Source: http://lawlibrary.chanrobles.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52962:gr-159116-2009&catid=1522&Itemid=566
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 12:18:04+00:00

Document:
SPS. NESTOR and FELICIDAD DADIZON, Petitioners, v. HON. COURT OF APPEALS, and SPS. DOMINADOR and ELSA MOCORRO, Respondents.
The mere execution of a deed of sale covering an unregistered parcel of land is not enough to bind third persons. A succeeding step - the registration of the sale - has to be taken. Indeed, registration is the operative act to convey or affect the unregistered land insofar as third persons are concerned.
Spouses Nestor and Felicidad Dadizon (Dadizons), the defendants in the trial court, seek the review of the resolutions dated February 26, 2003 and June 30, 2003, respectively dismissing their Petition for Review 1 and denying their motion for reconsideration,2 both issued by the Court of Appeals (CA).
Respondent Spouses Dominador and Elsa Mocorro (Mocorros) initiated this case in the Municipal Trial Court (MTC) of Naval, Biliran against the Dadizons to recover a parcel of land with an area of 78 square meters and to cancel the latter's tax declaration. The Mocorros also sought consequential damages.
The Court has painstakingly reviewed the evidence in this case and has arrived at the conclusion that the seventy eight (78) square meters complained of is part of the land sold to plaintiff spouses. Plaintiffs have convincingly proved that they have a better right to the land. They have solid evidence to support their claim of ownership.
As early as June 2, 1973, they bought the land in question from Brigido Caneja Sr., a former town mayor of Naval, Biliran. The integrity of His honor, was engrained into the document so much so that it was respected by the adjoining owners. A total land area of 224 square meters was sold by Brigido Caneja, Sr. to plaintiff spouses as reflected in a Deed of Absolute Sale.
It was only in 1975 when defendant spouses allegedly acquired a residential land adjoining that of plaintiff spouses that a boundary dispute ensued between them.
The Court finds the alleged acquisition of defendant spouses of the land in question peppered with inconsistencies. At the outset, the land was conveyed to defendant spouses by their mother Eustaquia Bernadas in a private document on March 10, 1976. Defendant spouses offered flimsy excuses why said document was not notarized. They did not know according to their joint affidavit that there was a need for it while their instrumental witness claim that defendant spouses had no more money to pay for the notarization. The Court does not subscribe to said assertion because defendant Felicidad Dadizon is a public school teacher and as such knowledgeable enough to know that it takes a notary public to make a private document a public one. And to claim that they had no more money to pay the notarization of the document is unbelievable considering that they could even pay the alleged consideration of the property in the amount of P2,000.00. The only logical reason why the document was not notarized according to the mind of the Court is to make it appear that the documents were executed on the dates mentioned therein.
It was unfortunate, however, that the plaintiff Dominador Mocorro was misled into fencing their residential land as to its correct boundary upon misrepresentation of one Eustaquia Bernadas, the mother of defendant Felicidad Dadizon. Plaintiff Elsa Mocorro was not around when the alleged deception was made upon co-plaintiff Dominador Mocorro by Eustaquia Bernadas.
WHEREFORE, in view of the foregoing, the Court finds a preponderance of evidence in favor of plaintiffs and against defendants and hereby declares plaintiffs as owners of the seventy eight (78) square meters of the lot covered by Tax Declaration No. 535 and/or TD No. 68 in the name of defendant Felicidad Dadizon.
b.To pay plaintiffs the sum of TEN THOUSAND PESOS P10,000.00 for attorney's fees and litigation expenses and the costs of suit.
Factual findings and conclusions of the trial court are entitled to great weight and respect absent any showing of a fact or any circumstance which the court a quo failed to appreciate and which would change the result if it were considered.
WHEREFORE, premises considered, this Court finds that the decision of the court a quo as correct; hereby affirming the said decision in toto.
The Dadizons filed a notice of appeal. Initially, the CA required the Dadizons to file their appellant's brief. Later on, however, the Mocorros moved to dismiss the Dadizons' appeal on the ground that the mode of appeal they had adopted was erroneous.
Hence, the Dadizons have come to this Court to assail the dismissal of their appeal and the denial of their motion for reconsideration.
The Petition for Review on Certiorari lacks merit.
The mode of appeal vis - Ã -vis the decision of the RTC adopted by the Dadizons was undoubtedly wrong. They should have filed a Petition for Review in accordance with Rule 42, Rules of Court, which was the correct mode of appeal, considering that the RTC had rendered the decision in question in the exercise of its appellate jurisdiction.
