Republic of the PhilippinesSUPREME COURT

Manila

EN BANC

 

G.R. No. 105619 December 12, 1995

MARIA ROSARIO DE SANTOS, petitioner, vs.HON. ADORACION G. ANGELES, JUDGE, REGIONAL TRIAL COURT OF CALOOCAN CITY, BRANCH 121 and CONCHITA TALAG DE SANTOS, respondents.

 

ROMERO, J.:

Can natural children by legal fiction be legitimized?

There being no explicit provision of law in point, the Court is called upon to cast illumination in a gray area even as it fills up unintentional interstices in the fabric of Civil Law with overlays of philosophical, historical and sociological strands. For an understanding of how the issue arose, we now proceed to unravel the pertinent factual background.

On February 7, 1941, Dr. Antonio de Santos married Sofia Bona, which union was blessed with a daughter, herein petitioner Maria Rosario de Santos. After some time, their relationship became strained to the breaking point. Thereafter, Antonio fell in love with a fellow doctor, Conchita Talag, private respondent herein. Antonio sought a formal dissolution of his first marriage by obtaining a divorce decree from a Nevada court in 1949.

Obviously aware that said decree was a worthless scrap of paper in our jurisdiction which then, as now, did not recognize divorces, Antonio proceeded to Tokyo, Japan in 1951 to marry private respondent, with whom he had been cohabiting since his de facto separation from Sofia. This union produced eleven children. On March 30, 1967, Sofia died in Guatemala. Less than a month later, on April 23, 1967, Antonio and private respondent contracted a marriage in Tagaytay City celebrated under Philippine laws. On March 8, 1981, Antonio died intestate leaving properties with an estimated value of P15,000,000.00.

On May 15, 1981, private respondent went to court 1 asking for the issuance of letters of administration in her favor in connection with the settlement of her late husband's estate. She alleged, among other things, that the decedent was survived by twelve legitimate heirs, namely, herself, their ten surviving children, and petitioner. There being no opposition, her petition was granted.

After six years of protracted intestate proceedings, however, petitioner decided to intervene. Thus, in a motion she filed sometime in November 1987, she argued inter alia that private respondent's children were illegitimate. This was challenged by private respondent although the latter admitted during the hearing that all her children were born prior to Sofia's death in 1967.

On November 14, 1991, after approval of private respondent's account of her administration, the court a quo passed upon petitioner's motion. The court, citing the case of Francisco H. Tongoy, et al. v. Court of Appeals, et al. (23 SCRA 99 [1983]), declared private respondent's ten children legitimated and thereupon instituted and declared them, along with petitioner and private respondent, as the heirs of Antonio de Santos.

Petitioner sought a reconsideration of said order but this was denied in the court's order dated January 9, 1992.

Hence, she filed the instant petition for certiorari on June 16, 1992, contending that since only natural children can be legitimized, the trial court mistakenly declared as legitimated her half brothers and sisters.

This argument is tenable.

Article 269 of the Civil Code expressly states:all the twelve legitimate heirs.

Art. 269. Only natural children can be legitimated. Children born outside wedlock of parents who, at the time of the conception of the former, were not disqualified by any impediment to marry each other, are natural.

In other words, a child's parents should not have been disqualified to marry each other at the time of conception for him to qualify as a "natural child."

In the case at bench, there is no question that all the children born to private respondent and deceased Antonio de Santos were conceived and born when the latter's valid marriage to petitioner's mother was still subsisting. That private respondent and the decedent were married abroad after the latter obtained in Nevada, U.S.A. a decree of divorce from his legitimate wife does not change this fact, for a divorce granted abroad was not recognized in this

jurisdiction at the time. Evidently, the decedent was aware of this fact, which is why he had to have the marriage solemnized in Tokyo, outside of the Philippines. It may be added here that he was likewise aware of the nullity of the Tokyo marriage for after his legitimate, though estranged wife died, he hastily contracted another marriage with private respondent, this time here in Tagaytay.

It must be noted that while Article 269, which falls under the general heading of "Paternity and Filiation," specifically deals with "Legitimated Children," Article 89, a provision subsumed under the general title on "Marriage," deals principally with void and voidable marriages and secondarily, on the effects of said marriages on their offspring. It creates another category of illegitimate children, those who are "conceived or born of marriages which are void from the beginning," but because there has been a semblance of marriage, they are classified as "acknowledged natural children" and, accordingly, enjoy the same status, rights and obligations as such kind of children. In the case at bench, the marriage under question is considered "void from the beginning" because bigamous, contracted when a prior valid marriage was still subsisting. It follows that the children begotten of such union cannot be considered natural children proper for at the time of their conception, their parents were disqualified from marrying each other due to the impediment of a prior subsisting marriage.

What term should then be coined to distinguish them from natural children proper (those "born outside of wedlock of parents who, at the time of the conception of the former, were not disqualified by any impediment to marry each other")? A legal fiction had to be resorted to, that device contrived by law to simulate a fact or condition which, strictly and technically speaking, is not what it purports to be. In this case, the term "natural children by legal fiction" was invented, thus giving rise to another category of illegitimate children, clearly not to be confused with "natural children" as defined under Art. 269 but by fiction of law to be equated with acknowledged natural children and, consequently, enjoying the status, rights and obligations of the latter. Does this cluster of rights include the right to be legitimated?

Under the Civil Code, there exists a hierarchy of children classified on the basis of rights granted by law, which must be preserved by strictly construing the substantive provisions of the law in force.

Under the prevailing Civil Code (which may be considered "old" in light of the new provisions of the Family Code on "Persons"), much emphasis is laid on the classification of children vis-a-vis their parents, and the corresponding rights they are entitled to under the law. Thus, the title on "Paternity and Filiation" devotes two whole chapters to legitimate children alone, and one chapter on those deemed by law to be possessed of the rights of the former, such as legitimated children, because of their compliance with certain

requisites laid down by law; two other chapters deal with illegitimate children composed of recognized natural children, and those other than natural, or spurious, whether recognized or not. The well-ordered delineation of such distinctions among these groups demonstrates a clear intent on the part of the framers of the Civil Code to compartmentalize and separate one from the other, for legitimacy/illegitimacy determines the substantive rights accruing to the different categories of children.

It must be noted that before said Code was enacted, other classes of illegitimate children were recognized, such as, "manceres" or the offspring of prostitutes and the "sacrilegious" or children of those who had received Holy Orders. Subsequently, the Civil Code, in an effort to keep in step with modern times, limited illegitimate filiation to those which are incestuous, adulterous and illicit.

At the core of the institution of legitimacy held sacrosanct by Spanish tradition and culture, lies the "inviolable social institution" known as marriage. This union, absent any formal or substantial defect or of any vice of consent, is virtually adamantine. On the whole, the status of a marriage determines in large part the filiation of its resultant issue. Thus, a child born within a valid marriage is legitimate, while one born outside of wedlock is illegitimate. If, however, the latter's parents were, at the time of the child's conception, not legally barred from marrying each other and subsequently do so, the child's filiation improves as he becomes legitimized and the "legitimated" child eventually enjoys all the privileges and rights associated with legitimacy. Without such marriage, the natural child's rights depend on whether he is acknowledged or recognized by his parents, but he does not rise to the level of a legitimate child in the manner that the legitimated child does.

A child conceived or born of a marriage which is void ab initio or one which is declared a nullity is illegitimate since there is no marriage to speak of, but it is the law which accords him the rights of an acknowledged natural child.

Finally, there are illegitimate children who are referred to as "spurious" or derisively denominated as "bastards" because of their doubtful origins. There is no marriage — valid or otherwise — which would give any semblance of legality to the child's existence. Nothing links child to parent aside from the information appearing in the birth certificate. When such child is recognized by one or both parents, he acquires certain rights nowhere approaching those of his legitimate counterparts.

The Civil Code provides three rights which, in varying degrees, are enjoyed by children, depending on their filiation: use of surname, succession, and support.

Legitimate children and legitimated children are entitled to all three. 2 Thus, they "shall principally use the surname of the father," 3 and shall be entitled to support from their legitimate ascendants and descendants, 4 as well as to a legitime consisting of one-half of the hereditary estate of both parents, 5 and to other successional rights, such as the right of representation. "These rights as effects of legitimacy cannot be renounced." 6

Natural children recognized by both parents and natural children by legal fiction shall principally use the surname of the father. 7 If a natural child is recognized by only one parent, the child shall follow the surname of such recognizing parent. 8 Both types of children are entitled to receive support from the parent recognizing them. 9 They also cannot be deprived of their legitime equivalent to one-half of that pertaining to each of the legitimate children or descendants of the recognizing parent, to be taken from the free disposable portion of the latter's estate. 10

Recognized illegitimate children other than natural, or spurious issues, are, in their minority, under the parental authority of their mothers and, naturally, take the latter's surname. 11 The only support which they are entitled to is from the recognizing parent, 12 and their legitime, also to be taken from the free portion, consists of four-fifths of the legitime of an acknowledged natural child or two-fifths that of each legitimate child. 13

It must also be observed that while the legitime of a legitimate child is fairly secured by law, 14 the legitime of any recognized illegitimate child, taken as it is from the free portion of the hereditary estate which the child shares with the surviving spouse, may be reduced if it should exceed said portion. 15

Unrecognized illegitimate children are not entitled to any of the rights above mentioned. 16

These distinctions gain more relevance if we were to consider that while a legitimated child may enjoy the same successional rights granted to legitimate children, a natural child by legal fiction cannot rise beyond that to which an acknowledged natural child is entitled, insofar as his hereditary rights are concerned.

It is thus incongruous to conclude, as private respondent maintains, that petitioner's half siblings can rise to her level by the fact of being legitimized, for two reasons: First, they failed to meet the most important requisite of legitimation, that is, that they be natural children within the meaning of Article 269; second, natural children by legal fiction cannot demand that they be legitimized simply because it is one of the rights enjoyed by acknowledged natural children.

It may be argued that legitimation is a right vouchsafed to acknowledged natural children and, therefore, by the same token, to natural children by legal fiction. This conclusion is arrived at through a syllogism as simple as it is deceptive, which runs as follows:

The respondent's children are natural children by legal fiction.

Therefore, they have the same status, rights and obligations as acknowledged natural children.

Acknowledged natural children have the right to be legitimated.

Ergo, respondent's children have the right to be legitimated (as in fact they were "deemed legitimated" by the subsequent valid marriage of their parents in the Philippines in 1967).

The above line of reasoning follows the Euclidian geometric proposition that things equal to the same thing are equal to each other. This may hold true in the realm of instructional, as opposed to descriptive science, where the former calls for the application of absolute, mathematical rules with precision but not to the latter, particularly those which deal with the social sciences where human relationships are central to a study whose main concern is not to leave out anything of significance. The former deals with inanimate things, those which a scientist has described as the "dead aspect of nature," excluding all factors regarded as superfluous to obtaining absolute results and nothing more. It does not concern itself so much with the whole truth as with those aspects or parts only through which the inexorable result can be obtained. To apply the strict rules of syllogism, where the basic premise is defective, to the arena of paternity and filiation, especially in the determination of the status and rights of the different kinds of illegitimate children vis-a-vis the legitimate ones, is bound to spawn mischief and results never intended by the framers of the provisions of the law under review.

Pursued to its logical, undeviating conclusion, it may eventually be postulated that "adulterous children shall enjoy the status, rights and obligations of legitimate children," a doctrine which no moral philosophy under our social and cultural milieu can countenance.

This conclusion not only presumes that children other than those who are "natural" can be legitimized in the first place, but also grants acknowledged natural children (and, consequently, natural children by legal fiction) a "right" to be legitimized when no such right exists. Legitimation is not a "right" which is demandable by a child. It is a privilege, available only to natural children proper, as defined under Art. 269. Although natural children by legal fiction have the same rights as acknowledged natural children, it is a

quantum leap in the syllogism to conclude that, therefore, they likewise have the right to be legitimated, which is not necessarily so, especially, as in this case, when the legally existing marriage between the children's father and his estranged first wife effectively barred a "subsequent marriage" between their parents.

The question that must be confronted next is: How are the offspring of the second union affected by the first wife's death and the ensuing celebration of a valid marriage between her widower and his ostensible second wife?

Natural children by legal fiction cannot be legitimized in this fashion. Our archaic law on family relations, patterned as it is after Spanish Civil Law, frowns upon illegal relations such that the benefits of legitimation under Chapter 3 of Title VIII do not extend, nor were they intended to extend, to natural children by legal fiction. Article 269 itself clearly limits the privilege of legitimation to natural children as defined thereunder. There was, therefore, from the outset, an intent to exclude children conceived or born out of illicit relations from the purview of the law.

Another point to be considered is that although natural children can be legitimized, and natural children by legal fiction enjoy the rights of acknowledged natural children, this does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that natural children by legal fiction can likewise be legitimized. As has been pointed out, much more is involved here than the mere privilege to be legitimized. The rights of other children, like the petitioner in the case at bench, may be adversely affected as her testamentary share may well be reduced in the event that her ten surviving half siblings should be placed on par with her, when each of them is rightfully entitled to only half of her share.

The provisions of law invoked by private respondent are couched in simple and unmistakable language, not at all subject to interpretation, and they all point to the correctness of petitioner's claim. If it should be asserted that we now trench on a gray area of law that calls for interpretation, or a lacuna that cries for filling up, then we have to pierce the shroud unintentionally created by the letter of the law and expose its spirit as evincing intent, in this case one which decidedly favors legitimacy over illegitimacy. The hierarchy of children so painstakingly erected by law and the corresponding gradation of their rights may conceivably be shattered by elevating natural children by legal fiction who are incontestably illegitimate children to the level of natural children proper, whose filiation would otherwise be legitimate had their parents blessed their union with a valid marriage.

Finally, attention must be drawn to the fact that this case has been decided under the provisions of the Civil Code, not the Family Code which now

recognizes only two classes of children: legitimate and illegitimate. "Natural children by legal fiction" are nothing if not pure fiction.

WHEREFORE, the instant petition is hereby GRANTED. The assailed orders of the court a quo dated November 14, 1991 and January 9, 1992, are NULLIFIED and SET ASIDE. Petitioner Maria Rosario de Santos is hereby declared the SOLE LEGITIMATE CHILD of the decedent Antonio de Santos and, as such, entitled to all the rights accorded to her by law.

SO ORDERED.

Feliciano, Regalado, Davide, Jr., Melo, Puno, Vitug and Mendoza, JJ., concur.

 

 

 

Separate Opinions

HERMOSISIMA, JR., J., concurring:

Do children born out of adulterous relationships have the right to be legitimated under the New Civil Code? This I believe is the resultant issue in this case.

In declaring what the law is on this matter, we could not be so unmindful of the highest regard that our society places on the institution of marriage and the maintenance of which in its purity the public is deeply interested, for it is the foundation of the family and of society, Without it there could be neither civilization nor progress. 1 No less than the Constitution, of which we should be the staunchest vanguard as we are its ablest defender, marshals us to protect marriage as an inviolable social institution and the foundation of the family, 2 for it cannot be denied that the welfare of society is served and nurtured by a court that exercises its judicial prerogatives not in a vacuum of cold logic but in the context of the loftiest and most enduring social values which the citizens, albeit struggling and fumbling in their daily living, try to approximate in their own lives. The citizens, after all, are our constituents; 3 and so their best interests, embodied in the scale of values which they extol, are an integral part of the great flux that is the law. As we are concerned with its exposition, we must strive to continuously refurbish the image of the law vis-a-vis the welfare of society, to keep it bright, and to subject it to constant re-analysis so as to keep it in touch with what has always been right, what is just and fair under present circumstances, and what is most beneficial for the future generations. 4

It is in this light that we appreciate this case with the following antecedent facts:

Dr. Antonio de Santos married Sofia Bona on February 7, 1941. Out of this union was born in 1942 petitioner Maria Rosario de Santos. However, Antonio and Sofia subsequently parted ways. While separated de facto from Sofia, Antonio, in 1949, secured a divorce decree against her in Nevada, U.S.A. He then married private respondent Dr. Conchita Talag in Tokyo, Japan, in 1951. Antonio and Conchita had eleven children who were all born between the years 1951 to 1967.

On March 30, 1967, Sofia died in Guatemala. Thereafter, Antonio married private respondent, for the second time, in Tagaytay City. Antonio then died on March 8, 1981 at the Capitol Medical Center.

Is special proceedings filed by private respondent on May 15, 1981, before the Regional Trial Court of Caloocan City, the court granted her petition for letters of administration since such petition was unopposed. In the course of the proceedings, however, petitioner intervened alleging, among others, that the ten surviving children of private respondent were illegitimate.

After the approval of the Income and Expenses Statement of the decedent's estate pursuant to Sec. 1, Rule 90 of the Revised Rules of Court on May 6, 1991, the trial court issued an order on November 14, 1991 declaring that the ten children of the deceased and private respondent must be deemed legitimated and therefore entitled to inherit as legitimate heirs.

Consequently, the sole issue raised in the instant petition for certiorari is whether or not said children can be legitimated.

A logical cold deduction based on some pertinent laws would appear to answer this issue in the affirmative, in this wise:

Article 80 of the New Civil Code considers as marriages void from the beginning, bigamous marriages not falling under Art. 83 (2). Article 89 of the same Code, in turn, bestows upon children conceived or born of marriages void from the beginning, referred to as natural children by legal fiction, the status, rights and obligations of acknowledged natural children. Among the rights of acknowledged natural children is the right of legitimation granted to them under Article 269 in relation to 271 of the same Code. Since private respondent's children were all born after her marriage to the deceased in Tokyo in 1951, which marriage is considered bigamous, hence, void from the beginning, because of its celebration while the marriage between the deceased and his first wife, Sofia Bona, still subsisted, said children are natural children by legal fiction who have the rights of acknowledged natural children, including the right to be legitimated, and they may now be

considered legitimated since the deceased and private respondent validly married for the second time after Sofia's demise.

It happens that the law may lose its character of being a law by an excess of caprice in its administration, but it could hardly cease to be law because of its rigid logical application according to its tenor. When its rigid logical application, however, amounts to absurdity, the law not only becomes incapable of just administration but may also become an instrument of legal injustice. Clearly for us to read the law in the aforegoing manner is to dangerously teeter on the fulcrum of legal folly for there is no scaling down its unacceptable implications.

If children born out of an extramarital relationship, but whose parents contracted a bigamous marriage and still another marriage subsequent thereto upon the death of the first spouse of the adulterous parent, may eventually be legitimated, then children of adulterous spouses, by the expedient contrivance of a bigamous marriage, may later on be legitimated. The adulterous spouse may still prove himself virtuous and heroic by risking prosecution for bigamy if only to give his child out of wedlock the chance, that slim chance, to be legitimated, that is, if he prays enough that his first spouse dies ahead of him so he could eventually validly marry his paramour. As such, in the mildest terms, the law would seem to condone extramarital relationships by providing the seemingly confessant adulterer a way to be a conscientious parent to his illegitimate children without having to give up his illicit relations with their mother. At its worst, such a reading of the law amounts to a mockery of the institution of marriage, which is, under our Constitution and family laws, an inviolable social institution imbued with public interest and traditionally and constantly held to be a priority in our culture's scale of values, for nothing stops the public from concluding that marriage and a bigamous marriage at that (with its accompanying criminal consequences), is actually a backdoor to legitimating adulterous children.

The letter of Article 89 of the New Civil Code must be transcended and the absurd and sheepishly grotesque consequences of its application in the instant case, rejected. It is not enough that the law exists to be administered justly; in addition and more importantly, the law needs to possess a just content. The law must by itself aim at and endeavor to conform to, some criteria of rightness which repose on values espoused by the very society it seeks to serve. As it is our duty to declare the law as it is, there is no escaping the task of revealing the justness of the law in accordance with society's avowed values. Consequently, it has been called a golden rule of statutory interpretation that unreasonableness of the result produced by one possible interpretation of a statute is reason for rejecting that interpretation in favor of another which would produce a reasonable result. 5

In resolving the issue at hand, I believe the emphasis should be on Article 269 which is, after all, the law squarely in point under the premises of this case. Taking the letter of Article 269 as it is, it clearly prescribes the limits of its applicability upon only natural children. Surely there is no canon against using both common sense and common weal in construing the law as saying what it obviously means:

Chapter 3

Art. 269. Only natural children can be ligitimated. Children born outside wedlock of parents who, at the time of the conception of the former, were not disqualified by any impediment to marry each other, are natural.

xxx xxx xxx

Art. 271. Only natural children who have been recognized by the parents before or after the celebration of the marriage, or have been declared natural children by final judgment, may be considered legitimated by subsequent marriage. (Emphasis ours)

Legitimation is a right granted by law only to natural children who, because their parents could have legally married at the time they were conceived, cannot be substantially differentiated from legitimate children once their parents do marry after their birth. This is because said parents can marry any time, there being no legal impediment preventing them from validly contracting marriage. The situation obtaining respecting legitimate children and legitimated natural children is certainly distinct from that respecting adulterous children because the parents of adulterous children are admittedly incapacitated to marry each other at the time said children were conceived. It may easily be said, thus, that to interpret the law as allowing adulterous children to be put on equal footing with the legitimate children, would be putting a premium on adulterous relationships, which is frowned upon by the society itself. Even the law on succession under the New Civil Code distinguishes the respective hereditary rights of the different kinds of children and significantly assigns a diminishing share in accordance with the degree of illegitimacy of the child concerned. Thus, Article 895 provides that the legitime of each of the acknowledged natural children and each of the natural children by legal fiction shall consist of one-half of the legitime of each of the legitimate children or descendants and that of illegitimate children who is neither of the above, four-fifths of the legitime of an acknowledged natural child. It is, therefore, evident that the treatment accorded children under the New Civil Code is determined by the circumstances under which they have been

conceived and born, particularly, the capacity to marry of their parents at the time that they were conceived.

Private respondent's children were precisely born when their deceased father was still legally married to Sofia Bona. The marriage of the deceased and private respondent in Tokyo, Japan, in 1951 could not have given a semblance of legitimacy to their subsequent cohabitation and their issues since such marriage was contracted during the subsistence of the deceased's marriage with Sofia Bona. The relationship between the deceased and private respondent, therefore, was no less adulterous notwithstanding an attempt to legitimize the same through a bigamous marriage. There is no other way to put it but that the deceased and private respondent were having illicit relations; they were fully aware of the legal and moral consequences of their actions, and they seemingly, in bad faith, attempted to circumvent the law in their favor by contracting a bigamous marriage to the prejudice of the legitimate issue in the person of the petitioner. There is no quibbling that private respondent's children are adulterous children whose status, by the simple expedient of a bigamous marriage contracted by parties fully aware of their incapacity to marry, could never have been intended by the law to be equated to that of petitioner who is the legitimate child of the deceased in view of the public policy involved in preserving the sanctity of marriage and preventing the proliferation of illegitimate issues. As the earlier interpretation has been shown to lead to unreasonable results with socially virulent implications, and the same originates from two provisions, namely, Article 89 and Article 269 of the New Civil Code, we are wont to state that they are irreconcilable provisions. And the applicable statutory rule is that where there is an irreconcilable conflict between the different provisions of a statute, the provision last in order of position will prevail, since it is the latest expression of the legislative will. 6 More than that Article 269 is the latest expression of the legislative will, however, Article 269 on its face specifically states the law on legitimation, limits its applicability to natural children, and is resonantly silent on the right of adulterous children to be legitimated in the same way as children born to parents who, at the time of their conception, were legally capable to marry each other.

All told, the law tenders to us in no unpretentious terms the basis to rule that private respondent's children, being adulterous children, have no right to be legitimated under the New Civil Code. Such a ruling is not only in accord with the explicit, unequivocal language of Article 269 but more importantly animates and upholds the public policy as regards the institution of marriage as the foundation of society.

