NICANOR ACIERTO AND FRANCISCO BAYUBAY, PETITIONERS, VS. VICENTE GACIAS, ZACARIAS TELAN, GREGORIO DE LA CUESTA, CANDIDO TELAN, AND INTERMEDIATE APPEL­LATE COURT, RESPONDENTS.

It is axiomatic that
the findings of fact of the Court of Appeals are generally binding upon this
Court which, therefore, will not review the same unless there be some special and important reason therefor.  This “all-too-familiar rule” is
decisive of the controversy at bar.

In the then Court of First Instance of Cagayan,
Nicanor Acierto and
Francisco Bayubay filed an accion publiciana against Vicente Gacias,
Zacarias Telan, Gregorio Cuesta and Candido Telan for recovery of the possession of Lot 1, Psu-122482,
a tract of land situated in Patagueleg, Paraba, Peñablanca, Cagayan, with an area of approximately 70,697 square
meters.^[1]
After the “pre-trial conference, the original complaint was amended with
leave of court to implead Claribel
Gacias as a defendant, being a transferee of the
land,” and, “(i)n view of the death of
Vicente Gacias, his heirs were substituted by order
of the Court.”^[2]
Later Zacarias Telan also
died and was substituted in the action by his heirs, Candido,
Rosita, Sergio, Carmen, Angelita, Felicidad,
Marisol and Virginia, all surnamed Telan.^[3]

After due proceedings,^[4]
judgment was rendered on August 24, 1982 by the Trial Court^[5]
in favor of the plaintiffs, Acierto and Bayubay, the dispositive portion
of which is as follows:

“WHEREFORE, in view of the foregoing, judgment is rendered, in
favor of the plaintiffs, and against the defendants, including Claribel Gacias and all the
substituted defendants heirs of Vicente Gacias, and
orders that:

(1) The plaintiffs are declared owners of the land in question;

(2) That plaintiffs having a better right of possession and as
owners are ordered restored to the possession of the land in question;

(3) That the defendants are ordered to vacate the land in question;

(4) That the defendants are ordered to pay the plaintiffs the amount
of P7,500.00 representing the cost of the owner’s crops over the land in
question, which was unlawfully deprived by the defendants since 1949 to 1959
and 1962 to 1982;

(5) The counterclaim of the defendants is ordered dismissed; and

(6) The Court makes no pronouncements as to attorney’s fees and costs.”

In the Court’s “considered
opinion,” the evidence established “that the plaintiffs have a better
right of possession over the land in question than ** the defendants, and that
the quantum of evidence adduced was ** preponderance of evidence.”^[6]

The defendants appealed to the Intermediate Appellate Court,
imputing to the Trial Court no less than eight (8) errors.  In a Decision promulgated on October 10, 1985,^[7]
the Appellate Tribunal reversed the Trial Court’s judgment, disposing of the
appeal as follows:

“WHEREFORE, finding the decision appealed from unsupported by
the evidence and not according to law applicable, the same is hereby set aside
and another one entered dismissing the complaint and declaring Claribel Gacias the owner of a parcel of land with an area of 6.039
hectares, more or less, bounded on the North by Francisco Tamayo;
on the East by Cristina Bangayan; on the South by
public land (now Road); and on the West by mountain; ordering further the
plaintiff to return possession of the above-described land which has been
turned over to them by virtue of an Order of Execution pending appeal which, by
the way, We found to have been issued precipitately as the filing of a bond is
not all the time good reason especially in this case when the defendant appears
clearly well entitled to the possession of the land in question; sentencing
plaintiff to pay litigation expenses in the amount of P1,000.00 and attorney’s
fees in the amount of P1,000.00, the defendant having been deprived of the
enjoyment of the land by virtue of the execution of the decision pending appeal
on motion of appellees, plaintiff is hereby sentenced
to pay defendants the sum of P10,000.00 as reasonable compensation of the
deprivation.”

It is this decision of October
10, 1985, that the petitioners would have this Court set aside in
the appellate proceedings at bar.

The evidence satisfactorily established, according to the
Intermediate Appellate Court, that:

1. There were parallel administrative proceedings in the Bureau
of Lands involving the conflicting rights of the parties over the land in
question.^[8]

2. The administrative proceedings had resulted in an adjudication in favor of Camila
Gacias, an adjudication that had since become final
and executory.

