LUNESA BALANGCAD, PETITIONER, VS. HON. JUSTICES OF THE COURT OF APPEALS, 5TH DIVISION HON. JUDGE REGIONAL TRIAL COURT, BANGUED, ABRA BR. II, PROV. SHERIFF & DEPUTIES, FEDERICO A…

This petition can be denied outright on the purely procedural
ground of tardiness.

The decision of the Regional Trial court of Bangued, Abra, in
Civil Case No. 1411 was appealed on time to the Court of Appeals but was
dismissed for non-payment of the docket fee.^[1] That
dismissal became final and executory and entry of judgment was made in due
course.^[2]
It was only after nine months that the petitioner went back to the respondent
court, this time to ask for the “annulment and/or reformation or
novation” of the decision of the trial court for lack of
jurisdiction. This petition was
obviously filed as a substitute for her lost appeal and, quite as obviously, could not be allowed.^[3]
The respondent court was therefore correct in rejecting it.^[4]

According to People v. Pareja,^[5] a
judgment which has become final and executory may be set aside in any of the
three ways allowed by the Revised Rules of Court, viz., (1) by petition
for relief from judgment under Rule 38; (2) by direct action to annul and
enjoin the enforcement of the judgment where the alleged defect is not apparent
on its face or from the recitals contained in the judgment; and (3) by direct
action, as certiorari, or by a collateral attack against the
challenged judgment which is void upon its face or where the nullity of the
judgment is apparent from its own recitals. This case does not come under any of these methods.

On the merits, the petition cannot fare any better.

Civil Case No. 1411 was filed by the private respondents on May
19, 1980, for quieting of title to a parcel of land denominated as Lot No.
2858, which they alleged had been illegally registered in the name of
Lunesa Balangcad. After trial (following a series of legal skirmishes
which need not be narrated here), judgment was rendered annulling the
defendant’s OCT No. P-152, Free Patent Title No. 213712 with respect to the
land in suit, which the defendant was ordered to vacate.^[6] This
is the decision the petitioner unsuccessfully questioned in the Court of
Appeals and is now being indirectly faulted
in this petition.

The main thrust of the present petition is that the Court of
Appeals erred in holding that the trial court had jurisdiction over Civil Case
No. 1411 notwithstanding that the challenge to Balangcad’s title was being made
17 years after its issuance in 1963. Invoking the in rem character of cadastral proceedings,
the petitioner insists on the indefeasibility of her title to the disputed land
after one year from its registration
and contends it is too late now for the private respondents to contest her
ownership.

The petitioner stresses that the private respondents slept on
their rights, if any, by not seasonably protesting the registration of the
disputed lot, considering that, as they themselves contend, they have been in
possession thereof for more than thirty years. They therefore had actual notice of her adverse claim. Moreover, they were deemed duly notified of
the cadastral proceedings over the disputed land and so had only one year from
the date of registration to contest her title.

The rule indeed is that title to registered property becomes
indefeasible after one year from the date of registration except where there is
actual fraud, in which case it
may be challenged in a direct proceeding within that period. Section 38, Act 496 as amended by Sec. 3,
Act 3621 and Sec. 1, Act 3630, provides:

If the court after hearing finds that the applicant or adverse
claimant has title as stated in his application or adverse claim and proper for
registration, a decree of confirmation
and registration shall be entered. Every decree of registration shall bind the land, and quiet title
thereto, subject only to the exceptions stated in the following section. It shall be conclusive upon and against all
persons, including the Insular Government and all the branches thereof, whether
mentioned by name in the application, notice, or citation, or included in the
general description “To all whom it may concern.” Such decree shall
not be opened by reason of the absence, infancy, or other disability of
any person affected thereby, nor by any proceeding in any court for reversing judgments or decrees; subject,
however, to the right of any person deprived of land or of any estate or interest
therein by decree of registration obtained by fraud to file in the competent
Court of First Instance a petition for review within one year after entry of
the decree, provided no innocent purchaser for value has acquired an interest. Upon the expiration of said term of one
year, every decree or certificate of title issued in accordance with this
section shall be incontrovertible. If there is any such purchaser, the decree of registration shall
not be opened, but shall remain in full force and effect forever, subject only
to the right of appeal hereinbefore provided: Provided, however, That no decree or certificate of title issued to
persons not parties to the appeal shall be cancelled or annulled. But any person aggrieved by such decree in
any case may pursue his remedy by action for damages against the applicant or
any other person for fraud in procuring the decree. Whenever the phrase “innocent purchaser for value” or
an equivalent phrase occurs in this Act, it shall be deemed to include an innocent
lessee, mortgagee, or other
encumbrancer for value. (Emphasis
supplied)

As the respondent court correctly held, however, that rule does
not apply to the case at bar because Lot 2858 was private land and so could not
have been legally covered by the free patent issued to the petitioner. Only public lands can be the subject of
grants issued by the government. Judge
Leopoldo B. Gironella found, after painstakingly analyzing the evidence of the
parties, that the disputed lot was private land, having been acquired by the
private respondents through prescription by adverse and continuous possession
thereof for more than thirty years. This finding is conclusive on this Court as there is no showing that it
was arbitrarily reached and there is sufficient evidentiary basis to sustain
it.

