DURAN - v - OLIVIA
JOSE O. DURAN
and TERESA DIAZ VDA. DE DURAN, applicants-appellants, vs. BERNABE OLIVIA, FE ALMAZAN,
HEIRS OF VICENTE GODESANO, MANUEL ARCE and ESPERANZA SALUD, oppositors-appellees.
Note: I made this case digest when I was still a law student. The ones posted on my blog were not due for submission as part of any academic requirement. I want to remind you that there is no substitute to reading the full text of the case! Use at your own risk.
G.R. No.
L-16589
September 29,
1961
LABRADOR, J.
Facts:
1.
On
December 3, 1952, Jose O. Duran and Teresa Diaz Vda. de Duran filed an
application for the registration in their names of sixteen lots (denominated in
said application as Lots Nos. 1 to 16, inclusive) under Plan PSU-128386 in the
Court of First Instance of Camarines Sur.
2.
On
April 20, 1954, the case was heard initially and on May 5, 1954, the oppositors
filed their opposition to the application.
3.
On
August 27, 1958, the oppositors filed a motion to dismiss the application on
the ground that the court has no jurisdiction to decree registration of the
lots respectively claimed by them, because said lots are already registered and
certificates of title have been issued thereon in their names.
4.
The
applicants filed their objection to said motion, alleging that the reasons for
the motion to dismiss do not appear in the application but are mere assertions
of the parties and that the trial court has jurisdiction to consider the
application even though the lots subject matter thereof are already covered by
certificates of title.
5.
After
a reply to the opposition was filed by the oppositors, the lower court resolved
the motion to dismiss and rendered successively the two orders of dismissal
appealed from.
6.
Hence
this appeal.
Issue:
Whether or not the lower
court erred in considering and granting the objector’s apellee’s motion to
dismiss?
Held:
Orders appealed from are
affirmed. With costs against appellants.
First assignment of error:
the lower court erred in considering and
granting the objectors-appellees' motion to dismiss the application for
registration with respect to lots 3, 6, 7, 9, 12, 15 and 16 although it was
based merely on the supposed facts alleged in the said motion itself
By express provision of Rule 132 of the
Rules of Court, the rules contained therein apply to land registration and
cadastral cases in a suppletory character and whenever practicable and. The
Land Registration Act does not provide for a pleading similar or corresponding
to a motion to dismiss. As a motion to dismiss is necessary for the expeditious
termination of land registration cases, said motion contained in the Rules of
Court can be availed of by the parties in this case.
Second assignment of error:
the lower court erred in dismissing the
application with respect to lots 3, 6, 7, 9, 12, 15 and 16 for alleged lack of
jurisdiction upon the mere assertion of the objectors-appellees that these lots
are covered by certificates of title based merely upon public land patents granted
to them.
Sec. 122. — Whenever public lands in the
Philippine Islands belonging to the Government of the United States or to the
Government of the Philippine Islands are alienated, granted, or conveyed to
persons or to public or private corporations, the same shall be brought
forthwith under the operation of this Act and shall become registered lands. .
. . After due registration and issue of the certificate and owner's duplicate,
such land shall be registered land for all purposes under this Act. (Act 496)
The primary and fundamental purpose of the
Torrens System of registration is to finally settle the titles to land; to put
to stop any question of legality of title thereto. That being the purpose of
the law, there would be no end to litigation if every property covered by
torrens title may still be relitigated in a subsequent land registration
proceedings. Pursuant to the above purpose, we have held in a long line of
decisions that a homestead patent once registered under the Land Registration
Act can not be the subject matter of a cadastral proceeding and that any title
issued thereon is null and void.
It has been well-settled that a Court of
First Instance has no jurisdiction to decree again the registration of land
already decreed in an earlier land registration case and a second decree for
the same land is null and void. This
is so, because when once decreed by a court of competent jurisdiction, the
title to the land thus determined is already a res judicata binding on the whole world, the
proceedings being in
rem.
