Law and facts on Manotok

http://www.malaya.com.ph/oct07/busi8.htm

Law and facts on Manotok

In his dissent which happens to be longer than the ponencia, Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio T. Carpio stressed points of law and fact over the affirmation by the Supreme Court of a Court of Appeals decision ordering the cancellation of the Manotok land title and transferring it to the heirs of Homer Barque.

On the question of law, Carpio pointedly told the majority of the First Division that their opinion was wrong because it “patently violates… the Property Registration Decree which expressly states that a Torrens title ‘cannot be cancelled except in direct proceeding in accordance with law.”

What is in accordance with law in this case is a provision of BP 129 which provides “regional trial courts shall exercise exclusive original jurisdiction…in all civil actions which involve the title to, or possession of, real property or any interest therein.”

By ignoring this vital provision, Carpio claims that the heirs of Severino Manotok were denied due process.

The majority opinion penned by Associate Justice Consuelo Ynares, stressed that requiring the court of Appeals to remand the case to the RTC is a waste of time. That is saying that the facts, which should have been established by the regional trial court have already been determined by the Land Registration Commission and the Court of Appeals.

Speaking of dura lex sed lex.

Spurious plan

It has been established beyond doubt that the survey plan – Fls3168 – said to be have been issued by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and submitted by the heirs of Homer Barque “is a spurious plan which may have been inserted in the file.”

The plan is supposed to be authenticated by the DENR but it was never submitted to the department’s NCR office for that purpose.

Privadi Dalire, chief of the geodetic surveys division of the land management bureau, was asked by Benjamin M. Bustos, chief of the reconstitution division of the LRA for a certified copy of the said subdivision plan.

He replied that his office does not have a record of the Fls-3168-D.

However, presumably without being asked, Ernesto S. Erive, chief of the surveys division, told Bustos that a microfilm copy of the plan “is on file in technical records and statistical section.”

Thus ensued the question of who is telling the truth between Dalire and Erive. The letter told the LRA administrator on Jan. 2 1997, in a hand-carried letter that “the copy of the subject plan was forwarded to this office”, and after verification and comparison “made in our microfilm records, it was found out that they are identical and bore the same stamps and initials used in this office.”

Who is lying?

Dalire stood pat on his report that his office does not have records of the subdivision plan. But he explained that the “LRA, however, furnished us with a machine copy of Fls-3168-D…and we found out that the copy of the plan did not originate from this office. Dalire forthwith requested that copy of Fls-3168-D be forwarded to him for evaluation and comment.”

Dalire wrote two more letters to the LRA on the same question but up to the time the Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the heirs of Homer Barque, he never got a reply.

In one of his letters to the LRA, Dalire said “our inventory of approved plans enrolled in our file, our microfilm computer list of plans do not have this plan Fls-3168-D; logically we cannot issue any copy.”

So, there was, in the words of Dalire, a syndicate operating in the LRA. The CA and the Court of Appeals failed to take notice of the import of Dalire’s claim of a syndicate. The SC, in the pen of justice Santiago, merely affirmed the findings of the CA.

Forged letter, spurious plan

It appears that on Feb. 13, 1997, Dalire told the LRA administrator that the letter he purportedly wrote on Jan. 2, 1997 is a forgery. The letter is presumably a testimony to the existence and genuineness of the subdivision plan Fls-3168-D.

He pointed out that “the statement that the subject plan was forwarded to us by the chief, technical records statistics section of the NCR is not true..

He said that as of Feb. 13, 1997, “the NCR has not turned over the plan they reproduced in compliance with your (LRA administrator) urgent letter requests.

Dalire found himself left with no option except to tell the LRA administrator to disregard Fls-3168-D as being spurious. He explained that “there are many markings on the copy to prove it did not come from the LMB (Land Management Bureau).

Dalire said “we have no copy of Fls-3168-D on file so how can we issue a copy of plan that is non-existing?” He went on to say “the plan shows only initials. I sign in full copies of plans with the initials of my action officers and their codings below my signature. These are not present in the spurious copy of plan.”

He also told the LRA administrator that “the letter size of the rubber stamp ‘NOT FOR REGISTRATION/TITLING. FOR REFERENCE ONLY is smaller than our rubber stamp.”

Sustained!

He said “the submitted plan Fls-3168-D is a spurious document as categorically stated by Engr. Privadi J. G. Dalire…”

Expectedly, the heirs of Barque moved for reconsideration of the order after being informed that Bustos denied the request of reconstitution “for lack of merit.”

The Manotoks must have celebrated a well and hard-earned victory. The celebration was too early.

The LRA administrator gave due course to the motion for reconsideration and reversed his first order in favor of Manotoks saying that only the owner’s copy or co-owner’s duplicate of an original or transfer certificate of title could be used as a source of administrative reconstitution.

The reversed order practically suggests that Dalire went beyond his duty in helping insure the genuineness of a title sought to be reconstituted. It was his fault. That fault may have violated simple sense of law and common sense.

Spring can’t rise higher than source

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Spring can’t rise higher than source

In pointing out that the First Division of the Supreme Court erred in ordering the cancellation of the land title of the heirs of Severino Manotok and a new one issued in favor of the heirs of Homer Barque, retired Supreme Court Justice Florentino P. Feliciano cited a long string of precedents to prove that the Supreme Court was wrong in affirming the findings of the Court of Appeals.

In Caraan v Court of Appeals, Justice Feliciano declared that the “later reconstitution (would have) no legal effect and validity because (of the) prior reconstitution.”

