Philippine Supreme Court Resolutions > Year 2008 > March 2008 Resolutions > [G.R. No. 156273 : March 10, 2008] HEIRS OF TIMOTEO MORENO AND MARIA ROTEA, NAMELY: ESPERANZA R. EDJEC, BERNARDO. R. SUELA, RUBY C. ROTEA, BERNARDA R. ROTEA, ELIA R. VDA. DE LIMBAGA, VIRGINIA R. ARBON, ROSALINDA R. ARQUISOLA, CORAZON ROTEA, FE R. EBORA, CARIDAD ROTEA, ANGELES VDA. DE RENACIA, JORGE ROTEA, MARIA LUISA ROTEA-VILLEGAS, ALFREDO R. ROTEA, REPRESENTED BY HIS HEIRS, NAMELY: LIZBETH ROTEA AND ELEPETH ROTEA; LUIS ROTEA, REPRESENTED BY HIS HEIRS, JENNIFER ROTEA AND ROLANDO R. ROTEA, REPRESENTED BY HIS HEIR ROLANDO R. ROTEA, JR. V. MACTAN- CEBU INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT AUTHORITY (MCIAA) :

Quoted hereunder, for your information, is a resolution of this Court dated 10 March 2008:

G.R. No. 156273 (Heirs of Timoteo Moreno and Maria Rotea, namely: Esperanza R. Edjec, Bernardo. R. Suela, Ruby C. Rotea, Bernarda R. Rotea, Elia R. Vda. De Limbaga, Virginia R. Arbon, Rosalinda R. Arquisola, Corazon Rotea, Fe R. Ebora, Caridad Rotea, Angeles Vda. De Renacia, Jorge Rotea, Maria Luisa Rotea-Villegas, Alfredo R. Rotea, represented by his heirs, namely: Lizbeth Rotea and Elepeth Rotea; Luis Rotea, represented by his heirs, Jennifer Rotea and Rolando R. Rotea, represented by his heir Rolando R. Rotea, Jr. v. Mactan- Cebu International Airport Authority (MCIAA). - This treats of the Urgent Plea/Motion for Clarification dated 23 September 2005 filed by respondent Mactan-Cebu International Airport Authority.

To recollect, a Decision in this case was rendered on 15 October 2003 in favor of petitioners. The dispositive portion of said decision reads:

WHEREFORE, the instant Petition for Review is GRANTED. The Decision of the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. CV No. 64456 dated 20 December 2001 and its Resolution of 28 November 2002 denying reconsideration of the Decision are REVERSED and SET ASIDE.

The Decision of RTC-Br. 19 of Cebu City dated 12 April 1999 in Civil Case No. CEB-20015 is MODIFIED IN PART by-

(a)    ORDERING respondent Mactan-Cebu International Airport Authority (MCIAA) TO RECONVEY to petitioner Heirs of Timoteo Moreno and Maria Rotea, namely: Esperanza R. Edjec, Bernarda R. Suela, Ruby C. Rotea, Bernarda R. Rotea, Elia R. Vda De Limbaga, Virginia R. Arbon, Rosalinda R. Arquisola, Corazon Rotea, Fe R. Ebora, Caridad Rotea, Angeles Vda. De Renacia, Jorge Rotea, Maria Luisa Rotea-Villegas, Alfredo R. Rotea, represented by his heirs, namely: Lizbeth Rotea and Elepeth Rotea; Luis Rotea, represented by his heir Jennifer Rotea; and Rolando R. Rotea, represented by his heir Rolando R. Rotea Jr., Lot No. 916 with an area of 2,355 square meters and Lot No. 920 consisting of 3,097 square meters in Lahug, Cebu City, with all the improvements thereon evolving through nature or time, but excluding those that were introduced by third parties, i.e., DPWH, which shall be governed by existing contracts and relevant provisions of law;

(b)    ORDERING petitioner Heirs of Timoteo Moreno and Maria Rotea TO PAY respondent MCIAA what the former received as just compensation for the expropriation of Lots Nos. 916 and 920 in Civil Case No. R-1881, i.e., P7,065.00 for Lot No. 916 and �9,291.00 for Lot No. 920 with consequential damages by way of legal interest from 16 November 1947. Petitioners must likewise PAY respondent MCIAA the necessary expenses that the latter may have incurred in sustaining the properties  and  the  monetary  value  of its  services  in  managing the properties to the extent that petitioners will secure a benefit from such acts. Respondent MCIAA however may keep whatever income or fruits it may have obtained from the parcels of land, in the same way that petitioners need not account for the interests that the amounts they received as just compensation may have earned in the meantime;