Needless to say, such ruling sits well with the need to obviate any legal injustice and social absurdity that may result if we were to rule otherwise.

The final cause of law is the welfare of society. The rule that misses its aim cannot permanently justify its existence. "Ethical considerations can no more be excluded from the administration of justice which is the end and purpose of all civil laws than one can exclude the vital air from his room and live. 7

The final rendering of the meaning of a statute is an act of judgment. 8 This court has so judged this case at bench, and so we will perhaps be judged thereby.

I, therefore, vote to grant the petition, set aside the assailed order of the Regional Trial Court, and remand thereto the case for further proceedings.

VITUG, J., dissenting:

I vote to resolve the controversy in favor of the child. I take it to be the legislative intent that the pertinent provisions of the Civil Code on children in the book on persons and family relations are meant to enhance the child's interest and welfare. This intent finds exemplification in Article 89 of the Civil Code by explicitly providing that natural children by legal fiction (among them those conceived or born of void marriages because the parents suffer from an impediment to marry) shall have the same status, rights and obligations as acknowledged natural children. If then under Article 269, in relation to Article 270, of the Civil Code, acknowledged natural children are given the right to be legitimated by the subsequent marriage of the parents, the law must, by virtue of Article 89 aforesaid, likewise extend unqualifiedly to natural children by legal fiction.

No matter how well legal calisthenics are played, there is, I must point out, not a single provision of the Code that limits or circumscribes the scope and application of Article 89. The law, I respectfully submit, should be so construed as to attain congruity, rather than a division, among its several provisions. The rule is expressed in the maxim interpretare et concordare legibus est optimus interpretendi upon the theory that the legislature is presumed not to have enacted conflicting provisions of law but that, on the contrary, it must have meant to give them such parity and consequence as a uniform jurisprudential system.

Most regrettably, I still perceive coolness, if not outright hostility, towards illegitimate children who have not been fortunate enough to be conceived or born under a better family circumstance. It is not enough that they are unjustly ostracized by a segment in society; they are also called names — bastards, outcasts, adulterous, spurious — that certainly they do not deserve. If at all, their situation needs sympathy, not hatred or condemnation.

Any conflict of view, however, would soon be a thing of the past, for as so keenly observed by Mme. Justice Flerida Ruth P. Romero, the Family Code, which became effective on 03 August 1988, has deleted any reference to natural children by legal fiction. The Family Code presently categorizes children of void marriages into two kinds — the legitimates which include those conceived or born of void marriages under Article 36 and Article 52 of the Family Code before the judicial declaration of nullity of such void marriages and the illegitimates or children conceived or born of all other void marriages (but evidently maintaining, for legitimation purposes, the distinction between those whose parents, at the time of conception, were not disqualified to marry and those whose parents were disqualified).

Narvasa, C.J. and Bellosillo, J., concurs.

KAPUNAN, J., dissenting:

The principal issue in the case at bench may be capsulized as to whether or not the trial court committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to a lack or excess of jurisdiction in considering the private respondent's children legitimated under the facts established herein, and in declaring and instituting said children as heirs of the decedent. As the law unequivocally gives them such a right, I respectfully dissent from the majority.

I begin by observing that, taking their cue from the lower court's inappropriate lifting of an editor's precis or statement from the syllabus of the case of Tongoy vs. Court of Appeals, 1 both parties in the case at bench have placed too much emphasis and reliance on the case of Tongoy, 2 the facts and circumstances of which are not exactly on all fours with those obtaining in the case at bench. The italicized portion of the syllabus of cases appearing in official or unofficial reports of Supreme Court Decisions or Resolutions 3 generally reflect the editor's summary of a discussion of an issue or a specific point in a case, and, taken out of context, could be misleading and inappropriate for citation. Judges should strive to read cases which might have a bearing on cases before them in their entirety, and quote or obtain their citations from the body of the decision, not the syllabus.

The principal issue in Tongoy, 4 hinged "on the absence of an acknowledgment (by the father prior to his death of his illegitimate children) through any of the modes recognized by the Old Civil Code." 5 It is not, however clear from the Court's discussion of the facts of the case, whether the illegitimate children were sired during the subsistence of the first marriage or after the death of the first wife. On the sale issue of the father's acknowledgment, the Court therein took a liberal view, recognizing the fact that the children "were in continuous possession of the status of natural, or even legitimated, children" 6 and that they were "treated as legitimate

children not only by their parents but also by the entire clan," 7 in declaring, on equitable grounds, that the children therein were legitimate heirs.

For better appreciation of our ruling in Tongoy, let me quote the following:

The remaining assignment of error dwells on the question of whether or not respondents Amado, Ricardo, Cresenciano and Norberto, all surnamed Tongoy, may be considered legitimated by virtue of the marriage of their parents, Francisco Tongoy and Antonina Pabello, subsequent to their births and shortly before Francisco died on September 15, 1926. Petitioners maintain that since the said respondents were never acknowledged by their father, they could not have been legitimated by the subsequent marriage of their parents, much less could they inherit from the estate of their father, the predecessor-in-interest of Luis D. Tongoy, who is admittedly the half brother of the said respondents.

Both the trial court and the respondent appellate court have found overwhelming evidence to sustain the following conclusions: that Amado P. Tongoy, Ricardo P. Tongoy, Cresenciano P. Tongoy and Norberto P. Tongoy were born illegitimate to Antonina Pabello on August 19, 1910 (Exh. A), August 12, 1922 (Exh. B), December 1, 1915 (Exhs. C and C-1) and August 4, 1922 (Exh. D), respectively; that Francisco Tongoy was their father; that said Francisco Tongoy had before them and Antonina Pabello two legitimate children by his first wife, namely, Luis D. Tongoy and Patricio D. Tongoy; that Francisco Tongoy and Antonina Pabello were married sometime before his death on September 15, 1926 (Exh. H); that shortly thereafter, Luis D. Tongoy and Patricio D. Tongoy executed an Extra-Judicial Declaration of Heirs, leaving out their half-brothers Amado, Ricardo, Cresenciano, and Norberto, who were then still minors; that respondents Amado, Ricardo, Cresenciano and Norberto were known and accepted by the whole clan as children of Francisco; that they had lived in Hacienda Pulo with their parents, but when they went to school, they stayed in the old family home at Washington Street, Bacolod, together with their grandmother, Agatona Tongoy; that everybody in Bacolod knew them to be part of the Tongoy-Sonora clan; and that Luis D. Tongoy as administrator of Hacienda Pulo, also spent for the education of Ricardo Tongoy until he became a lawyer; and that even petitioners admit the fact that they were half-brothers of the late Luis D. Tongoy.

The bone of contention, however, hinges on the absence of an acknowledgment through any of the modes recognized by the Old Civil Code (please see Articles 131 and 135 of the Old Civil Code), such that legitimation could not have taken place in view of the provisions of Art. 121 of the same Code which states that "children shall be considered legitimated by a subsequent marriage only when they have been acknowledged by the parents before or after the celebration thereof."

Of course, the overwhelming evidence found by respondent Court of Appeals conclusively shows that respondents Amado, Ricardo, Cresenciano and Norberto have been in continuous possession of the status of natural, or even legitimated children. Still, it recognizes the fact that such continuous possession of status is not, per se, a sufficient acknowledgment but only a ground to compel recognition (Alabat vs. Alabat, 21 SCRA 1379; Pua vs. Chan, 21 SCRA 753; Larena vs. Rubio, 43 Phil. 1017).

Be that as it may, WE cannot but agree with the liberal view taken by respondent Court of Appeals when it said:

. . . It does not seem equally manifest, however, that defendants-appellants stand on a purely technical point in the light of overwhelming evidence that appellees were natural children of Francisco Tongoy and Antonina Pabello, and were treated as legitimate children not only by their parents but only by the entire clan. Indeed, it does not make much sense that appellees should be deprived of their hereditary rights as undoubted natural children of their father, when the only plausible reason that the latter could have had in mind when he married his second wife Antonina Pabello just over a month before his death was to give legitimate status to their children. It is not in keeping with the more liberal attitude taken by the New Civil Code towards illegitimate children and the more compassionate trend of the New Society to insist on a very literal application of the law in requiring the formalities of compulsory acknowledgment, when the only result is to unjustly deprive children who are otherwise entitled to hereditary rights. From the very nature of things, it is hardly to be expected of appellees, having been reared as legitimate children by their parents and treated as such by everybody, to bring an action to compel their parents to acknowledge them. In the hitherto cited case of Ramos vs. Ramos, supra, the Supreme Court showed the way out of patent injustice and inequity that might result in some cases simply because of the implacable insistence on the technical amenities for acknowledgment. Thus, it held —

Unacknowledged natural children have no rights whatsoever (Buenaventura vs. Urbano, 5 Phil. 1; Siguiong vs. Siguiong, 8 Phil. 5, 11; Infante vs. Figueras, 4 Phil. 738; Crisolo vs. Macadaeg, 94 Phil. 862). The fact that the plaintiffs, as natural children of Martin Ramos, received shares in his estate implied that they were acknowledged. Obviously, defendants Agustin Ramos and Granada Ramos and the late Jose Ramos and members of his family had treated them as his children. Presumably, that fact was well-known in the community. Under the circumstances, Agustin Ramos and Granada Ramos and the heirs of Jose Ramos, are estopped from attacking plaintiffs' status as acknowledged natural children (See Arts. 283 [4] and 2666 [3], New Civil Code). [Ramos vs. Ramos, supra].

With the same logic, estoppel should also operate in this case in favor of appellees, considering, as already explained in detail, that they have always been treated as acknowledged and legitimated children of the second marriage of Francisco Tongoy, not only by their presumed parents who raised them as their children, but also by the entire Tongoy-Sonora clan, including Luis D. Tongoy himself who had furnished sustenance to the clan in his capacity as administrator of Hacienda Pulo and had in fact supported the law studies of appellee Ricardo P. Tongoy in Manila, the same way he did with Jesus T. Sonora in his medical studies. As already pointed out, even defendants-appellants have not questioned the fact that appellees are half-brothers of Luis D. Tongoy. As a matter of fact, they are really children of Francisco Tongoy and Antonina Pabello, and only the technicality that their acknowledgment as natural children has not been formalized in any of the modes prescribed by law appears to stand in the way of granting them their hereditary rights. But estoppel, as already indicated, precludes defendants-appellants from attacking appellees' status as acknowledged natural or legitimated children of Francisco Tongoy. In addition to estoppel, this is decidedly one instance when technicality should give way to conscience, equity and justice (cf. Vda. de Sta. Ana vs. Rivera, L-22070, October 29, 1966, 18 SCRA 588) [pp. 196-198, Vol. 1, rec.].

It is time that WE, too, take a liberal view in favor of natural children who, because they enjoy the blessings and privileges of an acknowledged natural child and even of a legitimated child, found if rather awkward, if not unnecessary, to institute an action for recognition against their natural parents, who, without their asking, have been showering them with the same love, care and material support as are accorded to legitimate children. The right

to participate in their father's inheritance should necessarily follow. 8

However, acknowledgment is clearly not at issue here. Petitioner makes no pretense that private respondent's children are not entitled to hereditary rights. 9 She herself admits that the decedent acknowledged his paternity of the private respondent's children and that they are indeed her brothers and sisters. 10 What herein petitioner claims she opposes "is their being judicially declared legitimated (by the respondent court) so as to entitle them to enjoy the same rights as a legitimate heir," 11 to her prejudice. Citing Article 269 of the New Civil Code as "the law in point" in the case at bench, she contends that the trial court erred in declaring her half brothers and sisters legitimated because under the New Civil Code only natural children could be legitimated. I find this contention, to which the majority of this divided Court agrees, absolutely untenable.

The New Civil Code appears to limit the right to legitimation only to those children conceived by parents not disqualified by any impediment to marry each other, bestowing upon them, prior to such legitimation, the status of natural children. Article 269 which provides the cornerstone for the majority's holding today states that:

Art. 269. Only natural children can be legitimated. Children born outside wedlock of parents who, at the time of the conception of the former, were not disqualified by any impediment to marry each other, are natural.

The rule is, however, not absolute because even children conceived or born out of marriages void from the very beginning under the Civil Code possess the status of natural children by legal fiction and enjoy the same rights as acknowledged natural children. Article 89 provides:

Art. 89. Children conceived or born out of marriages which are void from the beginning shall have the same status, rights and obligations as acknowledged natural children, and are called natural children by legal fiction.

Children conceived of voidable marriages before the decree of annulment shall be considered legitimate; and children conceived thereafter shall have the same status, rights and obligations as acknowledged natural children, and are also called natural children by legal fiction.

Article 89, a creature of legislation (through the Code Commission) which has remained unmolested since 1950 I must stress, is not an accidental provision. The Civil Code Commission clearly intended Article 89,

notwithstanding its location in the Code, as a piece of reform, an exception to the rule furnished by Article 269. More importantly, Article 89 (unlike Article 269 which came from the Spanish Civil Code of 1889) was a new provision deliberately introduced by the Code Commission as one of its revolutionary reforms thirty five years ago. And doubt about the intention of this piece of legislation should have been laid to rest by the following explanation from the Code Commission's Report:

This proposed reform is based on the fact that such children have been brought into this world through no fault of their own, but through that of their parents. To visit punishment upon them is most unjust. Moreover, though the marriage is void, or voidable, at least there was a semblance of legality to the relationship between the parents. This circumstance should cast a mantle of protection over the children, who by legal fiction should be treated as acknowledged natural children. 12

Since the decedent's 1951 marriage in Tokyo with the private respondent was invalid, 13 being one of those marriages classified as void from the very beginning under the Civil Code, 14 the status of her children clearly falls under Article 89 which puts them on par, at least in terms of rights and obligations, with acknowledged natural children. Since the rights of acknowledged natural children include the right of legitimation — under Article 270 of the Civil Code — by the subsequent valid marriage of their parents, 15 it therefore plainly follows that by virtue of Article 89, in relation to Article 270, the private respondent's children were deemed legitimated by the subsequent valid marriage of their parents in the Philippines in 1967.

This position is hardly an isolated one. Virtually all Civil and Family Code commentators are united in the belief that Article 89 furnishes an escape valve for children found under the circumstances existing in the case at bench. Dr. Arturo Tolentino, in his commentary on the Civil Code, for example, writes:

Under Article 89, natural children by legal fiction "shall have the same status, rights and obligations as acknowledged natural children." Theoretically therefore, natural children by legal fiction can belegitimated. . . . .

The following children by legal fiction . . . can be legitimated: . . . (2) those born of a bigamous marriage, for the parents can marry each other again upon the widowhood of the parent who married twice. . . . . 16

In the same token, Prof. Ernesto L. Pineda, a member of the Family Code Revision Committee acknowledges this exception the rule, stating that:

By way of exception, some natural children by legal fiction (Art. 89, NCC) can be legitimated such as — (a) those born of couples who married while below the allowable marrying age but who contracted a new marriage after reaching the proper age; (b) those born of bigamous marriages but where the parents married each other upon the widowhood of the disqualified parent; (c) those born of parents who got married before an unauthorized officer and the parents contracted a new marriage before an authorized one; (d) those born of parents who got married without a marriage license (where license was required) and the parents contracted a subsequent valid marriage; and (e) children conceived after (not before) the decree of annulment of a voidable marriage. 17

Justice Alicia V. Sempio-Diy, writing on the New Family Code 18 underscores the difference in treatment of the subject of legitimation between the Family Code and the Civil Code thus:

Under the Civil Code, children of bigamous marriages, who are natural children by legal fiction, can be legitimated, since the parents can marry each other upon the death of the first husband or wife of the parent who married twice. Unfortunately for such children, they can no longer be legitimated under the Family Code, which has limited the kind of children to legitimate and illegitimate and abolished the category of natural children by legal fiction. 19

"Parenthetically," another commentator on the Family Code, Prof. Melencio Sta. Maria writes, "under the Civil Code provisions of legitimation which were repealed by the Family Code," there can be an instances where such children could be legitimated. 20 Elaborating on these provisions in his 1995 commentary; he states:

This is so because according to the repealed Article 271 of the Civil Code only acknowledged natural children can be legitimated, and also according to the repealed Article 89 of the Civil Code, a child born inside a void marriage was considered a natural child by legal fiction with all the rights of an acknowledged natural child. Since a natural child by legal fiction has all the rights of an acknowledged natural child and the statutory right to be legitimated was one of the rights of an acknowledged natural child, the subject child therefore can be legitimated if the parents subsequently validly remarried. 21

Clearly, the weight of authority in this country recognizes that under the Civil Code, Article 89 unequivocally furnishes an exception to the rule that only acknowledged natural children or those who by law have been declared natural children by final judgment can be legitimated. This exception was, in fact, acknowledged by the Family Code Revision Committee in its Meeting of August 24, 1985, when it decided not to accord the same privilege extended by Article 89 to similarly situated illegitimate children (under the family Code's simplified classification) in the provisions of the new code. However, for children born under the Civil Code, the exception is a legal fact which could not be ignored. If under Article 269, in relation to Article 270 of the Civil Code, acknowledged natural children are given the right to be legitimated by the subsequent marriage of the parents, the law must, by virtue of Article 89, also extend unqualifiedly to natural children by legal fiction. This not only harmonizes Article 89 with the Civil Code articles on the rights of acknowledged natural children and the articles on legitimation but also leads to a result which enhances the welfare and interest of the child. As Justice Vitug in his 1993 Compendium of Civil Law and Jurisprudence writes:

The provisions of Art. 269 and 271 of the Civil Code, in a literal sense appear to limit legitimation in favor of acknowledged natural children or those who by law have been declared natural children by final judgment. Considering, however, that natural children by legal fiction (such as those born of void marriages because the parents suffer from an impediment to marry) are expressly given the same status, rights and obligations as acknowledged natural children (Art. 89 Civil Code), and because all doubts should be resolved in favor of the child, it is submitted that the rules on legitimation should likewise extend to such children. 22

Indeed, it hardly makes sense that the children of private respondent should be deprived of their full hereditary rights as legitimated children when the facts and circumstances of the case at bench clearly show the decedent's intention to remove, once and for all, all manner of legal and moral obstacles to his second and apparently blissful union with the private respondent. For immediately after the death of his first wife in Guatemala in 1967, the decedent wasted no time in obtaining a Philippine marriage in Tagaytay with his second wife. With a fairly considerable estate, it was not entirely remote that the decedent had in mind not only the intention to legitimatize his union with the private respondent but also the intention to accord legitimate status to his children with his second wife. Given the nature of their relationship and the clear intendment of the Civil Code under Article 89 to place natural children by legal fiction on equal standing with acknowledged natural children, a patent injustice and inequity will result if we uphold herein petitioner's implacable position. Given the clear intendment of the legislature in enacting the new provision (Article 89) over thirty years ago when many of

the members of this Court were still law students, the majority's holding in the case at bench amounts to a belated judicial veto of a valid piece of legislation.

I vote to DENY the instant petition.

Narvasa, C.J., Padilla, Bellosillo, and Francisco JJ., concur.

PANGANIBAN, J., dissenting:

With all due respect, I dissent from the well-written ponencia of Mme. Justice Flerida Ruth P. Romero.

The pertinent portions of Arts. 89, 269, 270 and 271 of the New Civil Code which are the codal provisions in point, read as follows:

Art. 89. Children conceived or born of marriages which are void from the beginning shall have the same status, rights and obligations as acknowledged natural children, and are called natural children by legal fiction.

xxx xxx xxx

Art. 269. Only natural children can be legitimated. Children born outside wedlock of parents who, at the time of the conception of the former, were not disqualified by any impediment to marry each other, are natural.

Art. 270. Legitimation shall take place by the subsequent marriage of the parents.

Art. 271. Only natural children who have been recognized by the parents before or after the celebration of the marriage, or have been declared natural children by final judgment, may be considered legitimated by subsequent marriage. . . .

Art. 89 has been repealed by the Family Code (Executive Order No. 209) which took effect on August 3, 1988 (Uyguangco vs. Court of Appeals, 178 SCRA 684 [1989]; Atienza vs. Brillantes, A.M. No. MTJ-92-706, March 29, 1995). It was one of the provisions under Title III, Book I of the New Civil Code which have been omitted from the text of the present Family Code. But it was the law in force at the time the legitimation in the case at bench took place and should, consequently, govern the present controversy.

Art. 89 was a new provision in the sense that, unlike Articles 269 to 271, aforequoted, which all came from the Spanish Civil Code of 1889, Art. 89 was

one of the reforms instituted by the Code Commission that drafted the New Civil Code. The Code Commission justified this new article in this wise:

This proposed reform is based on the fact that such children have been brought into the world through no fault of their own, but through that of their parents. To visit punishment upon them is most unjust. Moreover, though the marriage was void, or voidable, at least there was a semblance of legality of the relationship between the parents. This circumstance should cast the mantle of protection over the children, who by legal fiction should be treated as acknowledged natural children. (Report of the Code Commission, at p. 81.)

In conferring upon natural children by legal fiction the same status, rights and obligations of acknowledged natural children, the clear intention of the law was to put them at par with the latter although in fact they are not. They are not in fact natural because they were conceived in the presence, not absence, of an impediment between the parents. They are natural only by figment of law. Thus, the name natural children by legal fiction.

But this legal fiction precisely operates to exempt them from the requirement under Art. 269 that there be no impediment between the parents at the time of the conception as well as from the requirement of recognition by both parents under Art. 271. Plainly, this is the conclusion that can rationally be given to the express, unequivocal declaration in Art. 89 that natural children by legal fiction "shall have the same status, rights and obligations as acknowledged natural children" — neither imposing any condition nor subjecting the grant of status to any qualification or exception of any kind. Had the intention been to deprive them of the right of legitimation, the law would have said so. Or it would have inserted a condition that they could be legitimated only if they can show compliance with Arts. 269 and 271 of the Code. The fact that these insertions were not made can only mean that the law intended to exempt this special class of natural children from the strict requirements normally imposed on ordinary natural children.

Under the provisions of the New Civil Code, legitimation takes place when three requisites are met: (a) that the child be a natural child; (b) that he be recognized by both parents either before or after a valid marriage; and (c) that there be a subsequent valid marriage of the parents (cf. Paras, Civil Code of the Philippines Annotated, 1984 Ed., Vol. I, p. 651). A natural child by legal fiction possesses the first two requisites from inception by virtue of Art. 89, which places him on the same plane as an acknowledged natural child. In that sense, he has an advantage over a natural child as defined by Art. 269, for the latter would still need to be recognized by both parents in order to have the status and rights of an acknowledged natural child. Thus, for the

purpose of legitimation, the natural child by legal fiction needs to fulfill only the third requisite: a valid subsequent marriage between his parents (cf. Paras, op. cit., p. 651; Tolentino, Civil Code of the Philippines, 1987 Reprinting, Vol. I, p. 570). Where the impediment is permanent or perpetual, such as incest or the fact that one or both of the parties have been found guilty of killing the spouse of one of them, no legitimation can ever take place as no valid marriage can ever be made between the parents (Tolentino, op. cit., p. 570). But the bigamous character of a marriage is terminable by, among other causes, the death of the first spouse, making a subsequent marriage valid. And that simply was what happened in the case at bench.