Citing this particular precedent, Feliciano said in his memorandum to the Court en banc “the fact that there already existed a perfectly valid reconstituted title … will make subsequent petition (by the heirs of Homer Barque) for reconstitution void and without any force and effect.”

He added that “all subsequent certificates of title (derived from the latter reconstituted title) are also void because of the legal truism that the spring cannot rise higher than its source.”

The former justice was trying to clarify to the Court that the Manotoks had a reconstituted title long before the heirs of Barque filed a petition for reconstitution.

He pointed out that granting the heirs of Barque a petition for reconstitution would have the effect of a collateral attack on a valid title.

Wrong doctrine

The heirs of Homer Barque told the Supreme Court it acted correctly in affirming the CA ruling “because a remand to the RTC will be “circuitous and purely dilatory” following the doctrine enunciated in Ortigas v. Velasco. Feliciano declared that the Court applied the wrong doctrine.

He explained in his memorandum that in Ortigas, “the Court nullified (Molina’s) reconstituted title because the Ortigas Torrens title (both titles covering the same property) has been the subject of, and consistently upheld by the Court in several cases for nullification of title that were originally lodged before the appropriate forum which had the jurisdiction to sustain the validity of the Ortigas title.

Pursuing the Ortigas precedent, Justice Feliciano quoted the ruling of the Court:

“There is no debate about the fact that the land being claimed by Molina lies within that titled in the name of Ortigas and its predecessor in interest. Now, the latter’s documents of ownership have been passed upon, and sanctioned and sustained by this Court more than once.

“These dispositions and adjudgments now operate to put its title to the lands thereby covered and embraced beyond the pale of further judiciary inquiry.”

The Manotok case is remarkably dissimilar to Ortigas, according to Justice Feliciano.

Not estopped

Justice Consuelo Y. Santiago sustained the claim of the heirs of Homer Barque that the Manotoks are estopped from assailing the order of the LRA and the CA because they actively participated in the proceedings.

Wrong, says Justice Feliciano, who said in his memorandum that “the estopped argument makes no sense as to the LRA proceedings, because the LRA did not purport to exercise jurisdiction to cancel title. On the contrary, it claimed it had no jurisdiction.”

Neither can estoppel be applied with the Court of Appeals, explains Justice Feliciano. He said that “since the Manotoks have from the outset explicitly questioned the idea of having the validity of their title ruled upon in an administrative reconstitution case and which the CA in fact sustained in its original decision.”

Justice Feliciano, now close to 80 years old, declared that “from the reconstitution officer to the LRA, the Manotoks never conceded that the LRA had authority to adjudge the validity of their title; instead, they insisted that it is the regional trial court in a direct proceeding which had the authority and jurisdiction to rule on the validity of their certificate of title.”

Based on opinion

Justice Feliciano rants at the fact that the judgment of the Court of Appeals is “worse for having relied, not on any LRA finding, but merely on (LRA) administrator Maulit’s personal opinion that the Manotoks’ title was ‘sham and spurious” which he gratuitously based on alleged deficiencies in the information reflected in the Manotok officially-issued title.”

The alleged deficiencies do not, Feliciano said, “prove either that the property … had not been conveyed to them (Manotoks) or that their certificate of title is fake.

The point, the retired jurist said, is that the genuineness of the title of the Manotoks, having been issued by the LRA, is conclusively proved by the LRA records.

How it became sham and spurious based on deficiencies and how the First Division of the Supreme Court bought it hook, line and sinker, has been a constant source of curiosity on how the Court could be so negligent of the background of the case, none of which argues for the heirs of Homer Barque.

This and many other omissions probably convinced the Chief Justice to grant Feliciano’s request for oral arguments.

We can expect Justice Santiago who has more than 35 years experience in the bench, to argue her case with intensity.

We just have to wait and see how the en banc will look at her ponencia.

The anomaly

The decision is blatantly wrong for violating a provision of law that all judicial reconstitution of titles belong exclusively to the regional trial court.

Inferior courts like RTCs try and test facts submitted by the litigants. Because this provision was skipped, in fact ignored and violated, the Supreme Court affirmed a Court of Appeals ruling which was not based on any trial of facts or results of judicial hearings.

We feel we have to repeat that the LRA initially issued a decision favoring the Manotoks. It changed its mind and ruled in favor of the heirs of Homer Barque.

After both parties appealed, the two divisions of the Court of Appeals first ruled again in favor of the Manotoks. Like the LRA, it changed its mind. The Supreme Court approved the turn-around.

Even if the Manotoks had won the case every step of the way that the Barques went through, the decision would still be questionable for one reason.

It failed to comply with the requirement that judicial reconstitution is a sole function and exclusive jurisdiction of the regional trial courts.

It is presumed that the RTC will examine the facts and make a decision. The aggrieved party can appeal to the Court of Appeals.

This case is curious because what was appealed to the CA which is a judicial body was an administrative decision made the LRA.

The “Heirs of Homer Barque” are land-grabbing scammers

Another very interesting article written by Mr. Macasaet of Malaya will be found below.

An important question that may be asked is why was the controversial scammer David Bunevacz seated right beside the controversial land-grabbing scammer Teresita Barque Hernandez during the Manotok vs Barque en banc?

David Bunevacz already left the Philippines because of a warrant of arrest among other things waiting for him in the Philippines.

What will Teresita Barque Hernandez do now that it is very clear and obvious that she is a land-grabbing scammer? Would she also leave the country to save her face? Would she join the likes of David Bunevacz?

