CALALANG vs. REGISTER OF DEEDS
VIRGINIA
CALALANG, petitioner, vs. REGISTER OF DEEDS OF QUEZON
CITY, ADMINISTRATOR OF NATIONAL LAND TITLES AND DEEDS REGISTRATION, LUCIA DE LA
CRUZ, CONSTANCIO SIMANGAN, and IGLESIA NI KRISTO, respondents.
[G.R. No. 76265. March 11, 1994.]
AUGUSTO
M. DE LEON, JOSE M. DE CASTRO, JOSE A. PANLILEO, FELICIDAD VERGARA VDA. DE
PINEDA, FERNANDO L. VITUG I, FERNANDO M. VITUG II, FERNANDO M. VITUG III,
FAUSTINO TOBIA, ELENO M. OSTREA and FELISA C. CRISTOBAL-GENEROSO, petitioners, vs. THE HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS
and BISHOP ERANO-MANALO, respondents.
[G.R. No. 83280. March 11, 1994]
FACTS:
The Decision of the Second Division of this
Court promulgated April 22, 1992 (208 SCRA 215) dismissing, for lack of merit, these
two (2) consolidated petitions, is assailed by petitioners in their separate
motions for reconsideration.
The assailed Decision states:
With
this Court's ruling promulgated in 1984, it is our considered view that the petitioners cannot raise anew the question
of ownership of Lucia de la Cruz over Lot 671 which had been determined by
the Court of Appeals and affirmed by the Supreme Court in the de la Cruz
case. Well-settled in the rule enunciated in Church Assistance Program,
Inc. v. Sibulo, 171 SCRA 408 [1989] that:
"When a right or fact has been judicially tried and determined
by a court of competent jurisdiction, so long as it remains unreversed, it
should be conclusive upon the parties and those in privity with them in law or
estate."
The
Court's ruling has long been final and the issue on ownership of Lot 671
finally disposed of several years ago. This declaration must be respected and
followed in the instant case applying the principle of res
judicta or, otherwise, the rule on conclusiveness of judgment. The
less familiar concept of less terminological usage of res judicata as
a rule on conclusiveness of judgment refers to the situation where the judgment
in the prior action operates as an estoppel only as to the matters actually
determined therein or which were necessarily included therein. (De la Cruz v.
Court of Appeals, 187 SCRA 165 [1990]).
Inevitably,
the de la Cruz ruling should be applied to the present petitions
since the facts on which such decision was predicated continue to be the facts
of the case before us now. Even the petitioners substantially adopt the same
findings of facts in their pleadings. The factual inquiry with regards to the
history of Lot 671 has already been laid to rest and may no longer be disturbed
. . .
In
our capacity as the court of last resort, the petitioners try to convince us to
look or inquire into the validity of the reconstitution proceedings initiated
by Lucia de la Cruz ruling, contending that the implementation of de la
Cruz ruling would deprive them of their properties without due process of
law. INK's title over Lot 671 which
necessarily included Lot 671-A had already become incontrovertible and
indefeasible. To reopen or to question the legality of INK's title would
defeat the purpose of our Torrens system which seeks to insure stability by
quieting titled lands and putting to a stop forever any question of the
legality of the registration in the certificate or questions which may arise
therefrom.
In
view of all the foregoing, it would be for the public interest and the
maintenance of the integrity and stability of the Torrens system of land
registration that all transfer certificates of title derived from the reconstituted
title of Eugenia de la Paz and Dorotea de la Cruz be annulled in order to
prevent the proliferation of derivative titles which are null and void. The
legality or validity of INK's title over Lot 671 has been settled. The Court
has spoken and it has done so with finality, logically and rightly so as to
assure stability in legal relations and avoid confusion.
In G.R.
No. L-76265, petitioners seek a reconsideration of the aforesaid
decision because allegedly, the same is contrary to the following settled
principles of law and doctrines laid down by this Court, to wit:
1. That a judgment rendered in an
action in personam binds only the parties to the action;
2. That a petition for
"reconstitution" of a certificate of title filed in 1971, thirty
years after the sale to respondent Lucia de la Cruz in 1941, without personal
notice to petitioners and other title holders of Lot 671-A, whose titles date
from 1952, is void and can be
collaterally attacked;
3. That the registration of the sale to
respondent Lucia de la Cruz in the Primary Entry Book of the Register of Deeds
of Manila in 1943 of a land located in Caloocan, Rizal, cannot be the operative act to convey said property to the vendee, as
the record of the title to said property was then in Pasig, Rizal and then
transferred to Quezon City, after the war;
4. That the indefeasibility of a Torrens
title after one year from issuance,
refers to the indefeasibility of a decree of registration after one year from
entry thereof in an original registration or cadastral proceeding, and by
analogy, the principle is extended to a patent issued in an administrative
proceeding, but not to a reconstitution of a certificate of title allegedly
lost, nor to the issuance of subsequent transfer certificate of title; and
5. That respondent Iglesia ni Kristo cannot be considered as an innocent
purchaser for value as far as petitioners and other title holders to Lot
671-A are concerned, because the titles of respondent Iglesia ni Kristo are
derived from the "reconstituted" title of respondent Lucia de la Cruz
issued in 1971. Respondent Iglesia ni Kristo is deemed to have actual and
constructive knowledge of the rights of more than 80 buyers of Lot 671-A who
were issued transfer certificates of title dating from 1952.
In G.R.
No. L-83280, petitioners assail the decision on the following grounds:
1. The decision in the de la Cruz case does not bind the
petitioners.