Prior to the repeal of Art. 89 by the Family Code, it was suggested by some civil law scholars that a distinction should be made between natural children by legal fiction who were conceived during the existence of an impediment, on the one hand, and those who were conceived after the disappearance of such impediment, on the other. Their theory was that only the latter would qualify for legitimation. Such a stance would have been juridically sound were it not for the fact that Art. 89 does not classify natural children by legal fiction into the two suggested categories based on the presence or absence of impediment at the time of conception of the child. Ubi lex non distinguit nec nos distinguere debemus; where the law does not distinguish, we should not (Gesolgon vs. Lacson, 2 SCRA 553, 556 [1961]; Libudan vs. Gil, 45 SCRA 17, 33 [1972]; Guevarra vs. Inocentes, 16 SCRA 379, 385 [1966]; Robles vs. Chromite Mining Co., 104 Phil. 688, 690 [1958]). Besides, as already pointed out, the conferment on natural children by legal fiction of the same status, rights and obligations as those of acknowledged natural children under Art. 89, New Civil Code, evidently exempted the former from the requirements imposed upon ordinary natural children by Arts. 269 and 271 of said Code. And, finally, Art. 220 of said Code fortifies this conclusion, because said provision declares that in case of doubt, every intendment of law or fact leans toward, among other things, "the legitimacy of children". The doubt — if there be such at all — should therefore be resolved in favor of sustaining the right to legitimation of the eleven (11) offsprings of the decedent with private respondent Conchita Talag, regardless of the presence or absence of an impediment to marry on the part of their parents at the time of the conception of each of them.

Indeed, it is hardly fair to stigmatize and create social and successional prejudice against children who had no fault in nor control over the marital impediments which bedeviled their parents. They are the victims, not the perpetrators, of these vagaries of life. Why then should they suffer their consequences? In the final analysis, there are really no illegitimate children; there are only illegitimate parents. And this dissent finds its philosophy in this: that children, unarguably born and reared innocent in this world, should benefit by every intendment of the law, particularly where — as in this case

— their parents, who originally suffered from a marital impediment, would now want to overcome the improvident social and successional consequences of such condition. Therefore, it is most unfair that the these innocent children should be condemned to continue suffering the consequences of the impediment they did not cause, when the very impediment itself has disappeared.

The mere fact that such legitimation would impact adversely upon the petitioner's successional rights as the lone legitimate child of the first marriage is no reason to deny the children of the second marriage of their own legal right to be deemed legitimated. Precisely, legitimation produces such an effect — i.e., diminution of successional rights of the legitimate children. Art. 272 of the New Civil Code provides in fact that "(c)hildren who are legitimated by subsequent marriage shall enjoy the same rights as legitimate children." When the legislature decided to grant to children of void carriages the same status, rights, and obligations as those of acknowledged natural children, it is presumed to have carefully weighed precisely these consequences upon the rights of the other children in the family. The policy then was to cast a mantle of protection upon children of void marriages. That policy is evidently enforced by enabling them to get legitimated in the same manner as acknowledged natural children — namely, by the subsequent valid marriage of their parents. If the Family Code, by repealing Art. 89 of the New Civil Code, is to be viewed as having reversed or denigrated that policy (although, by and large, it appears to have maintained the policy in many other areas of family law), such reversal or denigration should not, and cannot, in any case impair rights already acquired by and thus vested in the private respondents.

One last point. Both petitioner and private respondent admit that the eleven (1l) children of the decedent with private respondent Conchita Talag were born after the celebration of the bigamous marriage on July 25, 1951. (See Petition, item 6, page 5; Rollo p. 6.) If any one of them was born prior thereto, such child, not being a natural child by legal fiction but spurious, cannot claim the special benefit granted under Art. 89 of the New Civil Code. Unlike his brothers and sisters who are natural children by legal fiction, he can only inherit by showing that he has been recognized by the decedent as the latter's illegitimate child either voluntarily or by final judgment in a proper paternity suit (Paterno vs. Paterno, 20 SCRA 585; Noble vs. Noble, 18 SCRA 1104; Clemena vs. Clemena, 24 SCRA 720; Divinagracia vs. Rovira, 72 SCRA 307; Tolentino, The Civil Code of the Philippines, 1987 Reprinting, Vol. I, pp. 616-617.)

Separate Opinions

HERMOSISIMA, JR., J., concurring:

Do children born out of adulterous relationships have the right to be legitimated under the New Civil Code? This I believe is the resultant issue in this case.

In declaring what the law is on this matter, we could not be so unmindful of the highest regard that our society places on the institution of marriage and the maintenance of which in its purity the public is deeply interested, for it is the foundation of the family and of society, Without it there could be neither civilization nor progress. 1 No less than the Constitution, of which we should be the staunchest vanguard as we are its ablest defender, marshals us to protect marriage as an inviolable social institution and the foundation of the family, 2 for it cannot be denied that the welfare of society is served and nurtured by a court that exercises its judicial prerogatives not in a vacuum of cold logic but in the context of the loftiest and most enduring social values which the citizens, albeit struggling and fumbling in their daily living, try to approximate in their own lives. The citizens, after all, are our constituents; 3 and so their best interests, embodied in the scale of values which they extol, are an integral part of the great flux that is the law. As we are concerned with its exposition, we must strive to continuously refurbish the image of the law vis-a-vis the welfare of society, to keep it bright, and to subject it to constant re-analysis so as to keep it in touch with what has always been right, what is just and fair under present circumstances, and what is most beneficial for the future generations. 4

It is in this light that we appreciate this case with the following antecedent facts:

Dr. Antonio de Santos married Sofia Bona on February 7, 1941. Out of this union was born in 1942 petitioner Maria Rosario de Santos. However, Antonio and Sofia subsequently parted ways. While separated de facto from Sofia, Antonio, in 1949, secured a divorce decree against her in Nevada, U.S.A. He then married private respondent Dr. Conchita Talag in Tokyo, Japan, in 1951. Antonio and Conchita had eleven children who were all born between the years 1951 to 1967.

On March 30, 1967, Sofia died in Guatemala. Thereafter, Antonio married private respondent, for the second time, in Tagaytay City. Antonio then died on March 8, 1981 at the Capitol Medical Center.

Is special proceedings filed by private respondent on May 15, 1981, before the Regional Trial Court of Caloocan City, the court granted her petition for letters of administration since such petition was unopposed. In the course of the proceedings, however, petitioner intervened alleging, among others, that the ten surviving children of private respondent were illegitimate.

After the approval of the Income and Expenses Statement of the decedent's estate pursuant to Sec. 1, Rule 90 of the Revised Rules of Court on May 6, 1991, the trial court issued an order on November 14, 1991 declaring that the ten children of the deceased and private respondent must be deemed legitimated and therefore entitled to inherit as legitimate heirs.

Consequently, the sole issue raised in the instant petition for certiorari is whether or not said children can be legitimated.

A logical cold deduction based on some pertinent laws would appear to answer this issue in the affirmative, in this wise:

Article 80 of the New Civil Code considers as marriages void from the beginning, bigamous marriages not falling under Art. 83 (2). Article 89 of the same Code, in turn, bestows upon children conceived or born of marriages void from the beginning, referred to as natural children by legal fiction, the status, rights and obligations of acknowledged natural children. Among the rights of acknowledged natural children is the right of legitimation granted to them under Article 269 in relation to 271 of the same Code. Since private respondent's children were all born after her marriage to the deceased in Tokyo in 1951, which marriage is considered bigamous, hence, void from the beginning, because of its celebration while the marriage between the deceased and his first wife, Sofia Bona, still subsisted, said children are natural children by legal fiction who have the rights of acknowledged natural children, including the right to be legitimated, and they may now be considered legitimated since the deceased and private respondent validly married for the second time after Sofia's demise.

It happens that the law may lose its character of being a law by an excess of caprice in its administration, but it could hardly cease to be law because of its rigid logical application according to its tenor. When its rigid logical application, however, amounts to absurdity, the law not only becomes incapable of just administration but may also become an instrument of legal injustice. Clearly for us to read the law in the aforegoing manner is to dangerously teeter on the fulcrum of legal folly for there is no scaling down its unacceptable implications.

If children born out of an extramarital relationship, but whose parents contracted a bigamous marriage and still another marriage subsequent thereto upon the death of the first spouse of the adulterous parent, may eventually be legitimated, then children of adulterous spouses, by the expedient contrivance of a bigamous marriage, may later on be legitimated. The adulterous spouse may still prove himself virtuous and heroic by risking prosecution for bigamy if only to give his child out of wedlock the chance, that slim chance, to be legitimated, that is, if he prays enough that his first spouse dies ahead of him so he could eventually validly marry his paramour.

As such, in the mildest terms, the law would seem to condone extramarital relationships by providing the seemingly confessant adulterer a way to be a conscientious parent to his illegitimate children without having to give up his illicit relations with their mother. At its worst, such a reading of the law amounts to a mockery of the institution of marriage, which is, under our Constitution and family laws, an inviolable social institution imbued with public interest and traditionally and constantly held to be a priority in our culture's scale of values, for nothing stops the public from concluding that marriage and a bigamous marriage at that (with its accompanying criminal consequences), is actually a backdoor to legitimating adulterous children.

The letter of Article 89 of the New Civil Code must be transcended and the absurd and sheepishly grotesque consequences of its application in the instant case, rejected. It is not enough that the law exists to be administered justly; in addition and more importantly, the law needs to possess a just content. The law must by itself aim at and endeavor to conform to, some criteria of rightness which repose on values espoused by the very society it seeks to serve. As it is our duty to declare the law as it is, there is no escaping the task of revealing the justness of the law in accordance with society's avowed values. Consequently, it has been called a golden rule of statutory interpretation that unreasonableness of the result produced by one possible interpretation of a statute is reason for rejecting that interpretation in favor of another which would produce a reasonable result. 5

In resolving the issue at hand, I believe the emphasis should be on Article 269 which is, after all, the law squarely in point under the premises of this case. Taking the letter of Article 269 as it is, it clearly prescribes the limits of its applicability upon only natural children. Surely there is no canon against using both common sense and common weal in construing the law as saying what it obviously means:

Chapter 3

Art. 269. Only natural children can be ligitimated. Children born outside wedlock of parents who, at the time of the conception of the former, were not disqualified by any impediment to marry each other, are natural.

xxx xxx xxx

Art. 271. Only natural children who have been recognized by the parents before or after the celebration of the marriage, or have been declared natural children by final judgment, may be considered legitimated by subsequent marriage. (Emphasis ours)

Legitimation is a right granted by law only to natural children who, because their parents could have legally married at the time they were conceived, cannot be substantially differentiated from legitimate children once their parents do marry after their birth. This is because said parents can marry any time, there being no legal impediment preventing them from validly contracting marriage. The situation obtaining respecting legitimate children and legitimated natural children is certainly distinct from that respecting adulterous children because the parents of adulterous children are admittedly incapacitated to marry each other at the time said children were conceived. It may easily be said, thus, that to interpret the law as allowing adulterous children to be put on equal footing with the legitimate children, would be putting a premium on adulterous relationships, which is frowned upon by the society itself. Even the law on succession under the New Civil Code distinguishes the respective hereditary rights of the different kinds of children and significantly assigns a diminishing share in accordance with the degree of illegitimacy of the child concerned. Thus, Article 895 provides that the legitime of each of the acknowledged natural children and each of the natural children by legal fiction shall consist of one-half of the legitime of each of the legitimate children or descendants and that of illegitimate children who is neither of the above, four-fifths of the legitime of an acknowledged natural child. It is, therefore, evident that the treatment accorded children under the New Civil Code is determined by the circumstances under which they have been conceived and born, particularly, the capacity to marry of their parents at the time that they were conceived.

Private respondent's children were precisely born when their deceased father was still legally married to Sofia Bona. The marriage of the deceased and private respondent in Tokyo, Japan, in 1951 could not have given a semblance of legitimacy to their subsequent cohabitation and their issues since such marriage was contracted during the subsistence of the deceased's marriage with Sofia Bona. The relationship between the deceased and private respondent, therefore, was no less adulterous notwithstanding an attempt to legitimize the same through a bigamous marriage. There is no other way to put it but that the deceased and private respondent were having illicit relations; they were fully aware of the legal and moral consequences of their actions, and they seemingly, in bad faith, attempted to circumvent the law in their favor by contracting a bigamous marriage to the prejudice of the legitimate issue in the person of the petitioner. There is no quibbling that private respondent's children are adulterous children whose status, by the simple expedient of a bigamous marriage contracted by parties fully aware of their incapacity to marry, could never have been intended by the law to be equated to that of petitioner who is the legitimate child of the deceased in view of the public policy involved in

preserving the sanctity of marriage and preventing the proliferation of illegitimate issues. As the earlier interpretation has been shown to lead to unreasonable results with socially virulent implications, and the same originates from two provisions, namely, Article 89 and Article 269 of the New Civil Code, we are wont to state that they are irreconcilable provisions. And the applicable statutory rule is that where there is an irreconcilable conflict between the different provisions of a statute, the provision last in order of position will prevail, since it is the latest expression of the legislative will. 6 More than that Article 269 is the latest expression of the legislative will, however, Article 269 on its face specifically states the law on legitimation, limits its applicability to natural children, and is resonantly silent on the right of adulterous children to be legitimated in the same way as children born to parents who, at the time of their conception, were legally capable to marry each other.

All told, the law tenders to us in no unpretentious terms the basis to rule that private respondent's children, being adulterous children, have no right to be legitimated under the New Civil Code. Such a ruling is not only in accord with the explicit, unequivocal language of Article 269 but more importantly animates and upholds the public policy as regards the institution of marriage as the foundation of society.

Needless to say, such ruling sits well with the need to obviate any legal injustice and social absurdity that may result if we were to rule otherwise.

The final cause of law is the welfare of society. The rule that misses its aim cannot permanently justify its existence. "Ethical considerations can no more be excluded from the administration of justice which is the end and purpose of all civil laws than one can exclude the vital air from his room and live. 7

The final rendering of the meaning of a statute is an act of judgment. 8 This court has so judged this case at bench, and so we will perhaps be judged thereby.

I, therefore, vote to grant the petition, set aside the assailed order of the Regional Trial Court, and remand thereto the case for further proceedings.

VITUG, J., dissenting:

I vote to resolve the controversy in favor of the child. I take it to be the legislative intent that the pertinent provisions of the Civil Code on children in the book on persons and family relations are meant to enhance the child's interest and welfare. This intent finds exemplification in Article 89 of the Civil Code by explicitly providing that natural children by legal fiction (among them those conceived or born of void marriages because the parents suffer

from an impediment to marry) shall have the same status, rights and obligations as acknowledged natural children. If then under Article 269, in relation to Article 270, of the Civil Code, acknowledged natural children are given the right to be legitimated by the subsequent marriage of the parents, the law must, by virtue of Article 89 aforesaid, likewise extend unqualifiedly to natural children by legal fiction.

No matter how well legal calisthenics are played, there is, I must point out, not a single provision of the Code that limits or circumscribes the scope and application of Article 89. The law, I respectfully submit, should be so construed as to attain congruity, rather than a division, among its several provisions. The rule is expressed in the maxim interpretare et concordare legibus est optimus interpretendi upon the theory that the legislature is presumed not to have enacted conflicting provisions of law but that, on the contrary, it must have meant to give them such parity and consequence as a uniform jurisprudential system.

Most regrettably, I still perceive coolness, if not outright hostility, towards illegitimate children who have not been fortunate enough to be conceived or born under a better family circumstance. It is not enough that they are unjustly ostracized by a segment in society; they are also called names — bastards, outcasts, adulterous, spurious — that certainly they do not deserve. If at all, their situation needs sympathy, not hatred or condemnation.

Any conflict of view, however, would soon be a thing of the past, for as so keenly observed by Mme. Justice Flerida Ruth P. Romero, the Family Code, which became effective on 03 August 1988, has deleted any reference to natural children by legal fiction. The Family Code presently categorizes children of void marriages into two kinds — the legitimates which include those conceived or born of void marriages under Article 36 and Article 52 of the Family Code before the judicial declaration of nullity of such void marriages and the illegitimates or children conceived or born of all other void marriages (but evidently maintaining, for legitimation purposes, the distinction between those whose parents, at the time of conception, were not disqualified to marry and those whose parents were disqualified).

Narvasa, C.J. and Bellosillo, J., concurs.

KAPUNAN, J., dissenting:

The principal issue in the case at bench may be capsulized as to whether or not the trial court committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to a lack or excess of jurisdiction in considering the private respondent's children legitimated under the facts established herein, and in declaring and

instituting said children as heirs of the decedent. As the law unequivocally gives them such a right, I respectfully dissent from the majority.

I begin by observing that, taking their cue from the lower court's inappropriate lifting of an editor's precis or statement from the syllabus of the case of Tongoy vs. Court of Appeals, 1 both parties in the case at bench have placed too much emphasis and reliance on the case of Tongoy, 2 the facts and circumstances of which are not exactly on all fours with those obtaining in the case at bench. The italicized portion of the syllabus of cases appearing in official or unofficial reports of Supreme Court Decisions or Resolutions 3 generally reflect the editor's summary of a discussion of an issue or a specific point in a case, and, taken out of context, could be misleading and inappropriate for citation. Judges should strive to read cases which might have a bearing on cases before them in their entirety, and quote or obtain their citations from the body of the decision, not the syllabus.

The principal issue in Tongoy, 4 hinged "on the absence of an acknowledgment (by the father prior to his death of his illegitimate children) through any of the modes recognized by the Old Civil Code." 5 It is not, however clear from the Court's discussion of the facts of the case, whether the illegitimate children were sired during the subsistence of the first marriage or after the death of the first wife. On the sale issue of the father's acknowledgment, the Court therein took a liberal view, recognizing the fact that the children "were in continuous possession of the status of natural, or even legitimated, children" 6 and that they were "treated as legitimate children not only by their parents but also by the entire clan," 7 in declaring, on equitable grounds, that the children therein were legitimate heirs.

For better appreciation of our ruling in Tongoy, let me quote the following:

The remaining assignment of error dwells on the question of whether or not respondents Amado, Ricardo, Cresenciano and Norberto, all surnamed Tongoy, may be considered legitimated by virtue of the marriage of their parents, Francisco Tongoy and Antonina Pabello, subsequent to their births and shortly before Francisco died on September 15, 1926. Petitioners maintain that since the said respondents were never acknowledged by their father, they could not have been legitimated by the subsequent marriage of their parents, much less could they inherit from the estate of their father, the predecessor-in-interest of Luis D. Tongoy, who is admittedly the half brother of the said respondents.

Both the trial court and the respondent appellate court have found overwhelming evidence to sustain the following conclusions: that Amado P. Tongoy, Ricardo P. Tongoy,

Cresenciano P. Tongoy and Norberto P. Tongoy were born illegitimate to Antonina Pabello on August 19, 1910 (Exh. A), August 12, 1922 (Exh. B), December 1, 1915 (Exhs. C and C-1) and August 4, 1922 (Exh. D), respectively; that Francisco Tongoy was their father; that said Francisco Tongoy had before them and Antonina Pabello two legitimate children by his first wife, namely, Luis D. Tongoy and Patricio D. Tongoy; that Francisco Tongoy and Antonina Pabello were married sometime before his death on September 15, 1926 (Exh. H); that shortly thereafter, Luis D. Tongoy and Patricio D. Tongoy executed an Extra-Judicial Declaration of Heirs, leaving out their half-brothers Amado, Ricardo, Cresenciano, and Norberto, who were then still minors; that respondents Amado, Ricardo, Cresenciano and Norberto were known and accepted by the whole clan as children of Francisco; that they had lived in Hacienda Pulo with their parents, but when they went to school, they stayed in the old family home at Washington Street, Bacolod, together with their grandmother, Agatona Tongoy; that everybody in Bacolod knew them to be part of the Tongoy-Sonora clan; and that Luis D. Tongoy as administrator of Hacienda Pulo, also spent for the education of Ricardo Tongoy until he became a lawyer; and that even petitioners admit the fact that they were half-brothers of the late Luis D. Tongoy.

The bone of contention, however, hinges on the absence of an acknowledgment through any of the modes recognized by the Old Civil Code (please see Articles 131 and 135 of the Old Civil Code), such that legitimation could not have taken place in view of the provisions of Art. 121 of the same Code which states that "children shall be considered legitimated by a subsequent marriage only when they have been acknowledged by the parents before or after the celebration thereof."

Of course, the overwhelming evidence found by respondent Court of Appeals conclusively shows that respondents Amado, Ricardo, Cresenciano and Norberto have been in continuous possession of the status of natural, or even legitimated children. Still, it recognizes the fact that such continuous possession of status is not, per se, a sufficient acknowledgment but only a ground to compel recognition (Alabat vs. Alabat, 21 SCRA 1379; Pua vs. Chan, 21 SCRA 753; Larena vs. Rubio, 43 Phil. 1017).

Be that as it may, WE cannot but agree with the liberal view taken by respondent Court of Appeals when it said:

. . . It does not seem equally manifest, however, that defendants-appellants stand on a purely technical point in the light of overwhelming evidence that appellees were natural children of Francisco Tongoy and Antonina Pabello, and were treated as legitimate children not only by their parents but only by the entire clan. Indeed, it does not make much sense that appellees should be deprived of their hereditary rights as undoubted natural children of their father, when the only plausible reason that the latter could have had in mind when he married his second wife Antonina Pabello just over a month before his death was to give legitimate status to their children. It is not in keeping with the more liberal attitude taken by the New Civil Code towards illegitimate children and the more compassionate trend of the New Society to insist on a very literal application of the law in requiring the formalities of compulsory acknowledgment, when the only result is to unjustly deprive children who are otherwise entitled to hereditary rights. From the very nature of things, it is hardly to be expected of appellees, having been reared as legitimate children by their parents and treated as such by everybody, to bring an action to compel their parents to acknowledge them. In the hitherto cited case of Ramos vs. Ramos, supra, the Supreme Court showed the way out of patent injustice and inequity that might result in some cases simply because of the implacable insistence on the technical amenities for acknowledgment. Thus, it held —

Unacknowledged natural children have no rights whatsoever (Buenaventura vs. Urbano, 5 Phil. 1; Siguiong vs. Siguiong, 8 Phil. 5, 11; Infante vs. Figueras, 4 Phil. 738; Crisolo vs. Macadaeg, 94 Phil. 862). The fact that the plaintiffs, as natural children of Martin Ramos, received shares in his estate implied that they were acknowledged. Obviously, defendants Agustin Ramos and Granada Ramos and the late Jose Ramos and members of his family had treated them as his children. Presumably, that fact was well-known in the community. Under the circumstances, Agustin Ramos and Granada Ramos and the heirs of Jose Ramos, are estopped from attacking plaintiffs' status as acknowledged natural children (See Arts. 283 [4] and 2666 [3], New Civil Code). [Ramos vs. Ramos, supra].

With the same logic, estoppel should also operate in this case in favor of appellees, considering, as already explained in detail, that they have always been treated as acknowledged and legitimated children of the second marriage of Francisco Tongoy, not only by their presumed parents who raised them as their children, but also by the entire Tongoy-Sonora clan, including

Luis D. Tongoy himself who had furnished sustenance to the clan in his capacity as administrator of Hacienda Pulo and had in fact supported the law studies of appellee Ricardo P. Tongoy in Manila, the same way he did with Jesus T. Sonora in his medical studies. As already pointed out, even defendants-appellants have not questioned the fact that appellees are half-brothers of Luis D. Tongoy. As a matter of fact, they are really children of Francisco Tongoy and Antonina Pabello, and only the technicality that their acknowledgment as natural children has not been formalized in any of the modes prescribed by law appears to stand in the way of granting them their hereditary rights. But estoppel, as already indicated, precludes defendants-appellants from attacking appellees' status as acknowledged natural or legitimated children of Francisco Tongoy. In addition to estoppel, this is decidedly one instance when technicality should give way to conscience, equity and justice (cf. Vda. de Sta. Ana vs. Rivera, L-22070, October 29, 1966, 18 SCRA 588) [pp. 196-198, Vol. 1, rec.].