At present then, except in criminal cases where the penalty imposed is life imprisonment or reclusion perpetua, there is no way by which judgments of regional trial courts may be appealed to the Supreme Court except by Petition for Review on Certiorari in accordance with Rule 45 of the Rules of Court, in relation to Section 17 of the Judiciary Act of 1948 as amended. The proposition is clearly stated in the Interim Rules: "Appeals to the Supreme Court shall be taken by petition for certiorari which shall be governed by Rule 45 of the Rules of Court.
b) by Petition for Review - where judgment was rendered by the RTC in the exercise of appellate jurisdiction.
The Petition for Review must be filed with the Court of Appeals within 15 days from notice of the judgment, and as already stated, shall point out the error of fact or law that will warrant a reversal or modification of the decision or judgment sought to be reviewed. An ordinary appeal is taken by merely filing a notice of appeal within 15 days from notice of the judgment, except in special proceedings or cases where multiple appeals are allowed in which event the period of appeal is 30 days and a record on appeal is necessary.
There is therefore no longer any common method of appeal in civil cases to the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals. The present procedures for appealing to either court - and, it may be added, the process of ventilation of the appeal - are now to be made by Petition for Review or by notice of appeals (and, in certain instances, by record on appeal), but only by Petition for Review on Certiorari under Rule 45. As was stressed by this Court as early as 1980, in Buenbrazo v. Marave, 101 SCRA 848, all "the members of the bench and bar" are charged with knowledge, not only that "since the enactment of Republic Act No. 8031 in 1969," the review of the decision of the Court of First Instance in a case exclusively cognizable by the inferior court x x cannot be made in an ordinary appeal or by record on appeal," but also that appeal by record on appeal to the Supreme Court under Rule 42 of the Rules of Court was abolished by Republic Act No. 5440 which, as already stated, took effect on September 9, 1968. Similarly, in Santos, Jr., v. C.A., 152 SCRA 378, this Court declared that "Republic Act No. 5440 had long superseded Rule 41 and Section 1, Rule 122 of the Rules of Court on direct appeals from the court of first instance to the Supreme Court in civil and criminal cases, x x and that "direct appeals to this Court from the trial court on questions of law had to be through the filing of a Petition for Review on Certiorari, wherein this Court could either give due course to the proposed appeal or deny it outright to prevent the clogging of its docket with unmeritorious and dilatory appeals."
In fine, if an appeal is essayed to either court by the wrong procedure, the only course of action open is to dismiss the appeal. In other words, if an appeal is attempted from a judgment of a Regional Trial Court by notice of appeal, that appeal can and should never go to the Supreme Court, regardless of any statement in the notice that the court of choice is the Supreme Court; and more than once has this Court admonished a Trial Judge and/or his Clerk of Court, as well as the attorney taking the appeal, for causing the records to be sent up to this Court in such a case. Again, if an appeal by notice of appeal is taken from the Regional Trial Court to the Court of Appeals and in the latter Court, the appellant raises naught but issues of law, the appeal should be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. And finally, it may be stressed once more, it is only through Petitions for Review on Certiorari that the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court may properly be invoked.
There is no longer any justification for allowing transfers of erroneous appeals from one court to the other, much less for tolerating continued ignorance of the law on appeals. It thus behooves every attorney seeking review and reversal of a judgment or order promulgated against his client, to determine clearly the errors he believes may be ascribed to the judgment or order, whether of fact or of law; then to ascertain which Court properly has appellate jurisdiction; and finally, to observe scrupulously the requisites for appeal prescribed by law, with keen awareness that any error or imprecision in compliance therewith may well be fatal to his client's cause.
(a) Ordinary appeal.' The appeal to the Court of Appeals in cases decided by the Regional Trial Court in the exercise of its original jurisdiction shall be taken by filing a notice of appeal with the court which rendered the judgment or final order appealed from and serving a copy thereof upon the adverse party. No record on appeal shall be required except in special proceedings and other cases of multiple or separate appeals where the law or these Rules so require. In such cases, the record on appeal shall be filed and served in like manner.
(b) Petition for review.' The appeal to the Court of Appeals in cases decided by the Regional Trial Court in the exercise of its appellate jurisdiction shall be by Petition for Review in accordance with Rule 42.
Consequently, the CA's dismissal of the Dadizons' appeal was proper. Sec. 2, Rule 50 of the Rules of Court14 pronounces that "an appeal by notice of appeal instead of by Petition for Review from the appellate judgment of a Regional Trial Court shall be dismissed." The dismissal was also unavoidable notwithstanding that the procedural rules might be liberally construed,15 because the provisions of law and the rules concerning the manner and period of appeal were mandatory and jurisdictional requirements essential to enable the appellate court to take cognizance of the appeal.16 According to Dee Hwa Liong Electronics Corporation v. Papiona,17 the liberal construction of the rules - authorized by Sec. 6, Rule 1, Rules of Court, in order to promote their objective of securing a just, speedy and inexpensive disposition of every action and proceeding - cannot be made the vehicle by which to ignore the Rules of Court at will and at random to the prejudice of the orderly presentation and assessment of the issues and their just resolution.