3. Said adjudication had been made by then Director of Lands Nicanor G. Jorge on April
8, 1965^[9]
— reversing the decision of the Chief, Region No. II, issued on November 9, 1962,^[10]
which, on the basis of the recommendation of the Land Investigator,^[11]
had given due course to the homestead application of Tomas Acierto
(substituted by his heirs) “for only Lot 1,
Psu-122482,” and cancelled that of Camila Gacias.  Director
Jorge’s decision of April 8, 1965
states in part:

“The record shows that the Acierto
application had been standing and approved since 1935, and that he died in 1946
without any final proof on the application. 
The application was cancelled subsequently for the reasons that Acierto died without any
legal heirs interested in the homestead. 
It was found in an investigation made in 1947 that Acierto
was a widower and died without any surviving ascendants or descendants, or next
of kin legally entitled to succeed him.

A review of the records of the application and the investigation
reports clearly shows that the late Tomas Acierto 1°
has failed to maintain his homestead claim as required by the law and the
regulations.  At or about the time of his
death, the land in question was unoccupied and unimproved, except an
insignificant portion of the northern side which was then occupied by a
squatter who did not have any interests and has not asserted any claim at all.

There is no question as to the fact that the land has been occupied
and cultivated by Camila Gacias
under tenants and workers, since 1947 continuously up to the present time.  The cultivations and improvements made by
them are extensive and valuable.  There
is no convincing evidence or proof that the deceased Acierto,
before his death, has made substantial improvements in the premises.  His alleged heirs in the protestants
herein, have not presented indubitable evidence of their kinship with him to
prove their right to inherit.

IN VIEW WHEREOF, the judgment of the Regional Land Officer at Tuguegarao, Cagayan, on November
9, 1962, is hereby set aside, and another one is entered giving due course to
the Homestead Application No. V-34996 (E-V-28817) of Camila Gacias.  The Homestead Application No. 205251
(E-109583) is, and shall remain, cancelled.”

4. Nicanor Acierto
and Francisco Bayubay filed a motion for
reconsideration.  This was denied by
Order of the Director of Lands dated April
15, 1966.^[12]
In his Order the Director cited the sworn statement of Jacinta Lumido, the sister-in-law of Tomas Acierto,
supporting his (Director Jorge’s) finding that Acierto
1° had died without heirs, and had failed to comply with applicable rules,
particularly as regards occupancy and improvement of the land subject of his
application.  The Order then went on to
say the following:

“It is thus clear that the homestead application of Tomas Acierto 1° was declared to remain cancelled in the order in
question (of April 8, 1965) not only on the basis that the applicant died
without legal heirs to succeed him, but more
so on the fact that the land in question, as found in an investigation,
was unoccupied and unimproved at or about the death of the applicant and
abandoned since the death of said applicant in 1946.  Even granting, arguendo,
that Tomas Acierto 2° and Francisco Bayubay may legally succeed Tomas Acierto
1° in the latter’s homestead, the fact that there was a violation of the
requirements of the homestead law even prior to the death of the decedent
(applicants), cancellation of the application became proper and warranted.  And since Camila Gacias was found to be occupying and cultivating the land
in question at the time of investigation, and that it is hardly believable as
claimed by the movants that they were forcibly driven
from the land by Camila Gacias,
it is safe to assume that the latter had acquired better rights over the land
in question than the contestants whose rights of succession are still
doubtful.”

5. There the matter rested until, after six (6) years or
so, or in September, 1972, Nicanor Acierto and Francisco Bayubay instituted in the then Court of First
Instance of Cagayan, the accion publiciana (C. C. No. 2049) which has given rise to the appellate
proceedings at bar.^[13]
In this action, they disclaimed receipt of the Lands Director’s order of denial
of their motion for reconsideration, and on that account assert that as far as
they are concerned their motion for reconsideration of the Director’s decision
of April 8, 1965 remains
unresolved^[14]
and therefore, that the decision has never become final.  They reiterate this contention in the present
appeal.