Teresita Barque Hernandez was, to put it mildly, … caught in the act of cheating, lying, stealing, scamming, and falsifying.

http://www.malaya.com.ph/aug27/busi8.htm

Manotok proof of ownership

The heirs of Severino Manotok have sufficiently proved to the courts that the 34-hectare property in Quezon City has been theirs for a long time. In fact, they started occupying the land and paying taxes on it since 1920.

Their best proof, however, is a reconstituted title issued by the register of deeds of Quezon City.

According to the en banc arguments of former SC justice Florentino P. Feliciano, “the Manotok claim of titles began with the purchase of Zacaria Modesto, Regina Geronimo and Feliciano Villanueva of lot 823 from the Philippine government on March 10, 1919. Ownership of the land was later consolidated in Modesto who, in 1920, assigned his interests to M. Teodoro and Severino Manotok. This is proven by records in the Land Management Bureau which show that assignment of certificates were consummated or signed on and identified No. 1054 dated March 11, 1919 and June 7, 1920.

In 1923, M. Teodoro assigned his shares and interests over Lot 823 to Severino Manotok, making him the single owner of Lot 823.

Prime land

The 34-hectare land of the Manotoks, lost to the heirs of Homer Barque in the pen of Supreme Court Associate Justice Santiago, “is surrounded by the Ayala Heights, Golf Hill Terraces and Capitol Hills Subdivision.”

It has always been known as the Manotok compound.

In fact, Justice Feliciano argues that “over the years, the Manotoks have built perimeter walls to secure the property and have constructed houses on it, where they live up to the present.

“The Manotoks have likewise religiously paid real estate taxes on the property from 1933 until the present,” according to the narration of Justice Feliciano.

During all this time, no word was ever heard from the heirs of Homer Barque, now represented by Teresita Barque Hernandez.

One is tempted to ask: Did Teresita Barque Hernandez know from the start that Homer Barque left them a fortune worth its area in gold? Obviously they did not. None of the heirs could show proof that any of them paid taxes on the property which had been occupied for almost a century by the Manotoks.

The Barque claim

It was as late as 1997 that the Manotoks learned that heirs of a certain Homer Barque had applied with the Land Registration Administration for administrative reconstitution of title over the property.

The earlier decision of Justice Consuelo Ynares Santiago failed to notice that Homer L. Barque Sr. had never been in possession of the property or any portion of it from the Manotoks.

On the contrary, the heirs of Barque were notified that the property covered by their claim appears to duplicate that of the Manotoks.

But the Barque family claimed that they acquired the land – the same Lot 823 … from one Emiliano Setosta in 1975.

It was alleged that after the sale by Setosta to Barque, the former’s alleged title was cancelled and became TCT No. 210177 issued to Barque.

Again forgotten by omission or design by Justice Santiago in her 16-page ponencia awarding the land to the heirs of Homer Barque is that as early as Aug. 1988 or less than three months after a fire gutted the office of the Register of Deeds of Quezon City, the Manotoks applied for administrative reconstitution.

That was less than three months after the fire allegedly left the original title of the Barques in ashes.

A reconstituted title was issued in 1991. The heirs of Homer Barque never opposed the application for administrative reconstitution.

Spurious sale

Justice Feliciano said in his memorandum to the Court en banc, a copy of which was obtained from the Manotoks, the deed of sale between Setosta and Barque was notarized by a certain Atty. Eliseo Razon on Sept. 24, 1975 and recorded in the notarial register as Doc. No. 416 Page No. 85, Book No. VIII Series of 1975.

Justice Feliciano averred before the Court en banc that the Setosta-Barque deed of sale does not exist in the notarial register of Atty. Eliseo Razon.

What is recorded as Doc. 416, as certified by the clerk of regional trial court of Manila, refers to a special power of attorney executed by one Victoriano A. Sevillano, not to the Setosta-Barque deed of sale.

In fact, none of the documents notarized by Razon on that day of Sept. 24, 1975, refers to the Setosta-Barque deed of sale.

The Barque document is spurious. Justice Santiago and the majority who concurred with her may not have bothered to appreciate any of the questions of facts mentioned earlier and repeated by Justice Feliciano in his obvious quest to inform the Court en banc of the facts and the law applicable in the land dispute.

Barque had to wait for a fire?

Considering that a fire gutted the office of the register of deeds on June 11, 1988 in which the original title of the Barques was burned, one wonders why and how they got to know that they were sitting on huge wealth.

They filed an application for administrative reconstitution only in 1997 or about nine years after the fire.

On the other hand, the Manotoks acted swiftly. They applied for reconstitution of the burned title less than three months after the fire.

They were issued a reconstituted title in 1991.

Justice Feliciano has many questions to ask: (1) Why did Barque buy the Manotok compound when he knew or should have known from the records of the register of deeds of Quezon City that the property was already titled; (2) Why did Barque buy the Manotok compound when he knew or should have known that it was already occupied by parties other than his purported seller; (3) Why did Barque take 8 years to file for reconstitution, if indeed he had held the title to the property since before the fire; (4) Who was Barque’s supposed seller Emiliano Setosta, and how, and from whom, did the latter acquire the Manotok compound?

The questions are begging for answers. Justice Santiago may not have asked those questions when she ruled in favor of the heirs of Homer Barque. She has to answer them in her ponencia which will be voted upon by the Court en banc.

Lapses of the Supreme Court

http://www.malaya.com.ph/jul23/busi8.htm

The division of the Supreme Court affirmed administrative and judicial decisions over a land dispute, ignoring a caveat in both.

