G.R. No. L-57023, June 22, 1995
RAYMUNDO DE LA PAZ, et al., petitioners, vs. HON. DOMINGO D. PANIS, Presiding Judge, Court of First Instance of Zambales and Olongapo City, Branch III, JOSE RAMIREZ, et al., respondents.

FACTS

Petitioners, as registered owners under TCT No. T-14807, filed a complaint for recovery of possession in 1972 against private respondents who had entered and occupied portions of their 7,531-square meter land in Subic, Zambales. During pre-trial, some respondents, through counsel, effectively admitted petitioners’ title, limiting the issues to the identity of the land and whether respondents’ occupations fell within it. This Court, in a related petition (G.R. No. L-38773), approved a compromise agreement wherein the parties agreed to a binding relocation survey to resolve the issue of inclusion. The subsequent survey report confirmed that respondents were occupying portions of the titled land.
Despite this, the trial court dismissed the complaint in a 1981 decision, characterizing the action as one for ejectment or illegal detainer, which it deemed improperly filed. Petitioners’ motion for reconsideration was denied.

ISSUE

Whether the trial court committed grave abuse of discretion in dismissing the complaint for recovery of possession by erroneously characterizing it as an ejectment case.

RULING

Yes. The trial court committed grave abuse of discretion. The Supreme Court clarified that an action for recovery of possession (accion publiciana) is distinct from ejectment cases (forcible entry or unlawful detainer). Ejectment suits are summary proceedings for recovering physical possession where prior possession was lost by force, intimidation, stealth, or where possession is unlawfully withheld after the expiration of a right. In contrast, an accion publiciana is a plenary action for recovery of the right to possess, available when the dispossession occurred over one year prior to suit, making it cognizable by the Court of First Instance (now Regional Trial Court).
Here, petitioners alleged dispossession in 1970/1971 and filed suit in 1972, placing it beyond the one-year period for summary ejectment actions. The nature of the complaint and the relief sought—recovery of possession based on ownership—established it as a proper accion publiciana. The trial judge’s dismissal based on a misclassification constituted an error so patent and arbitrary as to amount to grave abuse of discretion, correctible by certiorari. The Court thus nullified the dismissal and ordered the enforcement of the compromise agreement from G.R. No. L-38773, which had already settled the core issue of possession relative to the titled property.