There is, to be sure, no evidence on record that petitioners were
duly or formally served with the order denying their motion for
reconsideration.  Even so, they were put
on notice of the at least presumptive existence of that fifteen-year old order
when on January 28, 1982 it
was offered and admitted in evidence, albeit over their objection, as private
respondents’ Exhibit 4 in the case below (C.C. No. 2049).^[15]
And in the more than eight (8) years that have since elapsed, it does not
appear that they took any steps to verify the authenticity of said order and
attempt to overthrow it or otherwise preserve their right to further
recourse.  Considering these — and their
omission to satisfactorily explain their singular lack of curiosity about the
fate of their motion for reconsideration over a period of no less than six
(6) years from its filing
— petitioners’ present posture may not unreasonably be rejected as a mere
attempt to excuse laches or inaction on what amounts to
little more than a technicality.  At any
rate, if supposed lack of notice was intended to meet the issues of laches and failure to exhaust administrative remedies
raised by private respondents, that purpose was served when the Court opted to
brush aside those issues as merely peripheral and to resolve, as it does now,
the petition on its merits.

The petition clearly raises questions basically factual in
character.  It assails the Decision of
the Intermediate Appellate Court as “founded on gross misapprehension of
facts and contrary to those facts as verified by the trial court.”^[16]
Now, the “already all-too-familiar rule,” as pointed out in this
decision’s opening paragraph, “is that findings of fact of said (Apppellate) Court are generally binding upon this Court which will not review the same absent some special and
important reasons, none of which appears here.”^[17]
The Court, in any event, has in fact reviewed the record in view of the
conflict in findings between the Trial Court and the Intermediate Appellate Court, and found said record to be
sufficiently and substantially supportive of the questioned conclusions of the
Appellate Court.  Those conclusions are,
therefore, hereby accepted and declared as correct.

WHEREFORE, the petition is DISMISSED, and the Decision of
the Intermediate Appellate Court under review is AFFIRMED in toto.  Costs against petitioners.

SO ORDERED.

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

^[1]
Docketed as Civil Case No. 2049, and assigned to Branch V, Tuguegarao.

^[2]
Rollo, p. 35

^[3]
Id., p. 70

^[4]
Including the filing
of two (2) motions to dismiss by defendants, both of which were denied, the
second denial having been brought up on certiorari by the defendants before
the Court of Appeals, without success.  The latter’s decision became
final on September 14, 1977.  (Rollo, p. 35)

^[5]
Presided over by Hon. Bonifacio A. Cacdac, Jr., now an Associate Justice of the Court of
Appeals.

^[6]
Rollo, p. 62

^[7]
Written for the Third Civil Cases Division by Zosa, J., with whom concurred Coquia, Bartolome and Ejercito, JJ.

^[8]
“B.L. Conflict No. 180 (N), D.L.O Conflict No. 129:  H.A. No. 205251 (E-109583):  TOMAS ACIERTO 1° (Deceased) Now his Heirs,
Rep. by TOMAS ACIERTO 2° and SIMPLICIO BAYUBAY (Nephews),
Applicants-Contestants versus H.A. No. V-34996 (E-V-28817) CAMILA
GACIAS, Applicant-Respondent”

^[9]
Rollo, pp. 75-76

^[10]
Annex “F,” petition, Rollo, pp. 94-96

^[11]
Annex “E,” petition

^[12]
Exh, 4; Rollo, pp. 112–113

^[13]
See footnote 1, supra; Rollo, pp. 19, 78

^[14]
Rollo, pp. 156-157

^[15]
Id., pp. 70-71

^[16]
Id., p. 4

^[17]
Hernandez v. C.A., 149 SCRA 657; Cu Bie v.
I.A.C., 154 SCRA 599; Sumbingco v. C.A, 155
SCRA 20; Hermo v. C.A., 155 SCRA 24, citing
Ramos v. Pepsi-Cola Bottling Co., 19 SCRA 289, Bacayo
v. Genato, 135 SCRA 668, Republic v.
I.S.A., 145 SCRA 25, and Sacay v. Sandiganbayan, 142 SCRA 599; de Guzman v. Intestate
Estate of Benitez, 169 SCRA 248; and Gregorio v. C.A., G.R. No. L­-44344,
July 16, 1990.