THE ROMAN CATHOLIC APOSTOLIC CHURCH, ET AL., plaintiffs-appellants, vs.
ISABEL FAMILIAR, ET AL., defendants-appellees.
1908-09-22 | G.R. No. 4701
DECISION
TRACEY, J.:
Since times beyond the memory of the oldest witnesses there stood upon the land in dispute in Uacas,
Cavite Viejo, a Roman Catholic chapel, in use for religious purposes until September, 1905, when it was
destroyed by a typhoon. Thereafter the defendants, who owned the adjoining land, took possession of it
and continued to hold it as a part of their own property. In May, 1906, the plaintiff brought this action in
the Court of First Instance to recover possession of it, and the defendants claim that the land on which
the chapel stood originally belonged to their ancestor and that the ownership of it by him and by them
was admitted by the regular annual payment to them by an hermano mayor of the sum of 50 centavos,
and on this ground the Court of First Instance of Cavite awarded them judgment. It is clear that this
defense can not prevail for several reasons: First, there is nothing to connect this plaintiff with the
alleged annual payment. There is not a word to prove a cofradia, and its existence can not be inferred
from the simple existence of an hermano mayor. (The Roman Catholic Apostolic Church vs. Santos, 7
Phil. Rep., 66.) The payment of this sum of of centavos, while sustained by declarations of two former
hermanos mayores, is disputed by many witnesses in a position to know about it, and its insignificance is
hardly consistent with an annual rental. Second, the defense necessarily assumes as its basis the
existence of the relation of landlord and tenant between the defendant and the plaintiff or its
representatives. of such a relation existed, it could not be terminated arbitrarily by the act of the
defendants; the tenant had the same right to retain possession of the property after the destruction of the
chapel as before that event, until the lease had been put an end to by regular process of law. A landlord
may not summarily enter and dispossess his tenant even for nonpayment of rent; and until the lease is
legally terminated the tenant has the right to possession and may recover it from the landlord. (Cioco vs.
Muro, 9 Phil. Rep., 100; Bago vs. Garcia, 5 Phil. Rep., 524; Bishop of Cebu vs. Mangaron, 6 Phil. Rep.,
286.) There is nothing conflicting with this doctrine in the case of Evangelista vs. Ver (8 Phil. Rep., 653).
There the plaintiff was defeated because in the opinion of the majority of the court he failed to establish
the fact of anterior possession, the proofs in their opinion showing such a relation of the two parties to
each other and to their common superior, the owner, as to preclude the possibility of an exclusive
possession in either, the defendant indeed never having given up the occupancy of the property, but the
plaintiff having in fact and by necessary construction of his acts abandoned it. Nor was it clear that the
plaintiff, on his own showing, had been deprived of possession by "force, intimidation, strategy, or stealth"
(5 Phil. Rep., 74), or by violation of a suitable contract, so as to bring his action within the scope of
section 80, nor that it had been so treated by the court below. (Bosco vs. Rebueno, 6 Off. Gaz., 1463.1 )
The principle of the decisions on that section is not affected by that case.
The action appears to be well laid under the statute. It is only when brought for the possession of land
detained by force, or by one of the other means specified in section 80 of the Code of Civil Procedure
that it must be commenced within the year in a court of the justice of the peace, otherwise it may be
begun in a Court of First Instance. (Ledesma vs. Marcos, 9 Phil. Rep., 618; Alonso vs. Municipality of
Placer, 5 Phil. Rep., 71.)
This is a possessory action only and on the proofs the plaintiff is entitled to the possession of the
property. The judgment of the Court of First Instance in favor of the defendants is reversed, without costs.
So ordered.
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Arellano, C.J., Torres, Mapa and Willard, JJ., concur.
CARSON, J.:
I reserve my vote.
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Footnotes
1. Page 300, supra.
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