[ G.R. No. L-5872. November 29, 1954 ] 96 Phil. 202
[ G.R. No. L-5872. November 29, 1954 ]
ENRIQUE BERNARDO, ET AL., PETITIONERS, VS. CRISOSTOMO S. BERNARDO AND THE COURT OF APPEALS, RESPONDENTS. D E C I S I O N
REYES, J.B.L., J.:
Enrique Bernardo, his wife and children, petition this Court for a review of the decision of the Court of Appeals (in its case No. 6677-R), declaring the respondent Crisostomo R. Bernardo entitled to preference under Commonwealth Acts Nos. 20 and 539, in the acquisition of lot No. 462-A of the “Capellania de Concepcion”, also known as lot No. 4, block No. 26, of the Tambobong Estate plan, located in Malabon, Rizal, and having an area of 208 square meters.
It is uncontested fact that on December 31, 1947, the Republic of the Philippines purchased from the Roman Catholic Church the estate known as the “Capellania de Tambobong” in Malabon, Rizal, under the provisions of section 1, of Commonwealth Act No. 539. Said Act authorizes the expropriation or purchase of private lands and that lands acquired thereunder should be subdivided into lots, for resale at reasonable prices to “their bona fide tenants or occupants.” Crisostomo R. Bernardo, respondent herein, applied to the Rural Progress Administration for the purchase of the lot in question. Petitioners Enrique Bernardo, et al., contested the application and claimed preferential right to such purchase, and on January 12, 1948, the Rural Progress Administration resolved to recognize the petitioners as entitled to preference. The respondents then appealed to the Court of First Instance of Rizal, and the latter upheld their claim, and the decision was affirmed by the Court of Appeals.
The decision of the Court of Appeals expressly finds that:
“* * * It has been incontestably proven that the disputed lot had been held under lease by appellee’s deceased parents and later by him (appellee) continuously from 1912 to 1947. The appellee’s predecessors paid the rentals due on the said lot from the commencement of their leasehold rights up to 1936, when Teodora Santos died. The appellee continued paying the rents on the same lot from 1936 to December 31, 1947, when the Government acquired the entire Capellania de Concepcion estate. Since 1912, the values of the leasehold right of appellee amounts to about P4,000.00.
The alleged preferential right of the appellants to the purchase of the disputed lot, which was also the main basis of the decision of the Rural Progress Administration, is their claim of actual occupation, of the lot for many years before the acquisition of the Concepcion estate by the Government. The appellants’ occupation of the premises is not denied by the appellee. Appellee’s witness, Otli Santos, however, said that the late Romulo Bernardo had allowed his uncle, appellant Enrique Bernardo, to stay in the premises since the year 1918. (Petitioner’s Brief, pp. 72-73).
The Court of Appeals also found that the house standing on the lot had been since July 13, 1944, sold by petitioner Enrique Bernardo to the respondent, who thereby became its owner; that because of family relationship, the petitioners “were able to remain in the premises due to the tolerance of, and out of charity from, the appellee (respondent Crisostomo Bernardo) and his deceased parents who were the rightful lessees of the lot in question.”
The Court of Appeals likewise found and declared in its decision that since February 1, 1945, the respondent Crisostomo Bernardo required the petitioner to vacate the premises. Finally, we understand that in Case No. 6734-R, the Court of Appeals declared valid the sale of the house on the lot in question made in 1944 by petitioner Enrique Bernardo in favor of respondent Crisostomo R. Bernardo, and that the aforesaid judgment is now final.
There are thus before us, disputing” the right of preference to the acquisition of the lot, the respondent who is the owner of the house standing on said lot since 1944, and has held the land in lawful tenancy since 1912, paying rents and taxes thereon; and the petitioner, who was allowed by respondent, out of deference and charity, to gratuitously occupy the lot and live therein since 1918. Upon the facts on record, we are of the opinion that petitioner does not come under the description “bona fide tenant or occupant” employed in the statute (C.A. 539).
