FRANCISCA MAGHIRANG AND SERGIA GUTIERREZ, PLAINTIFFS AND APPELLANTS, VS. ATILANO BALCITA ET AL., DEFENDANTS AND APPELLEES.

STREET, J.:


By the appeal in civil cause No. 2643 of the Court of First Instance of
Laguna, Sergia Gutierrez seeks to reverse a decision of said court, whereby two
parcels of land were declared to be the exclusive property of Gregorio Empalmado
and of Esteban Reyes, respectively, free from the claim of Sergia Gutierrez that
said lots are held by said defendants subject to a contingent reservable
interest in her favor. Connected with the action above mentioned is the
proceeding in the second appeal, wherein the trial court declared that the first
of the two lots in controversy should be registered in the name of Gregorio
Empalmado, free from the same claim. Because of the intimate relation between
the action instituted in behalf of the appellant, Sergia Gutierrez, as reservee,
and the registration proceeding in which she is opponent, the two causes were
heard together in the trial court and will be here disposed of in a single
opinion.

The basis of the claim put forth by the plaintiff Gutierrez is the same as to
both parcels, but the facts constituting the respective defenses of the two
defendants are different. It will therefore be convenient to state first the
points pertaining to the two parcels in common and then such aspertain
especially to the controversy over each.

It appears that the original owner of both parcels was one Bonifacio
Gutierrez, who died about the year 1902, after having been thrice married. The
first wife left no children, but the second wife left a daughter, Zoila
Gutierrez, who intermarried with Atilano Balcita, one of the defendants herein.
To this pair was born a daughter, Gertrudis Balcita. Zoila Gutierrez predeceased
her father; and upon the death of the latter, the two parcels of land with which
we are concerned passed by inheritance directly from Bonifacio to his
granddaughter Gertrudis, then a mere child. Gertrudis Balcita herself died on
December 9, 1912, at the age of 16, leaving no heir except her father, Atilano
Balcita. The plaintiff, Sergia Gutierrez, is a daughter of Bonifacio Gutierrez
by his third wife, one Francisca Maghirang. Sergia was therefore the aunt of
Gertrudis Balcita, on her mother’s side, and as reservee under article 811 of
the Civil Code she should succeed to the title of the two parcels which Atilano
Balcita inherited, or should have inherited, from Gertrudis, provided all the
conditions necessary to the assertion of the reservable right are fulfilled.

GUTIERREZ vs. EMPALMADO

Parcel A.—In the year 1905 Atilano Balcita sold the parcel A to one
Vicente Almario. As the land belonged to Gertrudis, a lawsuit was instituted in
her behalf in 1912 with a view to recovering it. The litigation was compromised
by the reconveyance of the land by Almario to Gertrudis and the payment to him
of P1,200, which was the amount that he had paid for the property. The money
necessary to effect this compromise had to be borrowed by Gertrudis, or those
representing her; and although the point is subject to discussion, the
preponderance of the testimony is to the effect that the money was obtained from
Gregorio Empalmado under an agreement by which Gertrudis Balcita undertook to
convey the land to him for the sum of P2,100. The document, Exhibit B,
constituting the evidence of this agreement is dated November 28, 1912. In
addition to the signature of Gertrudis Balcita, which is questioned, it bears
the signature of Atilano Balcita and two subscribing witnesses. Gertrudis
Balcita died of dysentery on December 9, 1912, and on December 12 thereafter her
father, Atilano Balcita, executed the document Exhibit C, whereby he conveyed,
or purported to convey, the same parcel to Gregorio Empalmado, it being recited
that he had inherited the land from his daughter Gertrudis. Gregorio Empalmado
immediately entered into possession, and he has subsequently maintained
possession under claim of ownership.

For the plaintiff, Gutierrez, it is insisted that the document, Exhibit B, is
not authentic and that the name of Gertrudis Balcita subscribed thereto is a
forgery. The trial judge was of the opinion that the due execution of this
instrument had been proved by a preponderance of the evidence; and although the
question is debatable, and the point not altogether free from doubt, we are of
the opinion that the trial court’s conclusion on this point should be affirmed.
The two subscribing witnesses both say that they saw the girl sign the document
upon the date stated therein, and this is corroborated not only by the testimony
of Gregorio Empalmado, who was present at the execution of the instrument, but
also by Atilano Balcita himself. The only testimony to the contrary is that of
Sergia Gutierrez, who says that the girl was too sick for some time prior to her
death to admit the possibility of her having signed the instrument. It is true
that the questioned signature appears somewhat suspicious, but we have not
sufficient data upon which to pronounce it a forgery, considered as a mere
question of penmanship. Certainly, the instrument expresses the agreement that
would naturally have been drawn up under the proven circumstances which gave
rise to the transaction.

Upon the foregoing state of facts the trial judge found as a matter of law
that the title to parcel A passed out of Gertrudis Balcita and became vested in
Gregorio Empalmado before her death; and although Gertrudis was then a minor,
the conveyance was only voidable and not void. Moreover, as hi,s Honor pointed
out, the contract was evidently advantageous to the minor because she thereby
obtained the money necessary to get the property back from Vicente Almario, with
the consequent saving of P900.

