GR 125590; (March, 1999) (Digest)
G.R. No. 125590 March 11, 1999
BIOMIE S. OCHAGABIA, TORIBIA G. DETALLA and ROSENDA G. DENORE, petitioners, vs. COURT OF APPEALS, LEGAL HEIRS OF ROSENDA ABUTON DIONISIO represented by LUZVIMINDA A. DIONISIO, and the ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH OZAMIS CITY DIOCESE represented by BISHOP HILARION CARALOS, respondents.
FACTS
In 1926, spouses Martin Garban and Fausta Bocayong conveyed two parcels of land to Rosenda Abuton Dionisio by way of a sale con pacto de retro. Sixty-three years later, in 1989, petitioners, claiming to be the legal heirs of the Garban spouses, filed a complaint for redemption, recovery of possession, and declaration of nullity of a title. They argued the 1926 contract was an equitable mortgage under Article 1602 of the Civil Code, citing their alleged continuous possession and the inadequacy of the P750.50 consideration. They also challenged the validity of a transfer certificate of title issued to a respondent.
Private respondents maintained the contract was a genuine pacto de retro sale. They asserted that the failure to redeem within the stipulated period vested ownership in the vendee and her heirs, and denied petitioners’ claims of possession. The trial court dismissed the complaint, finding the transaction to be a true sale with pacto de retro and that any right of redemption had long prescribed. The Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal.
ISSUE
Did the Court of Appeals err in affirming the trial court’s finding that the 1926 contract was a sale with pacto de retro and not an equitable mortgage, and in ruling that the action had prescribed?
RULING
No. The Supreme Court denied the petition and affirmed the appellate court’s decision. The Court found it unnecessary to definitively characterize the 1926 contract, as the action was barred by prescription and laches. Applying Article 1508 of the old Civil Code and Section 40 of Act No. 190, the right to redeem under a pacto de retro sale, in the absence of a stipulated period, prescribed in ten years from the date of the contract in 1926. The filing of the case in 1989, over six decades later, was indisputably beyond this period.
Furthermore, the Court upheld the application of estoppel by laches. The extraordinary delay of sixty-three years in asserting their claim warranted the presumption that petitioners had abandoned their right. Equity aids the vigilant, not those who sleep on their rights. Given these dispositive grounds, the Court deemed it unnecessary to rule on the ancillary issue regarding the validity of the certificate of title. The claims were stale and could no longer be enforced.