GR L 53983; (September, 1982) (Digest)
G.R. No. L-53983 September 30, 1982
SPOUSES LUCIANA DALIDA and PEDRO DALIDA, petitioners, vs. COURT OF APPEALS, HON. JESUS P. ARLEGUI, Presiding Judge, CFI, 8th Judicial District, Branch VII, Balayan, Batangas and AGUSTIN T. RAMOS, respondents.
FACTS
Tomas Benitez was the bona fide holder of Revocable Permit Application No. V-13279 issued by the Bureau of Lands in 1945 for a parcel of land in Balayan, Batangas. After his death in 1971, his widow Conchita Benitez conveyed all rights to the 2,200-square-meter lot to respondent Agustin Ramos in 1975. The petitioners, spouses Luciana and Pedro Dalida, who were then residing on the land, were formally advised to vacate and turn over possession to Ramos. The Dalidas refused and instead filed their own miscellaneous sales application for a larger area, including the land covered by Benitez’s permit.
ISSUE
The sole issue is whether the private respondent, Agustin Ramos, has a better right of possession over the subject property as against the petitioner spouses in this action for illegal detainer.
RULING
The Supreme Court ruled that private respondent Ramos has the better right of possession. The Court affirmed the consistent factual findings of the Municipal Court, the Court of First Instance, and the Court of Appeals that Ramos’s predecessor-in-interest, Tomas Benitez, was a bona fide applicant who had been in open, actual, exclusive, and uninterrupted possession of the property in the concept of an owner for over thirty years. The petitioners were found to be mere caretakers hired to oversee the land. The Court emphasized the settled rule that findings of fact of the Court of Appeals are binding and conclusive, and none of the exceptions to this rule were present.
The Court examined the records and found that the Revocable Permit Application of Tomas Benitez was given due course by the Bureau of Lands in 1963, with corresponding permit fees paid from 1956 to 1960 and again in 1965. This established a solid basis for Ramos’s claim of a right to possession derived from Benitez. In contrast, the petitioners presented no evidence of a superior right other than their own claim of possession since 1946, which the lower courts discredited. In an illegal detainer case, the issue is physical possession, and the right derived from a bona fide permit applicant, recognized by the State, prevails over the possession of mere caretakers. The petition was denied, and the decision of the Court of Appeals was affirmed.