These conclusions of the trial court seem to us well founded, and the result
is that, as to this parcel, the inchoate reservable right asserted by Sergia
Gutierrez never came into existence. In this view the conveyance executed by
Atilano Balcita a few days after the death of his daughter Gertrudis operated as
a mere quit-claim from him, as title had already vested in Empalmado under the
prior agreement with her.

No error was therefore committed by the trial judge in dismissing the
complaint in case No. 2643 in so far as it affects parcel A and the right of the
defendant Empalmado thereto; nor did his Honor err in ordering the registration
of the same parcel in the name of Empalmado and his wife Felipa Brion,
regardless of the opposition of the plaintiff Gutierrez.

GUTIERREZ vs. REYES

Parcel B.—As already stated, this parcel comes from the same source
as the parcel A, that is, from the estate of Bonifacio Gutierrez. With respect
to this parcel it appears that on May 28, 1906, Atilano Balcita, being then in
possession and asserting a claim of ownership, sold the same by a contract of
sale with pacto de retro for the sum of P200 to the defendant Esteban
Reyes. In the document constituting the evidence of this sale Atilano Balcita
falsely declared that he was owner by virtue of having inherited the property
from his parents and that he had been in quiet and pacific possession for
fifteen years. Esteban Reyes was a purchaser for value and bought in belief that
the land really belonged to his vendor. The period for repurchase under this
contract was ten years, which passed in 1916 without redemption having been
effected. It is not clear whether the purchaser under this contract entered into
possession during the time stipulated for redemption or not; but it is agreed
that, with this exception, the defendant Reyes had, until the institution of
this action on May 10, 1918, exercised actual and adverse possession, to the
exclusion of all other persons.

Upon the facts above stated the trial judge gave Reyes the benefit of
prescription under the ten-year statute (sec. 41, Code of Civ. Proc.) and held
that the right of Sergia Gutierrez, as reservee, had been thereby destroyed.

We are of the opinion that the conclusion thus reached is erroneous. We may
accept the legal proposition that occupancy by Esteban Reyes, pursuant to the
contract of sale with pacto de retro by which he acquired the property,
and prior to the expiration of the period for redemption, may be considered an
adverse possession as against everybody having a prescriptible interest,
notwithstanding the existence of the stipulation for repurchase. As was said by
this court in Santos vs. Heirs of Crisostomo and Tiongson (41 Phil., 342, 352),
the insertion of a stipulation for repurchase by the vendor in a contract of
sale does not necessarily create a right inconsistent with the right of
ownership in the purchaser. Such a stipulation is in the nature of an option,
and the possible exercise of it rests upon contingency. It creates no subsisting
right whatever in the property, and so far from being inconsistent with the idea
of full ownership in the purchaser, it really rests upon the assumption of
ownership in him.

But it must be borne in mind that the true owner of this property was
Gertrudis Balcita, a minor, and the period of limitation did not begin to run
against her or any person claiming in her right until the date of her death,
which was December 9, 1912. It must furthermore be remembered that the plaintiff
does not claim in the character of an ordinary successor to the rights of
Gertrudis Balcita; her claim is based upon a positive provision of law, which
could not operate in any wise until the death of Gertrudis Balcita, when the
reservable character first attached to the property in question. From this it is
obvious that the right of the plaintiff—which even yet is of a purely contingent
nature—could not be affected by anything that had occurred prior to the death of
Gertrudis Balcita; and as this action was begun in May, 1918, the ten-year
period necessary to confer a complete prescriptive title had not then
elapsed.

What has been said makes it unnecessary to express any opinion upon the more
recondite question whether Sergia Gutierrez really has a,, prescriptible
interest in the parcel B, but we may observe that the position of the reservee
under the Spanish law is very much like that of the ordinary remainderman at
common law, who is entitled to take after the termination of a particular life
estate; and it is generally accepted doctrine in commonlaw jurisdictions that if
the life tenant loses his life estate by adverse possession the interest of the
remainderman is not thereby destroyed. (17 R. C. L., 982; 21 C. J., 972, 975,
1013.) The reason for the rule is said to be that, during the existence of the
life estate, the remainderman has no right to possession and consequently cannot
bring an action to recover it. (21 C. J., 974.) As was said by the Supreme Court
of Ohio in Webster vs. Pittsburg, etc., Railroad Co. (15 L. R. A. [N. S,],
1154), “No possession can be deemed adverse to a party who has not at the time
the right of entry and possession.”

From what has been said it is apparent that the judgment must be affirmed in
so far as concerns the registration of parcel A in expediente No. 409,
G. L. R. 0., record No. 14769, and in so far as relates to the dismissal of the
complaint against Gregorio Empalmado in case No. 2643; but the judgment in the
same case must be reversed in so far as relates to parcel B, now in the
possession of Esteban Reyes, and it is hereby declared that said parcel is
reservable property and upon the death of Atilano Balcita will pass to Sergia
Gutierrez, if she be then living. Let a certified copy of this pronouncement be
filed with the register of deeds of the Province of Laguna for record pursuant
to the provisions of Act No. 2837 of the Philippine Legislature. So ordered,
without special pronouncement as to costs.

Johnson, Malcolm, Avancena, Villamor, Ostrand, Johns, and
Romualdez, JJ., concur.