MARCELINA SAPU-AN, ESTER ABIERA, FULGENCIO SOLAMILLO, ROGELIO ABIERA, CARMELITA ABIERA AND ESLIE ABIERA, PETITIONERS, VS. THE HON. COURT OF APPEALS, CALIXTO TINGCAY, EUFRONIA EN…

The subject of this dispute is a 786 sq. m. lot situated in
Valencia, Negros Oriental. It has been
occupied since the last World War by both the petitioners and the private
respondents, who now mutually assert adverse claims of exclusive ownership over
the property.

The petitioners built their house near the center of the lot
while the private respondents built their house near the western boundary. Both parties made tax payments on the lot in
the name of Alfonsa Ohoy and caused separate surveys to be made on the land.

The petitioners claim the land by virtue of separate sales made
by the original owners, namely, Alfonsa Ohoy, Luciana Ohoy, Porfirio Ohoy and Maria Ohoy, to Candida Favor, Ceriaco Abiera, Josefa Abiera,
and Roberto (or Edilberto)
Abiera, the petitioners’ predecessors-in-interest.

For their part, the private respondents claim the same land by
inheritance from their mother, Alfonsa Ohoy, who had in turn acquired it from
her mother after the land had been partitioned among her children.

Both the petitioners and the private respondents say they have
occupied and farmed the disputed land without objection from each other. The petitioners aver that it was they who
gave permission to Calixto Tingcay to build his house on the land after World
War II. The private respondents contend
that it was they who gave permission to petitioner Marcelina Sapu-an to build
her house on the land, also after World War II.

In 1962, the petitioners allegedly demolished their old house and
began constructing a bigger one over the private respondent’s objections. When their protests were ignored, the
private respondents sued the petitioners for the recovery of the land, with
damages.

At the trial, the plaintiffs presented four witnesses, among them
Zacarias Villegas, who testified that his mother, Maria Ohoy, did not own any
share in the disputed lot and that it belonged exclusively to Alfonsa. He also said that he lived with the Tingcays
for some time and that it was really Marcelina Sapu-an who requested permission
to live on the land.^[1]

They also submitted in evidence (1) tax declarations in the name
of Alfonsa Ohoy from 1906 to 1949 and in the name of Calixto Tingcay for 1962;
(2) receipts of tax payments made
by them for the period from 1953 to 1979; (3) two private documents dated
December 15, 1964, and March 18, 1947, respectively, evidencing the sale of
coconut trees planted thereon, to third persons; (4) a sworn statement on the
current and fair value of the real property; and (5) a survey of the land made by a geodetic
engineer.^[2]

The defendants, for their part, presented two witnesses, Josefa
Abiera, sister-in-law of Marcelina Sapu-an, and Ester Abiera Solamillo, one of
the petitioners.

Josefa Abiera testified that she witnessed the execution and
signing of the deed of sale disposing of Alfonsa’s and Porfirio’s shares in the
land, on April 2, 1943, for a consideration of P25.00. Luciana Ohoy also sold her shares in the
land to Josefa’s parents before the war broke out. Josefa was already thirty years old at the time this earlier sale
took place. She further declared that
Atilano sold Maria Ohoy’s share to her and Edilberto Abiera for P5.00 during
the evacuation of Valencia.^[3]

Ester Solamillo testified that her grandparents, Candida Favor
and Ceriaco Abiera, her father Roberto, and her aunt Josefa, purchased the
disputed land in separate transactions with Luciana, Alfonsa and Porfirio Ohoy,
and Maria Ohoy, through her son Atilano. She also said that the defendants were the ones who introduced the
improvements on the land and enjoyed its fruits. Sometime in 1950, her father, Roberto Abiera, sought the
cancellation of the name of Alfonsa Ohoy in the tax declaration and the entry
of their names therein, but the treasurer’s office deferred action, pending the
submission of supporting papers.^[4]

The defendants also presented (1) two private deeds of sale in
their favor; (2) receipts of tax payments on the land by Teopista and Ester
Abiera; and (3) a survey contract of the land prepared by a surveyor.^[5]

After considering the testimonial and documentary evidence of the
parties, the trial court^[6]
disposed as follows:

WHEREFORE, and in view of the foregoing, judgment is hereby
rendered in favor of the plaintiffs and against the defendants, declaring the
plaintiffs as the absolute owners of the land in question described in
paragraph 4 of the Complaint, original and amended, and ordering the defendants
to leave and vacate the property in question within thirty days upon the finality of this decision.