Associate Justice Consuelo Ynares Santiago, the ponente of the decision, ruled that the land titles of the heirs of Homer Barques may be reconstituted and thereafter transferred to the claimants of a 34-hectare property owned by the heirs of Severino Manotok.

The Land Registration Authority reversed an earlier decision and declared that the original title of the heirs of Barque may be reconstituted after a competent jurisdiction has cancelled the titles.

The Manotoks appealed the case to the Court of Appeals which also rendered a favorable ruling that was subsequently overturned on a memorandum for reconsideration of the heirs of Barque. The reversed decision which affirmed the ruling of the LRA, had the same caveat.

Justice Santiago wrote: “(Nevertheless, notwithstanding its (Court of Appeals) that petitioner’s (Manotoks) title was fraudulently reconstituted, the LRA noted that is only the regional trial court which can declare that the same was indeed fraudulently reconstituted.

In short, the order to reconstitute the title of the heirs of Barque is a sole function of the regional trial court as acknowledged by the Supreme Court itself. Strangely, through, the first division of the Supreme Court in ruling against the Manotoks, declared “indeed, it would be needlessly circuitous to remand the case to the RTC to determine anew which of the two titles is sham or spurious and thereafter appeal the trial court’s ruling to the Court of Appeals.”

Usurpation

The LRA, the CA and finally the Supreme usurped the sole jurisdiction of the regional trial court in reconstitution of titles. BP No. 129 provides “regional trial courts shall exercise exclusive original jurisdiction …in all civil actions, which involve the title to or possession of, real property, or any interest therein.”

The Property Registration Decree also provides “a Torrens title (in this case of the Manotoks) cannot be cancelled except in a direct proceeding in accordance with law.”

I take it to mean that “in accordance with law” directly refers to the necessity of allowing the regional trial court to make a judgment since it has exclusive original jurisdiction.

Justice Santiago does not believe so. She finds it circuitous that the decision of the RTC will be appealed to the Court of Appeals. But didn’t the Manotoks file a motion for reconsideration with the LRA which was denied?

Didn’t the Manotoks similarly file same motion which the Court of Appeals also denied?

Why should it now be circuitous to comply with a law providing that in cases such as this, the regional trial court has exclusive original jurisdiction?

The LRA, the CA and finally the Supreme Court, came to the conclusion that the Manotok title is sham and spurious without the benefit of testimonies, cross-examinations and expert examination of documents which would have been done in a regional trial court as required by law.

It seems that the Supreme Court accepts the necessity of subjecting the case to a regional trial court as suggested by the LRA and the CA but found it worth neglecting and deciding the case in favor of the heirs of Homer Barque.

This is most unusual.

It’s still the law
The Court made the observation in the ponencia of Justice Santiago that “by opposing the petition for reconstitution and submitting their administratively reconstituted title, petitioners (the Manotoks) acquiesced to the authority of the reconstituting officer, the LRA and the Court of Appeals, and recognized their authority to pass judgment on their title.”

But what about the law saying that the regional trial court has exclusive original jurisdiction? Can that be waived by agreeing to the authority of a reconstituting officer? Maybe, if the matter is an administrative reconstitution. But this one is not, as shown by the fact that the Court of Appeals initially ruled in favor of the Manotoks then reversed its decision in favor of the heirs of Homer Barque. The case is a judicial reconstitution. In fact, the Supreme Court decided it with finality by denying two motions for reconsideration of the Manotoks.

The Court even said there is no basis in the allegation that the petitioners (Manotoks) were deprived of their property without due process of law when the Court of Appeals ordered the cancellation of their Torrens title, even without a direct proceeding in the RTC.”

But the law provides that the RTC has exclusive and original jurisdiction. To my mind, the Supreme Court should help enforce it. Surprisingly, the Court violated it.

It’s the plan that is spurious!

In granting the petition of the heirs of Homer Barque to have the title transferred to them, the Supreme Court said that the title of the Manotok is spurious. Not exactly if one examines the genuineness or falsity of the plan – Fls-3168 – submitted by the heirs of Homer Barque and sought by the LRA.

Privadi Dalire, chief of the geodetic surveys division of the Land Management Bureau, declared “our inventory of approved plans enrolled in our file, our microfilm computer list of plans available for decentralization all show that we do not have this plan Fls-3168, logically we cannot issue any copy.”

But a copy surfaced from somewhere, just the same. The flaw is in the findings that “the certification (rubber stamp) serves a two piece stamp. The certification and the signing official are separate. Ours is one piece.

“We do not stamp the plan twice as the syndicate did on the copy. The size of the lettering in the rubber stamp “Not for Registration/ Titling for Reference only” is smaller than our stamp.

“The copy bears forged initials of my section (Dalire’s geodetic survey division) officer and myself. I sign completely (in full) certification.

“The name of the claimant is very visible to have been tampered in the master copy.”

Which document is spurious? The title of the Manotoks or the plan of the heirs of Homer Barque. The Manotoks, according to the Supreme Court.

Verification is necessary

The majority opinion makes so much capital of the fact that the Land Registration Authority allegedly exceeded its authority when it demanded the production of the plan of the claimants, the heirs of Homer Barque. The ponente, Associate Justice Consuelo Ynares Santiago, ruled that “the LRA properly ruled that the reconstituting officer should have confined himself to the owner’s duplicate certificate of title prior to the construction.

The basis for this opinion is a section of R.A. 26 which states “transfer certificates of title shall be reconstituted from … the owner’s duplicate of the certificate of title.

The majority decision relies heavily on the claim that the plan FLS 3168-D “is duly entered into the microfilm records of the Bureau of Lands.”

