JOSEPHINE B. BELCODERO, PETITIONER, VS. THE HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS, ET AL., RESPONDENTS.

This case involves the question of ownership over a piece of land
acquired by a husband while living with a paramour and after
having deserted his lawful wife and children. The property had been bought by the husband on installment basis prior
to the effectivity of the Civil Code of 1950 but the final deed, as well as the
questioned conveyance by him to his common law spouse, has ensued during the
latter Code’s regime. Now, of course,
we have to likewise take note of the new Family Code which took effect on 03
August 1988.

Let us begin by paraphrasing the factual findings of the
appellate court below.

The husband, Alayo D. Bosing, married Juliana Oday on 27 July
1927, with whom he had three children, namely, Flora, Teresita, and Gaido. In 1946, he left the conjugal home, and he
forthwith started to live instead with Josefa Rivera with whom he later begot
one child, named Josephine Bosing, now Josephine Balcobero.

On 23 August 1949, Alayo purchased a parcel of land on
installment basis from the Magdalena Estate, Inc. In the deed, he indicated his civil status as, “married to
Josefa R. Bosing,” the common-law wife. In a letter, dated 06 October 1959, which he addressed to Magdalena
Estate, Inc., he authorized the latter to transfer the lot in the name of his
“wife Josefa R. Bosing.” The final deed of sale was executed by Magdalena
Estate, Inc., on 24 October 1959. A few
days later, or on 09 November 1959, Transfer Certificate of Title No. 48790 was
issued in the name of “Josefa R. Bosing, x x x married to Alayo Bosing, x
x x.”

On 06 June 1958, Alayo married Josefa even while his prior
marriage with Juliana was still subsisting. Alayo died on 11 March 1967. About three years later, or on 17 September 1970, Josefa and Josephine
executed a document of extrajudicial partition and sale of the lot in question,
which was there described as “conjugal property” of Josefa and deceased Alayo. In this deed, Josefa’s supposed one-half
(1/2) interest as surviving spouse of Alayo, as well as her one-fourth (1/4)
interest as heir, was conveyed to Josephine for a P10,000.00 consideration,
thereby completing for herself, along with her own one-fourth (1/4) interest as
the surviving child of Alayo, a full “ownership” of the
property. The notice of extrajudicial
partition was published on 04, 05 and 06 November 1970 in the Evening Post; the
inheritance and estate taxes were paid; and a new Transfer Certificate of Title
No. 198840 was issued on 06 June 1974 in the name of Josephine.

On 30 October 1980, Juliana (deceased Alayo’s real widow) and her
three legitimate children filed with the court a quo an action
for reconveyance of the property. On
the basis of the above facts, the trial court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs,
and it ordered that –

“x x x Josephine Bosing execute a deed of reconveyance of the
property in question to the legal heirs of the deceased Alayo D. Bosing, and
that both defendants pay, jointly and severally, actual damages by way of
attorney’s fees and expenses in litigation, TEN THOUSAND (P10,000.00) PESOS,
and the sum of TEN THOUSAND (P10,000.00) PESOS as moral damages, plus TEN
THOUSAND (P10,000.00) PESOS exemplary damages to prevent future frauds.”

The defendants went to the Court of Appeals which affirmed the
trial court’s order for reconveyance but reversed the decision on the award for
damages, thus –

WHEREFORE, the judgment appealed from is hereby AFFIRMED insofar as
defendant Josephine Bosing is ordered to execute a deed of reconveyance of the
property granting the same to the legal heirs of the deceased Alayo D. Bosing,
and REVERSED insofar as it awards actual, moral and exemplary damages.^[1]

Hence, the instant petition for review^[2]
submitting that –

1. THE RESPONDENT COURT
ERRED IN NOT HOLDING THAT THE ACTION FOR RECONVEYANCE HAD LONG PRESCRIBED.

2. THE RESPONDENT COURT ERRED IN FINDING THAT,
THE ACTION FOR RECONVEYANCE IS BASED UPON AN IMPLIED OR CONSTRUCTIVE TRUST.

3. THE RESPONDENT COURT ERRED IN NOT HOLDING
THAT, THE PROPERTY IN QUESTION BELONGS EXCLUSIVELY TO THE PETITIONERS.

4. THE RESPONDENT
COURT ERRED IN NOT GRANTING PETITIONERS’ MOTION FOR NEW TRIAL BASED ON NEWLY
DISCOVERED EVIDENCE, AND LIKEWISE ERRED IN HOLDING THAT EVEN IF A NEW TRIAL IS
GRANTED THE SAME WOULD NOT SERVE A USEFUL PURPOSE.

We rule for affirmance.

The first three issues are interrelated, and the same will thus
be jointly discussed.

Whether the property in question was acquired by Alayo in 1949
when an agreement for its purchase on installment basis was entered into
between him and Magdalena Estate, Inc., or in 1959 when a deed of sale was
finally executed by Magdalena Estate, Inc., the legal results would be the
same. The property remained as
belonging to the conjugal partnership of Alayo and his legitimate wife
Juliana. Under both the new Civil Code
(Article 160) and the old Civil Code (Article 1407); “all property of the marriage is presumed to
belong to the conjugal partnership, unless it be proved that it pertains
exclusively to the husband or to the wife.” This presumption has not been
convincingly rebutted.

