G.R. No. 28677. February 12, 1929
MARTIN GAGARA, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. ANTONIO BARTOLOME ET AL., DEFENDANTS. ANTONIO BARTOLOME, APPELLANT.
STREET, J.:
Instance of the Province of Lanao by Martin Gagara, for the purpose of
recovering from Antonio Bartolome and others a parcel of land
containing about 4& hectares, situated in the barrio of Dalipuga,
municipality of Iligan, Province of Lanao, and more particularly
described in the complaint. To the complaint the defendant Antonio
Bartolome answered with a general denial and special defense, in which,
after he admitted that the property had at one time belonged to the
plaintiff, he nevertheless alleged that on March 25, 1912, it had been
conveyed by the plaintiff to Gregorio Nanaman and that the latter had
subsequently sold the same under contract of sale with pacto de retro
at twelve months to V. M. I. Susing & Co.; that the privilege of
repurchase had never been exercised by Nanaman; and that on February
23, 1914, the property consolidated in Susing & Co., a predecessor
in interest of the defendant. The defendant Gregorio Nanaman answered
with what in effect is a mere general denial by asserting that the
conveyance made by himself to Susing & Co. was in every respect a
valid sale. The plaintiff then interposed a replication to the special
defense of Antonio Bartolome, asserting that the sale made by the
plaintiff to Gregorio Nanaman was fictitious and without consideration
and that the execution of said instrument by the plaintiff was procured
by deceptive and fraudulent devices of Bartolome and his associates. He
further asserted that the transfer made by Nanaman, though in form a
contract of sale with pacto de retro, was really intended as security for a highly usurious loan of money.
Upon hearing the cause the trial court decided the issues of the
controversy in favor of the plaintiff, and considering the mortgage
indebtedness of Nanaman to have been fully satisfied from the produce
received by the defendant and his predecessors in interest from the
land, the court declared the plaintiff to be the owner thereof and
ordered the defendant Bartolome to surrender the land and pay the sum
of P200 per month to the plaintiff until the surrender of the property.
From this judgment the defendant Bartolome appealed.
The primary case of the defendant Bartolome as owner of the property
in question is based upon documents to the following effect: On March
25, 1912, the plaintiff Martin Gagara, then owner of the land, conveyed
it by public instrument to his kinsman, Gregorio Nanaman, for a
purported consideration of Pl,500 (Exhibit 2). Nanaman is shown to have
had possession of the same property thereafter; and on February 23,
1913, Nanaman conveyed it to V. M. I, Susing & Co., of Iligan, for
a purported consideration of P1,000, with privilege of repurchase at
twelve months, and with stipulation for Nanaman to remain in possession
as renter, at the rate of P40 per month. Repurchase was admittedly
never effected by Nanaman, with the result that the property apparently
consolidated in Susing & Co. on February 23, 1914. One-third of the
money mentioned as consideration for the conveyance of February 23,
1913, appears to have been taken from Miguel Sheker & Co., as a
result of which that firm became a participant in the deal with Susing
& Co.
The defendant Bartolome, in those days a parish priest of Iligan,
was a member of the firm of Susing & Co., and when Susing & Co.
was later liquidated, the shares which had pertained to Susing &
Co. and Sheker & Co. passed to Bartolome, who has subsequently
alone asserted any interest in the property.
In view of the failure of Nanaman to effect repurchase, Nanaman lost
possession and the property passed in 1914 into the possession of the
purchasers. The. proof further shows that at first the associated
purchasers, and after them Bartolome exclusively, appropriated to
themselves and enjoyed the property, and the same was in possession of
the defendant Bartolome upon the day when this action was brought.
The plaintiff admits that the conveyances (Exhibits 1 and 2) on
which the defendant relies were executed by Gregorio Nanaman and
himself, but their legal effect is questioned on the grounds already
mentioned in the statement of the plaintiff’s replication to
Bartolome’s answer. In this connection the testimony submitted by the
plaintiff tends to show that in the year 1912 Nanaman had conveyed this
property of the plaintiff without authority to Susing & Co. in
consideration of a debt which Nanaman then owed to the firm mentioned.
Susing & Co., having presently found that Nanaman was not the owner
of the property, threatened to prosecute him for estafa and thereby
induced the plaintiff to execute the instrument Exhibit 2, dated March
25, 1912, conveying the property to Nanaman. The plaintiff asserts that
the sale therein mentioned was fictitious and that Susing & Co.
knew it. However, pursuant to that conveyance, the later contract of
February 23, 1913 (Exhibit 1), was made by Nanaman, conveying the
property, as already stated, to Susing & Co. The evidence for the
plaintiff tends to show that the consideration for the Exhibit 1 was a
preexisting indebtedness resulting from a
small loan, which by the addition of exorbitant interest had reached the amount stated as the consideration of the instrument.