Ignored by the majority opinion is the fact that there are testimonies that the plan is a forgery and therefore does not exist. The Bureau of Lands itself so certified that the plan is spurious, a forgery.

Why should the Court now blame the LRA for exceeding its jurisdiction by proving that the plan is spurious although the Court does not believe it is?

The lesson here is if the law that gives original exclusive jurisdiction to the regional trial court had been complied with, the truth or falsity of the existence of the plan would have been established. Then the Supreme Court would have been denied the claim that the LRA exceeded its jurisdiction. On the contrary, it might be said that the LRA helped in ferreting out the truth.

Thus, the submission of the plan which turned out to be a forgery could have helped the Court except that it was ignored as exceeding authority.

Verification is necessary

While a circular of the LRA states “only the owner’s or co-owners duplicate of an original or transfer certificate of title may be used as a source of administrative reconstitution,” there is another provision in the same circular that does not hold this as the be-all of administrative reconstitution.

A paragraph of the Circular states that “if the reconstituting officer or the Register of Deeds of another registry, after appropriate verification, is convinced that the certificate of title may be reconstituted, he shall issue an order of reconstitution. Otherwise, he shall deny the petition, stating his reasons therefore.”

It is clear here that a verification is a requirement, not just the submission of the owner’s or co-owner’s duplicate of an original or transfer certificate of title for reconstitution.

I personally find no abuse of authority when a man complies with the law in search of the truth. The majority decision finds very little use for that search. On the contrary, the decision derides the reconstituting officer by saying he should confine himself to the duplicate of the original title.

What this clearly suggests is that the reconstituting officer should take as gospel truth the duplicate of the original title which was burned. How else does one prove the authenticity of the duplicate of the burned original except by verification?

Email: amadomacasaet@yahoo.com

Two mistakes of SC

http://www.malaya.com.ph/jul20/busi8.htm

As somebody unlettered in the law, I want to speculate that the Supreme Court, through the pen of Associate Justice Consuelo Ynares Santiago, made two mistakes in ruling on the Manotok-Barque land dispute.

First, Justice Santiago ruled that the title of the Manotoks are sham and spurious.

Obviously, the basis for this is the certification of the existence of a plan on the land which is not even in the possession of the heirs of Homer Barque.

There is enough documentary evidence that the plan is fake. The microfilm from which a copy of the plan was made does not exist in the Bureau of Lands.

The second and even more fatal mistake is the side-stepping of an all-too important law on land dispute.

There is a law that says the Regional Trial Court had original and exclusive jurisdiction over disputes over land titles.

The declaration of the title of Manotok as sham and fraud was arbitrarily made by the Land Registration Authority and the Court of Appeals. Justice Santiago affirmed the fraud.

If the case had gone through the RTC as required by law, there would have been examination of documents, testimonies and counter testimonies of witnesses. In the end, the regional trial court would have solid basis for declaring that the title of the Manotoks is sham and spurious.

On the contrary, the plan of the heirs of Barque is spurious. I cannot understand how the Court failed to take note of this fact.

The SC should have remanded the case to the RTC. But Justice Santiago declared that doing so would be unnecessary waste of time. So what, if the ends of justice are served?

Protection of the Torrens system

http://www.malaya.com.ph/jul12/busi8.htm

In intervening in the Manotok land dispute, Solicitor General Agnes Devanadera, had this to tell the Supreme Court: “The OSG’s participation in this case is neither to favor any party claiming interest over the subject property, nor to assert that one party has a better right to the subject property over the other, but simply to protect the integrity of the Torrens system.”

She explained to the Court that “public confidence in the system would be eroded and land transactions would have to be attended by complicated and not necessarily conclusive investigations and proof of ownership. “The further consequence would be that land conflicts could be even more abrasive, even violent.”

The first division of the Supreme Court heard Devanadera but did not listen, except for Justice Carpio who wrote a biting dissent accompanied by four pages of bibliography.

Comparing Justice Carpio’s mind with the majority opinion, one would tend to believe that his was the majority opinion.

It would be recalled that in his time, Chief Justice Artemio V. Panganiban, always sought oral arguments en banc. He never had his way.

But the Court eventually agreed. Now that retired Associate Justice Florentino P. Feliciano is counsel of the Manotoks, the orals have been postponed five times. I don’t know why. The division is in a hurry to order the reconstitution of the title of the claimants, the heirs of Homer Barque, but agreed to five postponements of the oral arguments.

A 5th postponement of oral arguments

http://www.malaya.com.ph/jul04/busi8.htm

A 5th postponement of oral arguments

Oral arguments in the Manotok land have been postponed for the 5th time. I thought that four motions for postponement filed by the lawyers of the claimant, the heirs of Homer Barque, would have been enough. I thought that the oral arguments would finally push through as scheduled by the Supreme Court yesterday.

The Court granted another postponement to July 24.

A division in the SC has already ruled that the titles of the Manotok are sham and spurious. In fact it ordered the register of deeds of Quezon City to transfer the title to the heirs of Barque and for the Land Registration Authority to reconstitute the title claimed by the Barques nine years after the alleged original were burned in the fire that destroyed the office of the register of deeds in Quezon City in 1988,

The Manotoks, on the other hand, have been in possession and paying taxes on the property since 1923.

Before the en banc oral argument is the petition of the heirs of Barque for the Court to issue a writ of execution. There have been five postponements so far, all sought by the lawyers of the heirs.

Why are the heirs of Barque so scared to face the full membership of the Court and argue the case before them?

