SC rules with finality for gov’t on disputed land in QC
MANILA, Philippines – The Supreme Court ruled with finality that a 34-hectare land known as Piedad Estate belonged to the government, ending a 20-year legal battle with three families.
In a 32-page decision, the high court, through Associate Justice Martin Villarama Jr. dismissed the appeal filed by the Manotok clan, heirs of Homer Barque and Felicitas Manahan, and stood pat on its decision last Aug. 24, 2010, which affirmed a ruling by the Court of Appeals that the disputed P4 billion land was government property.
It said then that the titles belonging to the Manotoks and Barques, and Manahan’s deed of conveyance were void and “fake and spurious”.
The high court ruled that none of the parties was able to prove a valid claim over Lot 823 of the Piedad Estate in accordance with the provisions of Act 112 or the Friar Lands Act.
“As it turned out, none of the parties was able to establish by clear and convincing evidence a valid alienation from the government of the subject friar land,” the high court said.
The Piedad estate is at the Culiat, Capitol Hills, Old Balara and Ayala Heights in Quezon City.
Lot 823 is part of the Piedad Estate, a friar land acquired by the Philippine government from the Philippine Sugar Estates Development Company Ltd., La Sociedad Agricola de Ultramar, the British-Manila Estate Company Ltd., and the Recoleto Order of the Philippine Islands on Dec. 23, 1903.
The Piedad Estate has been titled in the name of the government under Original Certificate of Title (OCT) No. 614 and was placed under the administration of the Director of Lands.
The high court in its 2010 ruling cited the findings of the chemical analysis by the Forensic Chemistry Division of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), which showed that the Manotoks’ documents “were not really as old as they purport to be.”
The NBI noted that the handwritten entries were found to be made in ballpoint pen and sign pen inks, which were not yet commercially available in the Philippines until 1953.
The high court ruling against the Barques stemmed from an admission by Teresita Barque-Hernandez that the certified true copy of Deed of Conveyance Record No. 4562 with Sale Certificate No. V-321 was fake and spurious.
Those who voted in favor of the government were Chief Justice Renato Corona and Associate Justices Teresita Leonardo-De Castro, Diosdado Peralta, Mariano del Castillo, Jose Portugal Perez, Lucas Bersamin, and Jose Catral Mendoza.
Those who dissented were Associate Justices Antonio Carpio, Maria Lourdes Sereno, Presbitero Velasco, Jr., Arturo Brion, Roberto Abad, Bienvenido Reyes, and Esterla Perlas-Bernabe.
The claims stemmed from an in incident in 1988 when a fire gutted portions of Quezon City Hall that destroyed records stored in the Office of the Register of Deeds. Tetch Torres
