GR 11094; (September, 1917) (Digest)
G.R. No. 11094; September 12, 1917
SABINO LIWAG, ET AL., plaintiffs-appellees, vs. EXEQUIEL YAUCO, ET AL., defendants-appellants.
FACTS:
The plaintiffs, heirs of the late Marcelo Liwag, filed an action to recover two parcels of land and damages for their illegal occupation. They claimed ownership through Marcelo Liwag, who acquired the land via “composicion con el Estado.” After his death in 1886, his wife, Paulina Soriano, appointed Agaton Yauco as administrator of the lands. Agaton Yauco and, after his death in 1892, his wife Juana Prades, continued the administration and regularly delivered a share of the harvests to Marcelo Liwag’s heirs. Upon Juana Prades’s death in 1906, the defendants (Exequiel Yauco and Pascual Yauco, sons of Agaton Yauco) took possession of the lands and later sold a portion to their co-defendant, Agueda Magsacay. The defendants asserted ownership, claiming that Agaton Yauco had purchased the lands from Marcelo Liwag during his lifetime and that the plaintiffs’ right of action had prescribed.
ISSUE:
Whether the plaintiffs’ action to recover ownership and possession of the lands is barred by prescription.
RULING:
No, the action has not prescribed. The Court held that even assuming Agaton Yauco’s possession was adverse since Marcelo Liwag’s death in 1886, the extraordinary prescriptive period of thirty years under the Civil Code had not elapsed by the time the action was filed in 1912. Furthermore, the defendants could not invoke the ten-year prescriptive period under Act No. 190 (Code of Civil Procedure), as this period had not run from the death of their mother, Juana Prades, in 1906. Critically, the acts of Agaton Yauco and Juana Pradespaying a share of the harvests to the heirsconstituted recognition of the plaintiffs’ title, which interrupts adverse possession. The preponderance of evidence established the plaintiffs as the rightful owners and successors-in-interest of Marcelo Liwag. The judgment of the lower court in favor of the plaintiffs was affirmed.
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