Elaborating on the nullity of the registration with regard to Lot
2858, the trial judge acutely observed:

Anent the claim of defendant Lunesa Balangcad that plaintiffs are
estopped or barred by prescription, the evidence overwhelmingly negate this
pretension. The land in suit is a
private land and not a public land. The
grant, therefore, of the government of Lot No. 2858 indicated on the cadastral
survey of Manabo, Abra is null and void with respect to the land in litigation,
but valid with respect to the unquestioned portion. Besides, plaintiff Perico Arcedo came to know the claim of
defendant Lunesa Balangcad and issuance of a Free Patent Title in her name in
1978 because he was in Kabacan, Cotabato. Another factor which negates her claim of prescription is her bad
faith. Having declared the land only in
1962 and considering her intelligence, it is hard to believe that she was
already claiming and possessing the land before 1962. The case having been filed in 1978, the defense of prescription
clearly does not lie. Since the land
has not passed to an innocent purchaser, equity demands that plaintiff has to
return the land in suit to the plaintiff Perico Arcedo and not to enrich herself
at the expense of the latter.

We also note the following excerpt from Agne v. Director of
Lands,^[7]
which is squarely applicable to the case at bar:

The rule on the incontrovertibility of a certificate of title upon
the expiration of one year, after the entry of the decree, pursuant to the provisions
of the Land Registration Act, does not apply where an action for the
cancellation of a patent and a certificate of title issued pursuant thereto is
instituted on the ground that they are null and void because the Bureau of
Lands had no jurisdiction to issue them at all, the land in question having
been withdrawn from the public domain prior to the subsequent award of the
patent and the grant of a certificate of title to another person. Such an action is different from a review of
the decree of title on the ground of fraud.

Although a period of one year has already expired from the time
a certificate of title was issued pursuant to a public grant, said title does
not become incontrovertible but is
null and void if the property covered thereby is originally of private
ownership, and an action to
annul the same does not prescribe. Moreover, since herein petitioners are in possession of the land in
dispute, an action to quiet title is imprescriptible. Their action for reconveyance which, in
effect, seeks to quiet title to property in one’s possession is
imprescriptible. Their undisturbed
possession for a number of years gave them a continuing right
to seek the aid of a court of equity to determine the nature of the adverse
claims of a third party and the effect on her title. As held in Caragay-Layno vs. Court of
Appeals, et al., an adverse claimant of a registered land, undisturbed in
his possession thereof for a period of more than fifty years and not knowing
that the land he actually occupied had been registered in the name of another,
is not precluded from filing an action for reconveyance which, in effect, seeks
to quiet title to property as against the registered owner who was relying upon
a Torrens title which could have been fraudulently acquired. To such adverse claimant, the remedy of an
action to quiet title is impresciptible. In actions for reconveyance of property predicated on the fact that the
conveyance complained of was void ab initio, a claim of prescription of
the action would be unavailing. (Emphasis supplied)

Considering the facts as established at the trial and affirmed by
the respondent court, and in light of the above-discussed decision of this
Court, we are satisfied that the private respondents are indeed entitled to the
return of Lot No. 2858 as property rightfully belonging to them by acquisitive
prescription.

The Torrens system is intended to guarantee the integrity and
conclusiveness of the certificate of registration, but it cannot be used far
the perpetration of fraud against the real owner of the registered land. The system merely confirms ownership and
does not create it. Certainly, it
cannot be used to divest the lawful owner of his title for the purpose of
transferring it to another who has not acquired it by any of the modes allowed
or recognized by law. Where such an
illegal transfer is made, as in
the case at bar, the law presumes that no registration has been made and so
retains title in the real owner of the land.

WHEREFORE, the petition is DENIED and the questioned
decision AFFIRMED, with costs against the petitioner. It is so ordered.

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

^[1]
CA G.R. No. 12691, resolution of July 30, 1987; Rollo, p. 114.

^[2]
Rollo, p. 115.

^[3]
Manila Electric Co. v. CA, 187 SCRA 200.

^[4]
Through Justice Vicente V. Mendoza, with Paras and Limcaoco, JJ.,
concurring.

^[5]
189 SCRA 143.

^[6]
Decided by Judge Leopoldo B. Gironella.

^[7]
181 SCRA 793.