VICENTE RAÑESES AND ZENAIDA BUENA-RAÑESES, PETITIONERS, VS. INTERMEDIATE APPELLATE COURT AND ANTONINO LAMADRID, RESPONDENTS.

The proceedings at bar originated from two (2) actions instituted
in the Court of First Instance of Camarines Norte by
the spouses Vicente Rañeses and Zenaida
Buena against Antonino Lamadrid.  They were docketed as Civil Cases Numbered
2113 and 2313.

Involved in Civil Case No. 2113 is a parcel of land with an area
of about 11.7174 hectares, covered by Transfer Certificate of Title No. T-5616
in the name of Vicente Rañeses.  The complaint alleged that Antonino Lamadrid had intruded
into a 6-hectare area of this land, had occupied it for some years, and had
refused to vacate it despite repeated demands; it therefore prayed for judgment
ousting Lamadrid from the property and commanding him
to pay damages.^[1]

In his answer, Lamadrid claimed that he
had been in continuous, open and public occupation in concept of owner, of the
area in question since 1942 (about 30 years prior to the filing of the
complaint); that the Rañeses’ title, acquired from a
free patentee, Eustaquio Asido,
was null and void on account of fraud on the part of the Rañeses
and Asido, their “dummy,” and that he (Lamadrid) should therefore be declared the owner of the
land, entitled to a conveyance thereof from the Rañeses
and recovery of damages from the latter.^[2]

Involved in Civil Case No. 2313 is another parcel of agricultural
land situated in Mahawanhawan, Pinagtambangan,
Labo, Camarines Norte,
known as Lot 2000-B of the Labo Cadastre, measuring
8.7092 hectares, more or less, and covered by Transfer Certificate of Title No.
T-6098 in the name of Zenaida Buena.  The complaint averred that Lamadrid and his wife also intruded into this property
without any right whatsoever, forcibly occupying about two and a half (2 1/2) hectares thereof, and have since
refused to leave the premises despite demands.  The complaint thus prayed for judgment directing the defendants’ ouster and
their payment of damages by way of attorney’s fees.^[3]

In their answer, the Lamadrids set out
substantially the following facts, to wit:

1)      Said Lot 2000-B
originally belonged to Isabelo Cuevas to whom had
been duly issued a Torrens title;

2)      two-fifths (2/5) of
the land was sold by Cuevas to a certain Francisco Lumbis
sometime in September, 1958; while the remaining three-fifths (3/5) had been
sold by Cuevas to the Rañeses;

3)      Lumbis
entrusted the 2/5 portion purchased by him to the custody and care of Antonino Lamadrid, who served as
the former’s encargado
until September, 1971 when Lumbis eventually sold the
land to Lamadrid subject to a pacto
de retro;

4)      when Lamadrid presented his deed of sale a retro for registration in the Registry of Deeds, he discovered that a deed of sale over the
same area dated April 20, 1961 — executed by Isabelo
Cuevas in favor of the Rañeses — had been earlier
registered;

5)      that deed in favor of
the Rañeses — executed on April 20, 1961 but not
registered until six (6) years later, on April 5, 1967 — was “either
fictitious or a forgery and ** obtained by means of fraud, false machination and cajolery,”
hence null and void; and his (Lamadrid’s) own deed
should prevail.^[4]

The cases were tried jointly by agreement of the parties,^[5]
after which judgment was rendered on May
22, 1979,^[6]
disposing as follows:

“In Civil Case No. 2113

(a) Declaring the plaintiff Vicente Rañeses
the owner of the property in question; ordering the defendant (Lamadrid) to vacate the same, and to pay the costs;

“In Civil Case No. 2313

(a) Declaring the sale in favor of Zenaida
Buena (Rañeses) by Isabelo
Cuevas, Exhibit E, genuine and valid; declaring plaintiffs the owner of the
portion in question consisting of the two-fifths (2/5) of the land originally
belonging to Isabelo Cuevas; ordering the defendants
to vacate the same and to pay the costs.^[7]

Antonino Lamadrid
perfected an appeal to the Intermediate Appellate Court.  Judgment was rendered by this Court on April 30, 1984,^[8]
only as concerns “the decision of the lower court in Civil Case No.
2313,” since Lamadrid’s brief (as appellant) did
“not question the decision of the lower court in Civil Case No.
2113.”^[9]
The Intermediate Appellate Court reversed “the decision of the Court a quo
dated May 22, 1979 in Civil
Case No. 2313 * * and (entered) a new one ordering:

1.  The
dismissal of the complaint;

2.  The plaintiffs to pay P7,000.00 to defendant Lamadrid by way of attorney’s fees and expenses of
litigation; and

3. 
The plaintiffs to pay the costs of suit.”^[10]

The Court also denied the Rañeses‘ motion for reconsideration, by resolution dated September 14, 1984.^[11]
Hence, this appeal.

