Title
Armed Forces of the Philippines vs. Amogod
Case
G.R. No. 213753
Decision Date
Nov 10, 2020
Dispute over land in Cagayan de Oro: AFP claims ownership, respondents assert 30-year possession. SC ruled AFP has better right, but eviction must follow legal process.
injunction
ownership
disputed land

Case Summary (G.R. No. 213753)

Factual Background

The respondents are the actual occupants of several parcels of land in Cagayan de Oro City designated as Lot 2, Lot 45748 (69,974 sq.m.), Lot 3, Lot 45749 (12,859 sq.m.), and Lots 4, 5 and 6 corresponding to Lot Nos. 45750, 45751 and 45752, among others, which lie outside the perimeter of Camp Edilberto Evangelista. The respondents and their predecessors claimed continuous occupation for more than thirty years and sought segregation and exclusion from the military reservation. In 2007 the petitioner demanded that respondents vacate, closed some stores, and otherwise sought to remove respondents, prompting respondents to file petitions for injunction to restrain eviction and to protect their possession.

Procedural History

Respondents filed two petitions for injunction in the RTC (Civil Case Nos. 2007-104 and 2007-152). The RTC granted the petitions by Order dated October 29, 2008, enjoining the petitioner from summary eviction and ordering the reopening of certain closed stores. The petitioner appealed to the Court of Appeals, which affirmed the RTC in a Decision dated August 22, 2013 and denied reconsideration in a Resolution dated July 30, 2014. The petitioner then sought review under Rule 45 before the Supreme Court.

RTC Ruling

The trial court relied on a relocation/verification report and a supplemental report from the DENR which concluded that the subject parcels were outside the petitioner’s 36-hectare military reservation and were alienable and disposable. The RTC found that respondents’ actual possession since time immemorial gave them a clear and unmistakable right deserving protection and therefore granted the writ of injunction and ordered the return of the bond posted for the temporary restraining order.

Court of Appeals Ruling

The CA affirmed the RTC principally on the basis of the September 21, 2010 Order of the Regional Executive Director of DENR-Region X, which had granted respondents’ petition for exclusion and segregation and deemed the parcels alienable and disposable. The CA accepted the RED’s conclusion that the deeds of donation and quitclaim in favor of petitioner lacked value because they were not accepted by petitioner, and thus concluded that respondents, as actual occupants of lands declared alienable and disposable, had preferential rights.

Issue Presented

The narrow issue before the Supreme Court was whether the CA seriously erred in affirming the RTC’s orders granting respondents’ petitions for injunction, thereby enjoining petitioner from evicting respondents and demolishing their houses and stores.

Parties' Contentions

The petitioner contended that it owned the disputed parcels by virtue of an alleged 1936 sale acknowledged in later quitclaim and donation instruments and supported by tax declarations, land history cards, consolidation/subdivision plans, and DENR survey reports; petitioner pointed to the DENR Secretary’s August 8, 2013 Decision reversing the RED and concluding that petitioner had a better right. Petitioner further argued that respondents were squatters constituting nuisance per se and therefore subject to summary abatement, and that R.A. No. 7279 or P.D. No. 1227 authorized summary eviction or criminal sanctions. Respondents maintained that they occupied the parcels for more than thirty years, that the lands had been declared alienable and disposable, that the quitclaim and donation instruments were invalid for lack of acceptance by petitioner, and that their peaceful possession entitled them to preferential rights and to injunctive relief.

Supreme Court's Legal Analysis

The Court reiterated the elemental requisites for issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction under Section 3, Rule 58: that the applicant is entitled to the relief demanded where such relief consists in restraining or requiring an act; that continuance of the act during litigation would probably work injustice; or that some act is being done that tends to render judgment ineffectual. The Court recalled further precedents requiring that complainant demonstrate a right in esse and that the threatened act violate such right, and distilled the essential concurrent requisites as: material and substantial invasion of right, a clear and unmistakable right in the complainant, and urgent necessity to prevent serious damage. Applying these principles, the Court found that respondents did not possess a clear and unmistakable right in the disputed parcels because their claim rested on actual possession alone while ownership remained contested.

The Court gave deference to the DENR Secretary’s August 8, 2013 Decision insofar as that administrative determination, after review of documentary and ocular evidence, concluded that petitioner had a better right to the lands than respondents; the Court observed that administrative findings within competent jurisdiction are entitled to respect unless shown to be tainted by grave abuse of discretion, fraud or error of law. The Court also independently evaluated the documentary evidence that petitioner adduced: the Quitclaim Deeds of the Velezes and the Pinedas dated 1951, a Land History Card, tax declarations, an approved consolidation/subdivision plan, and the Supplemental Relocation Survey Report which indicated the parcels were outside the military reservation yet within the area covered by the 1951 quitclaims and related instruments. The Court concluded that these documents established a superior claim in petitioner.

On respondents’ claim of acquisitive prescription, the Court applied established doctrine that possession must be in the concept of an owner (en concepto de dueño), public, peaceful and uninterrupted to ripen into ownership, and that possession by mere tolerance or license does not commence prescription. The Court noted that respondents failed to prove that their entry was lawful, that their possession was in the concept of an owner, or to state when their occupation began, and thus their alleged thirty-year possession did not ripen into title.

The Court rejected petitioner’s argument that respondents constituted a nuisance per se, explaining the distinction between nuisance per se and nuisance per accidens and observing that residential houses and stores are not a direct menace to public health or safety and therefore are not summarily abatable. The Court likewise ruled that Section 28 of R.A. No. 7279 did not authorize summary eviction in this case because none of the statute’s enumerated instances for summary eviction obtaine

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