G.R. No. L-60364 June 23, 1983
BRITTA B. QUISUMBING and NORBERTO B. QUISUMBING, JR., petitioners, vs. HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS, AND SAGRADO C. OCAYA, As Represented by His Attorney-In-Fact TIMOTEO C. OCAYA, respondents.

FACTS

On January 12, 1955, respondent Sagrado C. Ocaya was granted a homestead patent over a 23-hectare land in Bukidnon, and Original Certificate of Title No. P-719 was issued. Within the five-year statutory prohibition against alienation, he sold the land to petitioners Britta and Norberto Quisumbing, Jr. in June 1957 for P1,750. The petitioners took possession and introduced improvements. Eighteen years later, on June 3, 1975, Ocaya, through his brother as attorney-in-fact, filed an action for recovery of the land, depositing the repurchase price with the court. The parties submitted a Partial Stipulation of Facts admitting the homestead grant, the 1957 sale, and the petitioners’ continuous possession. A critical document admitted was an affidavit Ocaya executed in June 1957 stating the land did not belong to him but was merely registered in his name for reasons known to him and his brother.

ISSUE

Whether the private respondent, Sagrado C. Ocaya, is entitled to repurchase the homestead land under Section 119 of Commonwealth Act No. 141 .

RULING

No. The Supreme Court reversed the decisions of the lower courts and dismissed the complaint. The legal logic centers on the purpose of the homestead law’s repurchase provision. Section 119 of CA No. 141 allows a homesteader or heir to repurchase the land within five years from the date of conveyance, but this right is not absolute. The underlying policy is to preserve the land for the homesteader and his family as a reward for his labor, not for speculation or profit. The Court examined the admitted facts, particularly Ocaya’s 1957 affidavit, which revealed he was not the true owner but merely a nominal grantee. This admission, coupled with his residence hundreds of kilometers away and his attempt to repurchase only after 18 years when the land value had significantly appreciated, demonstrated his motive was purely profit-driven. The law’s beneficent intent is to aid actual tillers, not to enable a nominal patentee to exploit a price differential. Allowing repurchase under these circumstances would be grossly unfair to the petitioners, who had possessed and improved the land in good faith for 26 years, and would subvert the agrarian policy of the state. Therefore, Ocaya was not entitled to exercise the right of repurchase.