It is time that WE, too, take a liberal view in favor of natural children who, because they enjoy the blessings and privileges of an acknowledged natural child and even of a legitimated child, found if rather awkward, if not unnecessary, to institute an action for recognition against their natural parents, who, without their asking, have been showering them with the same love, care and material support as are accorded to legitimate children. The right to participate in their father's inheritance should necessarily follow. 8

However, acknowledgment is clearly not at issue here. Petitioner makes no pretense that private respondent's children are not entitled to hereditary rights. 9 She herself admits that the decedent acknowledged his paternity of the private respondent's children and that they are indeed her brothers and sisters. 10 What herein petitioner claims she opposes "is their being judicially declared legitimated (by the respondent court) so as to entitle them to enjoy the same rights as a legitimate heir," 11 to her prejudice. Citing Article 269 of the New Civil Code as "the law in point" in the case at bench, she contends that the trial court erred in declaring her half brothers and sisters legitimated because under the New Civil Code only natural children could be legitimated. I find this contention, to which the majority of this divided Court agrees, absolutely untenable.

The New Civil Code appears to limit the right to legitimation only to those children conceived by parents not disqualified by any impediment to marry each other, bestowing upon them, prior to such legitimation, the status of

natural children. Article 269 which provides the cornerstone for the majority's holding today states that:

Art. 269. Only natural children can be legitimated. Children born outside wedlock of parents who, at the time of the conception of the former, were not disqualified by any impediment to marry each other, are natural.

The rule is, however, not absolute because even children conceived or born out of marriages void from the very beginning under the Civil Code possess the status of natural children by legal fiction and enjoy the same rights as acknowledged natural children. Article 89 provides:

Art. 89. Children conceived or born out of marriages which are void from the beginning shall have the same status, rights and obligations as acknowledged natural children, and are called natural children by legal fiction.

Children conceived of voidable marriages before the decree of annulment shall be considered legitimate; and children conceived thereafter shall have the same status, rights and obligations as acknowledged natural children, and are also called natural children by legal fiction.

Article 89, a creature of legislation (through the Code Commission) which has remained unmolested since 1950 I must stress, is not an accidental provision. The Civil Code Commission clearly intended Article 89, notwithstanding its location in the Code, as a piece of reform, an exception to the rule furnished by Article 269. More importantly, Article 89 (unlike Article 269 which came from the Spanish Civil Code of 1889) was a new provision deliberately introduced by the Code Commission as one of its revolutionary reforms thirty five years ago. And doubt about the intention of this piece of legislation should have been laid to rest by the following explanation from the Code Commission's Report:

This proposed reform is based on the fact that such children have been brought into this world through no fault of their own, but through that of their parents. To visit punishment upon them is most unjust. Moreover, though the marriage is void, or voidable, at least there was a semblance of legality to the relationship between the parents. This circumstance should cast a mantle of protection over the children, who by legal fiction should be treated as acknowledged natural children. 12

Since the decedent's 1951 marriage in Tokyo with the private respondent was invalid, 13 being one of those marriages classified as void from the very

beginning under the Civil Code, 14 the status of her children clearly falls under Article 89 which puts them on par, at least in terms of rights and obligations, with acknowledged natural children. Since the rights of acknowledged natural children include the right of legitimation — under Article 270 of the Civil Code — by the subsequent valid marriage of their parents, 15 it therefore plainly follows that by virtue of Article 89, in relation to Article 270, the private respondent's children were deemed legitimated by the subsequent valid marriage of their parents in the Philippines in 1967.

This position is hardly an isolated one. Virtually all Civil and Family Code commentators are united in the belief that Article 89 furnishes an escape valve for children found under the circumstances existing in the case at bench. Dr. Arturo Tolentino, in his commentary on the Civil Code, for example, writes:

Under Article 89, natural children by legal fiction "shall have the same status, rights and obligations as acknowledged natural children." Theoretically therefore, natural children by legal fiction can belegitimated. . . . .

The following children by legal fiction . . . can be legitimated: . . . (2) those born of a bigamous marriage, for the parents can marry each other again upon the widowhood of the parent who married twice. . . . . 16

In the same token, Prof. Ernesto L. Pineda, a member of the Family Code Revision Committee acknowledges this exception the rule, stating that:

By way of exception, some natural children by legal fiction (Art. 89, NCC) can be legitimated such as — (a) those born of couples who married while below the allowable marrying age but who contracted a new marriage after reaching the proper age; (b) those born of bigamous marriages but where the parents married each other upon the widowhood of the disqualified parent; (c) those born of parents who got married before an unauthorized officer and the parents contracted a new marriage before an authorized one; (d) those born of parents who got married without a marriage license (where license was required) and the parents contracted a subsequent valid marriage; and (e) children conceived after (not before) the decree of annulment of a voidable marriage. 17

Justice Alicia V. Sempio-Diy, writing on the New Family Code 18 underscores the difference in treatment of the subject of legitimation between the Family Code and the Civil Code thus:

Under the Civil Code, children of bigamous marriages, who are natural children by legal fiction, can be legitimated, since the parents can marry each other upon the death of the first husband or wife of the parent who married twice. Unfortunately for such children, they can no longer be legitimated under the Family Code, which has limited the kind of children to legitimate and illegitimate and abolished the category of natural children by legal fiction. 19

"Parenthetically," another commentator on the Family Code, Prof. Melencio Sta. Maria writes, "under the Civil Code provisions of legitimation which were repealed by the Family Code," there can be an instances where such children could be legitimated. 20 Elaborating on these provisions in his 1995 commentary; he states:

This is so because according to the repealed Article 271 of the Civil Code only acknowledged natural children can be legitimated, and also according to the repealed Article 89 of the Civil Code, a child born inside a void marriage was considered a natural child by legal fiction with all the rights of an acknowledged natural child. Since a natural child by legal fiction has all the rights of an acknowledged natural child and the statutory right to be legitimated was one of the rights of an acknowledged natural child, the subject child therefore can be legitimated if the parents subsequently validly remarried. 21

Clearly, the weight of authority in this country recognizes that under the Civil Code, Article 89 unequivocally furnishes an exception to the rule that only acknowledged natural children or those who by law have been declared natural children by final judgment can be legitimated. This exception was, in fact, acknowledged by the Family Code Revision Committee in its Meeting of August 24, 1985, when it decided not to accord the same privilege extended by Article 89 to similarly situated illegitimate children (under the family Code's simplified classification) in the provisions of the new code. However, for children born under the Civil Code, the exception is a legal fact which could not be ignored. If under Article 269, in relation to Article 270 of the Civil Code, acknowledged natural children are given the right to be legitimated by the subsequent marriage of the parents, the law must, by virtue of Article 89, also extend unqualifiedly to natural children by legal fiction. This not only harmonizes Article 89 with the Civil Code articles on the rights of acknowledged natural children and the articles on legitimation but

also leads to a result which enhances the welfare and interest of the child. As Justice Vitug in his 1993 Compendium of Civil Law and Jurisprudence writes:

The provisions of Art. 269 and 271 of the Civil Code, in a literal sense appear to limit legitimation in favor of acknowledged natural children or those who by law have been declared natural children by final judgment. Considering, however, that natural children by legal fiction (such as those born of void marriages because the parents suffer from an impediment to marry) are expressly given the same status, rights and obligations as acknowledged natural children (Art. 89 Civil Code), and because all doubts should be resolved in favor of the child, it is submitted that the rules on legitimation should likewise extend to such children. 22

Indeed, it hardly makes sense that the children of private respondent should be deprived of their full hereditary rights as legitimated children when the facts and circumstances of the case at bench clearly show the decedent's intention to remove, once and for all, all manner of legal and moral obstacles to his second and apparently blissful union with the private respondent. For immediately after the death of his first wife in Guatemala in 1967, the decedent wasted no time in obtaining a Philippine marriage in Tagaytay with his second wife. With a fairly considerable estate, it was not entirely remote that the decedent had in mind not only the intention to legitimatize his union with the private respondent but also the intention to accord legitimate status to his children with his second wife. Given the nature of their relationship and the clear intendment of the Civil Code under Article 89 to place natural children by legal fiction on equal standing with acknowledged natural children, a patent injustice and inequity will result if we uphold herein petitioner's implacable position. Given the clear intendment of the legislature in enacting the new provision (Article 89) over thirty years ago when many of the members of this Court were still law students, the majority's holding in the case at bench amounts to a belated judicial veto of a valid piece of legislation.

I vote to DENY the instant petition.

Narvasa, C.J., Padilla, Bellosillo and Francisco, JJ., concur.

PANGANIBAN, J., dissenting:

With all due respect, I dissent from the well-written ponencia of Mme. Justice Flerida Ruth P. Romero.

The pertinent portions of Arts. 89, 269, 270 and 271 of the New Civil Code which are the codal provisions in point, read as follows:

Art. 89. Children conceived or born of marriages which are void from the beginning shall have the same status, rights and obligations as acknowledged natural children, and are called natural children by legal fiction.

xxx xxx xxx

Art. 269. Only natural children can be legitimated. Children born outside wedlock of parents who, at the time of the conception of the former, were not disqualified by any impediment to marry each other, are natural.

Art. 270. Legitimation shall take place by the subsequent marriage of the parents.

Art. 271. Only natural children who have been recognized by the parents before or after the celebration of the marriage, or have been declared natural children by final judgment, may be considered legitimated by subsequent marriage. . . .

Art. 89 has been repealed by the Family Code (Executive Order No. 209) which took effect on August 3, 1988 (Uyguangco vs. Court of Appeals, 178 SCRA 684 [1989]; Atienza vs. Brillantes, A.M. No. MTJ-92-706, March 29, 1995). It was one of the provisions under Title III, Book I of the New Civil Code which have been omitted from the text of the present Family Code. But it was the law in force at the time the legitimation in the case at bench took place and should, consequently, govern the present controversy.

Art. 89 was a new provision in the sense that, unlike Articles 269 to 271, aforequoted, which all came from the Spanish Civil Code of 1889, Art. 89 was one of the reforms instituted by the Code Commission that drafted the New Civil Code. The Code Commission justified this new article in this wise:

This proposed reform is based on the fact that such children have been brought into the world through no fault of their own, but through that of their parents. To visit punishment upon them is most unjust. Moreover, though the marriage was void, or voidable, at least there was a semblance of legality of the relationship between the parents. This circumstance should cast the mantle of protection over the children, who by legal fiction should be treated as acknowledged natural children. (Report of the Code Commission, at p. 81.)

In conferring upon natural children by legal fiction the same status, rights and obligations of acknowledged natural children, the clear intention of the law was to put them at par with the latter although in fact they are not. They

are not in fact natural because they were conceived in the presence, not absence, of an impediment between the parents. They are natural only by figment of law. Thus, the name natural children by legal fiction.

But this legal fiction precisely operates to exempt them from the requirement under Art. 269 that there be no impediment between the parents at the time of the conception as well as from the requirement of recognition by both parents under Art. 271. Plainly, this is the conclusion that can rationally be given to the express, unequivocal declaration in Art. 89 that natural children by legal fiction "shall have the same status, rights and obligations as acknowledged natural children" — neither imposing any condition nor subjecting the grant of status to any qualification or exception of any kind. Had the intention been to deprive them of the right of legitimation, the law would have said so. Or it would have inserted a condition that they could be legitimated only if they can show compliance with Arts. 269 and 271 of the Code. The fact that these insertions were not made can only mean that the law intended to exempt this special class of natural children from the strict requirements normally imposed on ordinary natural children.

Under the provisions of the New Civil Code, legitimation takes place when three requisites are met: (a) that the child be a natural child; (b) that he be recognized by both parents either before or after a valid marriage; and (c) that there be a subsequent valid marriage of the parents (cf. Paras, Civil Code of the Philippines Annotated, 1984 Ed., Vol. I, p. 651). A natural child by legal fiction possesses the first two requisites from inception by virtue of Art. 89, which places him on the same plane as an acknowledged natural child. In that sense, he has an advantage over a natural child as defined by Art. 269, for the latter would still need to be recognized by both parents in order to have the status and rights of an acknowledged natural child. Thus, for the purpose of legitimation, the natural child by legal fiction needs to fulfill only the third requisite: a valid subsequent marriage between his parents (cf. Paras, op. cit., p. 651; Tolentino, Civil Code of the Philippines, 1987 Reprinting, Vol. I, p. 570). Where the impediment is permanent or perpetual, such as incest or the fact that one or both of the parties have been found guilty of killing the spouse of one of them, no legitimation can ever take place as no valid marriage can ever be made between the parents (Tolentino, op. cit., p. 570). But the bigamous character of a marriage is terminable by, among other causes, the death of the first spouse, making a subsequent marriage valid. And that simply was what happened in the case at bench.

Prior to the repeal of Art. 89 by the Family Code, it was suggested by some civil law scholars that a distinction should be made between natural children by legal fiction who were conceived during the existence of an impediment, on the one hand, and those who were conceived after the disappearance of

such impediment, on the other. Their theory was that only the latter would qualify for legitimation. Such a stance would have been juridically sound were it not for the fact that Art. 89 does not classify natural children by legal fiction into the two suggested categories based on the presence or absence of impediment at the time of conception of the child. Ubi lex non distinguit nec nos distinguere debemus; where the law does not distinguish, we should not (Gesolgon vs. Lacson, 2 SCRA 553, 556 [1961]; Libudan vs. Gil, 45 SCRA 17, 33 [1972]; Guevarra vs. Inocentes, 16 SCRA 379, 385 [1966]; Robles vs. Chromite Mining Co., 104 Phil. 688, 690 [1958]). Besides, as already pointed out, the conferment on natural children by legal fiction of the same status, rights and obligations as those of acknowledged natural children under Art. 89, New Civil Code, evidently exempted the former from the requirements imposed upon ordinary natural children by Arts. 269 and 271 of said Code. And, finally, Art. 220 of said Code fortifies this conclusion, because said provision declares that in case of doubt, every intendment of law or fact leans toward, among other things, "the legitimacy of children". The doubt — if there be such at all — should therefore be resolved in favor of sustaining the right to legitimation of the eleven (11) offsprings of the decedent with private respondent Conchita Talag, regardless of the presence or absence of an impediment to marry on the part of their parents at the time of the conception of each of them.

Indeed, it is hardly fair to stigmatize and create social and successional prejudice against children who had no fault in nor control over the marital impediments which bedeviled their parents. They are the victims, not the perpetrators, of these vagaries of life. Why then should they suffer their consequences? In the final analysis, there are really no illegitimate children; there are only illegitimate parents. And this dissent finds its philosophy in this: that children, unarguably born and reared innocent in this world, should benefit by every intendment of the law, particularly where — as in this case — their parents, who originally suffered from a marital impediment, would now want to overcome the improvident social and successional consequences of such condition. Therefore, it is most unfair that the these innocent children should be condemned to continue suffering the consequences of the impediment they did not cause, when the very impediment itself has disappeared.

The mere fact that such legitimation would impact adversely upon the petitioner's successional rights as the lone legitimate child of the first marriage is no reason to deny the children of the second marriage of their own legal right to be deemed legitimated. Precisely, legitimation produces such an effect — i.e., diminution of successional rights of the legitimate children. Art. 272 of the New Civil Code provides in fact that "(c)hildren who are legitimated by subsequent marriage shall enjoy the same rights as legitimate children." When the legislature decided to grant to children of void carriages the same status, rights, and obligations as those of acknowledged

natural children, it is presumed to have carefully weighed precisely these consequences upon the rights of the other children in the family. The policy then was to cast a mantle of protection upon children of void marriages. That policy is evidently enforced by enabling them to get legitimated in the same manner as acknowledged natural children — namely, by the subsequent valid marriage of their parents. If the Family Code, by repealing Art. 89 of the New Civil Code, is to be viewed as having reversed or denigrated that policy (although, by and large, it appears to have maintained the policy in many other areas of family law), such reversal or denigration should not, and cannot, in any case impair rights already acquired by and thus vested in the private respondents.

One last point. Both petitioner and private respondent admit that the eleven (1l) children of the decedent with private respondent Conchita Talag were born after the celebration of the bigamous marriage on July 25, 1951. (See Petition, item 6, page 5; Rollo p. 6.) If any one of them was born prior thereto, such child, not being a natural child by legal fiction but spurious, cannot claim the special benefit granted under Art. 89 of the New Civil Code. Unlike his brothers and sisters who are natural children by legal fiction, he can only inherit by showing that he has been recognized by the decedent as the latter's illegitimate child either voluntarily or by final judgment in a proper paternity suit (Paterno vs. Paterno, 20 SCRA 585; Noble vs. Noble, 18 SCRA 1104; Clemena vs. Clemena, 24 SCRA 720; Divinagracia vs. Rovira, 72 SCRA 307; Tolentino, The Civil Code of the Philippines, 1987 Reprinting, Vol. I, pp. 616-617.)

Footnotes

1 Special Proceeding Case No. C-851 filed before Branch 121 of the Regional Trial Court of Caloocan City.

2 Civil Code, Articles 264 and 272.

3 Ibid, Article 364.

4 Id., Article 291 (2).

5 Id., Article 888 (1st par.).

6 J.B.L. Reyes and R.C. Puno, An Outline of Philippine Civil Law, Vol. I, 1965, p. 248, citing Arts. 301, 905, and 1347.

7 Civil Code, Article 366-367.

8 Ibid, Article 366.

9 Id., Article 291(3) and (4), in relation to Article 89.

10 Id., Article 895, in relation to Article 282.

11 Id., Articles 288 and 368.

12 Id., Article 291 (5).

13 Id., Article 895 (2nd and 3rd pars.).

14 Id., Article 886.

15 Id., Article 895 (3rd par.).

16 Reyes v. Court of Appeals, No. L-39537, March 19, 1985, citing Alabat v. Alabat, 21 SCRA 1479 (1967); Mise v. Rodriguez, 95 Phil. 396 (1954); Magallanes v. Court of Appeals, 95 Phil. 797 (1954); Canales v. Ugarte, 91 Phil. 6 (1952); Malonda v. Malonda, 81 Phil 149 (1948); Buenaventura v. Urbano, 5 Phil. 1 (1905).

HERMOSISIMA, JR., J., concurring:

1 Ramirez vs. Gmur, 42 Phil. 855, 864.

2 Sec. 2, Art. XV, 1987 Constitution.

3 Davies, Jack, Legislative Law and Process, 1986 Edition, p. 324.

4 Lloyd, Dennis, The Idea of Law, 1981 Edition, p. 327.

5 Sands, C. Dallas, Sutherland Statutory Construction, 1972 Edition, p. 37.

6 Crawford, Earl T., The Construction of Statutes, 1940 Edition, p. 263.

7 Cardozo, Benjamin, The Nature of the Judicial Process, 1921 Edition, p. 66, citing Dillon.

8 Frankfurter, Felix, "Some Reflections on the Reading of Statutes," in Statutes and Statutory Construction by C. Dallas Sands, Vol. 3, 1973 Edition, p. 414.

KAPUNAN, J., dissenting:

1 123 SCRA 99 (1989). The lower court partly based its decision on the following statement, quoted from the syllabus of the decision, which does not appear in the body of the decision itself: "The Supreme Court now takes a liberal attitude on the status of children born out of wedlock such that if a person while married begets children with another woman whom he later marries after he becomes a widower, and during his lifetime he showered such children with all paternal affections and favors, then they should be deemed as legitimated, even in the absence of an action for recognition.

2 Id.

3 For e.g., Philippine Reports and the Supreme Court Reports Annotated.

4 Id.

5 Id., at 125.

6 Id., at 126.

7 Id.

8 Supra, note 3.

9 Rollo, p. 79.

10 Id.

11 Id.

12 REPORT OF THE CODE COMMISSION, 81.

13 The third paragraph of Article 17 in relation to Article 15 (on personal status and capacity) of the Civil Code provides:

"Prohibitive laws concerning persons, their acts or properly, and those which have for their object public order, public policy and good customs shall not be rendered ineffective by laws or judgments promulgated or by determinations or conventions agreed upon in a foreign country."

14 Civil Code, art. 80(4).

15 Civil Code, art. 270, provides: "Legitimation shall take place by the subsequent marriage of the parents."

16 TOLENTINO, I COMMENTARIES AND JURISPRUDENCE ON THE CIVIL CODE OF THE PHILIPPINES, 570 (1987).

17 ERNESTO L. PINEDA, THE FAMILY CODE OF THE PHILIPPINES ANNOTATED, 271 (1992).

18 ALICIA V. SEMPIO DIY, HANDBOOK ON THE FAMILY CODE OF THE PHILIPPINES, 251 (1991 ED.).

19 Id.

20 MELENCIO S. STA. MARIA, JR., PERSONS AND FAMILY RELATIONS LAW 485 (1995).

21 Id., at 485-486.

22 JOSE C. VITUG, COMPENDIUM OF CIVIL LAW AND JURISPRUDENCE, 86 (1993).

Legitimation of an illegitimate child

POINT OF LAW By POINT OF LAW by Teresita J. Herbosa  | Updated May 6, 2003 - 12:00amLegitimation is the process by which a child born out of wedlock may be legitimated and enjoy the same status and rights as a legitimate child. It takes place when the parents of the child who were not married to each other at the time of conception, enter into a valid marriage after the birth of the child.

Who can be legitimated? Before the Family Code took effect on Aug. 3, 1988, the applicable provision was Art. 269 of the Civil Code which provided that "[O]nly natural children can be legitimated. Children born outside of wedlock of parents who, at the time of the conception of the former, were not disqualified by any impediment to marry each other, are natural." The Family Code, in Art. 177, now provides: "Only children conceived and born outside of wedlock of parents who, at the time of the conception of the former, were not disqualified by any impediment to marry each other may be legitimated." The only change was the deletion of "natural". This had to do with the elimination of the classification of natural children. Under the Family Code, there are only two classifications of children, namely,

legitimate and illegitimate.

Children conceived and born outside a valid marriage are illegitimate. They are those born of parents who were not married or those born of common law marriages, incestuous marriages, bigamous marriages, adulterous relations, marriages void for reasons of public policy, couples below 18 years of age, other void marriages except those based on the psychological incapacity of the spouse(s) and remarriage of such psychologically incapacitated spouse(s) where the requirements have not been met. However, not all illegitimate children can be legitimated. Otherwise, Art. 177 could have just said that all children born outside of wedlock may be legitimated. To qualify for legitimation, the illegitimate child’s parents should not have been disqualified by any impediment to marry at the time of conception.

The case of De Santos vs. Hon. Angeles, et al. (Dec. 12, 1995; 251 SCRA 206) exhaustively tackled a gray area of legitimation under the Civil Code – whether Art. 289 allows legitimation of not only "natural children proper" but also "natural children by legal fiction". Under the Civil Code, children born of marriages which are void from the beginning or after the decree of annulment in voidable marriages are "natural children by legal fiction". Children conceived of parents who, at that time, were not disqualified to marry by any impediment are the "natural children proper". Briefly, the parents of the child in the De Santos case could not validly marry because one had a prior subsisting marriage. They did marry but their marriage was bigamous or void from the beginning. The issue was whether the child born of that bigamous marriage who is considered a "natural child by legal fiction" became legitimated when his parents married after the death of the first spouse. The Supreme Court held that even if Art. 89 of the Civil Code gave natural children by legal fiction the same status, rights and obligations as acknowledged natural children, Art. 269 applies only to natural children proper or those born outside of wedlock of parents who, at the time of the conception, were not disqualified by any impediment to marry. The De Santos case and the repeal of Art. 89 of the Civil Code thus support a strict interpretation of Art. 177 of the Family Code.

Supposing that the prior subsisting marriage is void or voidable, can the illegitimate child of one of the spouses born before the declaration of absolute nullity or judgment of annulment be legitimated. The prevailing

view is that the illegitimate child cannot be legitimated because the parent with the prior subsisting marriage was disqualified to marry at the time of conception. Even if the prior subsisting marriage is void or voidable and a declaration of absolute nullity or judgment of annulment is obtained after the birth of the illegitimate child, legitimation cannot take place.