By the way, there is a funny part in the decision. Associate Justice Consuelo Ynares Santiago ordered the transfer of the title and then also ordered the LRA to reconstitute the title.

There would be nothing to transfer until the title is reconstituted. Approval or denial of the reconstitution is a sole function of the LRA. Then the regional trial court takes over. The LRA and the Court of Appeals skipped this process. They usurped the functions of the RTC

Email: amadomacasaet@yahoo.com

Manotoks’ tax payments

http://www.malaya.com.ph/jun28/busi8.htm

Manotoks’ tax payments

Maybe in the minds of the majority members of a division in the Supreme Court, it matters not that tax payments by the owners of a large tract of land covered by a Torrens title is part of proof of ownership. I have documents showing the Manotoks have paid P16.409 million from 1933 although they acquired the land subject to dispute as early as 1912.

The first payment was a princely sum, then, of P20.39.

Payment continued until the first quarter of the current year. Amount paid was P416,678.17.

On the other hand, the heirs of Homer Barque paid a total of P1,157,555 from 1987 to 1995. We do not have a record of Barque’s real estate tax payment in 1996, the year they filed a petition for reconstitution of title with the Land Registration Administration. The petition was filed a good eight years after the original title kept by the register of deeds of Quezon City was burned in a fire.

I do not find it normal that the heirs of Homer Barque are as poor as their lawyers say they are when they knew all along they have been sitting on a property, or at least have a title, worth billions of pesos. I would have enjoyed the money or made more money out of it by having it developed.

Proof of ownership

Jose Villegas, provincial assessor of the province of Rizal, identified Severino Manotok, the patriarch of the family, as the owner of the property as early as 1933. The declaration of ownership was made in Spanish.

My translator said that Villegas wrote that “the real property described in the attached paper of which you are the reputed owner, not having declared by you or your representative for the purposes of taxation, I have the honor to inform you that I have, in compliance with Sec. 358 of the Administrative Code of 1917, declared the same in your name, and assessed its value as indicated.”

I take this to mean that Manotok knew all along that the property was his but did not so declare probably because he did not want to pay the tax at that time.

To collect the tax, the provincial assessor declared that the property belonged to Severino Manotok, and subsequently made an assessment which he paid.

On Barque’s own declaration of real property, the Quezon City assessor, Teofista Ll. Pajara, wrote a memo on Barque’s declaration: “This property appears to duplicate the property of Manotok Realty, Inc. declared under TD No. B-067-02136 with an area of 342,945 sq. m.”

Friar lands

There are records, certified as reproduced from an original in the Archives Division … which show rather clearly that Teodoro and Severino Manotok bought lands from the government on May 4, 1923.

The land is in the Piedad Estate in the province of Rizal and is identified as Lot 823.

The property was bought from the Friar Lands Division of the bureau of lands in the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

There was a prior purchase, also by Severino Manotok, from the Friar Lands Division. The property had an area of 34 hectares and is also covered by lot 823. The purchase by Severino Manotok for P2,363, was made on March 3, 1919.

Severino Manotok is recorded as an assignee as certified by M. Teodoro, presumably of the Friar Lands Division,

This seems to establish the history of ownership by the Manotoks of the land now claimed by the heirs of Homer Barque.

From what I know, the only proof of ownership of the land as being owned by Homer Barque is the duplicate copy of an original title which was destroyed in the fire in the Quezon City Hall which also hit the register of deeds. The fire happened in 1988. The heirs of Barque filed a petition for reconstitution in 1996, or eight years after the original title was lost to a fire.

The issues for oral hearings

The Supreme Court en banc passed a resolution on March 20, 2007 regarding the land dispute. Maria Luisa D. Villarama, clerk of court, wrote the litigants saying the Court resolved to set the principal issues, thus:

1. Does the Court of Appeals have jurisdiction to cancel petitioners (Manotoks) transfer certificate of title before the regional trial court in a proceeding directly assailing the validity of petitioners’ title?

2. Does the Land Registration Administration Authority (LR€A) have jurisdiction to administratively reconstitute the allegedly lost TCT No. 210177 in the name of respondents (heirs of Homer Barque ) despite previously reconstituted TCT No. RT 22481 of the petitioners over the same property?

3. Does the LRA have jurisdiction to adjudicate on the validity of petitioners (Manotoks) TCT No. 22481 in the administrative reconstitution case filed by respondents with the LRA?

4. Does the Court of Appeals or the LRA have jurisdiction to decide the ownership of the disputed property in the administrative reconstitution of title filed by respondents?

Strangely or by coincidence, the dissenter in the case, Associate Justice Antonio T. Carpio identified the issues in exactly the same manner as the first two questions for oral hearings.

Email: amadomacasaet@yahoo.com

Insulting the magistrates

http://www.malaya.com.ph/jun22/busi8.htm

Insulting the magistrates

A very powerful man in Malacañang believes that he has the members of the Supreme Court, majority of them anyway, in the palm of his hands if not in his pocket. The case involves the dispute over a 34-hectare property to which the Manotoks claim they have held a Torrens title since 1923.

The history of the case is sad for the Manotoks. It has been a win-lose case for them from the Land Registration Administration to the Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the claimants, the heirs of Homer L. Barque represented by Teresita Barque Hernandez. Pending before the tribunal is an opposition to the motion of the Barques to enforce the decision of the Supreme Court upholding the validity of their claims.

Oral arguments have been set six times but were postponed five times. Finally, the orals will be held on July 3, next month.

