CECILIA T. JAVELOSA, represented by her Attorney-in-Fact, MA. DIANA J.
JIMENEZ, petitioner, vs. EZEQUIEL TAPUS, MARIO MADRIAGA, DANNY M. TAPUZ,
JUANITA TAPUS and AURORA MADRIAGA, respondents
G.R. No. 204361 | July 4, 2018
FACTS:
The petitioner is the registered owner of
a parcel of land located at Sitio Pinaungon, Barangay Balabag, Boracay Island,
Aklan. The subject property contains an area of 10, 198 sq. m., more or less,
and is covered by TCT No. T-35394.
The subject property was occupied by
herein respondents. Allegedly, the respondents’ predecessor was assigned as a
caretaker of the subject property, and therefore possessed and occupied a
portion thereof upon the tolerance and permission of Tirol.
Sometime in 2003, the petitioner’s
daughter learned that Expedito Tapus, Jr., a relative of the respondents
offered the subject property for sale. Alarmed, Jimenez sought for the possible
alternative resolution of the conflict. However, they failed to reach an
amicable settlement.
In October 2003, petitioner sent a demand
letter to respondents ordering them to vacate the subject property. The demand
was unheeded. Thus, prompting the petitioner to file a case for unlawful
detainer.
The MCTC awarded the subject property in
favor of the petitioner.
The RTC affirmed the ruling of the MCTC.
It noted that respondents merely occupied the subject property upon the
tolerance of the petitioner. Consequently, they must vacate as soon as the said
permission was withdrawn.
The CA reversed the disquisitions of the
MCTC and the RTC. The CA pointed out that the petitioner failed to prove the
fact that the respondents indeed occupied the subject property through her
permission and tolerance. It stressed that to make out a case for unlawful detainer,
the petitioner must concomitantly prove that the respondents’ prior lawful
possession become unlawful due to the expiration of the right to possess the
property. The petitioner failed to show that the respondents occupied the
subject property pursuant to her tolerance, and that such permission was
present from the very start of their occupation. Absent the fact of tolerance,
the remedy of unlawful detainer would be inappropriate.
ISSUE:
Whether or not unlawful detainer is the
proper action in this case
RULING:
It is an elementary principle of civil
law that the owner of real property is entitled to the possession thereof as an
attribute of his or her ownership. In fact, the holder of a Torrens Title is
the rightful owner of the property thereby covered is entitled to its
possession. This notwithstanding, “the owner cannot simply wrest possession
thereof from whoever is in actual occupation of the property.” Rather, to
recover possession, the owner must first resort to the proper judicial remedy,
and thereafter, satisfy all the conditions necessary for such action to
prosper.
Accordingly, the owner may choose among
three kinds of actions to recover possession of real property — an accion
interdictal, accion publiciana or an accion reivindicatoria.
An accion interdictal is summary in
nature, and is cognizable by the proper municipal trial court or metropolitan
trial court. It comprises two distinct causes of action, namely, forcible entry
(detentacion) and unlawful detainer (desahuico). In forcible entry, one is
deprived of the physical possession of real property by means of force,
intimidation, strategy, threats, or stealth, whereas in unlawful detainer, one
illegally withholds possession after the expiration or termination of his right
to hold possession under any contract, express or implied. An action for
forcible entry is distinguished from an unlawful detainer case, such that in
the former, the possession of the defendant is illegal from the very beginning,
whereas in the latter action, the possession of the defendant is originally
legal but became illegal due to the expiration or termination of the right to
possess. Both actions must be brought within one year from the date of actual
entry on the land, in case of forcible entry, and from the date of last demand,
in case of unlawful detainer. The only issue in said cases is the right to
physical possession.
An accion publiciana is the plenary
action to recover the right of possession, which should be brought in the
proper regional trial court when dispossession has lasted for more than one
year. It is an ordinary civil proceeding to determine the better right of
possession of realty independently of title.
An accion reivindicatoria is an action to
recover ownership, also brought in the proper RTC in an ordinary civil
proceeding.
In the case at bar, the petitioner,
claiming to be the owner of the subject property, elected to file an action for
unlawful detainer. In making this choice, she bore the correlative burden to
sufficiently allege, and thereafter prove by a preponderance of evidence all
the jurisdictional facts in the said type of action. Specifically, the
petitioner was charged with proving the following jurisdictional facts:
(i)
Initially,
possession of property by the defendant was by contract with or by tolerance of
the plaintiff;
(ii)
Eventually, such
possession became illegal upon notice by plaintiff to defendant of the termination
of the of the latter’s right of possession;
(iii)
Thereafter, the
defendant remained in possession of the property and deprived the plaintiff of
the enjoyment thereof; and
(iv)
Within 1 year from
the last demand on defendant to vacate the property, the plaintiff instituted
the complaint for ejectment.
In order for the petitioner to
successfully prosecute her case for unlawful detainer, it is imperative upon
her to prove all the assertions in her complaint. After all, “the basic rule is
that mere allegation is not evidence and is not equivalent to proof.” Unfortunately,
the petitioner failed to prove how and when the respondents entered the subject
lot, as well as how and when the permission to occupy was purportedly given. In
fact, she was conspicuously silent about the details on how the permission to
enter was given, save for her bare assertion that the respondents’ occupied the
premises as caretakers thereof. The absence of such essential details is
especially troubling considering that the respondents have been occupying the
subject property for more than 70 years, a fact which was not disputed by the
petitioner. In this regard, it is must be shown that the respondents first came
into the property due to the permission given by the petitioner or her
predecessors.
It cannot be gainsaid that the fact of
tolerance is of utmost importance in an action for unlawful detainer. Without
proof that the possession was legal at the outset, the logical conclusion would
be that the defendant’s possession of the subject property will be deemed
illegal from the very beginning, for which, the action for unlawful detainer
shall be dismissed.
Remarkably, in Quijano v. Atty. Amante,
the Court ruled that in an action for unlawful detainer, the plaintiff must
show that the possession was initially lawful, and thereafter, establish the
basis of such lawful possession. Similarly, should the plaintiff claim that the
respondent’s possession was by his/her tolerance, then such acts of tolerance
must be proved. A bare allegation of tolerance will not suffice. At least, the
plaintiff must point to the overt acts indicative of his/her or predecessor’s
permission to occupy the disputed property. Failing in this regard, the
occupant’s possession could then be deemed to have been illegal from the
beginning. Consequently, the action for unlawful detainer will fail. Neither
may the ejectment suit be treated as one for forcible entry in the absence of
averments that the entry in the property had been effected through force,
intimidation, threats, strategy or stealth.
Similarly, in Suarez v. Sps. Emboy, the
Court warned that “when the complaint fails to aver the facts constitutive of
forcible entry or unlawful detainer, as where it does not state how entry was
effected or how and when dispossession started, the remedy should either be an
accion publiciana or accion reivindicatoria.”
An action for unlawful detainer fails in
the absence of proof of tolerance, coupled with evidence of how the entry of
the respondents was effected, or how and when the dispossession started. This
rule is so stringent such that the Court categorically declared in Go, Jr. v.
CA that tolerance cannot be presumed from the owner’s failure to eject the
occupants from the land. Rather, “tolerance always carries with it ‘permission’
and not merely silence or inaction for silence or inaction is negligence, not
tolerance.” On this score, the petitioner’s tenacious claim that the fact of
tolerance may be surmised from her refusal for many years to file an action to
evict the respondents is obviously flawed.
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