MARTIN CARREON, AS ADMINISTRATOR OF THE ESTATE OF ACOP BANGUILAN, AND CHANAL (ALIAS DANAL), PLAINTIFFS AND APPELLANTS, VS. SIOCO CARIÑO, DEFENDANT AND APPELLEE.

This is an appeal from a decision of the Court of First Instance of the
subprovince of Benguet, dismissing an action brought by the plaintiffs to
recover the sum of P4,800 and other personal property pertaining to the estate
of the deceased Igorrote, Acop Banguilan. 

It is alleged in the complaint that the plaintiff Martin Carreon is the
administrator of the estate of Acop Banguilan; that the plaintiff Chanal (alias
Danal) is the surviving spouse of the deceased; that on or about October or
November, 1921, about one year after the death of Acop Banguilan and before
letters of administration were issued, the defendant, Sioco Cariño, took away
from Ghanal the sum of P4,800, and some title documents, all belonging to the
conjugal property of Acop and Chanal, on the condition that he, the defendant,
would return it to Chanal after a “cañao” or feast over said money had been
celebrated; that the defendant obtained possession of the property under the
pretext that he, being an influential man in the community, could keep the
property safely from the danger of robbers; that in spite of repeated demands,
the defendant continues to retain the property illegally; and that as a result
of the illegal detention of the aforesaid sum of P4,800, the plaintiffs have
suffered damages in the amount P4,800.

The defendant, in his answer, denies generally and specifically each and
every allegation of the complaint, and as a special .defense alleges (1) that
any action which the plaintiff might have had against the defendant has already
prescribed under the laws of the Philippine Islands, and (2) that this action
has been illegally and improperly brought, inasmuch as it contravenes a final
order made by the Court of First Instance of Benguet in civil case No. 247,
entitled “E. Speth et al., plaintiffs, vs. Sioco Cariño, defendant.”

Upon a careful examination of the record, we are of the opinion that the
judgment of the court below must be reversed. It is obvious that the defendant’s
special defense of prescription has not been established. The money claimed by
the plaintiff, whether conjugal property or not, pertains to the estate of Acop
Banguilan until a distribution of the estate has been made, and assuming that
the defendant took possession of said money, he can only be regarded as an
administrator de son tort, holding the property in trust for the heirs, and in
favor of whom the statute of limitation consequently did not run, at least not
until after an administrator was legally appointed. It may be noted that an
administrator of the estate in question was not appointed until 1923. No
evidence whatever has been introduced in support of the defendant’s second
special defense, and the determination of the case, therefore, reduces itself to
a question of the credibility of the witnesses who testified to the delivery of
the money to the defendant.

The record shows that Acop Banguilan had his home in Batdi, an isolated place
situated at a distance of about 14 kilometers from the City of Baguio. He
married twice, and the defendant’s wife, Guilata Acop, is a daughter of the
first marriage, her mother’s name being Anguing Pirang. The plaintiff Chanal was
Acop’s second wife with whom he had several children, among them Sixto and
Biring Acop. Acop Banguilan died on July 13, 1920, leaving a considerable
estate, consisting of cattle, real estate, and money.

Chanal is an ignorant woman, and it is not disputed that she had no property
at the time of her marriage to Acop. At the trial of the case she testified that
in October or November, 1921, after the death of Acop, the defendant came to her
house at Batdi, accompanied by his wife, Guilata, and her son-in-law, Manuel
Caoili, and induced her to turn over to him the money left by Acop, representing
to her that it was publicly known that Acop was rich and that Chanal, being a
woman and alone, would be an easy prey to robbers and might even be killed; that
she gave the defendant P4,000 in currency and P800 in coin, but told him that he
must return it all within a month; that the defendant promised that he would do
so when the danger of robbery ceased and that he then would celebrate a cañao
(feast) over the death of Acop; that Manuel Caoili counted the coin and put it
in a Hour sack, while the defendant and his wife counted the currency, after
which the defendant wrapped it up and took it away to an automobile which was
waiting for them; that when the defendant did not return the money as he had
promised, she told her son Sixto to make demand therefor; that Sixto thereupon
went to the defendant’s house and asked for the money but did not get it, the
defendant telling him that he would personally bring it back to Acop’s house;
that later on the defendant celebrated the cañao at Acop’s house, to which he
invited many people and that he, at said cañao, announced publicly that he would
not give Chanal as much as one centavo because she was poor when she married
Acop; that she, Chanal, stated to the defendant that the money was earned during
her marriage with Acop, to which the defendant answered that that could not be
true; and that he also said that, in any event, she could do nothing to him
because he was a chief and influential with the government; that upon hearing
this she cried and was contemplating suicide because her children would be
deprived of their inheritance.

Chanal’s daughter Biring corroborated her mother’s testimony and stated that
she was with her mother when Guilata Acop, Sioco Cariño, and Manuel Caoili came
to their house and took away the 4,800 pesos. Several other witnesses also
testified that they were present at the cañao when the defendant stated that he
would not return the money to Chanal.