2. The Iglesia ni Kristo, represented by
public respondent, is not an innocent purchaser for value of the parcels of land
in dispute.
3. Petitioners, as duly registered owners
of land under the Torrens system, are purchasers in good faith whose titles
have become indefeasible.
At the core of the controversy is the case
of Agustina de la Cruz et al. vs.
Lucia de la Cruz, Iglesia ni Kristo and Hon. Court of Appeals (130
SCRA 666 [1984]) which has settled once and for all the question of ownership
of Lot 671 of the Piedad Estate in Barrio Culiat, Quezon City. A portion of
this lot, Lot 671-A, is the subject of these two (2) consolidated petitions at
bar.
ISSUE:
Whether or not the assailed decision has a
conclusive effect upon the parties?
RULING:
Our
decision in these two consolidated petitions is an application of this
well-established rule, that once a decision becomes final, the Court can no
longer modify, amend, much less, set aside the same. To grant a reconsideration of this decision
would also reconsider, reverse, and set aside our 1984 decision which has long
become final. For, while the 1984 decision declared the reconstituted title
RT-58 of Lucia de la Cruz valid and legal, petitioners would want us to reach
10 years back and declare the same title null and void; while the 1984 decision
declared the Iglesia ni Kristo a purchaser in good faith and for value,
petitioners would want us to do a complete turn around and find the Iglesia ni
Kristo a purchaser in bad faith.
It is a general rule common to all civilized
system of jurisprudence, that the solemn and deliberate sentence of the law,
pronounced by its appointed organs, upon a disputed fact or a state of facts, should be regarded as a final and
conclusive determination of the question litigated, and should forever set the
controversy at rest. Indeed, it has been well said that this maxim is more
than a mere rule of law, more than an important principle of public policy; and
that it is not too much to say that it is a fundamental concept in the
organization of every jural system.
The doctrine res judicata actually embraces two different concepts: (1) bar
by former judgment and (b) conclusiveness of judgment.
The second concept — conclusiveness of judgment
— states that a fact or question which was in issue in a former suit and was there
judicially passed upon and determined by a court of competent jurisdiction, is conclusively settled by the judgment therein
as far as the parties to that action and persons in privity with them are
concerned and cannot be again litigated in any future action between such
parties or their privies, in the same court or any other court of concurrent
jurisdiction on either the same or different cause of action, while the
judgment remains unreversed by proper authority.
The issue of the validity of the reconstituted
title of Lucia de la Cruz over Lot 671 of the Piedad Estate, the issue of
whether or not the Iglesia ni Kristo was an innocent purchaser for value and in
good faith, and the issue of the validity of the reconstituted title of Dorotea
de la Cruz and Eugenia de la Paz (herein petitioners' predecessors-in-interest)
were actually, directly, and expressly raised, controverted, litigated and
resolved in our 1984 decision. Applying the rule on conclusiveness of judgment,
these issue may no longer be relitigated in these present petitions.
Petitioners cannot evade the conclusive effect
of the 1984 decision, merely because they were not impleaded parties in the
said case. It has been said that the foundation principle upon which the
doctrine of res judicata rests
is that parties ought no to be permitted to litigate the same issue more than
once; that, when a right or fact has
been judicially tried and determined by a court of competent jurisdiction, or
an opportunity for such trials has been given, the judgment of the court, so
long as it remains unreversed, should be conclusive upon the parties those in
privity with them in law or estate.
Proceedings for judicial reconstitution or
certificates of title are proceedings in
rem. Thus, notice of hearing by proper publication is sufficient to clothe
the Court with jurisdiction and the mere fact that a person purporting to have
a legitimate claim in the property did not receive personal notice is not
sufficient ground to invalidate the proceedings.
Under the law, it is the act of registration of
the deed of conveyance that serves as the operative
act to convey the land registered under the Torrens system. The act of
registration creates constructive notice to the whole world of the fact of such
conveyance.
We cannot go along with petitioners' position
that their titles, because they were issued in 1952, must prevail over the
title of the Iglesia ni Kristo.
Finally,
both petitions are procedurally erroneous because certiorari is not the proper remedy.
The proper remedy available to
Calalang is an appeal to the Court of Appeals pursuant to Section 117 of Presidential Decree No. 1529 and Republic Act No. 5434, and not certiorari or prohibition.
Sec. 117, PD 1529 (Property Registration Decree) Procedure — . . . the party in interest who
disagrees with the final resolution, ruling or order of the Commission relative
to the consultas may appeal to the Court of Appeals within the period and in
the manner provided in Republic Act No. 5434.
The other case, G.R. No. 83280, stemmed from an injunction suit filed by Augusto
de Leon et al. against the Iglesia ni Kristo and Bishop Manalo.
The case was dismissed by the Regional Trial
Court. Instead of appealing the order of dismissal, petitioners filed with the
Court of Appeals the following.
- A "Motion for Reconsideration Ad
Cautelam"; and
- An
"Omnibus Motion Incident to Execution of the Decision"
The Court of Appeals denied both motions. Hence,
the other herein petition.
It
is elementary that a petition for certiorari cannot substitute for a lost
appeal. The order of the Regional
Trial Court dismissing the case was appealable. Petitioners in the second
petition failed to appeal the same, consequently the order has already become
final and may no longer be reviewed on certiorari.
Moreover, these petitions amount to a collateral
attack on the title of the Iglesia ni Kristo. Well-settled is the rule that a certificate of
title cannot be altered, modified or cancelled except in a direct proceeding in
accordance with law. (Section 48, PD No. 1529.)
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