REPUBLIC vs. CA
G.R. No.
146587 July 2, 2002
FACTS:
Petitioner
(PIA) instituted expropriation proceedings covering a total of 544,980 square
meters of contiguous land situated along MacArthur Highway, Malolos, Bulacan,
to be utilized for the continued broadcast operation and use of radio
transmitter facilities for the “Voice of the Philippines” project.
Petitioner
made a deposit of P517,558.80, the sum provisionally fixed as being the
reasonable value of the property. On 26 February 1979, or more than 9 years
after the institution of the expropriation proceedings, the trial court issued
this order condemning the property and ordering the plaintiff to pay the
defendants the just compensation for the property.
It
would appear that the National Government failed to pay the respondents the
just compensation pursuant to the foregoing decision. The respondents then filed a manifestation
with a motion seeking payment for the expropriated property. In response, the
court issued a writ of execution for the implementation thereof.
Meanwhile,
Pres. Estrada issued Proc. No. 22 transferring 20 hectares of the expropriated
land to the Bulacan State University.
Despite
the court’s order, the Santos heirs remained unpaid and no action was on their
case until petitioner filed its manifestation and motion to permit the deposit
in court of the amount P4,664,000 by way of just compensation.
The
Santos heirs submitted a counter-motion to adjust the compensation from
P6/sq.m. as previously fixed to its current zonal value of P5,000/sq.m. or to
cause the return of the expropriated property.
The RTC
Bulacan ruled in favor of the Santos heirs declaring its 26 February 1979 Decision
to be unenforceable on the ground of prescription in accordance with Sec. 6,
Rule 39 of the 1964/1997 ROC which states that a final and executory judgment
or order may be executed on motion within 5 years from the date of its entry.
RTC denied petitioner’s Motion to Permit Deposit and ordered the return of the
expropriated property to the heirs of Santos.
ISSUES:
1. WON the
petitioner may appropriate the property
2. WON the
respondents are entitled to the return of the property in question
HELD:
1. The right of eminent domain is usually
understood to be an ultimate right of the sovereign power to appropriate any
property within its territorial sovereignty for a public purpose. Fundamental
to the independent existence of a State, it requires no recognition by the
Constitution, whose provisions are taken as being merely confirmatory of its
presence and as being regulatory, at most, in the due exercise of the
power. In the hands of the legislature,
the power is inherent, its scope matching that of taxation, even that of police
power itself, in many respects. It
reaches to every form of property the State needs for public use and, as an old
case so puts it, all separate interests of individuals in property are held
under a tacit agreement or implied reservation vesting upon the sovereign the
right to resume the possession of the property whenever the public interest so
requires it.
The
ubiquitous character of eminent domain is manifest in the nature of the
expropriation proceedings. Expropriation proceedings are not adversarial in
the conventional sense, for the condemning authority is not required to
assert any conflicting interest in the property. Thus, by filing the action, the condemnor
in effect merely serves notice that it is taking title and possession of the
property, and the defendant asserts title or interest in the property, not
to prove a right to possession, but to prove a right to compensation for
the taking.
Obviously,
however, the power is not without its limits: first, the taking must be for public
use, and second, that just compensation must be given to the private
owner of the property. These twin proscriptions have their origin in the
recognition of the necessity for achieving balance between the State interests,
on the one hand, and private rights, upon the other hand, by effectively
restraining the former and affording protection to the latter. In determining “public use,” two approaches are
utilized - the first is public employment or the actual use by the
public, and the second is public advantage or benefit. It is also useful
to view the matter as being subject to constant growth, which is to say that as
society advances, its demands upon the individual so increases, and each demand
is a new use to which the resources of the individual may be devoted.
The
expropriated property has been shown to be for the continued utilization by the
PIA, a significant portion thereof being ceded for the expansion of the
facilities of the Bulacan State University and for the propagation of the
Philippine carabao, themselves in line with the requirements of public purpose.
Respondents question the public nature of the utilization by petitioner of the
condemned property, pointing out that its present use differs from the
purpose originally contemplated in the 1969 expropriation proceedings. The
argument is of no moment. The property
has assumed a public character upon its expropriation. Surely, petitioner, as
the condemnor and as the owner of the property, is well within its rights to
alter and decide the use of that property, the only limitation being that it be
for public use, which, decidedly, it is.
2. NO. In
insisting on the return of the expropriated property, respondents would exhort
on the pronouncement in Provincial
Government of Sorsogon vs. Vda. de Villaroya where the unpaid landowners
were allowed the alternative remedy of recovery of the property there in
question. It might be borne in mind that the case involved the municipal
government of Sorsogon, to which the power of eminent domain is not inherent,
but merely delegated and of limited application. The grant of the power of eminent domain
to local governments under Republic Act No. 7160 cannot be understood as being
the pervasive and all-encompassing power vested in the legislative branch of
government. For local governments to be able to wield the power, it must,
by enabling law, be delegated to it by the national legislature, but even then,
this delegated power of eminent domain is not, strictly speaking, a power of
eminent, but only of inferior, domain or only as broad or confined as the real
authority would want it to be.
