G.R. No. 123026 September 4, 1996
JAIME R. RODRIGUEZ, petitioner, vs. COURT OF APPEALS, and APOLINARIO SANCHEZ, respondents.

FACTS

Petitioner Jaime Rodriguez obtained a final and executory money judgment against Genoveva Laxamana in 1976. To satisfy the judgment, a property registered under Laxamana’s name was levied and sold at public auction on April 30, 1979, with Rodriguez as the highest bidder. A final deed of sale was issued in 1982, and title was consolidated in Rodriguez’s name by 1986. Subsequently, the trial court issued various writs of possession and demolition to enforce the sale. Private respondent Apolinario Sanchez, claiming to have purchased the same property from Laxamana in 1982, filed multiple challenges, including a third-party claim and a separate annulment case, all of which were dismissed. However, in a 1995 petition, the Court of Appeals declared the execution sale and all subsequent writs void, ruling that the five-year period for execution by motion had expired in 1982 and that the 1979 auction sale lacked a valid court order.

ISSUE

Whether the Court of Appeals erred in nullifying the execution sale and the subsequent writs issued for its enforcement.

RULING

Yes, the Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals. The legal logic centers on the validity of the execution proceedings initiated within the reglementary period. Contrary to the appellate court’s finding, the records substantiated that petitioner’s motion for execution was timely granted by the trial court in an order dated February 23, 1979, well within the five-year period from the finality of the judgment. The levy, auction sale on April 30, 1979, and the issuance of the final deed of sale in 1982 were all lawful implementations of this 1979 order. The subsequent orders, including the writ of possession and demolition, were merely ancillary processes to enforce the already-completed execution sale, not new executions requiring a separate motion within the five-year period. The Supreme Court emphasized the presumption of regularity in the conduct of the sheriff’s sale and found that private respondent failed to rebut this presumption despite the missing copy of the 1979 order. Furthermore, Sanchez’s remedy was not to repeatedly challenge the execution proceedings via certiorari but to file a separate reivindicatory action to assert his claimed superior title, as correctly suggested in his prior dismissed petitions. His failure to do so, and his filing of an annulment case in a co-equal court branch, constituted an improper collateral attack on Rodriguez’s registered title.