It cannot be seriously contended that, simply because the
property was titled in the name of Josefa at Alayo’s request, she should
thereby be deemed to be its owner. The
property unquestionably was acquired by Alayo. Alayo’s letter, dated 06 October 1959, to Magdalena Estate, Inc., merely
authorized the latter to have the title to the property transferred to her
name. More importantly, she implicitly
recognized Alayo’s ownership when, three years after the death of Alayo, she
and Josephine executed the deed of extrajudicial partition and sale in which
she asserted a one-half (1/2) interest in the property in what may be described
as her share in the “conjugal partnership” with Alayo, plus another
one-fourth (1/4) interest as the “surviving widow,” the last
one-fourth (1/4) going to Josephine as the issue of the deceased. Observe that the above adjudication would
have exactly conformed with a partition in intestacy had they been the sole and
legitimate heirs of the decedent.

The appellate court below, given the above circumstances,
certainly cannot be said to have been without valid basis in concluding that
the property really belonged to the lawful conjugal partnership between Alayo
and his true spouse Juliana.

As regards the property relations between common-law spouses,
Article 144 of the Civil Code merely codified the law established through
judicial precedents under the old code (Margaret Maxey vs. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. L-45870, 11 May 1984). In both regimes, the co-ownership rule had
more than once been repudiated when either or both spouses suffered from an
impediment to marry (Jeroniza vs. Jose, 89 SCRA 306). The present provisions under Article 147 and Article 148 of the
Family Code did not much deviate from the old rules; in any case, its
provisions cannot apply to this case without interdicting prior vested rights
(Article 256, Family Code).

It was at the time that the adjudication of ownership was made
following Alayo’s demise (not when Alayo merely allowed the property to be
titled in Josefa’s name which clearly was not intended to be adversarial to Alayo’s interest), that a
constructive trust was deemed to have been created by operation of law under
the provisions of Article 1456 of the Civil Code.

“Article 1456. If
property is acquired through mistake or fraud, the person obtaining it is, by
force of law, considered a trustee of an implied trust for the benefit of the
person from whom the property comes.

The applicable prescriptive period for an
action seeking a reconveyance of the property by the beneficiaries thereof is
ten (10) years (Article 1144, Civil Code). Ordinarily, that period starts from the establishment of the implied
trust being the day when the cause of action would be considered to have
accrued (Article 1150, Civil Code). Unfortunately for Josefa and Josephine, however, the property involved
in this case is a realty titled under the Torrens System. The prescriptive period is thus to be
counted from the time the transaction affecting the property is registered with
the corresponding issuance of a new certificate of title.^[3]
Between the time Transfer Certificate of Title No. 198840 was issued on 06 June
1974, and the filing of the action for the reconveyance of the property with
the court a quo on 30 October 1980, barely a period of six (6)
years and four (4) months had elapsed. The case has accordingly been initiated seasonably.

The four-year prescriptive period, mentioned in passing by the
petitioners, would have had some value and relevance had the private
respondents or their predecessor in interest been parties to the extrajudicial
partition and sale. In that event, the
latter’s action could only then be predicated on a vitiation of consent^[4]
where the applicable statutory limitation would be four years.^[5]

The last issue raises the supposed
error in the rejection of a new trial on the basis of newly discovered evidence. We concur with the resolution of the appellate court below (on appellants‘ [petitioners herein] motion for
reconsideration thereat), thus –

Appellants’ prayer for a new trial based upon what they claim is
newly discovered evidence deserves scant consideration.

Appellant proposes to prove (1) that Josefa Bosing sold certain
property for P8,000.00 in 1948
and was therefore in a financial position
to make the payments to Magdalena Estate Inc. and (2) that appellee Juliana
Bosing got married in 1961 to one Burayos Ballit, and thus,
“forfeited” her right to the conjugal partnership.

The first ground is not meritorious. It is not newly discovered evidence. As described in appellants’ Motion the
documents were “not discovered or considered as necessary evidence during
the trial of the case below” by the former counsel; it is therefore more
properly considered as forgotten
evidence, which the appellant knew or should have known during the trial
(Tesoro vs. Court of Appeals, 54 SCRA 296; Republic vs. Vda. de Castelvi, 58 SCRA 336). Moreover, assuming the sale is proven, it
does not follow that the proceeds
were used to pay the lot in question; the payments were made in installments,
not in one lump sum.

Neither is the second ground deserving of merit. Assuming that the marriage to Ballit in 1961 is duly proven, and that this provided a cause for legal separation
and consequent disqualification of the guilty spouse to succeed to the
husband’s intestate estate under Article 1002 of the Civil Code, the fact
remains that no action for legal separation was brought by the husband during
his lifetime and within the period provided by law. It is too late to raise the issue at this time.

Accordingly, assuming that the Motion for New Trial complies with
the formal requisites for such a motion (See Minister of Natural Resources vs.
Heirs of Orval Hughes, et. al., GR No. 62662, prom. November 12, 1987), a
question We don’t find necessary to decide, a new trial would not serve a
useful purpose in altering the result of the questioned decision.

WHEREFORE, the decision appealed from in the instant
petition for review on certiorari is AFFIRMED.

SO ORDERED.

Feliciano, (Chairman), Bidin, Romero, and Melo, JJ., concur.

^[1]
Penned by Justice Minerva Gonzaga-Reyes, concurred in by Justices Santiago
Kapunan and Ricardo Francisco.

^[2]
Ably presented by Atty. Jaime Infante.

^[3]
See Articles 708-709, 711, Civil Code; Amerol vs. Bagumbaran, 154 SCRA
396.

^[4]
Article 1390, Civil Code.

^[5]
Article 1391, Ibid.