GR L 34654; (October, 1984) (Digest)
G.R. No. L-34654 October 23, 1984
SPOUSES BENJAMIN TUPAS AND LEONOR BALDONADO, plaintiffs-appellees, vs. SPOUSES DANIEL DAMASCO AND JUANITA BULAONG, SPOUSES EUSEBIO BULAONG AND CONSUELO SABILE BULAONG, ZACARIAS ANTONIO, in his capacity as Register of Deeds of Cotabato, PHILIPPINE NATIONAL BANK, Cotabato Branch and JUANITO MAPALO, defendants-appellants.
FACTS
Plaintiffs-appellees, spouses Benjamin Tupas and Leonor Baldonado, were homestead grantees of the subject land. They sold it to Juanita Bulaong in 1957. Meanwhile, Tupas had an unpaid loan with the Philippine National Bank (PNB). Due to this debt, PNB obtained a writ of attachment over the land and, in 1959, purchased it at a public auction sale following an execution. The certificate of sale was registered, starting a one-year redemption period ending April 4, 1960. Before this period expired, Juanita Bulaong (by then married to Daniel Damasco) filed an action against PNB to recover the land. This case was eventually settled via a compromise agreement in 1964, where the Damasco spouses agreed to repurchase the land from PNB. PNB executed a deed of sale to the Damascos in September 1964, and title was issued to them in 1965.
ISSUE
Whether the plaintiffs-appellees, the original homesteaders, have lost their right to repurchase the homestead land under Section 119 of the Public Land Act (Commonwealth Act No. 141).
RULING
Yes, the right to repurchase has prescribed. The Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s decision allowing repurchase. The legal logic centers on the computation of the five-year repurchase period under the Public Land Act. This period is counted from the date of the execution sale, not from the date title is consolidated in the purchaser’s name. The execution sale to PNB occurred on April 4, 1959. The one-year redemption period for execution sales expired on April 4, 1960. The law grants homesteaders a five-year period from the date of such sale to exercise their right of repurchase. The plaintiffs filed their action for repurchase only on June 10, 1965, which is clearly beyond the five-year period that commenced in April 1959. The intervening litigation between Juanita Bulaong Damasco and PNB did not toll or suspend this statutory period for the original homesteaders. Their right, being statutory and in the nature of a privilege, must be exercised within the fixed period, otherwise it is lost. Consequently, the action had already prescribed.