Thus, in
Valdehueza vs. Republic where the private landowners had remained unpaid ten
years after the termination of the expropriation proceedings, this Court ruled
-
“The points in dispute are whether
such payment can still be made and, if so, in what amount. Said lots have been the subject of
expropriation proceedings. By final and
executory judgment in said proceedings, they were condemned for public use, as
part of an airport, and ordered sold to the government. x x x It follows that both by virtue of the
judgment, long final, in the expropriation suit, as well as the annotations
upon their title certificates, plaintiffs are not entitled to recover
possession of their expropriated lots - which are still devoted to the
public use for which they were expropriated - but only to demand the fair
market value of the same.
"Said relief may be granted under
plaintiffs' prayer for: `such other remedies, which may be deemed just and equitable
under the premises'."
The Court
proceeded to reiterate its pronouncement in Alfonso vs. Pasay City where the
recovery of possession of property taken for public use prayed for by the
unpaid landowner was denied even while no requisite expropriation proceedings
were first instituted. The landowner was merely given the relief of recovering
compensation for his property computed at its market value at the time it was
taken and appropriated by the State.
The
judgment rendered by the Bulacan RTC in 1979 on the expropriation proceedings
provides not only for the payment of just compensation to herein respondents
but likewise adjudges the property condemned in favor of petitioner over which
parties, as well as their privies, are bound. Petitioner has occupied, utilized
and, for all intents and purposes, exercised dominion over the property
pursuant to the judgment. The exercise
of such rights vested to it as the condemnee indeed has amounted to at least a partial
compliance or satisfaction of the 1979 judgment, thereby preempting any claim
of bar by prescription on grounds of non-execution. In arguing for the return of their property
on the basis of non-payment, respondents ignore the fact that the right of the
expropriatory authority is far from that of an unpaid seller in ordinary sales,
to which the remedy of rescission might perhaps apply. An in rem proceeding,
condemnation acts upon the property. After condemnation, the paramount title is
in the public under a new and independent title; thus, by giving notice to all
claimants to a disputed title, condemnation proceedings provide a judicial
process for securing better title against all the world than may be obtained by
voluntary conveyance.
Respondents,
in arguing laches against petitioner did not take into account that the same
argument could likewise apply against them. Respondents first instituted
proceedings for payment against petitioner on 09 May 1984, or five years after
the 1979 judgment had become final. The unusually long delay in bringing the
action to compel payment against herein petitioner would militate against them.
Consistently with the rule that one should take good care of his own concern,
respondents should have commenced the proper action upon the finality of the
judgment which, indeed, resulted in a permanent deprivation of their ownership
and possession of the property.
The
constitutional limitation of “just
compensation” is considered to be the sum equivalent to the market value
of the property, broadly described to be the price fixed by the seller in open
market in the usual and ordinary course of legal action and competition or the
fair value of the property as between one who receives, and one who desires to
sell, it fixed at the time of the actual taking by the government. Thus, if
property is taken for public use before compensation is deposited with the
court having jurisdiction over the case, the final compensation must include interests
on its just value to be computed from the time the property is taken to the
time when compensation is actually paid or deposited with the court.
In fine, between the taking of the property and the actual payment, legal
interests accrue in order to place the owner in a position as good as (but not
better than) the position he was in before the taking occurred.
The
Bulacan trial court, in its 1979 decision, was correct in imposing interests on
the zonal value of the property to be computed from the time petitioner
instituted condemnation proceedings and “took” the property in September 1969.
This allowance of interest on the amount found to be the value of the property
as of the time of the taking computed, being an effective forbearance, at 12%
per annum should help eliminate the issue of the constant fluctuation and
inflation of the value of the currency over time. Article 1250 of the Civil
Code, providing that, in case of extraordinary inflation or deflation, the
value of the currency at the time of the establishment of the obligation shall
be the basis for the payment when no agreement to the contrary is stipulated,
has strict application only to contractual obligations. In other words, a
contractual agreement is needed for the effects of extraordinary inflation to
be taken into account to alter the value of the currency.
All given,
the trial court of Bulacan in issuing its order, dated 01 March 2000, vacating
its decision of 26 February 1979 has acted beyond its lawful cognizance, the
only authority left to it being to order its execution. Verily, private respondents,
although not entitled to the return of the expropriated property, deserve to be
paid promptly on the yet unpaid award of just compensation already fixed by
final judgment of the Bulacan RTC on 26 February 1979 at P6.00 per square
meter, with legal interest thereon at 12% per annum computed from the date of
"taking" of the property, i.e., 19 September 1969, until the due
amount shall have been fully paid.