(c)    ORDERING respondent MCIAA TO CONVEY to petitioners the improvements it may have built on Lots Nos. 916 and 920, if any, in which case petitioners SHALL PAY for these improvements at the prevailing tree market price, otherwise, if petitioners do not want to appropriate such improvements, or if respondent does not choose to sell them, respondent MCIAA SHALL REMOVE these improvements WITHOUT ANY OBLIGATION on the part of petitioners to pay any compensation to respondent MCIAA for them;

(d)    ORDERING petitioners TO PAY the amount so determined under letter (b)  of this  dispositive portion as consideration for the reconveyance of Lots Nos. 916 and 920, as well as the prevailing free market price of the improvements built thereon by respondent MCIAA, if any and desired to be bought and sold by the parties, in ready money or cash PAYABLE within a period of three hundred sixty five (365) days from the date that the amount under letter (b) above is determined with finality, unless the parties herein stipulate a different scheme or schedule of payment, otherwise, after the period of three hundred sixty five (365) days or the lapse of the compromise scheme or schedule of payment and the amount so payable is not settled, the right of repurchase of petitioners and the obligation of respondent MCIAA to so reconvey Lots Nos. 916 and 920 and/or the improvements shall be DEEMED FORFEITED and the ownership of those parcels of land shall VEST ABSOLUTELY upon respondent MCIAA;

(e)    REMANDING the instant case to RTC-Br. 19 of Cebu City for purposes of determining the amount of compensation for Lots Nos. 916 and 920 to be paid by petitioners as mandated in letter (b) hereof, and the value of the prevailing free market price of the improvements built thereon by respondent MCIAA, if any and desired to be bought and sold by the parties, and in general, securing the immediate execution of this Decision under the premises:

(f)    ORDERING petitioners to respect the right of the Department of Public Works and Highways to its lease contract until the expiration of the lease period; and

(g)    DELETING the award of P60,000.00 for attorney's fees and P15,000.00 for litigation expenses against respondent MCIAA and in favor of petitioners. This Decision is without prejudice to the claim of intervenor one Richard E. Enchuan on his allegation that he acquired through deeds of assignment the rights of some of herein petitioners over Lots Nos. 916 and 920.

No costs.

SO ORDERED.

Aggrieved, respondent filed a motion for reconsideration, which the Court denied in a 19-page signed Resolution dated 9 August 2005. In response, respondent filed the, instant motion accompanied by an Urgent Motion for Leave To File the said motion.

Without awaiting any directive from the Court, petitioners filed an Opposition dated 29 November 2005 praying for the outright denial of the instant motion. Petitioners allege that the motion is actually a prohibited second motion for reconsideration, and that it contains a mere rehash of the earlier arguments of respondent. The Court required petitioners to file a comment on the instant motion, and they responded by reiterating their opposition.

We agree with petitioners that the instant motion is without merit.Many of the core "questions" or "points for clarification" raised herein have already been raised in respondent's motion for reconsideration and even in its earlier comment on the petition. For example, respondent asks whether our earlier rulings in MCIAA v. Court of Appeals and Chiongbian^[1] and Fery v. Municipality of Cabanatuan^[2] were effectively overturned by the assailed decision. Such question was raised as an argument in respondent's motion for reconsideration and disposed of in the resolution denying the said motion for reconsideration. To cite parts of the relevant discussion from the resolution:

Suffice it to say that the Court considered the rulings in Fery v. Municipality of Cabanatuan and Mactan-Cebu International Airport Authority v. Court of Appeals which defined the rights and obligations of landowners, whose properties were expropriated, "when the public purpose for which the eminent domain was exercised no longer subsists." xxx

It must be pointed out that nothing in the Fery case bespeaks that there should foremost be an express condition in the dispositive portion of the decision before the condemned property can be returned to its former owner after the purpose for its taking has been abandoned or ended. The indisputable certainty in the present case is that there was a prior promise by the predecessor of the respondent that the expropriated properties maybe recovered by the former owners once the airport is transferred to Mactan, Cebu. In fact, the witness for the respondent testified that 15 lots were already reconveyed to their previous owners. Intervenor DPWH, likewise, manifested that Lot No. 920 is the subject of a memorandum of agreement with the respondent's predecessor-in-interest wherein the property was eased to DPWH. This belated news further bolsters the fact that the purpose for which the properties were condemned has been abandoned.

