ARSENIO FLORENDO, JR., MILAGROS FLORENDO AND BEATRIZ FLORENDO, PETITIONERS, VS. HON. PERPETUA D. COLOMA, PRESIDING JUDGE OF BRANCH VII, CITY COURT OF QUEZON CITY; GAUDENCIO TOBI…

In this petition for certiorari with preliminary injunction,
the petitioners seek the annulment of: (1) the May 20, 1975 decision of
the respondent court in Civil Case No. VII-17952 for ejectment entitled
Adela Salindon v. William Vasquez and Silverio Nicolas; (2) the August
3, 1981 writ of execution issued by the res­pondent court; and (3) the
March 1, 1982 order also issued by the respondent court directing the
Register of Deeds of Quezon City to annul Transfer Certificate of Title
No. 138007 in the name of Adela Salindon and Transfer Certificate of
Title No. 239729 in the name of the peti­tioners.

On July 11, 1969, Adela Salindon an awardee of a Philippine Homesite and
Housing Corporation (hereinafter referred to as PHHC) lot filed a
complaint for ejectment against William Vasquez and Silverio Nicolas
with the respondent court. The disputed residential lot, located at
Diliman, Quezon City, is more particularly described as follows:

“”Residential lot situated at Quezon City, Philippines, covered by
Transfer Certificate of Title No. 138007, in the name of the herein
plaintiff, containing an area of 915.00 square meters. Designated as
Lot No. 1, Block No. 101 Psd-68808 Diliman Estate Subdivision. Bounded
on the SW-by Lot No. 2, Block 101; of the subdivision plan; on the NW-by
Road Lot 8, Pcs-4564; on the NE by Road Lot 96; and on the SE by Lot
No. 12, Block 101; both of the Subdivision plan.”

In her complaint, Salindon alleged that the defendants were squatters occupying her property.

Defendant William Vasquez denied his being a squatter in the subject
parcel of land. He alleged that he had been in continuous, open,
adverse and actual possession and occupation of the lot since 1950. He
also questioned the city court’s jurisdiction over the subject matter of
the action stating that the facts alleged in the complaint involved
questions of title or ownership of the lot, matters outside the
jurisdiction of the respondent court. He further questioned the
qualifications of Salindon to purchase the disputed lot from the PHHC,
as she was the owner of several other registered real estate properties
and an outsider in so far as the lot was concerned.

On March 12, 1971, defendant Silverio Nicolas died. He was substituted
by his wife Erlinda who filed an amended answer with third party
complaint against PHHC. In his answer, Nicolas had denied that he was a
squatter on the lot. He alleged that he had been a possessor and
occupant of a piece of residential lot located at Malaya Avenue,
continuously, openly, publicly and adverse to any other claimant and
under concept of an owner for more than ten years. Like defendant
Vasquez, he also questioned the jurisdiction of the respondent court
over the subject matter of the action and the qualifications of Salindon
to purchase the subject parcel of land.

Third-Party defendant PHHC admitted the sale of the disputed land to
Adela Salindon. According to PHHC, the award of the lot to Salindon was
a valid exercise of the PHHC’s powers and could not be collaterally
assailed; the illegal acts of the defendants could not ripen into legal
ones; the defendants being squatters have not acquired any vested right
over the property and that, since the subject lot is not a relocation
area intended for squatters, the defendants can not claim preference in
the award of the lot. The PHHC also questioned the jurisdiction of the
city court over the third party complaint on the following grounds: (1)
cancellation of the deed of sale executed in favor of Salindon amounts
to an action for rescission of contract which falls within the original
and exclusive jurisdiction of the Court of First Instance; and (2) the
action involves title or possession of real property, hence the action
against PHHC should be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.

After trial on the merits, the respondent court issued a decision in
favor of the defendants. The dis­positive portion of the decision
reads:

WHEREFORE, this Court renders judgment in favor of the defendants and against the plaintiff as follows:

(1) declaring the conditional and the absolute deeds of sale
executed by the PHHC in favor of the plaintiff Adela Salindon as null
and void; and

(2) ordering the PHHC to award the lot in litigation to the
defendant William Vasquez and Erlinda Nicolas and, upon pay­ment by said
defendants of the total consideration within 30 days from notice of
this decision, to execute the corresponding deed of absolute sale in
their favor.

On August 25, 1975 Adela Salindon appealed the afore-quoted decision to the Court of Appeals.

On December 11, 1976, Salindon died. There was, however, no
substitution of party, hence Salindon continued to be the appellant in
the appealed case. On March 21, 1977 the case was remanded to the city
court for the retaking of testimony which could not be considered
because the stenographic notes could not be transcribed. The deceased
Salindon continued to be an adverse party. Meanwhile, after Salindon’s
death, her heirs settled her estate and the subject lot was transferred
with a new Transfer Certificate of Title to the petitioners.

On July 31, 1980 the Court of Appeals issued a Reso­lution ordering
plaintiff-appellant Salindon to show cause why her appeal should not be
dismissed.