On appeal, the decision was affirmed by the respondent court.^[7]
The petitioners then filed a motion for reconsideration, raising therein the
sole issue of prescription of the private respondents’ cause of action. This motion was denied by the appellate
court, prompting this petition.

The petitioners now invoke three grounds for the allowance of the
petition.

First, they contend that the respondent court failed or refused
to apply to this case the “equiponderance of evidence” rule, which
states:

When the scale shall stand upon an equipoise and there is nothing
in the evidence which shall incline it to one side or the other, the court will find for the defendant.^[8]

Under this principle, the plaintiff must rely on the strength of
his evidence and not on the weakness of the defendant’s claim. Even if the evidence of the plaintiff may be
stronger than that of the defendant, there is no preponderance of evidence on
his side if such evidence is insufficient in itself to establish his cause of
action.^[9]

The petitioners’ point is that on the whole, their evidence
should be given more credence than that of the respondents.

The general rule in civil cases is that the party having the
burden of proof must establish his case by a preponderance of evidence. By “preponderance of evidence” is
meant that the evidence as a whole adduced by one side is superior to that of
the other.^[10]

In determining where the preponderance or superior weight of
evidence on the issues involved lies, the court may consider all the facts and
circumstances of the case, the witnesses’ manner of testifying, their
intelligence, their means and opportunity of knowing the facts on which they
are testifying, the nature of such facts, the probability or improbability of
their testimony, their interest or want of interest, and also their personal
credibility as far as the same may legitimately appear at the trial. The court may also consider the number of
witnesses, although the preponderance is not necessarily with the greatest number.^[11]

It is settled that matters of credibility are addressed basically
to the trial judge who is in a better position than the appellate court to
appreciate the weight and evidentiary value of the testimonies of witnesses who
have personally appeared before him.

Significantly, both the trial court and the respondent court
found the credibility of Josefa Abiera to be highly questionable. As the respondent court observed:

Appellants argue that the nullity of the said deed was not sufficiently
established by the appellees nor had the testimony of Josefa Abiera as to the
due execution of the same been properly impeached. A re-examination of the records of this case strengthens the
opinion of this Court that the
testimony of Josefa Abiera as to the fact of sale of the alleged shares of Porfirio and Alfonsa Ohoy over the
subject lot and the due execution of the purported document evidencing the said
sale cannot be given full credence. Not
only had the testimony of the
said witness been successfully impeached by the appellees as regards the
alleged sale of the shares of Luciana and Maria Ohoy over the subject lot by a
proper showing that Luciana could not have sold her alleged share in 1936 as
testified to by Josefa Abiera (pp. 41-42; t.s.n., May 13, 1982, hearing) because Luciana died in 1921 as evidenced by her death certificate
and that Josefa’s testimony to the effect that Maria Ohoy’s son, Atilano
Villegas sold Maria’s share over the said lot during the war was belied by the
uncontroverted evidence for the appellees that Atilano migrated to Dipolog,
Mindanao, during the war and that the circumstances under which the sale was allegedly perfected rendered Josefa’s testimony highly
improbable; e.g. she never met Atilano before the alleged sale took place,
no written authority to sell from Maria
Ohoy was presented by
the man who introduced himself as Atilano Villegas and most importantly, all
their neighbors evacuated to another place in the morning of the day when the
alleged sale took place for fear
of the Japanese forces who were headed their place but Josefa and Roberto
Abiera, the only ones left in the place, still found time in the afternoon of
that day to perfect a contract of sale with
a complete stranger; the unquestionable and substantial interest of Josefa
Abiera over the subject lot as co-owner thereof had also been shown by the
appellees as follows:

“ATTY. BRIONES:

Q. Mrs. Abiera, when you last declared in this
case on July 25, 1977, and in the latter part of your testimony, you told the
Honorable Court that the property in question is owned in common between you
and your brothers Roberto, Teopisto and Pablo, all surnamed Abiera. Now, how much of the entire property is
owned between you and your aforesaid brother Roberto, Pablo and Teopisto?