The danger wrought by non-observance of the Rules of Court is that the violation of or failure to comply with the procedure prescribed by law prevents the proper determination of the questions raised by the parties with respect to the merits of the case and makes it necessary to decide, in the first place, such questions as relate to the form of the action. The rules and procedure laid down for the trial court and the adjudication of cases are matters of public policy. They are matters of public order and interest which can in no wise be changed or regulated by agreements between or stipulations by parties to an action for their singular convenience.
Still, even had the CA treated the appeal as proper, the outcome would have favored the Mocorros.
The unison between the MTC and the RTC in arriving at their factual findings and legal conclusions in favor of the Mocorros cannot be justly ignored, but calls for our acceptance of their judgments on the facts as well as on their legal conclusions upon such facts. Their findings were supported by the records and the evidence; their legal conclusions accorded with the pertinent laws and jurisprudence.
There is no question that the 78-square meter portion subject of this suit was part of the lot with an area of 224 square meters that the Mocorros had acquired from their predecessors-in-interest, starting from Ignacia Bernal. The Mocorros had possessed the land since their purchase of it on June 2, 1973 from Caneja, Sr. After their acquisition from Caneja, Sr., they had been issued Tax Declaration No. 4518, which had been their tax declaration for the property until its cancellation in 1979 and the issuance to them of Tax Declaration No. 3478. Up to then, no other persons, the Dadizons included, had challenged their ownership of the 78-square meter lot. A further proof of their ownership was the fact that they had constituted a mortgage on the entire area of 224 square meters on July 23, 1975 in favor of the Rural Bank of Naval to secure an obligation. The mortgage lien was annotated on their Tax Declaration No. 3478.
Section 113. Recording of instruments relating to unregistered lands. - No deed, conveyance, mortgage, lease, or other voluntary instrument affecting land not registered under the Torrens system shall be valid, except as between the parties thereto, unless such instrument shall have been recorded in the manner herein prescribed in the office of the Register of Deeds for the province or city where the land lies.
Neither would the affidavit of adjoining owners support the Dadizons' cause, considering that such affidavit, aside from its being self-serving and unilateral, had been executed only for the purpose of facilitating Felicidad Dadizon's application for the low cost housing loan from the Development Bank of the Philippines.
WHEREFORE, we affirm the resolution dated February 26, 2003 and the resolution dated June 30, 2003 issued in CA-G.R. C.V. No. 71649.
The petitioners shall pay the costs of suit.
* Additional Member in lieu of Carpio, J., per Special Order No. 698.
13 Undk. No. 9748, February 27, 1990, 183 SCRA xi, which became the basis for the guidelines set forth in Circular No. 2-90 issued by the Supreme Court on March 9, 1990.
Sec. 6. Construction. These Rules shall be liberally construed in order to promote their objective of securing a just, speedy and inexpensive disposition of every action and proceeding.
16 Gutierrez v. Court of Appeals, No. L-25972, November 26, 1968, 26 SCRA 32, 33.
17 G.R. No. 173127, October 17, 2007, 536 SCRA 482.
18 Republic v. Hernandez, G.R. No. 117209, February 9, 1996, 253 SCRA 509, 529, 531-532.
21 Perez v. People, G.R. No. 150443, January 20, 2006, 479 SCRA 209; People v. Tonog, Jr., G.R. No. 144497, June 29, 2009, 433 SCRA 139; People v. Genita, Jr., G.R. No. 126171, March 11, 2004, 425 SCRA 343; People v. Pacheco, G.R. No. 142887, March 2, 2004, 424 SCRA 164; People v. Abolidor, G.R. No. 147231, February 18, 2004, 423 SCRA 260.
22 Bricenio v. People, G.R. No. 157804, June 20, 2006, 491 SCRA 489.
23 People v. Darilay, G.R. NOS. 139751-52, January 26, 2004, 421 SCRA 45.
29 Valdevieso v. Damalerio, G.R. No. 133303, February 17, 2005, 451 SCRA 664, 669-670.
Although Valdevieso involved registered property, the principle of requiring registration of the deed of sale announced therein should equally apply to a sale involving unregistered realty in light of the express provision of Sec. 113 of Presidential Decree No. 1529.

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