Wednesday, January 07, 2009 [ manilatimes.net ]
By William B. Depasupil, Reporter
Aqualab also wants High Tribunal to affirm its ownership of disputed land in Lapu-Lapu City
SAYING it was denied of its constitutional right to due process and fair judicial proceedings, a Cebu-based firm appealed Tuesday to the Supreme Court to rectify an earlier ruling in an effort to save its multimillion worth of real-estate property.
In a 51-page supplement to a motion for reconsideration, Aqualab Philippines Inc. (Aqualab) pleaded to the Supreme Court’s Second Division to reconsider and set aside its September 29, 2008 resolution.
Aqualab also asked the High Tribunal to instead affirm its ownership of the disputed 1.7 hectares of land property in Lapu-Lapu City.
In its September 29, 2008 minute resolution, the Tribunal’s Second Division denied Aqualab’s petition for review seeking to reverse and set aside the Court of Appeals decision dated March 15, 2007. The said decision overturned the September 30, 1997, decision of Branch 53 of the Regional Trial Court of Lapu-Lapu City, dismissing the complaint for declaration of nullity of documents, cancelation of transfer certificates of title and reconveyance with right of legal redemption filed by respondent heirs of Marcelino Pagobo et. al. on ground of lack of cause of action and prescription.
The Court of Appeals also ordered the nullification and cancelation of Aqualab’s Transfer Certificate of Title Nos. 18442 and 18443 issued by the Register of Deeds of Lapu-Lapu City.
“In the end, all the petitioner prays for is that this Honorable Court carefully examines the facts, carefully applies the proper laws and jurisprudence in their appropriate perspective and in accordance with their intent, and hopefully, arrive[s] at a more circumspect decision to ensure that no constitutional right, no injustice and no law or jurisprudence has been transgressed . . .” Aqualab said.
“The petitioner respectfully invokes the power of the Honorable Court as ‘the final arbiter of any justifiable controversy,’ in its solemn quest for the reversal of its Resolution dated September 29, 2008 . . . [to take] a second hard look on the circumstances of the instant petition, with the earnest hope that this Honorable Court would change its disposition, in order to rectify the reversible errors it committed when it affirmed the CA decision dated March 15, 2007. It appears that this Court may have overlooked certain crucial points and arguments when it perfunctorily denied the instant petition via the questioned resolution,” the petitioner lamented.
According to Aqualab, the Court’s Second Division failed to indicate the legal and factual bases behind its denial of the petition, “which warrants the reversal on constitutional grounds.”
The firm pointed out that questioned resolution was rendered in violation of the petitioner’s right to due process, thus, contrary to Court’s jurisprudential fiat that “elementary due process demands that the parties to litigation be given information on how the case was decided, as well as an explanation of the factual and legal reasons that led to the conclusions of the Court.”
Aqualab also assailed the Court of Appeals decision, which was affirmed by the Court’s Second Division that, which was made more beyond comprehension when it ignored the fundamental precepts of fair play because with the respondents do not have any evidence as to its legal personality to institute the case nor of their legal title to the disputed lots.
“The CA arbitrarily resolved the complaint of respondent heirs of Marcelino Pagobo et. al. on the merits by nullifying and directing the cancellation of Transfer Certificate of Title Nos. 18442 and 18443 issued by the Register of Deeds for the City of Lapu-Lapu evidencing Aqualab’s lawful title and ownership of the disputed property,” the petitioner said.
“The CA not only went beyond the bounds of the law but even rendered inutile the proscription enshrined in the supreme law of the land against deprivation of property without due process of law,” stated the complaint.
Worse, Aqualab said, Supreme Court sanctioned such a grave affront to minimum requirements of due process, when it affirmed in toto the Court of Appeals’ reversal of the Regional Trial Court’s order through a denial of the instant petition via a resolution.
“Surely, it would totally offend the basic rules of justice and fair play to deprive the petitioner of its lawful title to, and ownership of, the disputed property in favor of the respondents, without the latter having provided even an iota of their supposed interest therein,” the movant said.
Under these circumstances, the petitioner said that they couldn’t be blamed for believing that the respondents were unjustifiably privileged.
“The foregoing is especially so since, wittingly or not, this Court, with one broad stroke, established a ‘dangerous and crippling’ precedent, which does not merely give the CA an unrestrained license to dispose of issues not brought before them, but has serious far-reaching emasculating results on party litigants’ inviolable right to due process, such that it may have the unintended effect of allowing appellate courts to dispense with trial on the merits for the sake of ‘simple expediency,’” it said.
“A reexamination of the circumstances is therefore highly imperative because the question resolution, if allowed to become final, shall be a very dangerous precedent that would surely be used as a jurisprudential springboard,” the petitioner added.
The movant also pointed out that it is well-settled that when an appellate court reverses a lower court’s dismissal of a case upon a motion to dismiss, the mandated procedure is for the Court of Appeals to refer the case back to the lower court for further proceedings in line with the very dictates of this court that “the trial court should be given the opportunity to evaluate the evidence, apply the law and decree the proper remedy.”
On August 10, 1994, the respondents heirs of Pagobo filed the complaint seeking the nullification and cancelation of the Aqualab’s land titles to the disputed property, and instead sought that a new land titles be issued in the name of the respondents.
On September 30, 1997, the lower court granted Aqualab’s motion to dismiss the complaint on the ground of prescription.
The Regional Trial Court also junked the appeal of the respondent for legal redemption of the disputed property, noting that the property has already been subdivided into 34 lots and in fact several of those lots had been the subject of numerous transactions resulting in the issuance of certificate of title to various persons. “If the property has been partitioned or an identified shares has been sold, then there can be no longer any right of redemption,” the Regional Trial Court said, in its decision.
Aqualab, who asserted as a buyer in good faith, claimed that Lot No. 6727-Q and Lot No. 6727-Y, with a total area of 1.7 hectares, were sold to Tarcela de Espina and Transfer Certificate of Title No. 3294 was issued in her favor by the Register of Deeds of Lapu-Lapu City on April 20 1970, while Tarcela in turn sold the two lots to former Sen. Rene Espina and Transfer Certificate of Title No. 17830 and Transfer Certificate of Title No. 17831 were issued in his favor by the Register of Deeds.
Rene Espina, on the other hand, sold the two lots to Anthony Gaw Kache and subsequently issued with titles on two lots on November 9, 1987 and February 22, 1988, before these were sold to Aqualab, where Transfer Certificate of Title No. 18442 and Transfer Certificate of Title No. 18443 were issued in its favor by the Register of Deeds of Lapu-Lapu City on May 4, 1988.
