ROGELIO A. MIRANDA, PETITIONER, VS. THE COURT OF APPEALS AND SPOUSES ORLANDO A. RAYOS AND MERCEDES T. RAYOS, RESPONDENTS.

Challenged in this case is the decision of the Court of Appeals
affirming the order of the trial court lifting a writ of attachment previously
issued by it under Rule 57, Section 1(d) of the Rules of Court. This provision authorizes the issuance of such writ:

In an action against a party who has been guilty of a fraud in contracting the debt or incurring the
obligation upon which the action is brought.

The writ was issued in connection with a complaint for damages
filed by the petitioner against the private respondents on January 2,
1987. This was docketed as Civil Case
No. 15639 in the Regional Trial Court of Makati, Branch 143, presided by Judge
Socorro Tirona Liwag. The writ was later discharged by her on the
finding that the private respondent could not be faulted with fraud under the
aforecited provision of the Rules.

In his complaint, the petitioner alleged that the spouses Orlando
and Mercedes Rayos sold him a parcel of land on December 26, 1985, for the sum
of P250,000.00 under a Deed of Sale with Assumption of Mortgage prepared by
Orlando Rayos, who is a lawyer. It is
not denied that Miranda directly paid Rayos the sum of P150,000.00 and
thereafter also paid the first three quarterly amortizations in the total
amount of P87,864.94 to the Philippine Savings Bank as the mortgagee on the
loan contracted by Rayos. Miranda
claims that the bank at first refused to accept his third quarterly payment but
relented when he showed it the contract he had entered into with Rayos. However, when he offered to make the fourth
and last payment on December 24, 1986, the bank refused to accept it, informing
him that Rayos had already made the
payment and had asked it not to deliver the Torrens certificate of the
mortgaged land to Miranda. This
certificate was subsequently recovered by Rayos, who had since then refused to surrender it to him or to refund
him the total amount of P267,088.61 which he said he had paid on their
contract.

On the basis of these allegations, the trial judge issued the
writ of attachment Miranda had also prayed for. Rayos then filed a motion to discharge the attachment, claiming
there was no proof that he had committed fraud in contracting the debt or incurring the obligation on which the complaint was based. After considering the arguments of the parties, Judge Liwag granted the
motion in her order dated March 5, 1987,^[1] which she subsequently affirmed in her order dated March 18, 1987.^[2] Miranda then went on certiorari
to the respondent court,^[3] which dismissed his petition for lack of
merit in its decision dated September 9, 1987.^[4]

We affirm.

The petitioner insists that there was a valid ground for the
issuance of the writ of attachment because the Deed of Sale with Assumption of
Mortgage prepared by Rayos was attended at the inception with fraud that
brought it under the provision of Rule 57, Section 1(d) of the Rules of
Court. That fraud consisted of the
deception employed by Rayos in inveigling him to enter into the contract of sale without cautioning him that
his assumption of mortgage might be disapproved by the Philippine Savings Bank.

The Court cannot accept this contention in the light of the
evidence of record. If at all – and on
this we do not rule categorically as the matter is yet to be litigated in the court a quo – the fraud might have been committed by Rayos
after the conclusion of
the contract. However, such fraud is
not covered by the aforesaid rule, let alone the fact that it has yet to be
established.

What is clear at this time is
that Rayos cannot be said to have deluded Miranda into entering into the
contract by taking advantage of his position as a lawyer and withholding necessary information from
Miranda. Miranda insists he did not
know any better as a layman. He
complains that Rayos did not warn him that the assumption of mortgage would
have to be approved by the Philippine Savings Bank and that their transaction
would be nullified without such approval. He stresses that had he been properly warned, he would not have invested
an initial payment of P150,000.00 and
later made the three amortization payments of P87,864.94, not to mention the
last quarterly payment he also remitted to the Bank.

The private respondent’s position is that he had in fact informed
Miranda that the assumption of mortgage was subject to the approval of the
mortgagee bank and that he had sent the petitioner the appropriate forms to
accomplish. Miranda, for his part,
maintains that such form was merely an application for individual loans and did
not constitute the sufficient advise or warning that Rayos should have given
him. On this point, the respondent
court correctly affirmed the following findings of the trial court:

The plaintiff, in his Comment on Compliance dated March 13, 1987
argued as follows:

The “Application for Loan” form sent by defendant Orlando
Rayos to plaintiff has no relevance and materiality to the assumption of
defendant Rayos’ loan account with defendant Philippine Savings Bank. That application form of PSB accomplished by
plaintiff is strictly for individual loan application filed by plaintiff
for P100,000.00 for himself. It does not constitute in any manner a “warning” or an
“instruction” to plaintiff
that it was incumbent upon plaintiff to get an express approval by the bank
(PSB) for his assumption of Rayos’ mortgage, … if by sending that application
form of PSB to plaintiff, defendant Orlando Rayos wanted to inform plaintiff
about the necessity to get or obtain
the express approval of the
assumption of mortgage from PSB, why did he not say in clear terms to the
plaintiff?

The Court finds this argument untenable. The Loan Application Form
sent by defendant Rayos was actually filled up and signed by the
plaintiff and his wife dated March 4, 1986. In said loan application, the amount of the loan appears as P100,00.00, the same amount as the mortgage
to be assumed, the security offered also appears as TCT No. 100156 the
same property bought by the
plaintiff from the defendants with assumption of the mortgage in favor of the Philippine Savings Bank (See
Deed of Sale with Assumption of Mortgage, par. 2(6), Annex “D”,
Complaint). How can the plaintiff now
say that the Application for Loan form sent by the defendant to plaintiff
“has no relevance and materiality to the assumption of the defendant
Rayos’ loan account with defendant Philippine Savings Bank.”

It appears from the Loan Application and the General Information
Sheet in connection with said Loan Application which the plaintiff and his wife
also signed that the plaintiff and his wife are both degree holders and the
plaintiff is the Acting Municipal Treasurer of the Municipality of Las
Piñas. There is every reason to
believe, therefore, that they understood what the Loan Application Form given to them by the defendant was for and there was no necessity for the
defendant to state “in clear terms” that there was a need to apply to
the bank in order for them to assume the mortgage.

The above findings are entirely
logical and belie the petitioner’s pretensions that he was completely
duped as if he were a babe in arms. Being a layman did not excuse him from knowledge of the basic principles
involved in this case of which he feigns total ignorance. Moreover, the evidence shows that he was in
fact informed of the need for the approval of the assumption of mortgage and
actually sought to secure such approval although unsuccessfully. This shows that no fraud was imposed on him
by Rayos when they entered into the Deed of Sale with Assumption of Mortgage,
which also means that there was really no ground for the issuance of the writ of attachment.

As the writ of attachment was improperly granted, it was only
fitting that it be discharged by the trial court in rectification of its
initial error. Hence, there was no
need at all for the private respondent to post a counterbond. Finally, we also agree with the respondent
court that the order lifting the attachment being merely interlocutory, it
should not have been questioned on certiorari. This
extraordinary remedy is available only when there is a clear showing of a grave
abuse of discretion amounting to lack of jurisdiction, and there is no such
showing here.

WHEREFORE, the petition is DENIED with costs against the
petitioner. It is so ordered.

Narvasa, (Chairman), Gancayco, Griño-Aquino, and Medialdea, JJ., concur.

^[1]
Annex “L.”

^[2]
Annex “N.”

^[3]
Annex “O.”

^[4]
Chua, J., ponente, with
Ejercito and Lapeña, Jr., JJ., concurring.