Guilata Acop, the principal witness for the defendant, testified that her
mother, Anguing Pirang, died sometime in 1898 or 1899; that when her mother died
she left in the possession of Acop Banguilan the sum of P6,000, of which sum
P1,000 was given to her mother by the tetter’s father and that the rest of the
money was the earnings of her mother and father. She further testified that
before his death, her father had been sick a long time; that he stayed for about
two weeks in her house, during which time and in the presence of Chanal and
others, she asked her father what had become of the money left by her mother, to
which he answered that it was under the care of Chanal; that Chanal admitted
that she kept the money in Batdi; that she, the witness, went only once to the
house of her father in Batdi after his death and that that was on the occasion
when the cañao was celebrated; that on the day after the cañao she had a
conversation with Chanal about the money left by Anguing Pirang; that one Laruan
asked Chanal about the money kept by her and that she said that Acop had been
lying and that there was no money; that after some quarreling with Chanal, the
witness went to Bagnio in an automobile which had been parked about two
kilometers from Acop’s house; and that she did not see any one take any money
from Chanal at any time after the death of Acop.

The defendant introduced a large number of other witnesses, but the testimony
of most of them relate to charges against Chanal and her son Sixto for alleged
embezzlement of money and selling of cattle pertaining to the estate, and it may
be noted that the witnesses who testified to the essential points in the case
are near relations of Guilata and the defendant and are personally interested in
the controversy.

The principal witnesses for the plaintiff are apparently ignorant and merely
semi-civilized; the translation of their testimony from their dialect into
English undoubtedly presented difficulties; and some of their statements are
somewhat confused and not entirely in accordance with the established facts. As
a consequence thereof the court below may have formed an unfavorable opinion as
to their veracity, but in the light of the circumstances of the case, we are
convinced that they, in the main, told the truth in regard to the taking of the
money and the occurrences at the cañao. The statement of Chanal, especially,
rings true and brings out details which she is not likely to have invented.

The record shows that the defendant is an intelligent and prosperous man of
considerable influence in his community, and there are indications in the record
that he is of a rather grasping disposition. He is not a stranger to the courts,
and his testimony shows that he is not ignorant of their functions. His wife,
Guilata, is one of the heirs of Acop Banguilan, and her testimony indicates that
she considers Chanal as an interloper who originally was only a concubine of
Acop and of an inferior class; that she, Chanal, had brought no property to the
estate and had no rights in the inheritance. It also appears that it was known
to the defendant that the deceased Acop Banguilan left a considerable sum of
money in the possession of Chanal. In these circumstances, it seems highly
improbable that the defendant for the period of three years would have refrained
from resorting to the courts if he had not obtained possession of the money. We
therefore accept the plaintiffs’ version of what had taken place.

Relying on the provisions of section 711 of the Code of Civil Procedure, the
plaintiffs demand a recovery of double the amount of the money taken by the
defendant, but under the doctrine laid down in the case of Ingersoll vs.
Chui-Tian Lay (11 Phil., 564), we seriously doubt that said section is
applicable to the present case.

The appealed judgment is reversed and it is
hereby ordered that the estate of the deceased Acop Banguilan have and recover
from the defendant, Sioco Cariño, the sum of P4,800 with interest at the rate of
6 per cent per annum from January 11, 1927, the date of the filing of the
complaint. No costs will be allowed. So ordered.

Johnson, Street, Malcolm, Villamor, Romualdez, and Villa-Real, JJ.,
concur.

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DISSENTING

AVANCEÑA, C. J.:

This is an action of specific performance of an unwritten contract, to compel
the defendant to pay back the sum of P4,800, having bound himself to do so one
month after receiving it. For this case the statute of limitations (sec. 43,
Code of Civil Procedure) fixes the period of six years. And as this is a matter
of deposit, prescription does not begin unless the bailee disown the deposit.
The proper question before us, then, is: When did the defendant disown the
deposit? He did so, according to the plaintiff’s own evidence, when during the
cañao on occasion of Acop Banguilan’s death, the defendant announced to all
those present at the feast, including: Chanal and her children, that he would
not return the money.

According: to the evidence of the defendant, the cañao or
feast on the occasion of Acop Banguilan’s death took place four months after
said death, and according to Fernando Acusalan, the plaintiff’s witness in
rebuttal, five months after. If the defendant made this announcement at the
cañao or feast, he must have received the money before that feast, or a little
after Acop’s death, and not in October or November of 1921, fully a year and a
half afterwards. Thus, the weight of the evidence shows that the defendant
announced his refusal to return the money four months after Acop’s death, or, at
most, five months after, according to the plaintiff’s own witness, Aeusalan,
that is, in the month of November, 1920. From that time until this action was
brought, in January 11, 1927, the period of six years fixed by the statute of
limitations has elapsed. The only thing required, and that only impliedly, in
order that prescription may begin, is that there be a person capable of bringing
the prescribing action. In the case at bar, the administrator of the intestacy
of Acop Banguilan was not the only person who could bring the action to recover
of the defendant the amount in question. Chanal herself could, bring it, for, by
her own statement, she was one of the interested parties. Furthermore, the
defendant received the money from her on deposit, and she could therefore
recover it from the time he disavowed the deposit, without being hindered by the
circumstance that she was not the sole owner or the absolute owner, since the
defendant, as a bailee, could not require her to prove that she owned the thing
deposited (art. 1771, Civil Code).

In my opinion, the action now before us has
already prescribed, and the judgment appealed from should be affirmed. Judgment
reversed.