Justice Alicia V. Sempio-Diy, who was a member of the Civil Code Revision Committee that drafted the Family Code, cited as one of the reasons for limiting legitimation the unfairness to the legitimate children in terms of successional rights. Presently, therefore, children of adulterous relations, incestuous and bigamous marriages, and other void marriages, and marriages void by reason of public policy under Art. 38 of the Family Code (marriages between collateral blood relatives up to the fourth civil degree, other relatives by affinity or adoption and where one killed his spouse or the spouse of the other party) are incapable of legitimation.

Legitimation takes place by the subsequent marriage of the parents of the child. Justice Diy opines that as long as the requisites of Art. 177 are complied with, the child is ipso facto legitimated no matter how long a period of time has elapsed from the birth of said child to the subsequent marriage of his parents. In fact, even if the subsequent marriage turns out to be voidable and is annulled, the child remains legitimated. Further, the effects of legitimation retroact to the time of the child’s birth.

Legitimation may be impugned by those prejudiced in their rights within five years from the time their cause of action accrues. Those prejudiced are the legitimate children or their heirs since they will suffer a diminution of inheritance. Since the prejudice involves successional rights, the cause of action accrues upon the death of the common parent.

(The author is a senior partner of Angara Abello Concepcion Regala & Cruz Law Offices. She may be contacted at 830-8000; fax at 894-4697 or email at: accra@accralaw.com)

Republic of the PhilippinesSUPREME COURT

Manila

EN BANC

G.R. No. L-18753             March 26, 1965

VICENTE B. TEOTICO, petitioner-appellant, vs.ANA DEL VAL, ETC., oppositor-appellant.

Antonio Gonzales for petitioner-appellant.J.C. Zulueta, G. D. David and N. J. Quisumbing for oppositor-appellant.

BAUTISTA ANGELO, J.:

Maria Mortera y Balsalobre Vda. de Aguirre died on July 14, 1955 in the City of Manila leaving properties worth P600,000.00. She left a will written in Spanish which she executed at her residence at No. 2 Legarda St., Quiapo, Manila. She affixed her signature at the bottom of the will and on the left margin of each and every page thereof in the presence of Pilar Borja, Pilar C. Sanchez, and Modesto Formilleza, who in turn affixed their signatures below the attestation clause and on the left margin of each and every page of the will in the presence of the testatrix and of each other. Said will was acknowledged before Notary Public Niceforo S. Agaton by the testatrix and her witnesses.

In said will the testatrix made the following preliminary statement: that she was possessed of the full use of her mental faculties; that she was free from illegal pressure or influence of any kind from the beneficiaries of the will and from any influence of fear or threat; that she freely and spontaneously executed said will and that she had neither ascendants nor descendants of any kind such that she could freely dispose of all her estate.

Among the many legacies and devises made in the will was one of P20,000.00 to Rene A. Teotico, married to the testatrix's niece named Josefina Mortera. To said spouses the testatrix left the usufruct of her interest in the Calvo building, while the naked ownership thereof she left in equal parts to her grandchildren who are the legitimate children of said spouses. The testatrix also instituted Josefina Mortera as her sole and universal heir to all the remainder of her properties not otherwise disposed of in the will.

On July 17, 1955, Vicente B. Teotico filed a petition for the probate of the will before the Court of First Instance of Manila which was set for hearing on September 3, 1955 after the requisite publication and service to all parties concerned.

Ana del Val Chan, claiming to be an adopted child of Francisca Mortera, a deceased sister of the testatrix, as well as an acknowledged natural child of Jose Mortera, a deceased brother of the same testatrix, filed on September 2,

1955 an opposition to the probate of the will alleging the following grounds: (1) said will was not executed as required by law; (2) the testatrix was physically and mentally incapable to execute the will at the time of its execution; and (3) the will was executed under duress, threat or influence of fear.

Vicente B. Teotico, filed a motion to dismiss the opposition alleging that the oppositor had no legal personality to intervene. The probate court, after due hearing, allowed the oppositor to intervene as an adopted child of Francisca Mortera, and on June 17, 1959, the oppositor amended her opposition by alleging, the additional ground that the will is inoperative as to the share of Dr. Rene Teotico because the latter was the physician who took care of the testatrix during her last illness.

After the parties had presented their evidence, the probate court rendered its decision on November 10, 1960, admitting the will to probate but declaring the disposition made in favor of Dr. Rene Teotico void with the statement that the portion to be vacated by the annulment should pass to the testatrix's heirs by way of intestate succession.

Petitioner Teotico, together with the universal heir Josefina Mortera, filed a motion for reconsideration of that part of the decision which declares the portion of the estate to be vacated by the nullity of the legacy made to Dr. Rene Teotico as passing to the legal heirs, while the oppositor filed also a motion for reconsideration of the portion of the judgment which decrees the probate of the will. On his part, Dr. Rene Teotico requested leave to intervene and to file a motion for reconsideration with regard to that portion of the decision which nullified the legacy made in his favor.

The motions for reconsideration above adverted to having been denied, both petitioner and oppositor appealed from the decision, the former from that portion which nullifies the legacy in favor of Dr. Rene Teotico and declares the vacated portion as subject of succession in favor of the legal heirs, and the latter from that portion which admits the will to probate. And in this instance both petitioner and oppositor assign several errors which, stripped of non-essentials, may be boiled down to the following: (1) Has oppositor Ana del Val Chan the right to intervene in this proceeding?; (2) Has the will in question been duly admitted to probate?; (3) Did the probate court commit an error in passing on the intrinsic validity of the provisions of the will and in determining who should inherit the portion to be vacated by the nullification of the legacy made in favor of Dr. Rene Teotico?

These issues will be discussed separately.

1. It is a well-settled rule that in order that a person may be allowed to intervene in a probate proceeding he must have an interest in the estate, or

in the will, or in the property to be affected by it either as executor or as a claimant of the estate (Ngo The Hua v. Chung Kiat Hua, et al., L-17091, September 30, 1963); and an interested party has been defined as one who would be benefited by the estate such as an heir or one who has a claim against the estate like a creditor (Idem). On the other hand, in Saguinsin v. Lindayag, et al., L-17750, December 17, 1962, this Court said:

According to Section 2, Rule 80 of the Rules of Court, a petition for letters of administration must be filed by an "interested person." An interested party has been defined in this connection as one who would be benefited by the estate, such as an heir, or one who has a claim against the estate, such as a creditor (Intestate Estate of Julio Magbanwa 40 O.G. 1171). And it is well settled in this jurisdiction that in civil actions as well as special proceedings, the interest required in order that a person may be a party thereto must be material and direct, and not merely indirect or contingent (Trillana vs. Crisostomo, G.R. No. L-3370, August 22, 1951; Rapinosa vs. Barrion, 70 Phil. 311).

The question now may be asked: Has oppositor any interest in any of the provisions of the will, and, in the negative, would she acquire any right to the estate in the event that the will is denied probate?

Under the terms of the will, oppositor has no right to intervene because she has no interest in the estate either as heir, executor, or administrator, nor does she have any claim to any property affected by the will, because it nowhere appears therein any provision designating her as heir, legatee or devisee of any portion of the estate. She has also no interest in the will either as administratrix or executrix. Neither has she any claim against any portion of the estate because she is not a co-owner thereof, and while she previously had an interest in the Calvo building located in Escolta, she had already disposed of it long before the execution of the will.1äwphï1.ñët

In the supposition that, the will is denied probate, would the oppositor acquire any interest in any portion of the estate left by the testatrix? She would acquire such right only if she were a legal heir of the deceased, but she is not under our Civil Code. It is true that oppositor claims to be an acknowledged natural child of Jose Mortera, a deceased brother of the deceased, and also an adopted daughter of Francisca Mortera, a deceased sister of the testatrix, but such claim cannot give her any comfort for, even if it be true, the law does not give her any right to succeed to the estate of the deceased sister of both Jose Mortera and Francisca Mortera. And this is so because being an illegitimate child she is prohibited by law from succeeding to the legitimate relatives of her natural father. Thus, Article 992 of our Civil Code provides: "An illegitimate child has no right to inherit ab intestato from the legitimate children and relatives of his father or mother; ... ." And the

philosophy behind this provision is well expressed in Grey v. Fabie, 68 Phil. 128, as follows:

Between the natural child and the legitimate relatives of the father or mother who acknowledged it, the Code denies any right of succession. They cannot be called relatives and they have no right to inherit. Of course, there is a blood tie, but the law does not recognize it. On this, article 943 is based upon the reality of the facts and upon the presumption will of the interested parties; the natural child is disgracefully looked down upon by the legitimate family; the legitimate family is, in turn, hated by the natural child; the latter considers the privileged condition of the former and the resources of which it is thereby deprived; the former, in turn, sees in the natural child nothing but the product of sin, a palpable evidence of a blemish upon the family. Every relation is ordinarily broken in life; the law does no more than recognize this truth, by avoiding further grounds of resentment. (7 Manresa, 3d., p. 110.)

The oppositor cannot also derive comfort from the fact that she is an adopted child of Francisca Mortera because under our law the relationship established by adoption is limited solely to the adopter and the adopted and does not extend to the relatives of the adopting parents or of the adopted child except only as expressly provided for by law. Hence, no relationship is created between the adopted and the collaterals of the adopting parents. As a consequence, the adopted is an heir of the adopter but not of the relatives of the adopter.

The relationship established by the adoption, however, is limited to the adopting parent, and does not extend to his other relatives, except as expressly provided by law. Thus, the adopted child cannot be considered as a relative of the ascendants and collaterals of the adopting parents, nor of the legitimate children which they may have after the adoption, except that the law imposes certain impediments to marriage by reason of adoption. Neither are the children of the adopted considered as descendants of the adopter. The relationship created is exclusively between the adopter and the adopted, and does not extend to the relatives of either. (Tolentino, Civil Code of the Philippines, Vol. 1, p. 652).

Relationship by adoption is limited to adopter and adopted, and does not extend to other members of the family of either; but the adopted is prohibited to marry the children of the adopter to avoid scandal. (An Outline of Philippine Civil Law by Justice Jose B. L. Reyes and Ricardo C. Puno, Vol. 1, p. 313; See also Caguioa, Comments and Cases on Civil Law 1955, Vol 1, pp. 312-313; Paras, Civil Code of the Philippines, 1959 ed., Vol. 1, p. 515)

It thus appears that the oppositor has no right to intervene either as testamentary or as legal heir in this probate proceeding contrary to the ruling of the court a quo.

2. The next question to be determined is whether the will Exhibit A was duly admitted to probate. Oppositor claims that the same should not have been admitted not only because it was not properly attested to but also because it was procured thru pressure and influence and the testatrix affixed her signature by mistake believing that it contained her true intent.

The claim that the will was not properly attested to is contradicted by the evidence of record. In this respect it is fit that we state briefly the declarations of the instrumental witnesses.

Pilar Borja testified that the testatrix was in perfect state of health at the time she executed the will for she carried her conversation with her intelligently; that the testatrix signed immediately above the attestation clause and on each and every page thereof at the left-hand margin in the presence of the three instrumental witnesses and the notary public; that it was the testatrix herself who asked her and the other witnesses to act as such; and that the testatrix was the first one to sign and later she gave the will to the witnesses who read and signed it.

Pilar G. Sanchez also testified that she knew the testatrix since 1945; that it was the testatrix herself who asked her to be a witness to the will; that the testatrix was the first one to sign and she gave the will later to the witnesses to sign and afterwards she gave it to the notary public; that on the day of the execution of the will the testatrix was in the best of health.

Modesto Formilleza also testified that he was asked by the testatrix to be one of the witnesses to the will; that he read and understood the attestation clause before he signed the document, and all the witnesses spoke either in Spanish or in Tagalog. He finally said that the instrumental witnesses and the testatrix signed the will at the same time and place and identified their signatures.

This evidence which has not been successfully refuted proves conclusively that the will was duly executed because it was signed by the testatrix and her instrumental witnesses and the notary public in the manner provided for by law.

The claim that the will was procured by improper pressure and influence is also belied by the evidence. On this point the court a quo made the following observation:

The circumstance that the testatrix was then living under the same roof with Dr. Rene Teotico is no proof adequate in law to sustain the conclusion that there was improper pressure and undue influence. Nor is the alleged fact of isolation of the testatrix from the oppositor and her witnesses, for their supposed failure to see personally the testatrix, attributable to the vehemence of Dr. Rene Teotico, to exclude visitors, took place years after the execution of the will on May 17, 1951. Although those fact may have some weight to support the theory of the oppositor, yet they must perforce yield to the weightier fact that nothing could have prevented the testatrix, had she really wanted to from subsequently revoking her 1951 will if it did not in fact reflect and express her own testamentary dispositions. For, as testified to by the oppositor and her witnesses, the testatrix was often seen at the Escolta, in Quiapo and Sta. Cruz, Manila, walking and accompanied by no one. In fact, on different occasions, each of them was able to talk with her.

We have examined the evidence on the matter and we are fully in accord with the foregoing observation. Moreover, the mere claim that Josefina Mortera and her husband Rene Teotico had the opportunity to exert pressure on the testatrix simply because she lived in their house several years prior to the execution of the will and that she was old and suffering from hypertension in that she was virtually isolated from her friends for several years prior to her death is insufficient to disprove what the instrumental witnesses had testified that the testatrix freely and voluntarily and with full consciousness of the solemnity of the occasion executed the will under consideration. The exercise of improper pressure and undue influence must be supported by substantial evidence and must be of a kind that would overpower and subjugate the mind of the testatrix as to destroy her free agency and make her express the will of another rather than her own (Coso v. Deza, 42 0. G. 596). The burden is on the person challenging the will that such influence was exerted at the time of its execution, a matter which here was not done, for the evidence presented not only is insufficient but was disproved by the testimony of the instrumental witnesses.

3. The question of whether the probate court could determine the intrinsic validity of the provisions of a will has been decided by this Court in a long line of decisions among which the following may be cited:

Opposition to the intrinsic validity or legality of the provisions of the will cannot be entertained in Probate proceeding because its only purpose is merely to determine if the will has been executed in accordance with the requirements of the law." (Palacios v. Palacios, 58 0. G. 220)

... The authentication of a will decides no other questions than such as touch upon the capacity of the testator and the compliance with those requisites or solemnities which the law prescribes for the validity of wills. It does not determine nor even by implication prejudge the validity or efficiency of the provisions, these may be impugned as being vicious or null, notwithstanding its authentication. The questions relating to these points remain entirely unaffected, and may be raised even after the will has been authenticated. ...

From the fact that the legalization of a will does not validate the provisions therein contained, it does not follow that such provision lack the efficiency, or fail to produce the effects which the law recognizes when they are not impugned by anyone. In the matter of wills it is a fundamental doctrine that the will of the testator is the law governing the interested parties, and must be punctually complied with in so far as it is not contrary to the law or to public morals. (Montañano v. Suesa, 14 Phil. 676, 679-680)

To establish conclusively as against everyone, and once for all, the facts that a will was executed with the formalities required by law and that the testator was in a condition to make a will, is the only purpose of the proceedings under the new code for the probate of a will. (Sec. 625.) The judgment in such proceedings determines and can determine nothing more. In them the court has no power to pass upon the validity of any provisions made in the will. It can not decide, for example, that a certain legacy is void and another one is valid. (Castañeda v. Alemany, 3 Phil. 426, 428)

Pursuant to the foregoing precedents the pronouncement made by the court a quo declaring invalid the legacy made to Dr. Rene Teotico in the will Exhibit A must be set aside as having been made in excess of its jurisdiction. Another reason why said pronouncement should be set aside is that the legatee was not given an opportunity to defend the validity of the legacy for he was not allowed to intervene in this proceeding. As a corollary, the other pronouncements touching on the disposition of the estate in favor of some relatives of the deceased should also be set aside for the same reason.

WHEREFORE, with the exception of that portion of the decision which declares that the will in question has been duly executed and admitted the same to probate, the rest of the decision is hereby set aside. This case is ordered remanded to the court a quo for further proceedings. No pronouncement as to costs.

Bengzon, C.J., Concepcion, Reyes, J.B.L., Barrera, Paredes, Regala, Makalintal, Bengzon, J.P., and Zaldivar, JJ., concur.Dizon, J., took no part.

Teotico vs Del Val Teotico vs Del Val

GR No. L18753, March 26, 1965

FACTS:

Maria Mortera died on July 1955 leaving properties worth P600,000.  She executed a will written in Spanish, affixed her signature and acknowledged before Notary Public by her and the witnesses.  Among the legacies made in the will was the  P20,000 for Rene Teotico who was married to the testatrix’s niece, Josefina Mortera.  The usufruct of Maria’s interest in the Calvo Building were left to the said spouses and the ownership thereof was left in equal parts to her grandchildren, the legitimate children of said spouses.  Josefina was likewise instituted, as sole and universal heir to all the remainder of her properties not otherwise disposed by will.  Vicente Teotico filed a petition for the probate of the will but was opposed by Ana del Val Chan, claiming that she was an adopted child of Francisca (deceased sister of Maria) and an acknowledged natural child of Jose (deceased brother of Maria), that said will was not executed as required by law and that Maria as physically and mentally incapable to execute the will at the time of its execution and was executed under duress, threat, or influence of fear.

ISSUE: WON defendant has right to intervene in this proceeding.

HELD:

It is a well-settled rule that in order that a person may be allowed to intervene in a probate proceeding is that he must have an interest in the estate, will or in the property to be affected by either as executor or as a claimant of the estate and be benefited by such as an heir or one who has a claim against it as creditor.  Under the terms of the will, defendant has no right to intervene because she has no such interest in the estate either as heir, executor or administrator because it did not appear therein any provision designating her as heir/ legatee in any portion of the estate.  She could have acquired such right if she was a legal heir of the deceased but she is not under the CIVIL CODE.  Even if her allegations were true, the law does not give her any right to succeed the estate of the deceased sister of

both Jose and Francisca because being an illegitimate child she is prohibited by law from succeeding to the legitimate relatives of her natural father and that relationship established by adoption is limited solely to the adopter and adopted and does not extend to the relatives of the adopting parents except only as expressly provided by law.  As a consequence, she is an heir of the adopter but not of the relatives of the adopter. 

Hence, defendant has no right to intervene either as testamentary or as legal heir in the probate proceeding.

Republic of the PhilippinesSUPREME COURT

Manila

SECOND DIVISION

 

G.R. No. 92326 January 24, 1992

REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, petitioner, vs.COURT OF APPEALS and ZENAIDA C. BOBILES, respondents.

The Solicitor General for petitioner.

Mariano B. Miranda for private respondent.

 

REGALADO, J.:

Dissatisfied with the decision of respondent Court of Appeals promulgated on February 20, 1990 1 which affirmed in toto the decision of Branch 2 of the Regional Trial Court of Legaspi City 2 granting the petition of herein private respondent to adopt the minor Jason Condat, petitioner seeks the reversal thereof in the present petition for review on certiorari.

On February 2, 1988, Zenaida Corteza Bobiles filed a petition to adopt Jason Condat, then six (6) years old and who had been living with her family since he was four (4) months old, before the Regional Trial Court of Legaspi City, docketed therein as Special Proceeding No. 1386. 3

The court a quo, finding the petition to be sufficient in form and substance, issued an order dated February 15, 1988 setting the petition for hearing on March 28, 1988. 4 The order was duly published, with copies thereof seasonably served on the Solicitor General; Assistant Provincial Fiscal Mediavillo, Jr. of Albay; Salvador Condat, father of the child; and the social worker assigned to the court. A copy of said order was posted on the bulletin board of the court and in the other places it had required for that purpose. Nobody appeared to oppose the petition. 5

Compliance with the jurisdictional requirements having been proved at the hearing, the testimonies of herein private respondent, together with that of her husband, Dioscoro Bobiles, and one Ma. Luz Salameno of the Department of Social Welfare and Development were taken and admitted in the proceedings.

On March 20, 1988, the trial court rendered judgment disposing as follows:

ACCORDINGLY, it is declared that henceforth, the minor child, JASON CONDAT, be freed from all legal obligations of obedience and maintenance with respect to his natural parents, and be, to all intents and purposes, the child of the spouses Dioscoro and Zenaida Bobiles, and the surname of the child be changed to "Bobiles" which is the surname of the petitioner.

Furnish the Office of the Solicitor General, Manila, the Department of Social Welfare and Development, Regional Office, Region V, Legaspi City, and the Local Civil Registrar of Tiwi, Albay, with copies of this decision. 6

Herein petitioner appealed to the Court of Appeals which, as earlier stated, affirmed the aforesaid decision of the court below. Hence, this present petition with the following assignment of errors:

1. The Honorable Court of Appeals erred in ruling that the Family Code cannot be applied retroactively to the petition for adoption filed by Zenaida C. Bobiles; and

2 The Honorable Court of Appeals erred in affirming the trial court's decision which granted the petition to adopt Jason Condat in favor of spouses Dioscoro Bobiles and Zenaida C. Bobiles. 7

The petition for adoption was filed by private respondent Zenaida C. Bobiles on February 2, 1988, when the law applicable was Presidential Decree No. 603, the Child and Youth Welfare Code. Under said code, a petition for adoption may be filed by either of the spouses or by both of them. However, after the trial court rendered its decision and while the case was pending on

appeal in the Court of Appeals, Executive Order No. 209, the Family Code, took effect on August 3, 1988. Under the said new law, joint adoption by husband and wife is mandatory.

On the foregoing consideration, petitioner contends that the petition for adoption should be dismissed outright for it was filed solely by private respondent without joining her husband, in violation of Article 185 of the Family Code which requires joint adoption by the spouses. It argues that the Family Code must be applied retroactively to the petition filed by Mrs. Bobiles, as the latter did not acquire a vested right to adopt Jason Condat by the mere filing of her petition for adoption. We are not persuaded.

Preliminarily, we observe that petitioner's theory implies that the non-inclusion of Dioscoro Bobiles as a co-petitioner is a jurisdictional defect, hence its prayer for an outright dismissal on that score. It could not be taking exception only on the ground of non-joinder since petitioner must be aware that non-joinder is not a ground for the dismissal of an action or a special proceeding. 8 We further apprehend that this objection has been raised for the first time on appeal in respondent court. Nonetheless, we shall clarify petitioner's misgivings as postulated in its aforestated assignment of errors.

Article 246 of the Family Code provides for retroactive effect of appropriate relevant provisions thereof, subject to the qualification that such retrospective application will not prejudice or impair vested or acquired rights in accordance with the Civil Code or other laws.

A vested right is one whose existence, effectivity and extent does not depend upon events foreign to the will of the holder. 9 The term expresses the concept of present fixed interest which in right reason and natural justice should be protected against arbitrary State action, or an innately just and imperative right which enlightened free society, sensitive to inherent and irrefragable individual rights, cannot deny. 10 Vested rights include not only legal or equitable title to the enforcement of a demand, but also an exemption from new obligations created after the right has vested. 11

Under the Child and Youth Welfare Code, private respondent had the right to file a petition for adoption by herself, without joining her husband therein. When Mrs. Bobiles filed her petition, she was exercising her explicit and unconditional right under said law. Upon her filing thereof, her right to file such petition alone and to have the same proceed to final adjudication, in accordance with the law in force at the time, was already vested and cannot be prejudiced or impaired by the enactment of a new law.

When private respondent filed her petition in Special Proceeding No. 1386, the trial court acquired jurisdiction thereover in accordance with the governing law. Jurisdiction being a matter of substantive law, the established

rule is that the jurisdiction of the court is determined by the statute in force at the time of the commencement of the action. 12 We do not find in the present case such facts as would constitute it as an exception to the rule.