The term “bona fide occupant” (admittedly petitioner is not a tenant) has been defined as “one who supposes he has a good title and knows of no adverse claim” (Philips vs. Stroup, 17 Atl. 220, 221) ; “one who not only honestly supposes himself to be vested with true title but is ignorant that the title is contested by any other person claiming a superior right to it” (Grosham VH. Ware, 79 Ala. 192, 199) ; definitions that correspond closely to that of a possessor in good faith in our Civil Law (Civil Code of 1889, art. 433; new Civil Code, art. 526). The essence of the bona fides or good faith, therefore, lies in honest belief in the validity of one’s right, ignorance of a superior claim, and absence of intention to overreach another. The petitioner Enrique Bernardo falls short of this standard: for the precarious nature of his occupancy, as mere licensee of respondents, duty bound to protect and restore that possession to its real and legitimate holders upon demand, could never be hidden from him. Moreover, at the time the Government acquired the Tambobong Estate, petitioner had already parted with the house that was his remaining link with the occupancy of the lot; and since 1945, even before the Government’s purchase, he had been required to vacate. Thus bereft of all stable interest in the land, petitioner nevertheless seeks to turn respondent’s past deferential regard to his own advantage, and to exploit his gratuitous stay at respondent’s expense for the purpose of ousting his benefactors Ind wiping out the investment that the latter, and their predecessors in interest, had established and preserved by faithful payment for thirty years of the rental charged for the lot in question. That the law, in preferring “bona fide occupants,’ intended to protect or sanction such utter disregard of fair dealing may well be doubted.
The petitioner seeks to justify his stand by claiming that the policy of the government, ever since the start of the American sovereignty, had been to acquire the landed estates for the benefit of their “actual occupants,” as allegedly exemplified in Acts 1170 and 1933 (Friar Lands’ Acts), and Commonwealth Acts Nos. 20, 260, 378, and 539 (Homesite Acts); that the words “bona fide occupants” employed in the Commonwealth Acts are equivalent to “actual” occupants. Two powerful reasons nullify this contention. The first is that section 7 of Act 1170 of the old Philippine Legislature, employs the terms “actual bona fide settlers and occupants”, plainly indicating that “actual” and “bona fide” are not synonymous, while the Commonwealth acts deleted the term “actual” and solely used the words “bona fide occupants”, thereby emphasizing the requirement that the prospective beneficiaries of the acts should be endowed with legitimate tenure. The second reason is that in carrying out its social readjustment policies, the government could not simply lay aside moral standards, and aim to favor usurpers, squatters, and intruders, unmindful of the lawful or unlawful origin and character of their occupancy. Such a policy would perpetuate conflicts instead of attaining their just solution. It is safe to say that the term “bona fide occupants” was not designed to cloak and protect violence, strategy, double dealing, or breach of trust.
That the underlying motive behind the Homesite Acts is the desire that “the heads of the families concerned be given opportunity to become the owners of their homes and residential lots in which they and their forbears have been raised and born” (Messages of the President, Vol. 4, pp. 288-290), favors the respondents rather than the petitioner, for it is an inalterable fact on record that the rentals and taxes on the lot in question were always paid by the parents of respondent Crisostomo Bernardo and continued by the latter upon his parents’ death, to the exclusion of herein respondent. As pointed out by the decision under review, had not the respondents taken and maintained sincere and affirmative steps to own their lands through a continuous and faithful payment of their obligations, the chances are that the petitioner would have been long ago speedily ejected from the premises of the former landowners. To which may be added that at present, not being the lessee of the lot, nor the owner of the house standing thereon, the petitioner’s interest in this particular lot appears to be a purely speculative one.
We therefore rule that a person who, at the time of the acquisition of the Tambobong Estate by the Government, has been gratuitously occupying a lot therein by mere tolerance of its lessee, and who does not own the house erected on such lot, is not a “bona fide occupant” entitled to its acquisition, as the term is used in Commonwealth Act No. 539. Whether or not the situation would be different if the occupant were a sublessee of the lot, need not be decided in this case, the issue not being involved.
Wherefore, the decision appealed from, is affirmed, with costs against the petitioner.
Bengzon, Padilla, Montemayor, Reyes, A., and Jugo, JJ., concur.