Does the powerful man now suspect or believe that the motion of the Barques to take possession might be denied? We do not have one word on that, the case being subjudice. But since the tribunal has practically ruled that the titles of the Manotoks are not valid, why would there be a need for the powerful official to put out money so that the Court can sustain the motion?

This is a supreme insult to the Court which the magistrates may not take too lightly. They have reversed themselves many times in as many cases but never in consideration of money.

How the case came about

The case actually started with the burning of the Quezon City Hall sometime in 1988. The documents under the custody of the Register of Deeds were burned. Thus, arose the necessity of reconstituting documents, specially land titles.

But it was not until 1996 that the heirs of Barque came from nowhere and filed with the Land Registration Commission a petition for reconstitution of what they now continue to claim are titles covering the land that the Manotoks have been occupying and paying taxes on since 1923.

They have a Torrens title over the land.

Clearly because the Manotoks have certificate of title over the land, the LRA denied the petition for reconstitution.

The Barque family appealed the decision. The LRA reversed itself and declared that the Manotok certificate of title was spurious.

On the other hand, it was on that decision on appeal that the LRA declared that the Barque title is valid and authentic because it conforms to the boundaries of property.

In any case, the dispute reached the Court of Appeals which initially sustained the claim of validity of the title of the Manotoks.

Again, the CA reversed itself on motion for reconsideration by the Barque group. Finally, the dispute reached the Supreme Court.

Associate Justice Consuelo Ynares Santiago penned a decision affirming that the title of the Barque family is authentic. Two motions for reconsideration were filed by the Manotoks. They were both denied.

All that is left is for the tribunal to issue a writ of execution and possession in favor of the Barque family as so ruled by the amended decisions of the CA and affirmed by the Supreme Court.

The petition is scheduled for hearing en banc on July 3.

Simple sense

Nowhere in the ruling of the Supreme Court appears the fact that no member of the Barque family ever set foot on the land. Justice Consuelo Ynares Santiago, the ponente of the case decided by a special division of five, did not have one word that the Barque started paying taxes on the land only in the nineties after they filed a claim for reconstitution, rejected and later approved by the Land Registration Commission.

On the other hand, there are documents showing that the Manotok clan has been paying taxes on the land they owned on the strength of a Torrens title since the 1930s, or about seven years after they acquired it in 1923.

One wonders why it took a fire that destroyed certificates of land title in Quezon City, for the Barque to file a claim for reconstitution and which they justified by producing their own duplicate.

There is no record anywhere in all stages of the disputes whether or not there was any effort by the courts to check the validity or genuineness of the Barque duplicate title which surfaced only after the original was burned in 1988.

If I happened to have a title to that property, I would have moved heaven and earth to drive the Manotoks away and take possession. After proper court procedures, needless to say. But we might say that the Barque family sat on their rights until the original title was burned after which they produced a duplicate which became the basis for reconstitution.

It would have been plain simple sense for the Barque to take possession long before the original title was burned.

‘Sham and spurious’

Associate Justice Consuelo Ynares Santiago penned the decision denying the petitions of the Manotoks to declare null and void the decisions of the LRA and the Court of Appeals.

Justices Leonardo Quisumbing and Adolf Azcuna each wrote a one-page separate opinion, concurring with Justice Santiago.,

Justice Quisumbing opined thus: “While at the inception of this controversy, a trial by the regional trial court would have been in order, remand of this case for trial at this late stage would only be a time-consuming and pointless exercise.”

Justice Azcuna had his own concurring opinion. He declared “from the record it appears that, as the LRA and the CA affirmed, petitioner Manotoks TCT (transfer certificate of title is sham and spurious. For one thing, the property is purportedly located in barrio Payong, Quezon City, whereas no such barrio exists therein. It is, therefore, in my view unnecessary to go through the exercise of proving this matter again in the regular courts as would ordinarily be required since the point is indubitable.”

Justice Azcuna also declared, following the opinion of Justice Quisumbing “It would be unjust in the circumstances to require respondents Barque to undergo a time-consuming and pointless exercise to cancel an evidently sham and spurious title.”

My mind as a layman tells me that a process in reconstitution has been skipped. It matters not that time that would be consumed for as long as doing so complies with the requirements of law.

Justice Carpio dissents

Senior Associate Justice Antonio T. Carpio wrote a biting dissent that to me, makes minced meat of the majority decision.

To begin with, he declared that the Manotoks were denied due process. In his 38-page dissent, including four pages of bibliography as against Santiago’s 18-page ponencia, Carpio stated: “I dissent because the majority opinion deprives petitioners of their immensely valuable property – worth billions of pesos – without due process of law.

He declared that the majority decision violates a provision of the Property Registration Decree which states that “Torrens title cannot be …. cancelled except in a direct proceeding in accordance with law.”

He stated that Batas Pambansa No. 129 provides that “regional trial courts shall exercise exclusive original jurisdiction … in all civil actions, which involve the title to, or possession of, real property, or any interest therein.”

In short, Justice Carpio says that the law requires “only the proper trial court, in an action directly attacking the validity of a Torrens title can cancel a Torrens title after trial on the merit.’

However, the majority decision did not find the necessity of complying with this all-too-important provision and rather senselessly declared that going through the process is time-consuming since the title is sham and spurious.

The fact of being sham and spurious or not is a sole function of the regional trial court as clearly stated by law.

Authority of the LRA

According to Justice Carpio’s dissent, the Land Registration Administration does not have the authority to order the cancellation of titles. Its functions are merely to grant or deny petitions for reconstitution.

In reversing itself, the LRA among other things, opined that “the map of Quezon City would show that there is no such barrio as Payong (where the Manotoks have a property).

