JOSE MA. ANSALDO, FOR HIMSELF AND AS ATTORNEY-IN-FACT OF MARIA ANGELA ANSALDO, PETITIONERS, VS. FRANCISCO S. TANTUICO, JR., ACTING CHAIRMAN, COMMISSION ON AUDIT, AND BALTAZAR AQ…

This expropriation case is quite unique. Two lots of private ownership were taken by
the Government and used for the widening of a road more than forty-three years
ago, without benefit of an action of eminent domain or agreement with its
owners, albeit without protest by the latter.

The lots belong to the petitioners, Jose Ma. Ansaldo and Marti
Angela Ansaldo, are covered by title in their names,^[1]
and have an aggregate area of 1,041 square meters. These lots were taken from the Ansaldos sometime in 1947 by the
Department of Public Works Transportation and Communication and made part of
what used to be Sta. Mesa Street and is now Ramon Magsaysay Avenue at San Juan,
Metro Manila. This, to repeat, without
demur on the part of the owners.

Said owners made no move whatever until twenty-six year later. They wrote to ask for compensation for their
land on January 22, 1973.^[2]
Their claim was referred to the Secretary of Justice who in due course rendered
an opinion dated February 22, 1973,^[3]
that just compensation should be paid in accordance with Presidential Decree
No. 76.^[4]
The Decree provided that the basis for the payment of just compensation of
property taken for public use should be the current and fair market value
thereof as declared by the owner or administrator, or such market value as
determined by the assessor, whichever was lower.^[5]
The Secretary of Justice thus advised that the corresponding expropriation suit
be forthwith instituted to fix the just compensation to be paid to the
Ansaldos.

Pursuant to this opinion, the Commissioner of Public Highways
requested the Provincial Assessor of Rizal to make a re-­determination of the
market value of the Ansaldos’ property in accordance with PD 76.^[6]
The new valuation was made, after which the Auditor of the Bureau of Public
Highways forwarded the Ansaldos’ claim to the Auditor General with the
recommendation that payment be made on the basis of the “current
and fair market value, ** and not on the fair maket value at the time of
taking.”^[7]

The Commission on Audit, however, declined to adopt the
recommendation. In a decision handed
down on September 26, 1973, the Acting Chairman ruled that “the amount of
compensation to be paid to the claimants is to be determined as of
the time of the taking of the subject lots,”^[8]
i.e. 1947. The ruling was reiterated by
the Commission on September 8, 1978, and again on January 25, 1979 when it
denied the Ansaldos’ motion for reconsideration.^[9]

It is these rulings of the Commission on Audit that the Ansaldos
have appealed to this Court.

While not decisive of this case, it may be stressed that the
provisions of Presidential Decree No. 76 and its related or successor decrees
(Numbered 464, 794 and 1533) no longer determine the just compensation payable
to owners of expropriated property. Said provisions were, it may be recalled, struck down as
unconstitutional and void in 1988, in Export Processing Zone Authority v.
Dulay,^[10]
which declared that the mode therein prescribed for determining just
compensation, i.e., on the basis of the value declared by the owner or
administrator or on that determined by the assessor, whichever is lower,
constituted an impermissible encroachment on the judicial prerogative to
resolve the issue in an appropriate proceeding of eminent domain.

Now, nothing in the record even remotely suggests that the land
was taken from the Ansaldos against their will. Indeed, all indications, not the least of which is their silence
for more than two decades, are that they consented to such a taking although
they knew that no expropriation case had been commenced at all. There is therefore no reason, as regards the
Ansaldos’ property, to impugn the existence of the power to expropriate, or the
public purpose for which that power was exercised.

The sole question thus confronting the Court involves the precise
time at which just compensation should be fixed, whether as of the time of
actual taking of possession by the expropriating entity or, as the Ansaldos
maintain, only after conveyance of title to the expropriator pursuant to
expropriation proceedings duly instituted since it is only at such a time that
the constitutional requirements of due process aside from those of just
compensation may be fully met.

Normally, of course, where the institution of an expropriation
action precedes the taking of the property subject thereof, the just
compensation is fixed as of the time of the filing of the complaint. This is so provided by the Rules of Court,^[11]
the assumption of possession by the expropriator ordinarily being conditioned
on its deposit with the National or Provincial Treasurer of the value of the
property as provisionally ascertained by the court having jurisdiction of the
proceedings.

There are instances, however, where the expropriating agency
takes over the property prior to the expropriation suit, as in this case — although,
to repeat, the case at bar is quite extraordinary in that possession was taken
by the expropriator more than 40 years prior to suit. In these instances, this Court has ruled that the just
compensation shall be determined as of the time of taking, not as of the
time of filing of the action of eminent domain.