The first error assigned by petitioner warrants a review of applicable local and foreign jurisprudence. For that purpose, we start with the premise that Article 185 of the Family Code is remedial in nature. Procedural statutes are ordinarily accorded a retrospective construction in the sense that they may be applied to pending actions and proceedings, as well as to future actions. However, they will not be so applied as to defeat procedural steps completed before their enactment. 13

Procedural matters are governed by the law in force when they arise, and procedural statutes are generally retroactive in that they apply to pending proceedings and are not confined to those begun after their enactment although, with respect to such pending proceedings, they affect only procedural steps taken after their enactment. 14

The rule that a statutory change in matters of procedure will affect pending actions and proceedings, unless the language of the act excludes them from its operation, is not so extensive that it may be used to validate or invalidate proceedings taken before it goes into effect, since procedure must be governed by the law regulating it at the time the question of procedure arises. 15

The jurisdictional, as distinguished from the purely procedural, aspect of a case is substantive in nature and is subject to a more stringent rule. A petition cannot be dismissed by reason of failure to comply with a law which was not yet in force and effect at the time. As long as the petition for adoption was sufficient in form and substance in accordance with the law in governance at the time it was filed, the court acquires jurisdiction and retains it until it fully disposes of the case. 16 To repeat, the jurisdiction of the court is determined by the statute in force at the time of the commencement of the action. Such jurisdiction of a court, whether in criminal or civil cases, once it attaches cannot be ousted by subsequent happenings or events, although of a character which would have prevented jurisdiction from attaching in the first instance. 17

On the second issue, petitioner argues that, even assuming that the Family Code should not apply retroactively, the Court of Appeals should have modified the trial court's decision by granting the adoption in favor of private respondent Zenaida C. Bobiles only, her husband not being a petitioner. We do not consider this as a tenable position and, accordingly, reject the same.

Although Dioscoro Bobiles was not named as one of the petitioners in the petition for adoption filed by his wife, his affidavit of consent, attached to the

petition as Annex "B" and expressly made an integral part thereof, shows that he himself actually joined his wife in adopting the child. The pertinent parts of his written consent read as follows:

xxx xxx xxx

2. That my wife, ZENAIDA O. CORTEZA BOBILES and I mutually desire to adopt as our child, a boy named JASON CONDAT, still a minor being six (6) years old, likewise residing at 18 C. Imperial Street, Legaspi City, Albay, also in the Philippines;

3. That we are filing the corresponding Petition for Adoption of said minor child, JASON CONDAT, before the Juvenile and Domestic Relations court, now the Regional Trial Court in Legaspi City, Albay in the Philippines;

4. That I, Dioscoro C. Bobiles as the husband and father, am giving my lawful consent to this adoption of said minor child, JASON CONDAT;

5. That further, my wife ZENAIDA O. CORTEZA BOBILES, and I have continuously reared and cared for this minor child, JASON CONDAT since birth;

6. That as a result thereof, my wife and I have developed a kind of maternal and paternal love for the boy as our very own, exercising therein the care, concern and diligence of a good father toward him;

7. That I am executing this document, an AFFIDAVIT OF CONSENT for whatever it is worth in the premises as to the matter of adoption of this minor child, JASON CONDAT, by my wife ZENAIDA O. CORTEZA BOBILES and by me, DIOSCORO C. BOBILES, in any court of justice; (Emphasis supplied.) 18

xxx xxx xxx

The foregoing declarations, and his subsequent confirmatory testimony in open court, are sufficient to make him a co-petitioner. Under the circumstances then obtaining, and by reason of his foreign residence, he must have yielded to the legal advice that an affidavit of consent on his part sufficed to make him a party to the petition. This is evident from the text of his affidavit. Punctiliousness in language and pedantry in the formal requirements should yield to and be eschewed in the higher considerations of substantial justice. The future of an innocent child must not be

compromised by arbitrary insistence of rigid adherence to procedural rules on the form of pleadings.

We see no reason why the following doctrines in American law should not apply to this case and, for that matter, in our jurisdiction. It is a settled rule therein that adoption statutes, as well as matters of procedure leading up to adoption, should be liberally construed to carry out the beneficent purposes of the adoption institution and to protect the adopted child in the rights and privileges coming to it as a result of the adoption. 19 The modern tendency of the courts is to hold that there need not be more than a substantial compliance with statutory requirements to sustain the validity of the proceeding; to refuse would be to indulge in such a narrow and technical construction of the statute as to defeat its intention and beneficial results or to invalidate proceedings where every material requirement of the statute was complied with.

In support of this rule it is said that it is not the duty of the courts to bring the judicial microscope to bear upon the case in order that every slight defect may be enlarged and magnified so that a reason may be found for declaring invalid an act consummated years before, but rather to approach the case with the inclination to uphold such acts if it is found that there was a substantial compliance with the statute. 20 The technical rules of pleading should not be stringently applied to adoption proceedings, and it is deemed more important that the petition should contain facts relating to the child and its parents, which may give information to those interested, than that it should be formally correct as a pleading. Accordingly, it is generally held that a petition will confer jurisdiction if it substantially complies with the adoption statute, alleging all facts necessary to give the court jurisdiction. 21

In determining whether or not to set aside the decree of adoption the interests and welfare of the child are of primary and paramount consideration. 22 The welfare of a child is of paramount consideration in proceedings involving its custody and the propriety of its adoption by another, and the courts to which the application for adoption is made is charged with the duty of protecting the child and its interests and, to bring those interests fully before it, it has authority to make rules to accomplish that end. 23 Ordinarily, the approval of the adoption rests in the sound discretion of the court. This discretion should be exercised in accordance with the best interests of the child, as long as the natural rights of the parents over the child are not disregarded. In the absence of a showing of grave abuse, the exercise of this discretion by the approving official will not be disturbed. 24

In the case at bar, the rights concomitant to and conferred by the decree of adoption will be for the best interests of the child. His adoption is with the consent of his natural parents. 25 The representative of the Department of

Social Welfare and Development unqualifiedly recommended the approval of the petition for adoption 26 and the trial court dispensed with the trial custody for several commendatory reasons, especially since the child had been living with the adopting parents since infancy. 27 Further, the said petition was with the sworn written consent of the children of the adopters.

The trial court and respondent court acted correctly in granting the petition for adoption and we find no reason to disturb the same. As found and aptly stated by respondent court: "Given the facts and circumstances of the case and considered in the light of the foregoing doctrine, 28 We are of the opinion and so hold that the decree of adoption issued by the court a quo would go a long way towards promoting the welfare of the child and the enhancement of his opportunities for a useful and happy life." 29

Adoption statutes, being humane and salutary, hold the interests and welfare of the child to be of paramount consideration. They are designed to provide homes, parental care and education for unfortunate, needy or orphaned children and give them the protection of society and family in the person of the adopted, as well as to allow childless couples or persons to experience the joys of parenthood and give them legally a child in the person of the adopted for the manifestation of their natural parental instincts. Every reasonable intendment should be sustained to promote and fulfill these noble and compassionate objectives of the law. 30

WHEREFORE, the instant petition is hereby DENIED.

SO ORDERED.

Melencio-Herrera, Paras, Padilla and Nocon, JJ., concur.

 

Footnotes

1 Penned by Justice Oscar M. Herrera, with Justices Jose C. Campos, Jr. and Asaali S. Isnani concurring, in CA-G.R. CV No. 17911.

2 Per Judge Angel M. Alegre in Sp. Proc. No. 1386.

3 Rollo, 15.

4 Original Record, 8.

5 Rollo, 18.

6 Ibid., 25-26.

7 Ibid., 6.

8 Sec. 11, Rule 3, in relation to Sec. 2, Rule 72, Rules of Court.

9 J.B.L. Reyes and R.C. Puno, Outline of Philippine Civil Law, 15 (1964).

10 Ayog, et al., vs. Cusi, etc., et al., 118 SCRA 492, 499 (1982).

11 16A Am Jur 2d, Constitutional Law, 651.

12 People vs. Paderna, 22 SCRA 273 (1968); People vs. Mariano, et al., 71 SCRA 600 (1976); Lee, et al. vs. Presiding Judge, etc., et al., 145 SCRA 408 (1986); Atlas Fertilizer Corp. vs. Navarro, etc., et al., 149 SCRA 432 (1987).

13 82 C.J.S., Statutes, 998.

14 Cohen vs. Reckseit, 53 N.Y.S. 2d 365, 184 Misc. 107.

15 People ex rel. Central New England Ry. Co. vs. State Tax Commission, 26 N.Y.S. 2d 425, 261 App. Div. 416; Mich.-Clugston vs. Rogers, 169 N.W. 9, 10, 203 Mich. 339.

16 Republic vs. Pielago, G.R. No. 72218, Resolution, July 21, 1986.

17 Ramos, et al., vs. Central Bank of the Philippines, 41 SCRA 565 (1971), and cases therein cited.

18 Original Record, 4. This was executed on October 17, 1987 in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. where he was then residing due to his employment in the Saint Francis Hospital there, and was duly authenticated in the Philippine Consulate General in that city.

19 2 Am Jur 2d, Adoption, 865.

20 Ibid., id., 900.

21 2 C.J.S., Adoption of Children, 418.

22 2 Am Jur 2d, Adoption, 910.

23 Ibid., id., 907.

24 2 C.J.S., Adoption of Children, 412.

25 Original Record, 3.

26 TSN, March 28, 1988, 7.

27 Rollo, 21-22.

28 Citing Daoang vs. Municipal Judge of San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte, 159 SCRA 369 (1988).

29 Rollo, 29.

30 Bobanovic, et al. vs. Montes, etc., et al., 142 SCRA 485 (1986).

Republic of the PhilippinesSUPREME COURT

Manila

SECOND DIVISION

G.R. No. L-34568 March 28, 1988

RODERICK DAOANG, and ROMMEL DAOANG, assisted by their father, ROMEO DAOANG, petitioners, vs.THE MUNICIPAL JUDGE, SAN NICOLAS, ILOCOS NORTE, ANTERO AGONOY and AMANDA RAMOS-AGONOY, respondents.

 

PADILLA, J.:

This is a petition for review on certiorari of the decision, dated 30 June 1971, rendered by the respondent judge * in Spec. Proc. No. 37 of Municipal Court of San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte, entitled: "In re Adoption of the Minors Quirino Bonilla and Wilson Marcos; Antero Agonoy and Amanda R. Agonoy, petitioners", the dispositive part of which reads, as follows:

Wherefore, Court renders judgment declaring that henceforth Quirino Bonilla and Wilson Marcos be, to all legitimate intents and purposes, the children by adoption of the joint petitioners Antero Agonoy and Amanda R. Agonoy and that the former be freed from legal obedience and maintenance by their respective parents, Miguel Bonilla and Laureana Agonoy for Quirino Bonilla

and Modesto Marcos and Benjamina Gonzales for Wilson Marcos and their family names 'Bonilla' and 'Marcos' be changed with "Agonoy", which is the family name of the petitioners.

Successional rights of the children and that of their adopting parents shall be governed by the pertinent provisions of the New Civil Code.

Let copy of this decision be furnished and entered into the records of the Local Civil Registry of San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte, for its legal effects at the expense of the petitioners. 1

The undisputed facts of the case are as follows:

On 23 March 1971, the respondent spouses Antero and Amanda Agonoy filed a petition with the Municipal Court of San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte, seeking the adoption of the minors Quirino Bonilla and Wilson Marcos. The case, entitled: "In re Adoption of the Minors Quirino Bonilla and Wilson Marcos, Antero Agonoy and Amanda Ramos-Agonoy, petitioners", was docketed therein as Spec. Proc. No. 37. 2

The petition was set for hearing on 24 April 1971 and notices thereof were caused to be served upon the office of the Solicitor General and ordered published in the ILOCOS TIMES, a weekly newspaper of general circulation in the province of Ilocos Norte, with editorial offices in Laoag City. 3

On 22 April 1971, the minors Roderick and Rommel Daoang, assisted by their father and guardian ad litem, the petitioners herein, filed an opposition to the aforementioned petition for adoption, claiming that the spouses Antero and Amanda Agonoy had a legitimate daughter named Estrella Agonoy, oppositors' mother, who died on 1 March 1971, and therefore, said spouses were disqualified to adopt under Art. 335 of the Civil Code. 4

After the required publication of notice had been accomplished, evidence was presented. Thereafter, the Municipal Court of San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte rendered its decision, granting the petition for adoption. 5

Hence, the present recourse by the petitioners (oppositors in the lower court).

The sole issue for consideration is one of law and it is whether or not the respondent spouses Antero Agonoy and Amanda Ramos-Agonoy are disqualified to adopt under paragraph (1), Art. 335 of the Civil Code.

The pertinent provision of law reads, as follows:

Art. 335. The following cannot adopt:

(1) Those who have legitimate, legitimated, acknowledged natural children, or children by legal fiction;

xxx xxx xxx

In overruling the opposition of the herein petitioners, the respondents judge held that "to add grandchildren in this article where no grandchil is included would violate to (sic) the legal maxim that what is expressly included would naturally exclude what is not included".

But, it is contended by the petitioners, citing the case of In re Adoption of Millendez, 6 that the adoption of Quirino Bonilla and Wilson Marcos would not only introduce a foreign element into the family unit, but would result in the reduction of their legititimes. It would also produce an indirect, permanent and irrevocable disinheritance which is contrary to the policy of the law that a subsequent reconciliation between the offender and the offended person deprives the latter of the right to disinherit and renders ineffectual any disinheritance that may have been made.

We find, however, that the words used in paragraph (1) of Art. 335 of the Civil Code, in enumerating the persons who cannot adopt, are clear and unambiguous. The children mentioned therein have a clearly defined meaning in law and, as pointed out by the respondent judge, do not include grandchildren.

Well known is the rule of statutory construction to the effect that a statute clear and unambiguous on its face need not be interpreted; stated otherwise, the rule is that only statutes with an ambiguous or doubtful meaning may be the subject of statutory construction. 7

Besides, it appears that the legislator, in enacting the Civil Code of the Philippines, obviously intended that only those persons who have certain classes of children, are disqualified to adopt. The Civil Code of Spain, which was once in force in the Philippines, and which served as the pattern for the Civil Code of the Philippines, in its Article 174, disqualified persons who have legitimate or legitimated descendants from adopting. Under this article, the spouses Antero and Amanda Agonoy would have been disqualified to adopt as they have legitimate grandchildren, the petitioners herein. But, when the Civil Code of the Philippines was adopted, the word "descendants" was changed to "children", in paragraph (1) of Article 335.

Adoption used to be for the benefit of the adoptor. It was intended to afford to persons who have no child of their own the consolation of having one, by creating through legal fiction, the relation of paternity and filiation where

none exists by blood relationship. 8 The present tendency, however, is geared more towards the promotion of the welfare of the child and the enhancement of his opportunities for a useful and happy life, and every intendment is sustained to promote that objective. 9 Under the law now in force, having legitimate, legitimated, acknowledged natural children, or children by legal fiction, is no longer a ground for disqualification to adopt. 10

WHEREFORE, the petition is DENIED. The judgment of the Municipal Court of San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte in Spec. Proc. No. 37 is AFFIRMED. Without pronouncement as to costs in this instance.

SO ORDERED.

Yap, Melencio-Herrera, Paras and Sarmiento, JJ., concur.

 

Footnotes

* Judge Pascual C. Barab.

1 Rollo, pp. 19-20.

2 Id., p. 8.

3 Id., p. 12.

4 Id., p. 13.

5 Id., p. 14.

6 G.R. No. L-28195, June 10, 1971, 39 SCRA 499.

7 2 Sutherland, Statutory Construction, 3rd. ed., Section 4502, p. 316.

8 In re Adoption of Resaba, 95 Phil. 244.

9 Santos vs. Aranzanso, 123 Phil. 160.

10 Child and Welfare Code, Art. 28.

Daoang vs. Municipal Judge of San Nicolas Daoang v. Municipal Judge of San NicolasGR L-34568, 28 March 1988 (159 SCRA 369)

Facts:

On 23 March 1971, spouses Antero and Amanda Agonoy filed a petition with the Municipal Court of San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte seeking the adoption of minors Quirino Bonilla and Wilson Marcos. However, minors Roderick and Rommel Daoang, assisted by their father and guardian ad litem, the petitioners herein filed an opposition to the said adoption. They contended that the spouses Antero and Amanda Agonoy had a legitimate daughter named Estrella Agonoy, oppositors mother, who died on 1 March 1971, and therefore said spouses were disqualified to adopt under Article 335 of the Civil Code, which provides that those who have legitimate, legitimated, acknowledged natural children or children by legal fiction cannot adopt.

Issue: Whether the spouses Antero Agonoy and Amanda Ramos are disqualified to adopt under paragraph 1 of Article 335 of the Civil Code.

Held:

The words used in paragraph (1) of Article 335 of the Civil Code, in enumerating the persons who cannot adopt, are clear and unambiguous. When the New Civil Code was adopted, it changed the word “descendant,” found in the Spanish Civil Code to which the New Civil Code was patterned, to “children.” The children thus mentioned have a clearly defined meaning in law and do not include grandchildren. Well known is the rule of statutory construction to the effect that a statute clear and unambiguous on its face need not be interpreted. The rule is that only statutes with an ambiguous or doubtful meaning may be the subjects of statutory construction. In the present case, Roderick and Rommel Daoang, the grandchildren of Antero Agonoy and Amanda Ramos-Agonoy, cannot assail the adoption of Quirino Bonilla and Wilson Marcos by the Agonoys.The Supreme Court denied the petition, and affirmed the judgment of the Municipal Court of San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte (Special Proceedings 37), wthout pronouncement as to costs.

Republic of the PhilippinesSUPREME COURT

Manila

FIRST DIVISION

G.R. No. L-46345 January 30, 1990

RESTITUTO CENIZA and JESUS CENIZA, petitioners, vs.THE HON. COURT OF APPEALS, MAGNO DABON, VICENTA DABON, TERESITA DABON, EUGENIA DABON, and TOMAS DABON, respondents.

Vicente P. Valera and Pedro Rosito & Jesus F. Balicanta for petitioners.

Victorino U. Montecillo for respondents.

 

GRINO-AQUINO, J.:

This is a petition for review of the order dated October 29, 1976, of the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. No. 48546 entitled, "Restituto Ceniza, et al. vs. Magno Dabon, et al.," dismissing the petitioners' complaint for reconveyance of their shares in co-ownership property and reversing the decision of the trial court in their favor.

On June 14, 1967, the petitioners filed against private respondents, an action in the Court of First Instance of Cebu for recovery of their title to Lots Nos. 627-B and 627-C (being portions of Lot No. 627 with an area of approximately 5,306 square meters) situated in Casuntingan, Mandaue, Cebu (now Mandaue City), which originally formed part of "Hacienda de Mandaue" of the Seminario de San Carlos de Cebu. The Property is covered by reconstituted Original Certificate of Title No. RO-10996 issued on February 8, 1939 (formerly Decree No. 694438 issued on February 27, 1934) in the name of "Vicente Dabon married to Marcela [or Marcelina] Ceniza." (pp. 7 and 19, Record on Appeal).

Petitioners are the descendants of Manuel Ceniza while the private respondents are the descendants of his sister, Sofia Ceniza. Sofia Ceniza was childless but she had an adopted daughter named Flaviana Ceniza, who begot a daughter named Marced Ceniza and who in turn had a daughter named Marcelina (or Marcela) Ceniza who married Vicente Dabon. Private respondents are the children of this marriage and they are the great-great-grandchildren of Sofia Ceniza.

On the other hand, Manuel Ceniza had an only son, Pablo, who had two sons, Santiago and Jose Ceniza. Petitioners Restituto and Jesus Ceniza and a certain Nemesia Ceniza-Albina are their children and the great-grandchildren of Manuel Ceniza.

The records disclose that when Hacienda de Mandaue was subdivided for resale to the occupants in 1929, Jose Ceniza and Vicente Dabon, who were residing in the hacienda, jointly purchased Lot 627 on installment basis and

they agreed, for convenience, to have the land registered in the name of Dabon. Since then, Jose Ceniza, Vicente Dabon, and their heirs have possessed their respective portions of the land, declared the same for taxation, paid real estate taxes on their respective shares, and made their respective installment payments to the Seminario de San Carlos de Cebu.

After Dabon died in 1954, his seven (7) children, named Magno, Jacinta, Tomas, Flaviana, Soledad, Teresita and Eugenia, succeeded to his possession of a portion of the land.

On November 4, 1961, a private land surveyor, Espiritu Bunagan, on the request of Jacinta Dabon and Restituto Ceniza who jointly defrayed the cost, divided Lot 627 into three parts, namely:

(1) Lot No. 627-A with 3,538 square meters for Marcela Ceniza;

(2) Lot No. 627-B with 884 square meters for Restituto Ceniza; and

(3) Lot No. 627-C with 834 square meters for Nemesia Ceniza-Albina, who later bequeathed her share to her brother, Jesus Ceniza. (p. 19, Record on Appeal).

The present controversy arose because the private respondents refused to convey Lots Nos. 627-B and 627-C to the petitioners. They claimed that their predecessor-in-interest, Vicente Dabon, was the sole and exclusive owner of Lot 627, by purchase from the Seminario de San Carlos de Cebu. In their answer to the petitioners' complaint for reconveyance in June 1967, they alleged that the petitioners' right of action had already prescribed.

Petitioners replied that Vicente Dabon held the land in trust for them, as co-owners, hence, their action for reconveyance was imprescriptible.

On August 31, 1970, the trial court rendered judgment for the petitioners. Finding that there existed a co-ownership among the parties, it ordered the private respondents to execute deeds of conveyance of Lots Nos. 627-B and 627-C in favor of the plaintiffs, Restituto and Jesus Ceniza, respectively (p. 35, Record on Appeal).

On appeal by the defendants (now private respondents) the Court of Appeals on October 29, 1976, reversed that decision of the trial court. It ruled that the petitioners' right of action had prescribed after the lapse of 20 years from the date of registration of the land on February 8, 1939 in Vicente Dabon's name (p. 32, Rollo).

The petitioners have appealed to this Court by a petition for review under Rule 45 of the Rules of Court.

The legal issue presented by the petition is whether the registration of the title of the land in the name of one of the co-owner, constituted a repudiation of the co-ownership for purposes of acquisitive prescription.

We find merit in the petition for review.

The trial court correctly ruled that since a trust relation and co-ownership were proven to exist between the predecessors- in-interest of both petitioners and private respondents, prescription did not run in favor of Dabon's heirs except from the time that they repudiated the co-ownership and made the repudiation known to the other co-owners, Restituto and Jesus Ceniza (Cortes vs. Oliva, 33 Phil. 480).

Paragraph 5 of Article 494 of the Civil Code provides-

No prescription shall run in favor of a co-owner or co-heir against his co-owners or co-heirs so long as he expressly or impliedly recognizes the co-ownership.

The registration of Lot No. 627 in the name of Vicente Dabon created a trust in favor of his co-owner Jose Ceniza, and the latter's heirs. Article 1452 of the Civil Code states:

If two or more persons agree to purchase property and common consent the legal title is taken in the name of one of them for the benefit of all, a trust is created by force of law in favor of the others in proportion to the interest of each.

This Court has ruled in numerous cases involving fiduciary relations that, as a general rule, the trustee's possession is not adverse and therefore cannot ripen into a title by prescription. Adverse possession requires the concurrence of the following circumstances:

a) that the trustee has performed unequivocal acts of repudiation amounting to the ouster of the cestui que trust;

b) that such positive acts of repudiation have been made known to the cestui que trust; and

c) that the evidence thereon should be clear and conclusive.

The above elements are not present here for the petitioners/ co-owners have not been ousted from the land. They continue to possess their respective

shares of Lot 627 and they have been paying the realty taxes thereon. Restituto's house stands on his portion of the Land. Assuming that the private respondents' rejection of the subdivision plan for the partition of the land was an act of repudiation of the co-ownership, prescription had not yet set in when the petitioners instituted the present action for reconveyance. These circumstances were overlooked by the Court of Appeals.

