FELINO EBREO, SPOUSES ANTONIO AND EVELYN P. BERAÑA, IGNACIO EBREO AND ELEUTERIA CUETO, PETITIONERS, VS. GIL EBREO, REPRESENTED BY HIS ATTORNEY-IN-FACT, FELIXBERTO EBREO, FLAVIAN…

Ebreo versus Ebreo

The Case

This is a petition for review on certiorari arising from a complaint for partition, reconveyance, accounting and damages over a parcel of unregistered land in Batangas City. Gil Ebreo, joined by Flaviano Ebreo and Homobono Cueto, sued his brother Felino Ebreo, Felino's son Antonio Ebreo and Antonio's wife Evelyn Beraña, Ignacio Ebreo and Eleuteria Cueto, claiming that the lot in question remained under the co-ownership of the heirs of the late Felipe Ebreo and had never been sold. The defendants countered that the lot had been sold by the heirs to Santiago Puyo, and later by Puyo to Antonio, but could not produce the deed of sale. The case matters because it fixes the evidentiary standard for proving a conveyance of land: an annotation in a tax declaration is not the deed, and tax declarations and tax payments are not conclusive proof of ownership.

Procedural History

The complaint was filed in January 1994 before the Regional Trial Court of Batangas City, Branch 7. After trial, the court rendered judgment in August 1997, ordering the parties to partition the lot among themselves, dismissing the defendants' counterclaim, and ordering the defendants to pay attorney's fees and the costs of suit. The defendants appealed to the Court of Appeals, which in a decision dated 27 February 2003 denied the appeal for lack of merit and affirmed the trial court in full. The Court of Appeals held that the alleged deed of sale was never produced, in violation of the best evidence rule, and that the tax declarations in Antonio's name were not conclusive proof of ownership. The defendants' motion for reconsideration was denied in a resolution dated 22 September 2003. The defendants then came to the Supreme Court by petition for review on certiorari.

Facts

Felipe Ebreo died intestate in 1926, leaving five children: Gil, Flaviano, Felino, Ignacio and Felipa. Felipa died, leaving her children Genoveva, Homobono and Eleuteria, all surnamed Cueto. Felipe left his children an untitled parcel of land in Barangay Sampaga, Batangas City, known as Lot 9046, which he had subdivided into six lots, lettered A to F.

On 11 September 1967 the five heirs, through themselves and their representatives, executed a document entitled Kasulatan ng Pagbabahagi ng Lupa, extrajudicially partitioning the property except Lot 9046-F, with an area of 13,799 square meters. By their agreement, that lot would remain under the co-ownership of Gil, Flaviano, Felino, Ignacio and the heirs of Felipa. The plaintiffs later discovered that Lot 9046-F had been declared for taxation purposes in the name of Antonio Ebreo, and they alleged that they had never sold, ceded, conveyed or transferred their shares.

The defendants answered that after the partition the heirs had sold Lot 9046-F to Santiago Puyo, that the tax declaration was transferred to Puyo's name with the sale annotated on it, and that Puyo in turn sold the lot to Antonio Ebreo on 23 July 1976 by a deed notarized before Attorney Meynardo Atienza. The deed of sale from the heirs to Puyo was never presented. The defendants explained that the copy on file with the City Assessor's Office was lost in a fire on 23 May 1979. To prove the sale, they offered the testimony of Antonio Pajilan of the City Assessor's Office on the annotation in Tax Declaration No. 48221, the testimony of Felino Ebreo, and the testimony of Asuncion Aguado, Puyo's stepdaughter.

Issues

• Whether or not the annotation of the deed of sale appearing in Tax Declaration No. 48221 is sufficient proof of transfer, in line with the presumption of regularity in the performance of official duty.
• Whether or not the entries in official records are admissible in evidence to establish a valid transfer of Lot 9046-F that effectively conveyed ownership from the heirs of Felipe Ebreo to Santiago Puyo.

Applicable Provisions

Section 3 of Rule 130 of the Rules of Court, on the best evidence rule, provides:

SEC. 3. Original document must be produced; exceptions. – When the subject of inquiry is the contents of a document, no evidence shall be admissible other than the original document itself except in the following cases: (a) When the original has been lost or destroyed, or cannot be produced in court, without bad faith on the part of the offeror; (b) When the original is in the custody or under the control of the party against whom the evidence is offered, and the latter fails to produce it after reasonable notice; (c) When the original consists of numerous accounts or other documents which cannot be examined in court without great loss of time and the fact sought to be established from them is only the general result of the whole; and (d) When the original is a public record in the custody of a public officer or is recorded in a public office.

This is the rule the Court applies in holding that the testimonies offered to prove the contents of the missing deed are secondary evidence, admissible only if an exception is first established.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the annotation is not sufficient proof of transfer. The presumption of regularity in the issuance of a tax declaration is a mere presumption, not absolute nor inflexible, and applies only in the absence of proof to the contrary. The Court stressed that a declaration for taxation purposes does not necessarily prove ownership, and that payment of taxes does not conclusively prove ownership either; it is merely an indicium of a claim of ownership. The testimony of Pajilan was inconclusive: he was employed in the assessor's office only in 1978, so he neither made nor witnessed the annotation, was not present at the execution of the deed, and never saw it.

On the second issue, the Court held that the entries were not admissible to establish the transfer. The testimonies of Pajilan, Felino Ebreo and Asuncion Aguado were at most secondary evidence, and they were inadmissible because the petitioners, as offerors of the deed, failed to prove any of the exceptions in Section 3 of Rule 130. The Court laid down the requirement:

Under this rule, it is axiomatic that before a party is allowed to adduce secondary evidence to prove the contents of the original of a deed or document, the party has to prove with the requisite quantum of evidence, the loss or destruction or unavailability of all the copies of the original of the said deed or document.

The Court added that the offeror must prove the execution and existence of the original, its loss or destruction or non-production in court, and that its unavailability is not due to bad faith. Felino himself admitted there were three copies of the missing deed, yet none was presented, and his claim that Eleuteria borrowed the document was refuted by Eleuteria herself. The trial court's findings, affirmed by the Court of Appeals and supported by substantial evidence, were respected. The Court also noted the suspicious circumstances: the sale was allegedly made in 1967, yet the earliest tax declaration in Puyo's name was issued only in 1973 or 1974, and the annotation appeared on no other tax declaration. Since there was no valid transfer to Puyo, the later transfer to Antonio was ineffectual, for the seller must be the owner of the property he sells.

Doctrine

Three rules must be retained. First, the best evidence rule requires that the original document be produced when its contents are the subject of inquiry; secondary evidence is admissible only upon proof of an exception, and where there are several originals, all must be accounted for before secondary evidence may be given. Second, a tax declaration and the payment of taxes are not conclusive proof of ownership; they are merely indicia of a claim of ownership, and the presumption of regularity in their issuance yields to proof to the contrary. Third, a transfer of ownership cannot rest on an annotation alone; without the deed, the conveyance is unproven, and a subsequent sale by one who acquired no rights conveys nothing.

Disposition

The petition was denied for lack of merit, and the decision of the Court of Appeals affirming the trial court was upheld, with the lot to be partitioned among the heirs of Felipe Ebreo.

Remember This

An annotation in a tax declaration is not the deed, and a tax declaration is not a title. Examiners use this case to test the best evidence rule and its exceptions, and the rule that tax declarations and tax payments are only indicia of ownership, never conclusive proof.