G.R. No. L-25847 June 19, 1979
POTENCIANO SUNGA, ET AL., petitioners, vs. BENITO DE GUZMAN, ET AL., respondents.

FACTS

The property in dispute is a fishpond inherited pro indiviso by the nine legitimate heirs of spouses Juan de Guzman and Lucia Montemayor. On July 1, 1947, five of these heirs sold their respective shares to Feliciano Sibug through a private deed of sale (Exhibit C), which was neither notarized nor registered. The vendee’s rights were later acquired by petitioners Potenciano Sunga, et al. The remaining four heirs did not sign the deed. Three of them—respondents Benito, Emilia, and Fe de Guzman—filed an action in 1962 to recover their collective three-ninth (3/9) share, seeking conveyance, an accounting of harvests from 1947, and attorney’s fees.
Petitioners asserted ownership over the entire fishpond, claiming acquisitive and extinctive prescription. They relied heavily on the testimony of respondent Benito de Guzman, who stated that he and his sisters knew petitioners had taken possession of the property in 1948 and were informed by their co-heirs about the sale. Petitioners argued that this knowledge, dating to 1948, meant respondents’ cause of action had prescribed by 1962 and that petitioners’ adverse possession had matured into ownership.

ISSUE

Whether petitioners acquired ownership of the entire fishpond, including the 3/9 share of respondents, through acquisitive or extinctive prescription.

RULING

The Supreme Court affirmed the lower courts’ decisions, ruling that petitioners did not acquire respondents’ shares by prescription. The Court emphasized that prescription, whether acquisitive (through adverse possession) or extinctive (of the action to recover), requires possession that is adverse, exclusive, and in the concept of an owner. Here, petitioners’ possession was not adverse to respondents as co-owners. The knowledge respondents had in 1948 pertained only to petitioners’ physical possession, not to any repudiation of their co-ownership. Critically, respondents were informed that only the shares of their five co-heirs were sold; they never received notice that petitioners were claiming sole ownership of the whole property to the exclusion of their own shares.
The Court held that for prescription to run against a co-owner, the possession must be unequivocally repudiated, and such repudiation must be clearly communicated to the other co-owners. Mere possession and knowledge of a sale involving only some co-heirs do not constitute such repudiation. Furthermore, the Court noted that the action had not prescribed, as the right to seek partition or separate a specific portion from the co-ownership is imprescriptible. The claim for accounting, being incidental to the recovery of ownership, was also upheld. The defense of non-joinder of indispensable parties was rejected as not raised in the lower courts and without merit, as a co-owner may sue to recover their share without joining all others.