In Custodio v. Casiano 9 SCRA 841, we ruled that:

Where title to land was issued in the name of a co-heir merely with the understanding that he would act as a trustee of his sisters, and there is no evidence that this trust relation had ever been repudiated by said trustee, it is held that a reaction of co-ownership existed between such trustee and his sisters and the right of the successors-in-interest of said sisters to bring the present action for recovery of their shares therein against the successors-in-interest of said trustee cannot barred by prescription, despite the, lapse of 25 years from the date of registration of the land in the trustee's name. (Emphasis supplied.)

In Escobar v. Locsin, 74 Phil. 86, we affirmed the duty of the courts to shield fiduciary relations "against every manner of chicanery or detestable design cloaked by legal technicalities" and to guard against misuse of the Torrens system "to foment betrayal in the performance of a trust."

In this case, since the statutory period of limitation within which to file an action for reconveyance, after the defendants had repudiated the co-ownership in 1961, had not yet run its course when the petitioners filed said action in 1967, the action was not barred by prescription.

WHEREFORE. the decision of the Court of appeals is hereby REVERSED AND SET ASIDE and the decision dated August 31, 1970 of the then Court of First Instance of Cebu, Branch VI, in Civil Case No. R-10030 is reinstated. Costs against the private respondents.

SO ORDERED.

Narvasa, Cruz, Gancayco and Medialdea, JJ., concur.

Republic of the PhilippinesSUPREME COURT

Manila

THIRD DIVISION

G.R. No. L-29727 December 14, 1988

PEDRO OLIVERAS, TEODORA GASPAR, MELECIO OLIVERAS and ANICETA MINOR, plaintiffs-appellees, vs.CANDIDO LOPEZ, SEVERO LOPEZ, HIPOLITO LOPEZ, EUGENIA LOPEZ, PRIMITIVO GASPAR, CORAZON LOPEZ, ALEJANDRO CACAYURIN, FAUSTINA BOTUYAN, MODESTO SALAZAR, ADORACION BOTUYAN, CLAUDIO GANOTICE and ENONG BOTUYAN, defendants-appellants.

Venancio B. Fernando for defendants-appellants.

 

FERNAN, C.J.:

This case exemplifies the Filipino custom of keeping inherited property in a prolonged juridical condition of co-owner ship.

Lorenzo Lopez owned Lot 4685 of the Cadastral survey of Villasis, Pangasinan with an area of 69,687 square meters as evidenced by Original Certificate of Title No. 15262. 1 In December, 1931, Lorenzo Lopez died, 2 leaving said property to his wife, Tomasa Ramos and six (6) children. From that time on, the heirs of Lorenzo Lopez did not initiate any moves to legally partition the property.

More than twenty-one years later, or on February 11, 1953, Tomasa Ramos and her eldest son, Candido Lopez, executed a deed of absolute sale of the "eastern undivided four thousand two hundred and fifty seven-square meters (4,257) more or less, of the undivided portion of (their) interests, rights and participation" over Lot 4685, in favor of the spouses Melecio Oliveras and Aniceta Minor, in consideration of the amount of one thousand pesos (P1,000). 3

On the same day, Tomasa and Candido executed another deed of absolute sale of the "undivided" four thousand two hundred and fifty-seven (4,257) square meters of the "eastern part" of Lot 4685 in favor of the spouses Pedro Oliveras and Teodora Gaspar, also in consideration of P1,000. 4 Each of the said documents bear the thumbmark of Tomasa and the signature of Candido.

In his affidavit also executed on February 11, 1953, Candido stated that a month prior to the execution of the deed of sale in favor of Melecio Oliveras, he offered his: "undivided portion" of Lot 4685 to his "adjacent owners" but none of them was "in a position to purchase" said property. 5

Since the execution of the two deeds of absolute sale, the vendees, brothers Melecio and Pedro, had been paying the real property taxes for their respectively purchased properties. 6 They also had been in possession of their purchased properties which, being planted to palay and peanuts, were segregated from the rest of Lot 4685 by dikes. 7

More than thirteen years later or on November 21, 1966, the counsel of the Oliveras brothers wrote the heirs of Lorenzo Lopez reminding them of the Oliverases' demands to partition the property so that they could acquire their respective titles thereto without resorting to court action, and that, should they fail to respond, he would be forced to file a case in court. 8 Apparently, the Lopezes did not answer said letter since on December 15, 1966, the Oliveras brothers and their wives filed a complaint for partition and damages 9 in the Court of First Instance of Pangasinan. 10

The Oliverases stated in their complaint that possession of the disputed properties was delivered to them with the knowledge and consent of the defendants; that they had been paying the real estate taxes thereon; that prior to the sale, said properties were offered to the other co-owners for sale but they refused to buy them; that on February 18, 1953, the transactions were duly annotated and entered in the Memorandum of encumbrances of OCT No. 15262 as adverse claims; and that their desire to segregate the portions of Lot 4685 sold to them was frustrated by defendants' adamant refusal to lend them the owner's duplicate of OCT No. 15262 and to execute a deed of partition of the whole lot.

In claiming moral damages in the amount of P2,000.00 plaintiffs alleged that defendants also refused to allow them to survey and segregate the portions bought by them. Plaintiffs prayed that the court order the defendants to partition Lot 4685 and to allow them to survey and segregate the portions they had purchased. They also demanded payment of P800.00 as attorney's fees and cost of the suit.

In their answer, the defendants alleged that no sale ever transpired as the alleged vendors could not have sold specific portions of the property; that plaintiffs' possession and occupation of specific portions of the properties being illegal, they could not ripen into ownership; and that they were not under any obligation to lend their copy of the certificate of title or to accede to plaintiffs' request for the partition or settlement of the property. As special and affirmative defenses, the defendants contended that the deeds of sale were null and void and hence, unenforceable against them; that the complaint did not state a cause of action and that the cause or causes of action if any, had prescribed.

Defendants averred in their counterclaim that despite repeated demands, plaintiffs refused and failed to vacate the premises; that the properties

occupied by the plaintiffs yielded an average net produce in palay and peanuts in the amount of P1,600.00 annually, and that the complaint was filed to harass them. They prayed for the dismissal of the complaint and the payment of P1,600.00 per year from 1953 until plaintiffs shall have vacated the premises and P1,000.00 for attorney's fees.

Plaintiffs filed an answer to defendants' counterclaim, denying all the allegations therein and stating that defendants never demanded that plaintiffs vacate the portions of Lot 4685 they had bought.

The lower court explored the possibility of an amicable settlement between the parties without success. Hence, it set the case for trial and thereafter, it rendered adecision 11 declaring valid the deeds of absolute sale 12 and ordering the defendants to allow the segregation of the sold portions of Lot 4685 by a licensed surveyor in order that the plaintiffs could obtain their respective certificates of title over their portions of said lot.

In resolving the case, the lower court passed upon the issue of whether the two deeds of absolute sale were what they purported to be or merely mortgage documents. It considered as indicia of plaintiffs' absolute dominion over the portions sold to them their actual possession thereof without any opposition from the defendants until the filing of the complaint, their payment of taxes thereon and their having benefited from the produce of the land. The court ruled that the defendants' testimonial evidence that the deeds in question were merely mortgage documents cannot overcome the evidentiary value of the public instruments presented by the plaintiffs.

On the issue of whether the two deeds of absolute sale were null and void considering that the land subject thereof had not yet been partitioned, the court observed that the total area of 8,514 square meters sold to plaintiffs by Candido was less than his share should Lot 4685 with an area of 69,687 square meters be divided among the six children of Lorenzo Lopez and their mother. In this connection, the lower court also found that during his lifetime, and before Candido got married, Lorenzo Lopez had divided Lot 4685 among his children who then took possession of their respective shares. *

The defendants appealed said decision to this Court contending that the lower court erred in declaring the two deeds of absolute sale as valid, in ordering the segregation of the sold portions of Lot 4685 to enable the plaintiffs to obtain their respective certificates of title, and in not considering their defense of prescription.

The extrinsic validity of the two deeds of absolute sale is not in issue in this case in view of the finding of the trial court that the defendants admittedly

do not question their due execution. 13 What should pre-occupy the Court is the intrinsic validity of said deeds insofar as they pertain to sales of designated portions of an undivided, co-owned property.

In a long line of decisions, this Court has held that before the partition of a land or thing held in common, no individual co-owner can claim title to any definite portion thereof. All that the co-owner has is an Ideal or abstract quota or proportionate share in the entire land or thing. 14

However, the duration of the juridical condition of co-ownership is not limitless. Under Article 494 and 1083 of the Civil Code, co-ownership of an estate should not exceed the period of twenty (20) years. And, under the former article, any agreement to keep a thing or property undivided should be for a ten-year period only. Where the parties stipulate a definite period of in division which exceeds the maximum allowed by law, said stipulation shall be void only as to the period beyond such maximum. 15

Although the Civil Code is silent as to the effect of the in division of a property for more than twenty years, it would be contrary to public policy to sanction co-ownership beyond the period set by the law. Otherwise, the 20-year limitation expressly mandated by the Civil Code would be rendered meaningless.

In the instant case, the heirs of Lorenzo Lopez maintained the co-ownership for more than twenty years. We hold that when Candido and his mother (who died before the filing of the complaint for partition) sold definite portions of Lot 4685, they validly exercised dominion over them because, by operation of law, the co-ownership had ceased. The filing of the complaint for partition by the Oliverases who, as vendees, are legally considered as subrogated to the rights of Candido over portions of Lot 4685 in their possession, 16 merely served to put a stamp of formality on Candido's otherwise accomplished act of terminating the co-ownership.

The action for partition has not prescribed. Although the complaint was filed thirteen years from the execution of the deeds of sale and hence, as contended by the defendants-appellants, prescription might have barred its filing under the general provision of Article 1144 (a) of the Civil Code, Article 494 specifically mandates that eachco-owner may demand at any time the partition of the thing owned in common insofar as his share is concerned. Hence, considering the validity of the conveyances of portions of Lot 4685 in their favor and as subrogees of Candido Lopez, the Oliverases' action for partition was timely and properly filed. 17

We cannot write finis to this decision without commenting on the compliance with the resolution of September 1, 1986 of counsel for defendants-

appellants. In said resolution, the court required the parties to move in the premises "considering the length of time that this case has remained pending in this Court and to determine whether or not there might be supervening events which may render the case moot and academic. 18 In his manifestation and motion dated August 12, 1987, said counsel informed the Court that he had contacted the defendants-appellants whom he advised "to move in the premises which is the land in question and to maintain the status quo with respect to their actual possession thereon" and that he had left a copy of said resolution with the defendants-appellants" for their guidance in the compliance of their obligations (sic) as specified in saidresolution." 19

Obviously, said counsel interpreted literally the Court's directive "to move in the premises." For the enlightenment of said counsel and all others of similar perception, a "move in the premises" resolution is not a license to occupy or enter the premises subject of litigation especially in cases involving real property. A "move in the premises" resolution simply means what is stated therein: the parties are obliged to inform the Court of developments pertinent to the case which may be of help to the Court in its immediate disposition.

WHEREFORE, the decision of the lower court insofar as it declares the validity of the two deeds of sale and directs the partition of Lot 4685, is AFFIRMED. The lower court is hereby ordered to facilitate with dispatch the preparation of a project of partition which it should thereafter approve. This decision is immediately executory. No costs.

SO ORDERED.

Gutierrez, Jr., Bidin and Cortes, JJ., concur.

Feliciano, J., concur in the result.

 

Footnotes

1 Exh. A.

2 TSN, October 9, 1967, p. 2.

3 Exh. B.

4 Exh. F.

5 Exh. G.

6 Exhs. C to C-1 4; Exhs. 1 to I-1 3.

7 TSN, July 17, 1967, p. 10.

8 Exh. E.

9 Named defendants therein were Candido, Severo, Hipolito, Eugenia and Corazon Lopez Eugenia's husband Primitive Gaspar, Corazon's husband Alejandro Cacayurin and the heirs of Catalina Lopez, namely, Faustina Botuyan and her husband Modesto Salazar, Adoracion Botuyan and her husband Claudio Ganotice and Enong Botuyan.

10 Civil Case No. U-973,

11 Penned by Judge Amado S. Santiago.

12 Lazatin vs. House Electoral Tribunal.

* The lower court underplayed the significance of this finding in the absence of documentary evidence attesting to a formal partition of the property, and the fact that in his testimony, Pedro Oliveras himself surmised that when Lorenzo Lopez died, his children were still minors and could not have taken possession of their respective designated portions in the real property (TSN, October 9, 1967, p. 5).

13 Record on Appeal, p. 28.

14 Diversified Credit Corporation vs. Rosado, L-27983, December 24, 1968, 26 SCRA 470.

15 II Tolentino, Civil Code of the Philippines, 1972, ed., p. 494 citing 7 Llerena 505.

16 See Dancel vs.Dancel, 29 Phil. 25.

17 De Castro vs. Echarri, 20 Phil. 24.

18 Rollo, p. 32.

19 Rollo, pp. 39-40.

Republic of the PhilippinesSUPREME COURT

Manila

FIRST DIVISION

 

G.R. No. 76351 October 29, 1993

VIRGILIO B. AGUILAR, petitioner, vs.COURT OF APPEALS and SENEN B. AGUILAR, respondents.

Jose F. Manacop for petitioner.

Siruello, Muyco & Associates Law Office for private respondent.

 

BELLOSILLO, J.:

This is a petition for review on certiorari seeking to reverse and set aside the Decision of the Court of Appeals in CA-GR CV No. 03933 declaring null and void the orders of 23 and 26 April, 1979, the judgment by default of 26 July 1979, and the order of 22 October 1979 of the then Court of First Instance of Rizal, Pasay City, Branch 30, and directing the trial court to set the case for pre-trial conference.

Petitioner Virgilio and respondent Senen are brothers; Virgilio is the youngest of seven (7) children of the late Maximiano Aguilar, while Senen is the fifth. On 28 October 1969, the two brothers purchased a house and lot in Parañaque where their father could spend and enjoy his remaining years in a peaceful neighborhood. Initially, the brothers agreed that Virgilio's share in the co-ownership was two-thirds while that of Senen was one-third. By virtue of a written memorandum dated 23 February 1970, Virgilio and Senen agreed that henceforth their interests in the house and lot should be equal, with Senen assuming the remaining mortgage obligation of the original owners with the Social Security System (SSS) in exchange for his possession and enjoyment of the house together with their father.

Since Virgilio was then disqualified from obtaining a loan from SSS, the brothers agreed that the deed of sale would be executed and the title registered in the meantime in the name of Senen. It was further agreed that Senen would take care of their father and his needs since Virgilio and his family were staying in Cebu.

After Maximiano Aguilar died in 1974, petitioner demanded from private respondent that the latter vacate the house and that the property be sold and proceeds thereof divided among them.

Because of the refusal of respondent to give in to petitioner's demands, the latter filed on 12 January 1979 an action to compel the sale of the house and lot so that they could divide the proceeds between them.

In his complaint, petitioner prayed that the proceeds of the sale, be divided on the basis of two-thirds (2/3) in his favor and one-third (1/3) to respondent. Petitioner also prayed for monthly rentals for the use of the house by respondent after their father died.

In his answer with counterclaim, respondent alleged that he had no objection to the sale as long as the best selling price could be obtained; that if the sale would be effected, the proceeds thereof should be divided equally; and, that being a co-owner, he was entitled to the use and enjoyment of the property.

Upon issues being joined, the case was set for pre-trial on 26 April 1979 with the lawyers of both parties notified of the pre-trial, and served with the pre-trial order, with private respondent executing a special power of attorney to his lawyer to appear at the pre-trial and enter into any amicable settlement in his behalf. 1

On 20 April 1979, Atty. Manuel S. Tonogbanua, counsel for respondent, filed a motion to cancel pre-trial on the ground that he would be accompanying his wife to Dumaguete City where she would be a principal sponsor in a wedding.

On 23 April 1979, finding the reasons of counsel to be without merit, the trial court denied the motion and directed that the pre-trial should continue as scheduled.

When the case was called for pre-trial as scheduled on 26 April 1979, plaintiff and his counsel appeared. Defendant did not appear; neither his counsel in whose favor he executed a special power of attorney to represent him at the pre-trial. Consequently, the trial court, on motion of plaintiff, declared defendant as in default and ordered reception of plaintiff's evidence ex parte.

On 7 May 1979, defendant through counsel filed an omnibus motion to reconsider the order of default and to defer reception of evidence. The trial court denied the motion and plaintiff presented his evidence.

On 26 July 1979, rendering judgment by default against defendant, the trial court found him and plaintiff to be co-owners of the house and lot, in equal shares on the basis of their written agreement. However, it ruled that plaintiff has been deprived of his participation in the property by defendant's continued enjoyment of the house and lot, free of rent, despite demands for rentals and continued maneuvers of defendants, to delay partition. The trial

court also upheld the right of plaintiff as co-owner to demand partition. Since plaintiff could not agree to the amount offered by defendant for the former's share, the trial court held that this property should be sold to a third person and the proceeds divided equally between the parties.

The trial court likewise ordered defendant to vacate the property and pay plaintiff P1,200.00 as rentals 2 from January 1975 up to the date of decision plus interest from the time the action was filed.

On 17 September 1979, defendant filed an omnibus motion for new trial but on 22 October 1979 the trial court denied the motion.

Defendant sought relief from the Court of Appeals praying that the following orders and decision of the trial court be set aside: (a) the order of 23 April 1970 denying defendants motion for postponement of the pre-trial set on 26 April 1979; (b) the order of 26 April 1979 declaring him in default and authorizing plaintiff to present his evidence ex-parte; (e) the default judgment of 26 July 1979; and, (d) the order dated 22 October 1979 denying his omnibus motion for new trial.

On 16 October 1986, the Court of Appeals set aside the order of the trial court of 26 April 1979 as well as the assailed judgment rendered by default., The appellate court found the explanation of counsel for defendant in his motion to cancel pre-trial as satisfactory and devoid of a manifest intention to delay the disposition of the case. It also ruled that the trial court should have granted the motion for postponement filed by counsel for defendant who should not have been declared as in default for the absence of his counsel.

Petitioner now comes to us alleging that the Court of Appeals erred (1) in not holding that the motion of defendant through counsel to cancel the pre-trial was dilatory in character and (2) in remanding the case to the trial court for pre-trial and trial.

The issues to be resolved are whether the trial court correctly declared respondent as in default for his failure to appear at the pre-trial and in allowing petitioner to present his evidence ex-parte, and whether the trial court correctly rendered the default judgment against respondent.

We find merit in the petition.

As regards the first issue, the law is clear that the appearance of parties at the pre-trial is mandatory. 3 A party who fails to appear at a pre-trial conference may be non-suited or considered as in default. 4 In the case at bar, where private respondent and counsel failed to appear at the scheduled pre-trial, the trial, court has authority to declare respondent in default. 5

Although respondent's counsel filed a motion to postpone pre-trial hearing, the grant or denial thereof is within the sound discretion of the trial court, which should take into account two factors in the grant or denial of motions for postponement, namely: (a) the reason for the postponement and (b) the merits of the case of movant. 6

In the instant case, the trial court found the reason stated in the motion of counsel for respondent to cancel the pre-trial to be without merit. Counsel's explanation that he had to go to by boat as early as 25 March 1979 to fetch his wife and accompany her to a wedding in Dumaguete City on 27 April 1979 where she was one of the principal sponsors, cannot be accepted. We find it insufficient to justify postponement of the pre-trial, and the Court of Appeals did not act wisely in overruling the denial. We sustain the trial court and rule that it did not abuse its discretion in denying the postponement for lack of merit. Certainly, to warrant a postponement of a mandatory process as pre-trial would require much more than mere attendance in a social function. It is time indeed we emphasize that there should be much more than mere perfunctory treatment of the pre-trial procedure. Its observance must be taken seriously if it is to attain its objective, i.e., the speedy and inexpensive disposition of cases.

Moreover, the trial court denied the motion for postponement three (3) days before the scheduled pre-trial. If indeed, counsel for respondent could not attend the pre-trial on the scheduled date, respondent at least should have personally appeared in order not to be declared as in default. But, since nobody appeared for him, the order of the trial court declaring him as in default and directing the presentation of petitioner's evidence ex parte was proper. 7

With regard to the merits of the judgment of the trial court by default, which respondent appellate court did not touch upon in resolving the appeal, the Court holds that on the basis of the pleadings of the parties and the evidence presented ex parte, petitioner and respondents are co-owners of subject house and lot in equal shares; either one of them may demand the sale of the house and lot at any time and the other cannot object to such demand; thereafter the proceeds of the sale shall be divided equally according to their respective interests.

Private respondent and his family refuse to pay monthly rentals to petitioner from the time their father died in 1975 and to vacate the house so that it can be sold to third persons. Petitioner alleges that respondent's continued stay in the property hinders its disposal to the prejudice of petitioner. On the part of petitioner, he claims that he should be paid two-thirds (2/3) of a monthly rental of P2,400.00 or the sum of P1,600.00.

In resolving the dispute, the trial court ordered respondent to vacate the property so that it could be sold to third persons and the proceeds divided between them equally, and for respondent to pay petitioner one-half (1/2) of P2,400.00 or the sum of P1,200.00 as monthly rental, conformably with their stipulated sharing reflected in their written agreement.

We uphold the trial court in ruling in favor of petitioner, except as to the effectivity of the payment of monthly rentals by respondent as co-owner which we here declare to commence only after the trial court ordered respondent to vacate in accordance with its order of 26 July 1979.

Article 494 of the Civil Code provides that no co-owner shall be obliged to remain in the co-ownership, and that each co-owner may demand at any time partition of the thing owned in common insofar as his share is concerned. Corollary to this rule, Art. 498 of the Code states that whenever the thing is essentially, indivisible and the co-owners cannot agree that it be, allotted to one of them who shall indemnify the others, it shall be sold and its proceeds accordingly distributed. This is resorted to (1) when the right to partition the property is invoked by any of the co-owners but because of the nature of the property it cannot be subdivided or its subdivision would prejudice the interests of the co-owners, and (b) the co-owners are not in agreement as to who among them shall be allotted or assigned the entire property upon proper reimbursement of the co-owners. In one case, 8 this Court upheld the order of the trial court directing the holding of a public sale of the properties owned in common pursuant to Art. 498 of the Civil Code.

However, being a co-owner respondent has the right to use the house and lot without paying any compensation to petitioner, as he may use the property owned in common long as it is in accordance with the purpose for which it is intended and in a manner not injurious to the interest of the other co-owners. 9 Each co-owner of property held pro indiviso exercises his rights over the whole property and may use and enjoy the same with no other limitation than that he shall not injure the interests of his co-owners, the reason being that until a division is made, the respective share of each cannot be determined and every co-owner exercises, together with his co-participants joint ownership over the pro indiviso property, in addition to his use and enjoyment of the same. 10

Since petitioner has decided to enforce his right in court to end the co-ownership of the house and lot and respondent has not refuted the allegation that he has been preventing the sale of the property by his continued occupancy of the premises, justice and equity demand that respondent and his family vacate the property so that the sale can be effected immediately. In fairness to petitioner, respondent should pay a rental of P1,200.00 per month, with legal interest; from the time the trial court ordered him to

vacate, for the use and enjoyment of the other half of the property appertaining to petitioner.

When petitioner filed an action to compel the sale of the property and the trial court granted the petition and ordered the ejectment of respondent, the co-ownership was deemed terminated and the right to enjoy the possession jointly also ceased. Thereafter, the continued stay of respondent and his family in the house prejudiced the interest of petitioner as the property should have been sold and the proceeds divided equally between them. To this extent and from then on, respondent should be held liable for monthly rentals until he and his family vacate.

