G.R. No. 199448 November 12, 2014
ROLANDO S. ABADILLA, JR., Petitioner, vs. SPOUSES BONIFACIO P. OBRERO and BERNABELA N. OBRERO, Respondents.

FACTS

Spouses Bonifacio and Bernabela Obrero (respondents) filed a complaint for forcible entry before the Municipal Trial Court in Cities (MTCC) against Rolando S. Abadilla, Jr. (petitioner). The respondents alleged they are the registered owners of a parcel of land covered by Transfer Certificate of Title (TCT) No. T-38422, issued in 2007. They claimed that on September 22, 2007, the petitioner, with armed men, forcibly fenced the land with barbed wire, intimidated them and their customers, and destroyed improvements.
The petitioner, in his Answer, claimed he and the other heirs of his father, Rolando Abadilla, Sr., are the real owners and lawful possessors. He asserted the respondents sold the land to his father in 1991 through a Deed of Absolute Sale. After his father’s death in 1996, the heirs fenced the land for security. The petitioner argued the complaint failed to state a cause of action, questioned the MTCC’s jurisdiction by claiming dispossession should be reckoned from 1996, and attacked the validity of the respondents’ TCT.
During preliminary conference, the respondents’ counsel admitted the signature on the 1991 Deed of Absolute Sale was that of respondent Bonifacio Obrero. The respondents, however, later claimed the sale was never consummated and the deed was never notarized.
The MTCC dismissed the complaint, ruling that Bonifacio’s admission confirmed the 1991 sale, transferring ownership and possession to Abadilla, Sr., and thus the complaint was actually an accion reivindicatoria over which it had no jurisdiction.
On appeal, the Regional Trial Court (RTC) reversed the MTCC. It found the respondents’ claims more credible, declared the 1991 Deed of Absolute Sale without force and effect for lack of consideration, and noted the respondents exercised acts of dominion since 1991 by residing on the land, declaring it for tax purposes, paying taxes, planting trees, and building structures. The RTC ordered the petitioner to vacate the land and remove the fences.
The Court of Appeals (CA) affirmed the RTC decision, dismissing the petitioner’s appeal without prejudice to the filing of an action regarding ownership in the proper forum.

ISSUE

The core issue, as resolved by the Supreme Court, pertained to the propriety of the CA’s affirmance of the RTC decision which granted possession de facto to the respondents in the forcible entry case.

RULING

The Supreme Court DENIED the petition and AFFIRMED the CA decision. The Court held that the petition raised questions of fact which are generally not reviewable in a Rule 45 petition. The Court found no reversible error in the CA’s ruling.
The Court emphasized that in forcible entry cases, the only issue is physical or material possession (possession de facto), independent of claims of ownership. Prior physical possession by the plaintiff must be proved, and such possession must have been lost by force, intimidation, threat, strategy, or stealth. The plaintiff must also prove that the action was filed within one year from the date of dispossession.
The Court found that the respondents sufficiently proved their prior physical possession through their construction of residential and business improvements on the land and their actual residence thereon. The alleged dispossession occurred on September 22, 2007, when the petitioner fenced the property, and the complaint was filed on October 1, 2007, well within the one-year prescriptive period.
The Court rejected the petitioner’s claim that dispossession occurred in 1996 when the heirs first fenced the property, noting that the respondents’ acts of rebuilding structures and continued residence constituted a strategy to recover possession, which did not interrupt the running of the one-year period for the 2007 dispossession.
The Court also ruled that the MTCC had jurisdiction because the complaint alleged a cause of action for forcible entry based on the 2007 acts. The respondents’ TCT, while not conclusive on the issue of possession, constituted prima facie proof of ownership which supported their claim of a right to possess.
The Court clarified that its ruling on possession was provisional and without prejudice to a separate action to resolve the issue of ownership. The findings on the validity of the 1991 Deed of Absolute Sale were made only to determine who had a better right to possess for the purposes of the ejectment case.