In the context of the State’s inherent power of eminent domain,
there is a “taking” when the owner is actually deprived or
dispossessed of his property; when there is a practical destruction or a
material impairment of the value of his property or when he is deprived of the
ordinary use thereof.^[12]
There is a “taking” in this sense when the expropriator enters
private prooperty not only for a momentary period but for a more permanent
duration, for the purpose of devoting the property to a public use in such a
manner as to oust the owner and deprive him of all beneficial enjoyment
thereof.^[13]
For ownership, after all, “is nothing without the inherent rights of
possession, control and enjoyment. Where
the owner is deprived of the ordinary and beneficial use of his property or of
its value by its being diverted to public use, there is taking within the
Constitutional sense.”^[14]
Under these norms, there was undoubtedly a taking of the Ansaldos’
property when the Government obtained possession thereof and converted it into
a part of a thoroughfare for public use.

It is as of the time of such a taking, to repeat, that the just
compensation for the property is to be established. As stated in Republic v. Philippine National Bank,^[15]

” * * (W)hen plaintiff takes possession before the institution
of the condemnation proceedings, the value should be fixed as of the time of
the taking of said possession, not of filing of the complaint and the latter should
be the basis for the determination of the value, when the taking of the
property involved coincides with or is subsequent to, the commencement of the
proceedings. Indeed, otherwise, the
provision of Rule 69, Section 3, directing that compensation ‘be determined as
of the date of the filing of the complaint’ would never be operative. As intimated
in Republic v. Lara (supra), said provision contemplates ‘normal
circumstances,’ under which ‘the complaint coincides or even precedes the
taking of the property by the plaintiff.'”

The reason for the rule, as pointed out
in Republic v. Lara,^[16]
is that –

” * * (W)here property is taken ahead of the filing of the
condemnation proceedings, the value thereof may be enhanced by the public
purpose for which it is taken; the entry by the plaintiff upon the property may
have depreciated its value thereby; or, there may have been a natural increase
in the value of the property from the time the complaint is filed, due to
general economic conditions. The owner
of private property should be compensated only for what he actually
loses; it is not intended that his compensation shall extend
beyond his loss or injury. And what
he loses is only the actual value of his property at the time
it is taken. This is the only way
that compensation to be paid can be truly just: i.e., ‘just not only to the
individual whose property is taken,’ ‘but to the public, which is to pay for
it.'”

Clearly, then, the value of the Ansaldos’ property must be
ascertained as of the year 1947, when it was actually taken, and not at the
time of the filing of the expropriation suit, which, by the way, still has to
be done. It is as of that time that the
real measure of their loss may fairly be adjudged. The value, once fixed, shall earn interest at the legal rate until
full payment is effected, conformably with other principles laid down by case
law.^[17]

WHEREFORE, the petition is DENIED, the challenged decision
of the Commission on Audit is AFFIRMED, and the Department of Public Works and
Highways is DIRECTED to forthwith institute the appropriate expropriaton action
over the land in question so that the just compensation due its owners may be
determined in accordance with the Rules of Court, with interest at the legal
rate of six percent (6%) per annum from the time of taking until full payment
is made. No costs.

SO ORDERED.

Cruz, Gancayco, Griño-Aquino,
and Medialdea, JJ., concur.

^[1]
TCT No. 4884 of the Registry of Deeds
for Rizal

^[2]
Rollo, p. 21

^[3]
Id., p. 22. Secretary of Justice
at the time was the Hon. Vicente Abad Santos (later Associate Justice of the
Supreme Court)

^[4]
Eff., Dec. 6, 1972

^[5]
Sec. 1, par. 3

^[6]
Rollo, p. 24

^[7]
Id., p. 30; italics supplied

^[8]
The Chairman at the time was the Hon.
Ismael Mathay, Sr.; italics supplied

^[9]
This time, thru Acting Chairman Francisco S. Tantuico, Jr.

^[10]
149 SCRA 305

^[11]
Sec. 2, Rule 67

^[12]
U.S. v. Causby, 382 U.S. 256, cited in Municipality of La Carlota v.
NAWASA, 12 SCRA 164

^[13]
Republic v. Vda. de Castelvi, 58 SCRA 336 (1974)

^[14]
Municipality of La Carlota v. NAWASA, 12 SCRA 164, supra

^[15]
1 SCRA 957 (1961); see also Provincial Government of Rizal v. Caro de
Araullo, 58 Phil. 308 (1933)

^[16]
50 O.G. 5778 (1954)

^[17]
Republic v. Lara, supra;
Amigable v. Cuenca, 43 SCRA 360; National Power Corporation v.
C.A., 129 SCRA 665