TUASON vs ROD G.R. No. 70484 January 29, 1988

 

G.R. No. 70484 January 29, 1988

 

ROMAN C. TUASON and REMEDIOS V. TUASON, by attorney-in-fact Trinidad S. Viado, petitioners, 
vs.
REGISTER OF DEEDS, CALOOCAN City, MINISTRY OF JUSTICE, and the NATIONAL TREASURER, respondents. TOMASA BARTOLOME, in her own behalf and in behalf of the other members of the "Consuelo Heights Homeowners Association," petitioners-intervenors.

 

Ponente: Narvasa. J.

Doctrine: Certiorari, in reality, is directed against an unlawful exercise of power. It is proper when the done by an officer in the performance of what in essence is a judicial function, if it be shown that the acts were done without or in excess of jurisdiction, or with grave abuse of discretion. Certiorari may also be treated as a Prohibition if the averments are sufficient.

 

FACTS:

1.    Petitioner spouses, the Tuasons, were retired public school teachers.

2.    They bought a piece of land in Caloocan from Carmel Farms

3.    8 yrs thereafter, they woke up one morning to discover that by presidential flat, they were no longer the owners of the land.

4.    Their land and the other lots in the subdivision had been "declared open for disposition and sale to the members of the Malacanang Homeowners Association, Inc., the present bona fide occupants thereof."

5.    A year after the declaration of martial law, Marcos ssued PD 293 with immediate effect.

6.    The decree invalidated inter alia the title of the Tuasons' vendor, Carmel Farms, which had earlier purchased from the Government the land.

a.    The land bought by Carmel Farms was part of the Tala Estate (one of the so-called "Friar Lands").

b.    Carmel had bought the land under Act No. 1120 and C.A. No. 32, as amended.

7.    Presidential Decree No. 293 made the finding that Carmel had failed to complete payment of the price.

a.    according to the records of the Bureau of Lands, neither the original purchasers nor their subsequent transferees have made full payment of all installments of the purchase money and interest on the lots claimed by the Carmel Farms, Inc., including those on which the dwellings of the members of said Association stand. Hence, title to said land has remained with the Government, and the land now occupied by the members of said association has never ceased to form part of the property of the Republic of the Philippines, any and all acts affecting said land and purporting to segregate it from the said property of the Republic of the Philippines being therefore null and void ab initio as against the law and public policy.

8.    Upon this adjudgment, Mr. Marcos:

a.    Invalidated the titles of Carmel Farms, Inc. and all those derived therefrom, and

b.    Declared as aforestated "the members of the Malacanang Homeowners Association, Inc. the present bona fide occupants" of the lots 

9.    It seems to have completely escaped Mr. Marcos' attention that his decree contained contradictory declarations.

a.    While acknowledging on the one hand that the lots in the Carmel Subdivision were occupied by the buyers thereof, and in fact the latter's dwellings stood thereon, he states on the other that the "members of the Malacanang Homeowners Association, Inc. (are) the present bona fide occupants" of all said lots.

10. On the strength of this presidential decree, the Register of Deeds of Caloocan City caused the inscription on the Tuasons' title, TCT No. 8314.

11. SC: The Tuason Spouses thereupon filed a petition for certiorari assailing the Marcos decree as an arbitrary measure which deprived them of their property in favor of a selected group, in violation of the:

a.     Constitutional provisions on due process and eminent domain; and

b.    Provisions of the Land Registration Act on the indefeasibility of Torrens titles; 

 

ISSUE: W/N Certiorari under Rule 65 was proper – YES

 

RULING:

It is true that the extraodinary writ of certiorari  may properly issue to nullify only judicial or quasi-judicial acts, unlike the writ of prohibition which may be directed against acts either judicial or ministerial. Section 1, Rule 65 of the Rules of Court deals with the writ of certiorari in relation to "any tribunal, board or officer exercising judicial functions, while Section 2 of the same Rule treats of the writ of prohibition in relation to "proceedings of any tribunal, corporation, board, or person ... exercising functions judicial or ministerial." But the petition will be shown upon analysis to be in reality directed against an unlawful exercise of judicial power.

 

The decree reveals that Mr. Marcos exercised an obviously judicial function. He made a determination of facts, and applied the law to those facts, declaring what the legal rights of the parties were in the premises. These acts essentially constitute a judicial function,  or an exercise of jurisdiction — which is the power and authority to hear or try and decide or determine a cause.  He adjudged it to be an established fact that neither the original purchasers nor their subsequent transferees have made full payment of all installments of the purchase money and interest on the lots claimed by Carmel Farms, Inc., including those on which the dwellings of the members of ... (the) Association (of homeowners) stand." And applying the law to that situation, he made the adjudication that "title to said land has remained with the Government, and the land now occupied by the members of said association has never ceased to form part of the property of the Republic of the Philippines," and that 'any and all acts affecting said land and purporting to segregate it from the said property of the Republic ... (were) null and void ab initio as against the law and public policy.

 

These acts may thus be properly struck down by the writ of certiorari, because done by an officer in the performance of what in essence is a judicial function, if it be shown that the acts were done without or in excess of jurisdiction, or with grave abuse of discretion. Since Mr. Marcos was never vested with judicial power, such power, as everyone knows, being vested in the Supreme Court and such inferior courts as may be established by law   — the judicial acts done by him were in the circumstances indisputably perpetrated without jurisdiction. The acts were completely alien to his office as chief executive, and utterly beyond the permissible scope of the legislative power that he had assumed as head of the martial law regime.

 

Moreover, he had assumed to exercise power — i.e. determined the relevant facts and applied the law thereto without a trial at which all interested parties were accorded the opportunity to adduce evidence to furnish the basis for a determination of the facts material to the controversy. He made the finding ostensibly on the basis of "the records of the Bureau of Lands." Prescinding from the fact that there is no indication whatever the nature and reliability of these records and that they are in no sense conclusive, it is undeniable that the petitioner Tuasons (and the petitioners in intervention) were never confronted with those records and afforded a chance to dispute their trustworthiness and present countervailing evidence. This is yet another fatal defect. The adjudication was patently and grossly violative of the right to due process to which the petitioners are entitled in virtue of the Constitution. Mr. Marcos, in other words, not only arrogated unto himself a power never granted to him by the Constitution or the laws but had in addition exercised it unconstitutionally.

 

In any event, this Court has it in its power to treat the petition for certiorari as one for prohibition if the averments of the former sufficiently made out a case for the latter.  Considered in this wise, it will also appear that an executive officer had acted without jurisdiction — exercised judicial power not granted to him by the Constitution or the laws — and had furthermore performed the act in violation of the constitutional rights of the parties thereby affected. The Court will grant such relief as may be proper and efficacious in the premises even if not specifically sought or set out in the prayer of the appropriate pleading, the permissible relief being determined after all not by the prayer but by the basic averments of the parties' pleadings. 

 

WHEREFORE, Presidential Decree No. 293 is declared to be unconstitutional and void ab initio.

 

Separate Opinion:

I concur fully in the main opinion depicting the unparalleled "despotic, capricious, oppressive and unjustifiable exercise of government power" by the deposed President Ferdinand E. Marcos, as struck down by the Court's unanimous judgment in the case at bar. These arbitrary, capricious and oppressive decrees, tailored to suit the deposed President's every wish and whim, were the product of unrestrained power, as the deposed President took over the entire government with the imposition of martial law.