WITNESS:

A. 778 square meters.

Q.   I
am not asking you on specific figures. I am asking you on the proportion how much of the entire property is
owned by you only including your brothers Roberto, Teopisto and Pablo?

A.    Three-fourths for the four of us.

Q. All right, now, the remaining
one-fourth (1/4), who owns the same?

A. Maria Ohoy.

Q.   How
about … What happened to that share of Maria Ohoy?

A.    It was sold.

Q.   Sold
to whom?

A.    It
was sold to me and with my brother Roberto.

Q.   Which
sale was evidenced by Exhibit “5” of this case, the document executed
by Atilano Villegas?

A.    Yes,
sir.”

In view of Josefa Abiera’s
dubious credibility and her inclination in favor of the cause for the
appellants, the uncorroborated testimony of Josefa Abiera cannot lend validity
to the purported deed of sale. (p. 13,
t.s.n., May 13, 1982, hearing)

It is true that the
genuineness and due execution of the two deeds of sale presented in evidence by
the petitioners were not denied by the private respondents under oath, and that
under Rule 8, Section 8, of the Rules of Court, the “genuineness and due
execution of the instrument shall be deemed admitted unless the adverse party,
under oath, specifically denies them.” However, this rule applies only to
the parties to the document and not, in the case at bar, to the private
respondents. The reason is that they
were not parties to the deeds of sale but merely the heirs of the alleged vendors.

It follows that the unauthenticated deeds of sale cannot serve as
valid bases for the petitioners’ claim of ownership over the land in question.

This Court has held that a mere tax declaration or a tax
assessment, such as the one presented by the respondents, does not by itself
give title and is of little value in proving one’s ownership.^[12]
It must be noted, nevertheless, that the conclusion of the respondent court was
not premised on such declarations alone for, as it correctly held:

Moreover, the acts of ownership exercised by the appellees over the
subject lot such as the selling of a number of trees to third parties with
right of repurchase without objection from the appellants is very strong
evidence in appellee’s favor that they indeed are the owners of the subject lot
and possessed it as such.

The petitioners also submit, as their second and third grounds,
that the complaint is bound by the principle of acquisitive prescription and
the statute of limitations.

Their contention is that their evidence shows they possessed the
subject land in good faith and with just title and they consequently validly
acquired the disputed lot pursuant to Article 1134 of the Civil Code, providing
as follows:

Ownership and other real rights
over immovable property are acquired by ordinary prescription through
possession of ten years.

The said period of ten years must, so they maintain, be counted
at the earliest from April 2, 1943, when Exh. “4” was executed, or at
the latest from the year 1946, when they commenced possession of the lot in
question. Since then and up to the
filing of the complaint by the private respondents on November 20, 1964, a
period of at least eighteen years had elapsed, making the action definitely
tardy under the statute of limitations.

The respondent court held that the petitioners’ failure to raise
the defense of prescription of the respondents’ cause of action precluded them
from raising it for the first time on appeal. Demurring, the petitioners agree that this issue was raised in their answer
to the complaint when they alleged:

2. That from the
time this parcel of land was acquired by the predecessors-in-­interest of the
defendants, their possession over the same which was continued by the latter,
was continuous, public, peaceful, and in the concept of owner, until this
unwarranted civil action by plaintiffs disturbed their lawful possession.

They also invoke Gicano v. Gegato,^[13]
where the Court observed that:

What is essential only, to repeat, is that the facts demonstrating
the lapse of the prescriptive period, be otherwise sufficiently and
satisfactorily apparent on the record; either in the averments of the
plaintiff’s complaint, or otherwise established by the evidence.

The petitioners seem to have confused the terms “acquisitive
prescription” and “extinctive prescription.” These concepts are
distinguishable as follows:

Adverse possession of real property for the requisite period
confers title as effectually as any paper title, with the exception that such a
title cannot be acquired as against a title registered under the provisions of
the Land Registration Act. The statute
of limitations is merely a bar to a right of action and does not operate as a
transfer of title at all. The statute
of limitations is, therefore, new matter, which must be specially pleaded.^[14]

Ordinary acquisitive prescription is governed by Article 1134 of the Civil Code, quoted above. It requires possession of things in good
faith and with just title during the time fixed by law. The good faith of
the possessor consists in the reasonable belief that the person from whom he
received the thing was the owner thereof and could transmit his ownership. For the purpose of prescription, there is just title when the adverse
claimant came into possession of the property through one of the modes
recognized by law for the
acquisition of ownership or other real rights, but the grantor was not the
owner or could not transmit any right. It is well-settled that possession, to constitute the foundation of a
prescriptive right, must be adverse and under a claim of title. Possession by license or mere tolerance does
not give rise to acquisitive prescription.