On December 4, 1980, the Court of Appeals issued another Resolution dismissing the appeal for having been abandoned.

On August 3, 1931, respondent court issued a writ of execution to enforce the decision.

On November 7, 1981, respondent General Manager Gaudencio Tobias of the
National Housing Authority (here­inafter referred as NHA), successor to
the powers and functions of the PHHC, wrote a letter to private
respondents informing them that the NHA was ready to implement the
decision and suggesting that in order to avoid delay, they secure an
order directing the Registrar of Deeds of Quezon City to cancel Transfer
Certificate of Title No. 239729.

On February 16, 1982 respondent William Vasquez filed a motion for the
issuance of an order directing the Quezon City Register of Deeds to
cancel TCT No. 138007 in the name of Adela Salindon and TCT No. 239729,
in the name of petitioners. A similar motion was filed by respondent
Erlinda Nicolas.

On March 19, 1982, petitioner Arsenio Florendo Jr., filed a
manifestation and opposition to the motions for cancellation alleging
that the court has no jurisdiction to order the cancellation of the
titles.

Hence, the instant petition.

Considering the circumstances of the case, a preliminary issue surfaces
as to the status of the decision vis-a-vis the petitioners. The
petitioners challenge the proceeding in the Court of Appeals after the
death of the plaintiff-appellant Adela Salindon. They are of the
opinion that since there was no legal representative substituted for
Salindon after her death, the appellate court lost its jurisdiction over
the case and consequently, the proceedings in the said court are null
and void. This argument is without merit.

There is no dispute that an ejectment case survives the death of a
party. The supervening death of plaintiff-appellant Salindon did not
extinguish her civil personality (Republic v. Bagtas, 6 SCRA 242; Vda.
de Haberes v. Court of Appeals, 104 SCRA 534). Section 17, Rule 3 of
the Rules of Court provides:

“After a party dies and the claim is not thereby extinguished the
court shall order upon proper no­tice, the legal representative of the
deceased to appear and to be substituted for the deceased within a
period of thirty (30) days, or within such time as may be granted. x x
x”

Section 16 of Rule 3 provides:

“Whenever a party to a pending case dies x x x it shall be the
duty of his attorney to inform the court promptly of such death x x x
and to give the name and residence of the executor, administrator,
guardian or other legal representative of the deceased x x x.”

In the case at bar, Salindon’s counsel after her death on December 11,
1976 failed to inform the court of Salindon’s death. The appellate
court could not be expected to know or take judicial notice of the death
of Salindon without the proper manifestation from Salindon’s counsel.
In such a case and considering that the supervening death of appellant
did not extinguish her civil personality, the appellate court was well
within its jurisdiction to proceed as it did with the case. There is no
showing that the appellate court’s proceedings in the case were tainted
with irregularities.

It appears that the petitioners are heirs of Adela Salindon. In fact,
it was because of this relationship that the petitioners were able to
transfer the title of Adela Salindon over the subject lot to their
names. After Salindon’s death, the disputed lot was included as part of
her estate. Salindon’s counsel, whose acts bind his client, failed to
comply with his duty to the court and his deceased client. Considering
all this, the appellate decision is binding and enforceable against the
peti­tioners as successors-in-interest by title subsequent to the
commencement of the action (Section 49 (b) Rule 39, Rules of Court).
Furthermore, “x x x judgment in an ejectment case may be enforced not
only against defendants therein but also against the members of their
family, their relatives, or privies who derived their right of
possession from the defendants” (Ariem v. De los Angeles, 49 SCRA 343).
Under the circumstances of this case, the same rule should apply to the
successors-in-interest if the decision should go against the original
plaintiff.

We note, however, that the petitioners challenge the decision on the
ground that the respondent city court had no jurisdiction in the first
instance over the eject­ment complaint.

In this respect, the petitioners are correct. Adela Salindon filed an
ejectment case to evict alleged squatters who were in possession of a
lot awarded to her by the PHHC. Instead of dealing with the case as a
simple one of eject­ment and handling the issues within the confines of
its limited jurisdiction, the respondent city court went further into
territory out of bounds to it and cancelled the administrative
determinations of the PHHC, rescinded the deeds of sale, usurped the
powers of the administrative agency by awarding the government lots to
the defendants on the basis of evidence clearly inadequate from the
records and by the rules of the agency to sustain such awards,
conclusively adjudicated on the basis of irregular proceedings the
owner­ship of the disputed lot, and ordered the cancellation of Torrens
titles already issued in the petitioners’ names.

May the petitioners take advantage of this lack of jurisdiction?

As a rule, the issue of jurisdiction is not lost by waiver or by
estoppel. The time-honored principle is that “x x x jurisdiction of a
court is a matter of law and may not be conferred by consent or
agreement of the parties. The lack of jurisdiction of a court may be
raised at any stage of the proceedings, even on appeal x x x”.
(Calimlim v. Ramirez, 118 SCRA 399). This principle, however, is not
absolute. There are cases wherein we ruled that because of their
exceptional and peculiar circumstances, a party is estopped from
invoking the lack of the court’s juris­diction. (Tijam v. Sibonghanay,
23 SCRA 29; Crisostomo v. Court of Appeals, 32 SCRA 543). We always
look into the attendant circumstances of the case so as not to subvert
public policy. (See Paro v. Court of Appeals, 111 SCRA 262).