The appellate tribunal’s decision turned
on what in its view was the “one simple and crucial issue ** :  whether or not the deed of absolute sale
executed by Isabelo G. Cuevas in favor of ** (the Rañeses) (Exh. ‘E’) registered
with the office of the Register of Deeds of Camarines
Norte, should prevail over the deed of absolute sale executed by Isabelo G. Cuevas in favor
of Francisco Lumbis and his wife (Exhibit ‘G’) which
is not registered with the office of the Register of Deeds for Camarines Norte.” That issue was resolved adversely to
the Rañeses in the light of the provisions on double
sales in Article 1544 of the Civil Code, viz.:

“ART. 1544.  If the same
thing should have been sold to different vendees, the ownership shall be
transferred to the person who may have first taken possession thereof in good
faith, if it should be movable property.

Should it be immovable property, the ownership shall belong to the
person acquiring it who in good faith first recorded it in the Registry of
Property.

Should there be no inscription, the ownership shall pertain to the
person who in good faith was first in the possession; and, in the absence
thereof, to the person who presents the oldest title, provided there is good
faith.”

The Intermediate Appellate Court pronounced the Rañeses to be vendees in bad faith, and their deed of sale,
Exhibit E, a forgery.

Quoting “approvingly” from Lamadrid’s
brief, the Intermediate Appellate Court declared that the Rañeses
could not be considered purchasers in good faith since, as preponderantly
established by the evidence:  (a) Vicente
Rañeses, being the owner of several parcels of land
near the area in controversy, knew of the acquisition in 1954 of the disputed
2/5 portion of the land by Lamadrid’s predecessor,
Francisco Lumbis, from Isabelo
Cuevas and Soledad Camero, and that Lumbis commenced occupying it immediately, put up his house
on it, cultivated it and planted it to coconuts; (b) he even knew of the
sub-division survey drawn up at Lumbis‘ request; (c) Rañeses‘ encargado, Barrio
Captain Antonio Asido, was in fact the one who
personally prepared the deed of sale by which Lumbis
subsequently conveyed the land to Lamadrid; (d)
consequently, at the time of the alleged sale by said Isabelo
Cuevas to him of the same land, Rañeses knew that
Cuevas no longer had any title to convey.^[12]

The Appellate Court moreover ruled that its “own close
examination, verification and analysis of the questioned and standard
signatures” impelled it to the same conclusion as that presented by the
NBI handwriting expert, Arcadio Ramos, i.e., that the
questioned signature were a forgery, a conclusion strengthened by
“suspicious circumstances” attendant on “the preparation, execution
and ratification of the questioned document of sale, Exhibit ‘E,’”’ these
being:

” * * (1) the fact
that the document, Exhibit ‘E’ was certified by the notary public as having
been acknowledged in the Municipality of Mercedes, Camarines
Norte, when in fact as testified to by plaintiff Vicente Rañeses,
it was in the municipality of Daet where the document
was actually acknowledged and ratified (p. 12, tsn,
March 5, 1974); and, (2) the fact that while the document, Exhibit ‘E,’ was
supposed to have been executed on April 20, 1961, yet the same was registered
only almost six (6) years later on April 5, 1967, and long after the Cuevas
spouses had died (Exhibits ’24’ and ’24-A’).”

The Rañeses impute reversible error to
the respondent Court.  They say it was
wrong for that Court:

1) to fail to apply the equitable doctrine of laches
to bar Lamadrid from enforcing “his stale right
or claim over the property in question;”

2) not to find that the evidence demonstrates the correctness of
the Trial Court’s judgment that the deed of sale allegedly executed by the
Cuevas Spouses in favor of the Rañeses was genuine; and

(3) to decline to conclude that, given the facts, “fraud
cannot be attributed to petitioner or her husband in the execution of Exhibit
“E” or in registering the same.”

It should at once be apparent that except for the first imputed
error, supposedly involving laches on the part of Lamadrid’s predecessor-in-interest, the resolution of the
assigned errors entails a review of the factual conclusions of the Appellate
Court and evidentiary bases thereof. 
Such an assessment is not, as a rule, proper in appeals from the Court
of Appeals which should be confined to a consideration and determination only
of issues of law.^[13]
Of course, a review of factual questions may exceptionally be undertaken in
this Court in a few well defined instances, one of which is when there is a
conflict in factual findings between the Court of Appeals and the Trial Court.^[14]
That review was in fact done but unfortunately, has yielded nothing favorable
to petitioners’ cause.

