GR 197743; (March, 2018) (Digest)
G.R. No. 197743 March 12, 2018
HEIRS OF JOSE MARIANO and HELEN S. MARIANO, et al. vs. CITY OF NAGA
FACTS
In 1954, the owners of City Heights Subdivision offered to donate five hectares of land to the City of Naga for the construction of a city hall, plaza, and public market. The Municipal Board accepted the offer via Resolution No. 89. The City alleges that a Deed of Donation was executed on August 16, 1954, and it subsequently entered, possessed the property, and constructed government buildings thereon. The petitioners, heirs of the original landowners, contend the donation never materialized because the condition—that the subdivision would be awarded the construction contract—failed. They claim the contract was awarded to a different contractor, and despite demands for the property’s return, the City remained in possession.
The petitioners filed an ejectment case in 2004. The Municipal Trial Court dismissed the complaint, finding the City’s possession lawful. The Regional Trial Court reversed, ordering the City to vacate. The Court of Appeals reinstated the MTC’s dismissal, prompting this petition.
ISSUE
Whether the Court of Appeals erred in dismissing the ejectment complaint and upholding the City’s right of possession.
RULING
The Supreme Court denied the petition and affirmed the CA decision. The core legal logic rests on the nature of an ejectment suit and the character of the City’s possession. In an action for unlawful detainer, the plaintiff must prove prior physical possession that was unlawfully withheld after the expiration of the right to hold. The petitioners failed to establish this prior physical possession. The City’s entry in 1954 was by virtue of the accepted donation, making its initial possession lawful. Its continuous, public, and adverse possession for over fifty years, constructing permanent government structures and exercising acts of ownership like tax declaration, transformed its possession into one in the concept of an owner. This possession was open, notorious, and exclusive, sufficient to defeat the ejectment action.
The Court clarified that the unresolved issue of ownership—whether the donation was consummated or conditional—is not determinative in an ejectment suit, which solely adjudicates the issue of physical possession. The petitioners’ remedy to recover ownership, if any, lies in a separate accion publiciana or reinvindicatory action, not in summary ejectment proceedings. The City’s long-standing, undisturbed possession conferred a better right to physical possession for purposes of the ejectment case.