The plaintiff says that in 1916 he made demand upon the defendant
Bartolome for the surrender of the property, based on the point of view
that the transfer effected by Nanaman had been intended as security for
a loan, and that by that time (1916) it ought to be considered that the
debt was satisfied. The plaintiff says that he was put off on that
occasion on some pretext or other; and that he again, in 1921, made
demand upon Bartolome for the restitution of the property, when
Bartolome promised that, if he would let him keep the property about
three years longer, it would be surrendered to him. All these alleged
promises by Bartolome to surrender the property are denied by him; and
for the establishment of said promises the plaintiff relies exclusively
upon his own testimony, supplemented, as to the interview in 1921, by a
kinsman (Abiol) who says that on this occasion he was invited to go
along with the plaintiff and heard the conversation which the latter
had with Bartolome.
The question then arises whether the testimony of the plaintiff and
his kinsman is sufficient to show that Bartolome admitted the
plaintiff’s right to redeem the property at the end of three more
years. Upon this point, after examining the evidence carefully, we are
constrained to hold that the plaintiff’s proof is not sufficient. It
will be noted that the plaintiff is attempting to defeat the effect of
his own deed fifteen years after the act. After so long a period the
charges of fraud must be incontrovertibly proved in order to accomplish
their effect; and it seems to us that the long delay of the plaintiff
in seeking relief in court speaks against the probability of the wrong
complained of. It will be remembered also that the plaintiff exhibits
no scrap of paper to prove his theory of the case,—no writing convinces
us of the alleged promise of the defendant to surrender the property at
the end of the period stated. Indeed, in our opinion, the testimony of
Abiol shows that, when the interview was had between the plaintiff and
Bartolome in 1921, the attitude of the plaintiff towards Bartolome was
of a menacing character, and any concession that Bartolome then made,
if any, was doubtless prompted by fear.
In the view we take of the case, the circumstance that Gagara
received nothing from his nephew Nanaman when he deeded the property to
the latter on March 25, 1912, and that Susing & Co. may have had
notice of that fact, does not invalidate the subsequent sale of the
property by the nephew to Susing & Co. By placing the title in his
nephew the plaintiff in effect gave the nephew full power of
alienation; and the nephew himself has made no attempt to secure the
annulment of his own deed.
When the trial of this action was begun in court the attorney for
the defendant announced his conformity with the proposition that the
land in question belongs (in Spanish, pertenecia) to
the plaintiff Gagara. So the transcript purports to show; and upon this
circumstance the attorney for the appellee suggests that this must be
taken as an admission by the defendant that the title to the land is
now in the plaintiff and that the only question for discussion in this
case is over the improvements. We entertain no doubt, however, that the
stenographer, in making the transcription, misread his notes; for the
appropriate word to be used in that connection was belonged (in
Spanish, pertenecia). In other words, an expression indicating a past
condition was incorrectly translated in the present. That this mistake
was made is evident not only from the state of the pleadings but from
the fact that, after the supposed admission was made, the parties
proceeded to develop the question actually at issue, which was the
state of the present title. And at any rate, the court could not found
upon an admission of the character indicated an estoppel such as is
invoked by the appellee in this case.
The attorney for the appellee raises a question concerning the
process by which the defendant is supposed to have acquired the
interest formerly vested in Susing & Co. and Sheker & Co.; and
in this connection Exhibits 3 and 3-A of the defendant are criticized
for inconsistency with the statement contained in an indorsement on
Exhibit 1. The point, in our opinion, is not decisive; for the
defendant is admittedly in possession of the property in question,
claiming under the deeds executed by the plaintiff and his nephew; and
relief is being sought by the plaintiff against the defendant in his
character of successor in interest of Susing & Co. The plaintiff is
therefore apparently estopped from questioningr the character of the
defendant as such successor.
The foregoing discussion conducts us to the conclusion that the
plaintiff’s case is not made out, and that even conceding that the
plaintiff might at one time have had a right of action to redeem the
property in question from the sale which was made by Nanaman in 1913,
such right has prescribed and the defendant has acquired an
indefeasible title by adverse possession.
The judgment appealed from is therefore reversed and the defendants
are absolved from the complaint. So ordered, without pronouncement as
to costs.
Johnson, Villamor, Ostrand, Romualdez, and Villa-Real, JJ., concur.
Malcolm and Johns, JJ., dissent.