October 29, 1987
Ponente: Gutierrez, Jr., J.
FACTS:
Rodolfo Coronel filed a complaint for recovery of possession of a parcel of land registered under his name. The complaint was filed against the private respondents before the Court of First Instance of Cavite. Coronel alleged in his complaint that at the time he purchased the parcel of land, the private respondents were already occupying a portion of the land as “tenants at will” and that despite demands to vacate the premises, the respondents failed and refused to move out of the land.
In their Answer, the respondents denied that Coronel was the owner of the whole parcel of land and alleged that the lots occupied by them form part of an undivided share of Brigido Merlan and Jose Merlan, respondents, which they inherited from their deceased father, one of the three heirs of Bernabela Lontoc, the original owner of lot 1950-A of the estate; that the Merlan brothers never sold their share to anybody; that Coronel’s claim of ownership of the whole parcel of land is fraudulent, void, and without effect; and that the other defendants were legitimate tenants.
In their Third-Party Complaint, the defendants charged that the third-party defendants, owners of the remaining portion of Lot No. 1950-A, defrauded them when they sold the entire parcel. Third-Party Defendants Marcelo Novelo, Paz Anuat Daniel Anuat and Rosario Cailao, the defendants' co-owners of Lot No. 1950-A, denied that they had something to do with the fraudulent acts or illegal machinations which deprived the defendants of their share in the subject parcel of land, and that what they sold was only their 2/3 undivided shares in said parcel.
Lower court ruled in favor of the defendants and on appeal, the lower court's decision was affirmed with modification by the then IAC.
RULING:
Whether or not the claim of private respondents to the land in question is barred by the statute of limitation or by estoppel by laches? - NO.
Considering these facts, it is evident that the private respondents never sold their 1/3 share over Lot No. 1950-A of the Naic Estate; and that what their co-owners sold to Ignacio Manalo was their 2/3 share of the same lot. Moreover, private respondents Brigido Merlan and Jose Merlan were in open, peaceful and adverse possession of their 1/3 share over the lot even after 1950 when the first sale of the lot took place. The first time they knew about Coronel's claim over the whole lot was when they were served a copy of his complaint in 1975.
The petitioner contends that the claim of the private respondents over their 1/3 undivided portion of Lot No. 1950-A 25 years after the registration of the deed of sale in favor of Ignacio Manalo in 1950 and more than five (5) years after the registration of the deed of sale in favor of Mariano Manalo is barred by prescription or laches. According to him, there was undue delay on the part of the private respondents to claim their 1/3 portion of Lot No. 1950-A of the Naic Estate and that the action for annulment should have been brought within four (4) years (Art. 1391, New Civil Code) counted from the date of the registration of the instrument.
The counterclaim of the private respondents which was in effect a reconveyance to them of their 1/3 undivided share over lot No. 1950-A has not prescribed. As lawful possessors and owners of the lot in question their cause of action falls within the settled jurisprudence that an action to quiet title to property-in one's possession is imprescriptible, Their undisturbed possession over a period of more than 25 years gave them a continuing right to seek the aid of a court of equity to determine the nature of the adverse claim of a third party and the effect of his own title.
It was only at that time that, the statutory period of prescription may be said to have commenced to run against them. In the same manner, there is no bar based on laches to assert their right over 1/3 of the disputed property. "Laches has been defined as the failure or neglect, for an unreasonable and unexplained length of time, to do that which by exercising due diligence could or should have been done earlier; it is negligence or omission to assert a right within a reasonable time, warranting a presumption that the party entitled to assert it either has abandoned it or declined to assert it.
The facts of the case show that the private respondents have always been in peaceful possession of the 1/3 portion of the subject lot, exercising ownership thereto for more than 25 years disrupted only in 1975 when the petitioner tried to remove them by virtue of his torrens title covering the entire Lot 1950-A of the Naic Estate. It was only at this point that private respondents knew about the supposed sale of their 1/3 portion of Lot 1950-A of the Naic Estate and they immediately resisted.