Next, the respondent asseverates that the Court departed from the ruling enunciated in Mactan-Cebu International Airport Authority v. Court of Appeals. We are not convinced. Clearly, the respondent's contention can prevail only if the facts of the present case are accurately in point with those in the other case. We recapitulate our rulings that in MCIAA v. CA, respondent Virginia Chiongbian proffered "inadmissible and inconclusive evidence, while in the present case we have preponderant proof as found by the trial court of the existence of the right of repurchase in favor of the petitioners." No less than Asterio Uy, one of the members of the CAA Mactan Legal Team, which interceded for the acquisition of the lots for the Lahug Airport's expansion, affirmed that persistent assurances were given to the landowners to the effect that as soon as the Lahug Airport is abandoned or transferred to Mactan, the lot owners would be able to reacquire their properties. Unlike in the case of MCIAA v. CA, where respondent Chiongbian offered inadmissible evidence for being hearsay in nature, the petitioners in this case presented a witness whose testimony was based on his own personal knowledge. Surely, Uy is a credible witness inasmuch as he was even tasked by the negotiating panel to directly communicate to the landowners the instructions from the CAA main office that the properties will be returned to the original owners once the Lahug Airport is transferred to Mactan. Likewise, he cannot be considered as a biased witness as he was a former employee of the respondent's predecessor-in-interest and was merely recalling and informing the court of the events that transpired during the negotiations for the expropriations of the lots, xxx

Respondent also cites the 30 June 2005 ruling of this Court in ATO v. Gopuco^[3] as among the rulings purportedly overturned by the subject decision. Yet ATO expressly and precisely took into account the subject decision and reconciled the ruling therein with that at bar. To quote from ATO:

We are not unaware of the ruling in Heirs of Timoteo Moreno v. Mactan-Cebu International Airport Authority, concerning still another set of owners of lots declared expropriated in the judgment in Civil Case No. R-1881. As with Chiongbian and the herein respondent, the owners of the lots therein did not appeal the judgment of expropriation, but subsequently filed a complaint for reconveyance. In ordering MCIAA to reconvey the said lots in their favor, we held that the predicament of petitioners therein involved a constructive trust "akin to the implied trust referred to in Art. 1454 40 of the Civil Code." However, we qualified our Decision in that case, to the effect that:

"We adhere to the principles enunciated in Fery and in Mactan-Cebu International Airport Authority, and do not overrule them. Nonetheless the weight of their import, particularly our ruling as regards the properties of respondent Chiongbian in Mactan-Cebu International Airport Authority, must be commensurate to the facts that were established therein as distinguished from those extant in the case at bar. Chiongbian put forth inadmissible and inconclusive evidence, while in the instant case we have preponderant proof as found by the trial court of the existence of the right of repurchase in favor of petitioners.

Neither has Gopuco, in the present case, adduced any evidence at all concerning a right of repurchase in his favor. Heirs of Moreno is thus not in point.

The remaining points raised border on sophistry. For example, respondent implies that the subject decision overturned the principle "that properties covered by Torrens titles are no longer indefeasible even after the expiration of one year from the decree of registration"^[4], or that the assailed ruling detracted from the conclusiveness and finality of judgment of the 1961 Decision.^[5] Of course these arguments, as oriented, could have been raised in petitioner's earlier motion for reconsideration which, however, they did not. To even consider these arguments and their underlying premise that the assailed decision and resolution are erroneous would be, in effect, to treat the instant motion as a prohibited second motion for reconsideration. That is a recourse which the Court is disinclined to take, and which respondent anyway does not seek before us.

Finally, respondent asserts that our ruling bears serious repercussions on at least two other pending cases before this Court and the Court of Appeals, as well as on its titles acquired through expropriation in the 1961 Civil Case. We remain unpersuaded. Each case decided by the Supreme Court, resolving as it does broadly applicable questions of law, inevitably bears an impact on numerous pending cases docketed with inferior trial courts, appellate courts, and this Court itself. This is not to say that we agree with respondent's conclusion that the challenged rulings have all but foreordained the result in all those other cases.

The foregoing Motion for Clarification is DENIED for lack of merit. No further pleadings shall be entertained in this case. Let entry of judgment issue in due course.

Endnotes:

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^[1] 346 SCRA 126 (2000).

^[2]  42 Phil. 28 (1921).

^[3] 462 SCRA 544 (2005).

^[4] Rollo, p. 345.

^[5] Id. at 345-346.