This is one such case where the successors-in-interest of the original
plaintiff are estopped from questioning the jurisdiction of the
respondent court. Adela Salindon, the original plaintiff in the
ejectment case consistently main­tained her stand that the respondent
court had jurisdiction over the ejectment complaint. She insisted on
this jurisdiction over the opposition of the defendants, the private
respondents herein. Thus, she filed a lengthy memorandum against the
dismissal of the complaint after the trial on the merits of the case and
made an emphatic justification of the jurisdiction of the respondent
court.

The following rule applies:

“x x x a party cannot invoke the jurisdiction of a court to secure
affirmative relief against his opponent and, after obtaining or failing
to obtain such relief, repudiate or question that same jurisdiction
(Dean vs. Dean, 136 Or. 694, 86 A.L.R. 79). In the case just cited, by
way of explaining the rule, it was further said that the question
whether the court had jurisdiction either of the subject-matter of the
action or of the parties was not important in such cases because the
party is barred from such conduct not because the judgment or order
of the court is valid and conclusive as an adjudication, but for the
reason that such a practice can not be tolerated obviously for reasons
of public policy.” (Tijam v. Sibonghanoy, supra)

Equitable considerations cannot also help the peti­tioners. Their own
deed of extra-judicial partition dated March 31, 1977 shows that Adela
Lucero Salindon left forty four (44) parcels of land, forty two (42) of
which were in Pangasinan, one (1) parcel in Natividad Street, Manila and
the disputed parcel in Quezon City. There is no showing in the records
that the forty (43) other parcels were either not owned by Salindon
when the PHHC lot was awarded to her or that ownership of these lots and
of 706,684 shares of stock in such blue chip corporations as Lepanto
Consolidated Mining Co., Philippine Overseas Drilling and Oil
Development Corporation, etc. did not disqualify her from applying for a
PHHC lot. There is no showing from the records that the petitioners
would suffer from a denial of substantial justice if the foregoing rules
are applied to them.

The private respondents, however, stand on an entirely different
footing. As defendants in the ejectment case they vigorously questioned
the jurisdiction of the city court. They cannot now take advantage of a
decision issued in excess of jurisdiction and in doing so abandon a
principal averment in their respective answers. The respondent court
had no jurisdiction to take over the functions of the PHHC and award
ownership of the lot to them.

Not only was the decision of the city court rendered without
jurisdiction, it was also erroneously irregular to the point of
constituting grave abuse of discretion.

The PHHC was correct when it stated that squatters and intruders who
clandestinely enter into titled govern­ment property cannot, by such
act, acquire any legal right to said property. There is no showing in
the records that the entry of the private respondents into the lot was
effected legally and properly. An act which was illegal from the start
cannot ripen into lawful ownership simply because the usurper has
occupied and possessed the government lot for more than ten (10) years,
cleared it of cogon grass, fenced it, and built a house on the premises.
No vested rights should be allowed to arise from the social blights
and lawless acts of squatting and clandestine entrance. True, the
government by an act of magnanimity and in the interest of buying social
peace through the quieting of mass unrest may declare usurped property
as a “relocation” area for the squatters. However, the records fail to
show that there has been such action insofar as the disputed lot is
concerned or that the private respondents fall within such a policy or
that they have complied with the usual requirements before the benefits
of relocation may be given them. At any rate, this was for the PHHC,
now the NHA, to decide and not the city court.

Under the circumstances of this case, the ownership of the disputed lot
remains with the National Housing Authority. The NHA may use the
authority of this decision to evict the private respondents and their
successors-in-­interest from the property and deal with the lot
according to its present powers vested by law and in the light of its
current policies and programs. This decision, however, should not be
interpreted to preclude the private respondents from introducing
evidence and presenting arguments before the National Housing Authority
to establish any right to which they may be entitled under the law and
the facts of the case.

WHEREFORE, the decision dated May 20, 1975, the writ of execution dated
August 3, 1981 and the order to annul TCT Nos. 138007 and 239729 dated
March 1, 1982, all issued by the respondent city court are nullified and
set aside for having been issued in excess of jurisdiction and with
grave abuse of discretion insofar as the private respondents are
concerned. Considering our findings as regards the petitioner, the
Registrar of Deeds for Quezon City is hereby ordered to cancel TCT No.
239729 in the names of the petitioners and TCT No. 138007 in the name of
Adela Salindon. The National Housing Authority is declared the owner
of the disputed lot and is directed to take possession of the same and
to either hold or dispose of it according to law and this decision.
SO ORDERED.

Teehankee, (Chairman), Melencio-Herrera, Plana, Relova, and De La Fuente, JJ., concur.