G.R. No. L-37409 May 23, 1988
NICOLAS VALISNO, plaintiff-appellant, vs. FELIPE ADRIANO, defendant-appellee.

FACTS

Plaintiff-appellant Nicolas Valisno purchased a parcel of land from Honorata Adriano Francisco, the sister of defendant-appellee Felipe Adriano. The land, inherited by the siblings from their father, was irrigated by water from the Pampanga River via a canal traversing Felipe’s adjoining property. In December 1959, Felipe leveled the irrigation canal, depriving Valisno of water. Valisno filed an administrative complaint with the Bureau of Public Works and Communications, which initially ordered Felipe to reconstruct the canal. Valisno, needing urgent irrigation, rebuilt the canal at his own expense and subsequently filed a civil case for damages in the Court of First Instance of Nueva Ecija.
The Secretary of Public Works and Communications later issued a final resolution dismissing Valisno’s administrative complaint, ruling that the original water right granted to their father in 1923 had been extinguished by non-use for over five years after the canal collapsed in the 1930s. Consequently, the Secretary held that Valisno acquired no water rights with the land. The trial court, relying on this administrative resolution and the Irrigation Act, dismissed Valisno’s damage suit, holding it could not collaterally review the Secretary’s final decision on water rights.

ISSUE

Whether the provisions of the Irrigation Act ( Act No. 2152 ) bar the plaintiff’s claim for damages based on a civil law easement of aqueduct under the Civil Code.

RULING

No. The Supreme Court reversed the trial court, holding that the Civil Code provisions on easement, not the Irrigation Act, govern the plaintiff’s right to the irrigation canal. The Court clarified the distinct jurisdictions involved. The Secretary of Public Works has authority under the Irrigation Act to adjudicate applications for and conflicts over government-granted water rights. However, the plaintiff’s cause of action was not predicated on a statutory water right under the Irrigation Act, but on a civil law easement of aqueduct under Articles 642, 643, and 646 of the Civil Code. This is a property right that arises from the relation between dominant and servient estates, independent of a government grant.
The deed of sale to Valisno expressly included “water rights and improvements,” and the irrigation canal’s long existence established an apparent and continuous easement. The administrative finding that the statutory water right was extinguished did not preclude the existence of a separate, vested easement by grant or necessity that passed with the land. The defendant’s act of leveling the canal constituted a wrongful interference with this property right. Therefore, the trial court erred in dismissing the complaint based solely on the administrative resolution. The case was remanded for the reception of evidence on the plaintiff’s claim for damages arising from the obstruction of the easement.