The dissent of Justice Carpio demolished this claim when he cited that on June 20, 1978, the Court issued an order directing the clerk of court to conduct an ocular inspection of the landholdings in question.”

The Clerk of Court complied and proceeded to Barrio Payong “to conduct an ocular inspection of the landholding involved in this case.”

The dissent stated that the “findings of the LRA that the barrio does not exist is based on LRA’s evaluation of the documents. In contrast, he said, “the findings of the Court of Agrarian Relations … is based on ocular inspection.”

This issue, according to Carpio’s dissent, “should be threshed out by the proper court trial in an action directly attacking the validity of the Torrens title of Manotok, et. al.”

That clear provision of law was conveniently skipped. The majority opinion declared that remanding the case to a regional trial court is time-consuming and unnecessary since the LRA, affirmed by the Court of Appeals, discovered that the Manotok Torrens title is sham and spurious.

However, the declaration of a title being spurious or not exclusively belongs to the Regional Trial Court as required by law.,

In other words the LRA and the Court of Appeals usurped the functions of the RTC. Most unfortunately, the Supreme Court sustained the usurpation.

Email: amadomacasaet@yahoo.com

Foreign poll observers: We felt safer in Afghanistan

This is really so pathetic. It is a shame. This is where the major cheating will be made. There is no democracy in our country… it is “all-talk” and nothing sincere. The ARMM should have a separate voting where all eyes will be on them and quadruple the number of watchers and security.

Posted May 17, 2007 03:11:00(Mla Time)

Inquirer

Cynthia Balana
MANILA, Philippines — Despite the “fiesta” atmosphere during the May 14 elections, foreign observers who monitored the voting in Mindanao said Wednesday they worried constantly about possible violence and felt safer in Afghanistan.

They also reported incidents of intimidation, blatant vote-buying, candidates’ poll watchers dictating names to voters as they filled out their ballots and lack of voter respect for election institutions in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

In a statement, the team of 21 foreign observers from the Asian Network for Free Elections (Anfrel) said that while the government claimed the balloting was generally peaceful, it was not so in the ARMM.

It said the ARMM polling was “manipulated by outsiders” and that the culture of impunity for election and political crime may fuel calls for an alternative government that could provide justice for the people.

“The situation is not so comfortable especially if you have the military everywhere and also weapons everywhere,” said Somsri Hananontasuk, Anfrel director from Thailand.

Somsri, who said she saw confrontations between rival candidates and two bomb blasts, had also observed polls in 2004 and 2005 in Afghanistan.

She said she felt safer in Afghanistan than last Monday.

“Of course, we were also afraid of the underground Taliban … but at least we don’t have shooting… the threat from two sides when you go anywhere and the guns that sometimes are poised,” she added.

Hot in Mindanao

The observers from Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Thailand spent eight days in six ARMM provinces and visited more than 500 precincts.

Mohamad Yunus Lebai Ali, director of the National Institute for Electoral Integrity (NIEI) in Malaysia, said it was “a hot situation” in Mindanao, particularly in Tawi-Tawi and Sulu.

“We are not passing judgment. We came here more as a fact-finding mission to learn from each other and observe. We have universal criteria of elections,” he stressed, including whether the exercise was peaceful, free and fair.

Ali said the observers agreed that the atmosphere was not conducive to elections in the visited ARMM provinces.

No secrecy in voting

“I did not feel physically safe, what more the voters?” he said.

“It’s not to say the election was fair. We saw how protection took place, many cases of vote manipulation. It’s very hard to say there was no cheating up to election day,” he said.

Ali said that being free meant the voting must be done confidentially, which was not the case in the precincts the observers visited.

“We observed a lot of coaching inside precincts where people were being commanded to write the names and I myself observed flying voters in truck loads with 20-25 of them coming to precincts,” he stressed.

Women participation

Somsri noted the deployment of military personnel outside the voting centers in schools.

But she also noted some positive things, such as more women participation in all aspects of the electoral processes, the festive mood in most polling precincts despite the long lines of voters and the vigilance of civil society.

“It is a fiesta of democracy and I take it as celebration of democracy,” she said.

Amim Shah Bin Iskandor of Malaysia said he talked to some people who even tried to sell their votes, something he had never experienced in his country.

“To me, it is very cheap, just P20. This incident happened one day before the election. They’re not afraid and they showed money, they got it,” Iskandor said.

The observers blamed the “clan system” for the continuing political dynasties in the Philippines and said this was not good for the Philippines and other Asian countries.

Use symbols for candidates

Rashid Rashad of Sri Lanka’s People’s Action for Fair and Free Elections compared the Philippines’ antiquated voting process with the more advanced card system used in Sri Lanka’s elections.

“The people are not educated, the ballots are very big. Why don’t you introduce a card system where people just have to choose symbols (for candidates) to make it more simple for voters? The long paper is discouraging voters,” she said.

Proposals for reform

The team proposed several electoral reforms:

• Election offenses must be addressed swiftly.

• The law on campaign finance should be enforced. Overspending must be discouraged, and the source of funding should be clear.

• Cut down the cost of campaigning and enhance accountability and representation by having senators elected by region rather than nationwide.

• The anti-dynasty provision of the Constitution should be implemented to limit the number of politicians from the same family or political clan.

• The Commission on Elections must be more professional and those who misuse their power should be disqualified.

• The local election should be separated from the national to make the process simpler and more transparent.

• The law on modernization should be implemented in coming elections. With reports from Cathy Yamsuan and Associated Press