The assertion of laches to defeat Lamadrid’s right to the land is foreclosed to the Rañeses
by reason of the Appellate Court’s finding that the deed on which said spouses
base their own claim is a forgery procured or participated in by them.  As stated above, that finding, being one of
fact, not only binds this Court under well-established rule and precedent; even
a review of the evidence, were it allowed at this stage, would yield no ground
to reverse or modify it.  It has been
held that the equitable doctrine of laches is not
available to shield fraud or wrongdoing on the part of whoever would invoke it.

“The doctrine of laches is an
equitable principle applied to promote but never to defeat justice.  * * In brief, it is indeed the better rule
that courts, under the principle of equity, will not be guided or bound
strictly by the statute of limitations or the doctrine of laches
when to do so, manifest wrong or
injustice would result.”^[15]

Moreover, this Court is not disposed,
except for very strong reasons which do not obtain here, to sanction application
of the doctrine to prejudice or defeat the right of the original transferee, Lumbis — whom the Court of Appeals found to be a mere mine
worker, ignorant of land registration procedures^[16]
— ­and by extension the right of his successor-in-interest, respondent Lamadrid.

Attention has also been invited by respondent Lamadrid
to the fact that laches was not invoked by the Rañeses in the proceedings before the Trial Court, and that
they did so for the first time only after rendition of the decision of the
Court of Appeals now complained of and in a motion for the reconsideration
thereof.  Nothing in the record before
the Court controverts this claim, in consequence of which the right to invoke
such principle is deemed waived.

“* * Neither prescription of appellee’s
claim or bar of the action for recovery due to laches
was averred in appellant’s defenses. 
Appellant cannot raise them now for the first time on appeal.  Verily the failure to raise the issue of
prescription and laches, amounts to a waiver of such
defenses.”^[17]

It makes no difference that the Rañeses were the
plaintiffs, not the defendants, in the original action.  They could have, but did not, raise the
question of laches by way of reply to the answer of Lamadrid, which averred the particular facts surrounding
his acquisition of the portion of the land claimed by him in its affirmative
and special defenses.^[18]

In any case, “(t)he principle that a forged deed is an absolute
nullity and conveys no title (which) is firmly embedded in our jurisprudence, *
*”^[19] clearly militates against according
any primacy to the claim of the Rañeses over that of
respondent Lamadrid, whose own instrument of
acquisition has not been shown to be affected by any such defect.

WHEREFORE, the decision of the Court of Appeals review of
which is sought in these proceedings, is AFFIRMED, with costs against the
petitioners.

SO ORDERED.

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

^[1]
Rollo, p. 39; Rec. on Appeal, pp. 71-72

^[2]
Id., id., pp. 72-73

^[3]
Id., id., pp. 73-74

^[4]
Id., id., pp. 74-75

^[5]
Id., id., p. 71

^[6]
By Hon. Isidoro A. Vera, presiding over Branch II of
the Court of First Instance of Camarines Norte

^[7]
Rollo, p. 39; Rec. on Appeal, p. 87

^[8]
The decision was written for the Court (Third Civil Cases Division) by Bartolome, J., with whom concurred Coquia and Zosa, JJ.

^[9]
Id., pp. 26, 28

^[10]
Id., p. 34

^[11]
Id., p. 35

^[12]
Id., pp. 31-33

^[13]
SEE Apex Investment & Financing Corp. v. IAC, 166 SCRA 458; Cu-Bie v. IAC, 154 SCRA 599; Knecht
v. CA, 158 SCRA 80; Fernan v. CA, G.R.
No. 43356, Jan. 30, 1990

^[14]
Metro Port Service, Inc. v. CA, 131 SCRA 365; Prudencio
v. Alliance Transport System, Inc., 148 SCRA 440

^[15]
Cristobal vs. Melchor,
78 SCRA 175, 184-185, citing Bunch vs. U.S.,
1918, 152 Fed. 673, 678, and Fogg v. St.
Louis, H & K.R. Co. (C.C.) 17 Fed. 871

^[16]
CA Decision; Rollo, p. 31

^[17]
J.M. Tuazon & Co. vs. Macalindog,
6 SCRA 938, 942, citing Maxilim vs. Tabotabo, 9 Phil. 390 and Domingo vs. Osorio, 7
Phil. 405

^[18]
Record on Appeal (Rollo, p. 39) pp. 6-9

^[19]
Director of Lands vs. Addison, 49 Phil. 19