WHEREFORE, the petition is GRANTED. The assailed Decision of the Court of Appeals dated 16 October 1986 is REVERSED and SET ASIDE. The decision of the trial court in Civil Case No. 69.12-P dated 16 July 1979 is REINSTATED, with the modification that respondent Senen B. Aguilar is ordered to vacate the premises in question within ninety (90) days from receipt of this and to pay petitioner Virgilio B. Aguilar a monthly rental of P1,200.00 with interest at the legal rate from the time he received the decision of the trial court directing him to vacate until he effectively leaves the premises.

The trial court is further directed to take immediate steps to implement this decision conformably with Art. 498 of the Civil Code and the Rules of Court. This decision is final and executory.

SO ORDERED.

Cruz, Davide, Jr., Quiason, JJ., concur.

 

# Footnotes

1 Page 97, Rollo.

2 Presumable per month although the decision does not so specify.

3 Jungco v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 78051, 8 November 1989, 179 SCRA 213.

4 Sec. 2, Rule 20, Rules of Court; Insular Veneer v. Plan, G.R. L-40155, 10 September 1976, 73 SCRA 1.

5 Pacweld Steel Corp. v. Asia Steel Corp. No. L-26325, 15 November 1982, 118 SCRA 229.

6 Guzman v. Elbinias; G.R. No. 57395, 17 April 1989, 172 SCRA 240.

7 Ravelo v. Court of Appeals, No. L-40111, 27 October 1983, 125 SCRA 366.

8 Reyes v. Concepcion, G.R. No. 56550, 1 October 1990, 190 SCRA 171.

9 Article 486, Civil Code.

10 Pardell v. Bartolome, 23 Phil. 450 (1912).

SECOND DIVISION

[G.R. No. 134166. August 25, 2000]

SPOUSES MARIO REYES and CONCEPCION DOMINGUEZ-REYES, and SPOUSES DOMINADOR VICTA and ARACELI DOMINGUEZ-VICTA, petitioners, vs. COURT OF APPEALS and SPOUSES JAIME RAMOS and NILDA ILANO-RAMOS, respondents.

D E C I S I O N

BELLOSILLO, J.:

At the core of the controversy are several parcels of land located in Palico, Imus, Cavite, with a total area of 3,000 square meters. The disputed property, which once formed part of a bigger tract of land known as Lot No. 4705 measuring 21,087 square meters covered by Transfer Certificate of Title No. RT-10922 and registered in the name of the late Florentino Dominguez, constituted the undivided shares of herein petitioners Concepcion Dominguez-Reyes and Araceli Dominguez-Victa in the estate of their father Florentino Dominguez.

Sometime in August 1991 spouses Jaime Ramos and Nilda Ilano-Ramos filed two (2) separate actions for specific performance against spouses Mario Reyes and Concepcion Dominguez-Reyes and spouses Dominador Victa and Araceli Dominguez-Victa to compel them to segregate a total of 3,000 square meters of land from their respective shares in Lot No. 4705 and to execute the necessary deed of conveyance transferring to the plaintiffs the above-mentioned property.i[1]

The Ramos spouses asserted that on different dates Concepcion sold to them a total of 1,700 square meters of land while Araceli sold likewise at different times an aggregate of 1,300 square meters of land as evidenced by eighteen

(18) Deed(s) of Absolute Sale and Transfer.ii[2] Except as to the dates, amounts of consideration and areas of the property sold, all the deeds contained substantially identical terms and conditions -

That I, CONCEPCION D. REYES, of legal age, Filipino, married and resident of Caridad, Cavite City, for and in consideration of the sum of TEN THOUSAND PESOS (P10,000.00), Philippine Currency, of which FIVE THOUSAND PESOS (P5,000.00) is payable upon the signing of this deed and FIVE THOUSAND PESOS (P5,000.00) is to be paid when the lot herein sold is already segregated, technically described and titled separately in favor of herein buyer, have SOLD, TRANSFERRED and CONVEYED by way of absolute sale, in favor of JAIME M. RAMOS, of legal age and married to NILDA J. ILANO, and residents of Poblacion, Imus Cavite, his heirs, successors and assigns, a lot corresponding to ONE HUNDRED SQUARE METERS (100 sq. m.), more or less, located and situated along the National Highway, adjacent to the ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED SQUARE METERS (1,100 sq. m.) previously sold to the BUYER, to be taken out of my (SELLER’s) share, which is one sixth (1/6) portion of the property hereinafter described, as an heir by virtue of an extra-judicial partition of the estate of Florentino Dominguez, who died on 17 July 1960 (Doc. No. 482; Page No. 98 Book I, Series of 1978, of Notary Public Jacinto Dominguez of Manila, dated August 6, 1978) x x x (description of property) of which property or portion herein sold, I am the true, legal and absolute owner, free from liens and encumbrances, and I hereby bind myself and undertake to execute any deed or document to vest complete and absolute title to herein buyer.

In early 1991 Lot No. 4705 was finally subdivided into several smaller lots and partitioned extrajudicially among the five (5) heirs of Florentino Dominguez although the records only disclosed three (3) names, Concepcion Dominguez-Reyes, Araceli Dominguez-Victa and Fortunata Dominguez. Concepcion acquired a 2,440-square meter lot covered by TCT No. 304193, while Araceli took possession of two (2) lots with a combined area of 2,340 square meters for which TCTs Nos. 304190 and 304192 were issued in her name.

Upon learning of the partition, the Ramoses repeatedly demanded from Concepcion and Araceli to make good their undertakings under the deeds of sale - to segregate a total of 3,000 square meters from their respective shares in Lot No. 4705 and to execute the necessary deed of conveyance therefor - but the latter refused, insisting that the deeds did not reflect the true intention of the parties as their real intention was simple loans of money the payment of which was to be secured by mortgages.

Concepcion D. Reyes and Araceli D. Victa averred that between 1980 to 1985 they obtained individually various loans from Nilda Ramos which were covered by handwritten receipts prepared either by her or by her daughter

Dinah Ramos and signed by Concepcion and Araceli.iii[3] Sometimes they were furnished by Nilda Ramos with duplicate copies of the corresponding receipts although in most instances only one (1) copy was prepared which Nilda retained.iv[4]

The loans were released by Nilda to Concepcion and Araceli on a piecemeal basis, and every time the loans reached an aggregate amount of P10,000.00 to P20,000.00 Nilda would prepare a Deed of Absolute Sale and Transfer which purported to convey in her favor a portion of the undivided shares of Concepcion and Araceli in Lot No. 4705. To entice them to sign the deeds, Nilda represented to them that the instruments were merely for purposes of complying with the formalities required by ARVI Finance Corporation, which she owned, and where the amounts loaned to them presumably came from. Nilda Ramos further assured Concepcion and Araceli that the deeds would not be notarized nor would they be enforced against them.v[5] That however out of a total of eighteen (18) deeds of sale signed by Concepcion and Araceli, it appeared that three (3) were actually notarized. Finally, Concepcion and Araceli offered to settle their indebtedness but Nilda refused to accept payment.

Since identical issues and similar transactions were involved, the two (2) cases were consolidated and a joint trial was held. On 17 June 1993 the trial court rendered a decision in favor of the Reyes and Victa spouses holding that "the alleged sales were not really sales but receipts of sums of money by way of loans."vi[6] The Court of Appeals however disagreed and reversed the ruling of the trial court on appeal. In its assailed Decision of 21 October 1997 the Court of Appeals held -

We have examined the instruments evidencing the transactions under consideration and found the language of each clearly and without ambiguity to be setting forth a contract of sale and purchase. And the authenticity and due execution of these deeds, it must be emphasized, are not disputed. They are in fact admitted x x x x In the mind of this court, appellants have convincingly proven the reality of the sale of the parcels of land subject hereof x x x these pieces of evidence are not mere drafts of contracts since everything for the existence of a perfect contract of purchase and sale are present. Neither can they possibly be mistaken for receipts inasmuch as even their title – typewritten in capital letters and underlined – proclaims what each of the documents is all about x x x x When contracting minds have reduced their agreement into writing, the contents of the writing constitute the sole repository of the terms of the contract between the parties x x x x

Appellees invite our attention to Article 1602 of the Civil Code providing that a contract shall be presumed to be an equitable mortgage in any of the following instances: (1) when the price of a sale with right to repurchase is

unusually inadequate; (2) when the vendor remains in possession as lessee or otherwise; x x x x (5) when the vendor binds himself to pay the taxes on the thing sold; (6) in any other case, where it may be fairly inferred that the real intention of the parties is that the transaction shall secure the payment of a debt or the performance of any other obligation x x x x It is then pointed out that (a) the purported consideration is grossly inadequate bearing in mind the strategic location (along a highway) of the property in question; (b) the appellees, with their co-owners, have been paying real estate taxes on the lot; (c) the appellees, thru their tenant, have remained in possession of the property; and, (d) a number of receipts furnished by appellants to the appellees clearly indicate that the amount the latter received from the former were loans. Not one of the circumstances or incidents pointed out by appellees indicate, under the premises, the presence of an equitable mortgage.vii[7]

The appellate court in its Resolution of 15 June 1998 denied the motion for reconsideration of the Reyes and Victa spouses.

In this petition for review, petitioners tenaciously insist that the transactions in question were not what they purported to be but were in reality equitable mortgages. In stark contrast, respondents maintain in their comment that the transactions were absolute sales as clearly shown in the subject Deed(s) of Absolute Sale and Transfer.

The pivotal issue then is whether the parties intended the contested Deed(s) of Absolute Sale and Transfer to be bona fide absolute conveyances of parcels of land, or merely equitable mortgages.

Preliminarily, the question involved in the instant case is primarily one of fact since extraneous evidence is required to ascertain the real intention of the parties to the transactions. The rule is well-settled that in the exercise of the power to review the factual findings of the Court of Appeals are normally conclusive and binding on this Court.viii[8] However, since the factual findings of the appellate court are at variance with those of the trial court, we are constrained to go over the records of the case and examine the arguments of the parties in their pleadings in light of the factual milieu.

In determining whether a deed absolute in form is a mortgage, the court is not limited to the written memorials of the transaction. The decisive factor in evaluating such agreement is the intention of the parties, as shown not necessarily by the terminology used in the contract but by all the surrounding circumstances, such as the relative situation of the parties at that time, the attitude, acts, conduct, declarations of the parties, the negotiations between them leading to the deed, and generally, all pertinent facts having a tendency to fix and determine the real nature of their design

and understanding. As such, documentary and parol evidence may be submitted and admitted to prove the intention of the parties.ix[9]

It must be stressed, however, that there is no conclusive test to determine whether a deed absolute on its face is really a simple loan accommodation secured by a mortgage. In fact, it is often a question difficult to resolve and is frequently made to depend on the surrounding circumstances of each case. When in doubt, courts are generally inclined to construe a transaction purporting to be a sale as an equitable mortgage, which involves a lesser transmission of rights and interests over the property in controversy.x[10]

As already mentioned in the assailed decision, Art. 1602 of the Civil Code enumerates the instances when a contract, regardless of its nomenclature, may be presumed to be an equitable mortgage: (a) when the price of a sale with right to repurchase is unusually inadequate; (b) when the vendor remains in possession as lessee or otherwise; (c) when upon or after the expiration of the right to repurchase another instrument extending the period of redemption or granting a new period is executed; (d) when the purchaser retains for himself a part of the purchase price; (e) when the vendor binds himself to pay the taxes on the thing sold; and, (f) in any other case where it may be fairly inferred that the real intention of the parties is that the transaction shall secure the payment of a debt or the performance of any other obligation.

For the presumption of an equitable mortgage to arise under Art. 1602, two (2) requisites must concur: (a) that the parties entered into a contract denominated as a contract of sale, and (b) that their intention was to secure an existing debt by way of a mortgage. The existence of any one of the circumstances defined in the foregoing provision, not the concurrence nor an overwhelming number of such circumstances, is sufficient for a contract of sale to be presumed an equitable mortgage.xi[11] The provision also applies even to a contract purporting to be an absolute sale, as in this case, if indeed the real intention of the parties is that the transaction shall secure the payment of a debt or the performance of any other obligation.xii[12]

After a thorough examination of the records, we find the petition to be impressed with merit. The facts and evidence decidedly show that the true intention of the parties was to secure the payment of the loans and not to convey ownership over the property in question. The transactions were replete with veritable badges of equitable mortgage.

First. It is not contested that during all the time material to this controversy petitioners were sorely pressed for money. Petitioners explained in their testimony that respondent Nilda Ramos had assured them that the deeds were merely a formality, a requirement for the loan. They obviously signed

the documents to satisfy their extreme financial needs. Thus, Concepcion testified -

Q: And of course you also understand what loan means even if that is in English?

A: Yes, sir. I understand the word “utang.”

Q: You understood well the distinction that you have mentioned when you executed the deeds of absolute sale. Is it not? The different deeds of absolute sale in favor of spouses.

A: I do not understand it well x x x x

Q: And so you mean to say that you signed, you affixed your name with the witnesses without understanding what you have written, what you have signed x x x x

A: They were the ones who offered us that is the requirement, as formality x x x x

Q: What do you mean by that Mrs. Witness, the terms requirement and formality?

A: Requirement means they want us to sign the document and formality means in case I will be unable to pay, they will get the land x x x x

Q: But nevertheless, you have signed the different deeds of sale even if the title of the documents say it is a deed of absolute sale. Is it not?

Court: Stating that it was a mere formality. So that was the essence of her testimony. It was merely formality, the signing of the documents.

Q: Now, did you not ask spouses Ramos to change the contents of the documents since it does not reflect your understanding that that is just a formality or requirement considering that the documents state is the deed of absolute sale?

A: I did not ask her because I trust her, sir.xiii[13]

For her part, Araceli testified -

Q: Do you recall having a discussion with Mrs. Ramos at one point in time when you were in dire need of fund or money?

A: In our church, sir, I remember that we have (sic) talked about it. At the kapilya.

Q: And do you remember the subject of your discussion at that time?

A: It is about the deed of sale and the payment.

Q: You mentioned the word “payment.” Why are you discussing payment at the time?

A: Because I borrowed money from her and I will pay in money, sir x x x xxiv[14]

Q: Mrs. Witness, you testified that you received money from Mrs. Ramos in installments. Can you explain how you received this from Mrs. Ramos?

A: First of all I trusted her because she is my kumadre and when the Ten Thousand Pesos is completed in installments and then for formality, I signed it.

Q: What is your understanding of the word “formality” when you agreed to sign the document?

A: If I cannot pay her my loan I will sell my lot, sir.

Q: Whose formality is it that you were required to sign this (sic) deeds of sale?

A: Mrs. Ramos and ARVI Financing.xv[15]

These questions may be asked: why is it then that petitioners agreed to sign the documents when they were fully aware that they were contracts of sale, and when the intention of the parties was only to mortgage their property to secure their loans? Should they not have demanded instead a re-writing or reformation of their agreements to reflect their true intention? In hindsight, it is indeed easy to heap blame on petitioners but a borrower’s urgent need for money places him at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the lender who, in almost all cases, virtually dictates the terms of their contract. Even persons of average intelligence invariably find themselves in no position whatsoever when bargaining with their creditor such as private respondent whose primary business concern includes the giving of loans.

As we ruled in Labasan v. Lacuesta,xvi[16] “while it was true that plaintiffs were aware of the contents of the contracts, the preponderance of evidence showed however that they signed knowing that said contracts did not express their real intention, and if they did so notwithstanding this, it was

due to the urgent necessity of obtaining funds. ‘Necessitous men are not, truly speaking, free men; but to answer a present emergency will submit to any terms that the crafty may impose upon them.’”

Second. The records show that even after the execution of the disputed deeds of sale, petitioners remained in actual possession of the property through their tenant Enrique Diaz. This is an undeniable act of dominion. The lease contract between petitioners and Enrique Diaz involving the disputed property subsisted until 1991 when Diaz voluntarily surrendered the premises to its owners. In addition, petitioners continued to pay the real estate taxes due on the property - a usual burden attached to ownership - even after the purported sales, as evidenced by Annexes "4" to "10," inclusive, which are the official tax receipts in the name of Fortunata Dominguez, petitioners’ sister. As is well known, the payment of taxes coupled with actual possession of the land covered by the tax declaration strongly supports a claim of ownership.

But even if we indulge in the conclusion reached by the Court of Appeals that respondents were justified in not taking possession of the property and paying the taxes thereon considering that what was sold to them were only the rights, interests and participation of petitioners in the undivided portion of the property, such fact will not alter our conclusion for there are other circumstances, which will be discussed at length in the succeeding paragraphs, that support the finding that the transactions herein involved were, in reality, merely loan accommodations.

Third. Petitioners presented several receiptsxvii[17] prepared by respondent Nilda Ramos proving that on various occasions they received several amounts of money from her as loans. The existence and due execution of the receipts were admitted by her, although she claimed in her testimony that the amounts represented by the receipts were not loans but payments for the Palico property she purchased from petitioners -

Q: The receipts which have been presented here from Exhibits H, I, J, K and the receipts marked as Exhibits P, Q, R, some of them are in handwriting. Would you be able to identify those handwritings or whose writings are those found on these receipts? The handwritten part only.

A: That is my handwriting.

Q: Do you now admit the receipts were prepared by you?

A: Yes, sir.

Q: And the receipts were presented to the defendants for them just to sign?

A: They received the money before they signed it x x x x

Q: And these receipts as you claimed, what are they representing?

A: The receipts represented our payments to them for the Palico lot which they sold to us.xviii[18]

This is, however, belied by the receipts, particularly Exhs. “3,” “8,” “9,” “10,” “11,” “12” and “13,” which expressly state on their faces that the amounts received by petitioners were loans; and further, that the receipts disproved respondents’ claims of title over the disputed property.

Lastly. Striking differences in the selling price of the property are very apparent from the eighteen (18) Deed(s) of Absolute Sale and Transfer. For purposes of clarity, hereunder is a tabulated summary of the contents of the eighteen (18) deeds of sale subject of the instant case -

Table 1. Civil Case No. 555-91 ( Sps. Ramos v. Sps. Reyes )

DATE OF SALE AREA SOLD UNIT PRICE TOTAL VALUE

27 Dec. 1982 200 sq.m. 100.00/sq.m. P20,000.00

14 Jan. 1982 200 sq.m. 100.00 20,000.00

Feb. 1983* 100 sq.m. 100.00 10,000.00

March 1983* 100 sq.m. 100.00 10,000.00

June 1983* 300 sq.m. 100.00 30,000.00

June 1983* 100 sq.m. 100.00 10,000.00

June 1983* 100 sq.m. 100.00 10,000.00

July 1983 200 sq.m. 100.00 20,000.00

1984* 100 sq.m. 100.00 10,000.00

Nov. 1984* 100 sq.m. 100.00 10,000.00

May 1985* 100 sq.m. 100.00 10,000.00

TOTAL 1,600 sq.m.100.00 P160,000.00

Table II. Civil Case No. 563-91 ( Sps. Ramos v. Sps. Victa )

DATE OF SALE AREA SOLD UNIT PRICE TOTAL VALUE

1 March 1980 200 sq.m. 50.00/sq.m. P10,000.00

- - - - - - - - - * 200 sq.m. 100.00 20,000.00

May 1983* 200 sq.m. 100.00 20,000.00

- - - - - - - - - * 100 sq.m. 100.00 10,000.00

June 1984* 100 sq.m. 200.00 20,000.00

Nov. 1984* 100 sq.m. 200.00 20,000.00

May 1985* 100 sq.m. 100.00 10,000.00

TOTAL 1,000 sq.m. P110,000.00

* Exact dates of sale not on record

The 100-square meter parcel allegedly sold by Concepcion in November 1984 was valued at P100.00/square meter. Yet, curiously, during the same period Araceli was able to “sell” an equal portion of the Palico property which commanded a much higher price of P200.00/square meter. Also noteworthy is the sudden and drastic depreciation in the selling value of the property of Araceli, from P200.00/square meter in November 1984 to half the price or P100.00/square meter six (6) months later, in May 1985. It represents an anomalous 100% decrease in the value of the property at a time when the prices of real estate were skyrocketing, like all other commodities. It may be fairly inferred from these circumstances that the amounts stated in the deeds were in truth based on the amounts of indebtedness of petitioners to respondent Nilda Ilano-Ramos, and not the true and fair value of the property. We are not unaware of the common practice of individual money lenders of taking possession of documents evidencing ownership of real estate from the debtor to ensure his faithful compliance with the obligation to pay the loan. Consequently, we cannot help concluding that the deeds of sale in question are in reality mortgages, hence, the agreement and understanding of the parties will have to be enforced in accordance with their true intent at the time of the execution of their contracts.

WHEREFORE, we find the Decision of respondent Court of Appeals inconsistent with law and equity, for the transactions involved herein are forthrightly equitable mortgages. Conformably therewith, the assailed Decision dated 21 October 1997 and Resolution dated 15 June 1998 in question are REVERSED and the decision of the trial court REINSTATED and

AFFIRMED. Consequently, Civil Case Nos. 555-91 and 563-91 are DISMISSED for want of cause of action.

However, petitioners are ordered to PAY their respective loans to private respondents within thirty (30) days from the finality of this Decision as follows: (a) P160,000.00 from spouses Mario Reyes and Concepcion Dominguez-Reyes; (b) P110,000.00 from spouses Dominador Victa and Araceli Dominguez-Victa; (c) interest at the rate of 12% per annum computed from the date of the transactions up to the time of payment; and, (d) the costs. In case of default on the part of petitioners to settle their respective obligations within the period herein set forth, the property shall be sold at public auction and the proceeds applied to the mortgage debts and the costs.

SO ORDERED.

Mendoza, Quisumbing, Buena, and De leon, Jr., JJ., concur.

i[1] Docketed as Civil Case No. 555-91, "Spouses Jaime Ramos and Nilda Ilano-Ramos v. Spouses Mario Reyes and Concepcion Dominguez-Reyes;" and Civil Case No. 563-91, "Spouses Jaime Ramos and Nilda Ilano-Ramos v. Spouses Dominador Victa and Araceli Dominguez Victa."

ii[2] Eleven "Deed(s) of Absolute Sale and Transfer" signed by Concepcion Dominguez-Reyes, Annexes “A” to “K,” inclusive (see Vol. I, Records, pp. 5-16); Seven "Deed(s) of Absolute Sale and Transfer" signed by Araceli Dominguez-Victa, Annexes “A” to “G,” inclusive, (see Vol. II, Records, pp. 4-11).

iii[3] Records, pp. 27-29; Annexes “1,” “2” and “3.”

iv[4] TSN, 25 March 1993, pp. 47-61.

v[5] Id., 30 March 1993, p. 7.

vi[6] Penned by Judge Luis R. Reyes, RTC-Br. 22, Imus, Cavite.

vii[7] Penned by Associate Justice Cancio C. Garcia, concurred in by Associate Justices Delilah Vidallon-Magtolis and Marina L. Buzon.

viii[8] See American Express, Inc. v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 128899, 8 June 1999.

ix[9] Zamora v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 102557, 30 July 1996, 260 SCRA 10.

x[10] Art. 1603, New Civil Code.

xi[11] Uy v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 104784, 3 March 1994, 230 SCRA 664; Claravall v. Court of Appeals, No. L-47120, 15 October 1990, 190 SCRA 439, 448.

xii[12] Art. 1604, New Civil Code.

xiii[13] TSN, 25 March 1993, pp. 5-11.

xiv[14] Id., pp. 43-44.

xv[15] TSN, 31 March 1993, pp. 3-4.

xvi[16] No. L- 25931, 30 October 1978, 86 SCRA 16, 22.

xvii[17] Exhs. “1” to “13,” inclusive.

xviii[18] TSN, 1 April 1993, pp. 28-30.