulment of the judgment of the RTC was sought on the basis of lack of jurisdiction because the owner’s duplicate title which was alleged to be lost is not lost.
“An action to annul a final judgment is an extraordinary remedy, which is not to be granted indiscriminately by the Court. It is a recourse equitable in character allowed only in exceptional cases. x x x Under Section 2, Rule 47 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, the only grounds for annulment of judgment are extrinsic fraud and lack of jurisdiction. Lack of jurisdiction as a ground for annulment of judgment refers to either lack of jurisdiction over the person of the defending party or over the subject matter of the claim.[20]“
It is already settled that “(I)f a certificate of title has not been lost but is in fact in the possession of another person, the reconstituted title is void and the court rendering the decision has not acquired jurisdiction. Consequently the decision may be attacked any time.[21]“
In the instant case, the Report of the Investigation Team of the LRA tasked to investigate the authenticity of the owner’s duplicate title in the possession of Martinez is very clear, to wit:
(1) the electronic copy and the subject duplicate copy of TCT No. T-34522 bears the same serial number;
(2) both copies have been typed in the same manner including the “typing” errors;
Based on the foregoing, the team leader opined that the owner’s duplicate title is the title which was declared lost by the RTC. But the team did not stop there. They submitted the title to the Banknotes and Securities Printing Department of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to conduct an examination of the judicial form used. The Laboratory Examination Report of the BSP clearly states that: Paper and Print of the document are genuine.[22]
It should also be noted that the affidavit of loss of Jeannette, her petition for the issuance of a new owner’s duplicate title before the RTC, and her Answer to the instant petition contradict each other with respect to the circumstances of the alleged loss of the title, to wit:
Affidavit of Loss to the Register of Deeds That while she was going through her records where she placed the TCT, she was surprised to notice that the envelope containing the TCT was nowhere to be found Petition before the RTC TCT was lost in the possession of Engr. Fernandez because it was included in the envelope which was stolen while the motorcycle of Engr. Fernandez was parked at a public market Answer to the petition before this Court Martinez did not return the title to her but made her believed that it was already returned to her
Thus, it is clear that the owner’s duplicate title, which was allegedly lost and declared lost by the RTC is in fact not lost. It is in the possession of Martinez.
Applying the foregoing jurisprudence, the RTC did not acquire jurisdiction on the petition for a new owner’s duplicate title in lieu of the lost one before it and consequently, the new owner’s duplicate title issued by the Register of Deeds of Davao del Sur by virtue of the RTC decision is null and void.
WHEREFORE, the motion for summary judgment is GRANTED. The Decision of the Regional Trial Court is ANNULLED for Lack of Jurisdiction. The owner’s duplicate copy of Transfer Certificate of Title issued pursuant to the Decision is Null and Void.
SO ORDERED.
Camello, (Chairperson), and Perez, JJ., concur.
[1] Rollo, pp. 2-28
[2] Rollo, pp. 31-33
[3] Rollo, pp. 8-18
[4] Rollo, p. 38
[5] Rollo, pp. 39-20
[6] Rollo, pp. 68-86
[7] Rollo, p. 98
[8] Rollo, pp. 147-149
[9] Rollo, pp. 232-234
[10] Rollo, p. 248
[11] Rollo, pp. 295-297
[12] Rollo, p. 299-301
[13] Rollo, pp. 337-342
[14] Rollo, pp. 348-349
[15] Rollo, pp. 408-409
[16] Rollo, pp. 425-426
[17] Rollo, pp. 427-436
[18] Rollo, pp. 511-513
[19] Puyat v. Zabarte, G.R. No. 141536, February 26, 2001
[20] Nudo v. Caguioa et al., G.R. No. 176906, August 4, 2009
[21] New Durawood Co. Inc., v. Court of Appeals et al., G.R. No. 111732, February 20, 1996 citing Serra Serra vs. Court of Appeals; Also in Villanueva et al. v. Viloria, G.R. No. 155804, March 14, 2008
[22] Rollo, p. 300