THE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT OF BULACAN, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. URSULA ADUNA ET AL., DEFENDANTS AND APPELLANTS, AND THE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT OF BULACAN, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLE…

The above entitled cases were instituted
by the provincial government of Bulacan on the 3d and 26th days of May,
1915, respectively, for the purpose of expropriating several parcels of
land situated in that province for the construction of the
interprovincial road from Calumpit, Bulacan, to Apalit, Pampanga, and
from Pulilan to Calumpit, Bulacan. By order of the court of the 4th and
27th days of May, 1915, respectively, the plaintiff was authorized to
immediately take possession of the lands in question upon the deposit
by it of the estimated value thereof with the provincial treasurer.

Subsequently, the various defendants having appeared and answered the
respective complaints, commissioners were duly appointed to hear the
evidence and appraise the lands in question. The two cases were
consolidated and heard together. After hearing the proofs the
commissioners, on the 21st day of September, 1916, submitted their
report to the court, in which they appraised the lands of the
defendants surnamed Jacinto at twelve centavos (P0.12) per square meter
and those of the other defendants at ten centavos (P0.10) per square
meter.

To that report of the commissioners the plaintiff, through the
provincial fiscal of Bulacan, presented an objection upon the ground
that the assessment made by the commissioners was excessive; that the
proof shows that the lands in question are worth three centavos (P0.03)
per square meter for agricultural land and four centavos (P0.04) per
square meter for urban land.

Upon a consideration of the commissioners’ report and the said
objection of the fiscal, the Hon. P. M. Moir, judge, rendered a
judgment, finding that the reasonable value of the lands in question is
four centavos (P0.04) per square meter, and modified the commissioners’
report accordingly, ordering the provincial government of Bulacan to
immediately pay to the interested parties the value of their respective
lands at four centavos (P0.04) per square meter. From that judgment
several of the defendants appealed to this court.

The main contention of the appellants is based upon the following statement (found at page 8 of their brief):

“After the filing of this report (referring to
Commissioners’ report) in court, it was not objected to either by
plaintiff’s counsel or by defendants-appellants’. The court, without
taking these circumstances into account, made its own findings,
disapproving the report.”

That statement is contrary to the real fact appearing of record;
for, as we have stated above, the provincial fiscal of Bulacan, in
representation of the plaintiff, presented a vigorous objection to said
report of the commissioners. (See fol. 264, Expediente No. 1488.)

The appellants argue that, there being no objection whatever, upon
the part of either party, to the commissioners’ report, the lower court
was not justified in modifying the same and substituting its own
finding. In the first place, it will be readily seen that that argument
of appellants is based upon a wrong premise. In the second place, this
court has held in various cases that the Court of First Instance and,
on appeal, the Supreme Court, may substitute its own estimate of the
value as gathered from the record submitted to it in cases, among
others, where the commissioners have disregarded a clear preponderance
of the evidence. (City of Manila vs. Estrada and Estrada, 25 Phil., 208; Manila Railroad Co. vs. Velasquez, 32 Phil., 286; City of Manila vs. Neal, 33 Phil., 291; Manila Railroad Co. vs. Alano, 36 Phil., 500.)

An examination of the record in the present case shows that a clear
preponderance of the evidence supports the conclusion of the lower
court and not that of the commissioners. It appears that several land
owners affected by the construction of the public road in question
voluntarily sold their respective portions of land to the plaintiff at
three or four centavos per square meter. The witness Pedro Garcia, an
employee in the office of the district engineer of Bulacan, whose work
was to negotiate the purchase of lands needed for public roads,
testified that the reasonable value of appellants’ lands was four
centavos per square meter. The appellant Andres Jacinto himself, whose
land the commissioners appraised at twelve centavos (P0.12) per square
meter, testified that he had been offered P10,000 for a portion of his
land containing 30 hectares; that he did not sell it at that price for
he asked P15,000. From this it will be seen that the offer to this
appellant’s land was only three and one-third centavos (P0.03 1/3) per
square meter, and what he asked for was only five centavos (P0.05) per
square meter. And yet, the commissioners appraised his land at twelve
centavos (P0.12) per square meter, simply because in a former
expropriation proceeding the provincial government of Bulacan paid
twelve centavos per square meter for the land of one Donato Teodoro. In
our opinion, the conclusion of the commissioners, based upon such
reason, is erroneous. The fact that the Government had, at one time,
paid an exorbitant price for one parcel of land, is no reason or
justification for requiring it to pay the same price on all subsequent
occasions. As to the finding of the commissioners that the lands of the
other appellants are worth ten centavos (P0.10) per square meter, there
is no proof in the record to support it, except the statement of the
said Donato Teodoro that he bought a piece of land adjoining to his at
ten centavos per square meter. That isolated transaction certainly
cannot serve as the basis of the valuation in this case, especially if
we take into consideration the fact that several other landowners
voluntarily sold to the Government the portions of their respective
lands needed by the latter in the construction of the road in question,
at three or four centavos per square meter.

The appellants further allege .that the lower court committed an
error in making no finding in its judgment as to the payment to them of
the damages awarded by the commissioners, representing the value of the
improvements on their respective lands. It appears, however, that
previous to the rendition of the judgment appealed from, to wit: on the
24th day of November, 1916, the lower court had ordered that such
damages be paid to the defendants in accordance with the stipulation of
the parties. (See fols. 272 and 297, Exrpediente No. 1488.) It was, therefore, unnecessary for the lower court to again pass upon that question in its decision.

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment appealed from is hereby affirmed, with costs. So ordered.

Araullo, Street, Avancena, and Villamor, JJ., concur.