G.R. No. 197743 , October 18, 2022
HEIRS OF JOSE MARIANO AND HELEN S. MARIANO, ET AL., PETITIONERS, VS. CITY OF NAGA, RESPONDENT.

FACTS

The petitioners, heirs of the registered owners, filed an unlawful detainer case to recover possession of a five-hectare property in Naga City. The property was purportedly donated to the City in 1954 via a Deed of Donation, upon which the City constructed a government center housing various national agencies. The main Decision of the Court’s First Division, however, found the donation defectively notarized and unregistered, thus invalid. Consequently, it reinstated the Regional Trial Court’s order for the City to vacate the property and pay monthly compensation as reasonable rent from 2003 until vacation. The City filed a Second Motion for Reconsideration.

ISSUE

Whether the proper remedy for the petitioners, given the City’s long-term occupation and public use of the property, is recovery of possession via ejectment or an action for just compensation for the taking of their property.

RULING

Justice Caguioa, in his Separate Opinion concurring with the ponencia’s grant of the Second Motion for Reconsideration, argues for a total reconsideration. He posits that the main Decision erroneously ordered ejectment and instead asserts that payment of just compensation is the sole correct remedy. The legal logic is grounded in the doctrine of a compensable “taking” by the government, even absent formal expropriation proceedings. The City’s entry in 1954 under a defective donation and its continuous, long-term use of the property for a public purpose (as a government center) constitute a taking. Jurisprudence establishes that taking occurs when the government deprives an owner of property for a public use, enters for more than a momentary period, and derives a benefit therefrom. Here, these elements are satisfied. The original intent of donation is immaterial given its invalidity; the City’s subsequent occupation and public use transformed its possession into a de facto exercise of eminent domain. Consequently, the property owner is barred from recovering possession and is relegated to claiming just compensation. The appropriate action is for the determination of such compensation, reckoned not from the filing of the ejectment suit but from the time of the actual taking in 1954, with legal interest. This ruling aligns with the constitutional guarantee that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation, ensuring landowners are made whole while recognizing the irreversible public character of the property’s use.