The above requirements have not been satisfactorily met by the
petitioners. They could not have
possessed the land in good faith and with just title because as aptly observed
by the respondent court:

A scrupulous examination of the evidence presented by the parties
would show that the plaintiffs and their mother Alfonsa Ohoy have actually
resided in the land in question in the house of Alfonsa Ohoy. That Alfonsa Ohoy had a house in the land in
question as early as 1906 is shown by Tax Declaration No. 2824 (Exh.
“A” and “16”). At
the back side or page 2 of the said tax declaration under the heading
“Building and Other Structures” the entry, “Una casa caña y
nipa” valued at P5.00. Plaintiffs’
evidence shows that plaintiffs lived with their mother in the land in question
since birth until they evacuated to the mountains during the Second World War;
that after the war they returned to the land in question. The fact that plaintiffs have a house in the
land in question is admitted by
defendant Ester Abiera. Thus, in her
testimony on direct examination by their counsel, Ester Abiera unguardedly
blurted out that the plaintiffs have a house
in the lot in question even if the question asked was with respect to the
defendants’ having a house in the said lot.

The petitioners’ contention that the private respondents’ cause
of action has already prescribed is also untenable. Actions for the recovery of land are real actions. Extinctive prescription of such kind of
actions is governed by Article 1141 which provides that:

Art. 1141. – Real actions over immovables prescribe after thirty years. (Emphasis supplied)

The private respondents’ submission that their cause of action
arose in 1960, when they objected to the expansion being made by the
petitioners, is immaterial. As of now,
the 30-year prescriptive period has not yet expired.

Moreover, what the petitioners alleged, in their answer was not
prescription of the plaintiffs’ cause of action but their own alleged ownership
over the lot in question by virtue of acquisitive prescription. That claim was rejected by the respondent
court when it recognized the private respondents as the real owners of the land.

We find that this case turns mainly on questions of fact, which
have been correctly appreciated by both the trial court and respondent
court. Their conclusions in favor of
the private respondents are based on the evidence of record and there is no
reason for this Court to reverse or modify them. Absent a convincing showing that the challenged decision was
reached arbitrarily or in disregard of such evidence, our clear and only duty
on appeal is to uphold the courts below. We so affirm.

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

Griño-Aquino and Bellosillo,
JJ., concur.

Padilla and Medialdea,
JJ., on leave.

^[1]
TSN, March 4, 1966, pp. 29-30; TSN, March 3, 1966, pp. 5-7.

^[2]
Exhibits “B” – “L.”

^[3]
TSN, March 3, 1980, pp. 3-4, 9; TSN, May 13, 1982, pp. 38-40; Exh.
“5”; TSN, May 13, 1982, pp. 41-43.

^[4]
TSN, November 17, 1983, pp. 181-182, 186-187; TSN, December 7, 1983, p. 204.

^[5]
Exhibits “4” – “15.”

^[6]
Decision, penned by Judge Temistocles B. Diez, Regional Trial Court, 7th
Judicial Region, Br. 37, Dumaguete City; Records, pp. 350-374.

^[7]
Gonzaga-Reyes, Minerva P., J., ponente;
Kapunan, Santiago M. and Francisco, Ricardo J., JJ., concurring; promulgated on June 29, 1989; rollo, pp. 21-42.

^[8]
Moran, Comments on the Rules of Court, 1980 ed., Vol. 6, p. 134.

^[9]
Ibid., p. 135.

^[10]
Id., p. 134.

^[11]
Section 1, Rule 133, Revised Rules of Court.

^[12] Casimiro v.
Fernandez, 9 Phil. 562; Province of Camarines Sur v. Director of Lands,
64 Phil. 600.

^[13]
157, SCRA 140.

^[14] Recoletos v.
Crisostomo, 32 Phil. 427.