Control Biológico

FACTS:

Pacita V. Aure, Nicomedes Aure Bundac, and Zeny Abundo (Aure Group), owners of a 2,064 square meter parcel of land in Tagaytay City4 (Property),leased the Property to ESSO Standard Eastern, Inc.,(ESSO Eastern), a foreign corporation doing business in the country through its subsidiary ESSO Standard Philippines, Inc. (ESSO Philippines). The lease period is 90 years5 and the rent is payable monthly for the first 10 years, and annually for the remainingperiod.6 The lease contract (Contract) contained an assignment veto clause barring the parties from assigning the lease without prior consent of theother.7 Excluded from the prohibition were certain corporations to whom ESSO Eastern may unilaterally assign its leasehold right. On 23 December 1977, ESSO Eastern sold ESSO Philippines to the Philippine National Oi

lCorporation (PNOC).9 Apparently, the Aure Group was not informed of the sale. ESSO

Philippines, whose corporate name was successively changed to Petro phil Corporation then to Petron Corporation (Petron), took possession of the Property. On 18 November 1993, petitioner Romeo D. Mariano (petitioner) bought the Property from the Aure Group and obtained title to the Property issued in his name bearing an annotation of ESSO Eastern’s lease.10On 17

December 1998, petitioner sent to Petron a notice to vacate the Property. Petitioner informed Petron that Presidential Decree No. 471 (PD 471),11dated 24 May 1974, reduced the Contract’s duration from 90 to 25 years, ending on 13 November 1993.12 Despite receiving the notice to vacate on 21December 1998, Petron remained on the Property. On 18 March 1999, petitioner sued Petron in the Regional Trial Court of Tagaytay City, Branch 18, (trial court) to rescind the Contract and recover possession of the Property. Aside from invoking PD471, petitioner alternatively theorized that the Contract was terminated on 23 December 1977 when ESSO Eastern sold ESSO Philippines to PNOC, thus assigning to PNOC its lease on the Property, without seeking the Aure Group’s prior consent. In its Answer, Petron countered that the Contract was not breached because PNOC merely acquired ESSO Eastern’s shares in ESSO Philippines, a separate corporate entity. Alternatively, Petron argued that petitioner’s suit, filed on 18 March 1999, was barred by prescription under Article 1389 and Article 1146(1) of the Civil Code as petitioner should have sought rescission within four years from PNOC’s purchase of ESSO Philippines on 23 December197713 or before 23 December 1981.

Issue:

W/N the action is barred by Prescription Ruling:

Petitioner’s Suit Barred by Prescription Petitioner’s waiver of Petron’s contractual breach was compounded by his long inaction to seek judicial redress. Petitioner filed his complaint nearly 22years after PNOC acquired the leasehold rights to the Property and almost six years after petitioner bought the Property from the Aure Group. The more than two decades lapse puts this

case well within the territory of the 10 year prescriptive bar to suits based upon a written contract under Article 1144 (1)of the Civil Code.

293. SPOUSES PATRICIO and MYRNA BERNALES vs. HEIRS OF JULIAN SAMBAAN G.R.No. 163271

Facts:

Spouses Julian and Guillerma Sambaan were the registered owner of a property located in Bulua, Cagayan de oro City. The respondents and the petitioner Myrna Bernales are the children of Julian and Guillerma. Myrna, who is the eldest of the siblings, is the present owner and possessor of the property in question. Julian died in an ambush in 1975. Before he died, he requested that the property in question be redeemed from Myrna and her husband Patricio Bernales. Thus, in 1982 one of Julian’s siblings offered to redeem the property but the petitioners refused because they were allegedly using the property as tethering place for their cattle. In January 1991, respondents received an information that the subject property was already transferred to Myrna Bernales. The Deed of Absolute Sale dated December 7, 1970 bore the forged signatures of their parents, Julian and Guillerma. On April 1993, the

respondents, together with their mother Guillerma, filed a complaint for Annulment of Deed of Absolute Sale and cancellation of TCT No. T-14204 alleging that their parent’s signatures were forged. The trial court rendered a decision on August 2, 2001 cancelling the TCT and ordering another title to be issued in the name of the late Julian Sambaan. Petitioners went to the CA and appealed the decision. The CA affirmed the decision of the lower court. A motion for

reconsideration of the decision was, likewise, denied in 2004. Hence, this petition for certiorari. Issue:

Whether or not the Deed of Absolute Sale is authentic as to prove the ownership of the petitioners over the subject property.

Held:

It is a question of fact rather than of law. Well-settled is the rule that the Supreme Court is not a trier of facts. Factual findings of the lower courts are entitled to great weight and respect on appeal, and in fact accorded finality when supported by substantial evidence on the record. Substantial evidence is more than a mere scintilla of evidence. It is that amount of relevant evidence that a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion, even if other minds, equally reasonable, might conceivably opine otherwise. But to erase any doubt on the correctness of the assailed ruling, we have carefully perused the records and, nonetheless, arrived at the same conclusion. We find that there is substantial evidence on record to support the Court of Appeals and trial court’s conclusion that the signatures of Julian and Guillerma in the Deed of Absolute Sale were forged. Conclusions and findings of fact by the trial court are entitled to great weight on appeal and should not be disturbed unless for strong and cogent reasons because the trial court is in a better position to examine real evidence, as well as to observe the demeanor of the witnesses while testifying in the case. The fact that the CA adopted the findings of fact of the trial court makes the same binding upon this court.

Thus, we hold that with the presentation of the forged deed, even if accompanied by the owner’s duplicate certificate of title, the registered owner did not thereby lose his title, and neither does the assignee in the forged deed acquire any right or title to the said property.

294. B & I REALTY V. CASPE G.R. No. 146972 January 29, 2008 FACTS:

Consorcia L. Venegas was the owner of a parcel of land located in Barrio Bagong-Ilog in Pasig, Rizal and covered by TCT No. 247434. She delivered said title to, and executed a simulated deed of sale in favor of, Datuin for purposes of obtaining a loan with the RCBC. Datuin claimed that he had connections with the management of RCBC and offered his assistance to Venegas in obtaining a loan from the bank. He issued a receipt to the Venegases, acknowledging that the lot was to be used as a collateral for bank financing and that the deed of sale was executed only as a device to obtain the loan. However, Datuin prepared a deed of absolute sale and, through forgery, made it appear that the spouses Venegas executed the document in his favor. Venegas learned of Datuin's fraudulent scheme when she sold the lot to herein respondents for P160,000 in a deed of conditional sale. She, along with her husband, instituted a complaint against Datuin in the then Court of First Instance CFI of Rizal, Branch 11, docketed as Civil Case No. 188893, for recovery of property and nullification of TCT No. 377734, with damages. However, when the case was called for pre-trial, the Venegases' counsel failed to appear and the complaint was eventually dismissed without prejudice.

ISSUE:

Whether or not filing of Civil Case No. 36852 by the Venegases had the effect of interrupting the prescriptive period for the filing of the complaint for judicial foreclosure of mortgage?

RULING:

We agree with the CA's ruling that Civil Case No. 36852 did not have the effect of interrupting the prescription of the action for foreclosure of mortgage as it was not an action for foreclosure but one for annulment of title and nullification of the deed of mortgage and the deed of sale. It was not at all the action contemplated in Article 1155 of the Civil Code which explicitly provides that the prescription of an action is interrupted only when the action itself is filed in court. Petitioner could have protected its right

295. MESINA V. GARCIA