Tan v. Dasal
G.R. No. 255694
January 16, 2023
FACTS:
Spouses
Silverio and Purificacion Dasal owned a parcel of land located in Roxas City.
When they died, ownership was passed onto their three surviving children,
namely: Enrico, Cristino, and herein respondent Diosdado Dasal who later
subdivided the property into three portions. Thereafter, the Dasal brothers
decided to sell Lots 1833-L-2 and 1833-L-3, retaining Lot 1833-L-1 which was
further subdivided into four lots and a Subdivision Plan prepared for such
purpose wherein a portion of Diosdado's property abutting the property of
Inocencio Bermejo and parallel to Lot 1833-L-1-B owned by Enrico was indicated
as an existing alley. Sometime in October 1987, Enrico caused the further
subdivision of Lot 1833-L-1-B into two parcels: (1) Lot 1833-L-1-B-1, which was
sold to herein petitioners; and (2) Lot 1833-L-1-B-2, which was sold to Edmund
Sia. Attached to the Subdivision Plan prepared for Lot-1833-L-1-B, subject to
the approval of the Land Management Sector of the Department of Environment and
Natural Resources, was an Affidavit purportedly executed by respondent
Diosdado, stating that a portion of his lot had been donated to all the
occupants within the said subdivision for their free use and passage as an
alley.
Later on, petitioners constructed a
commercial building on Lot 1833-L-1-B-1, which was leased out to different
entities, including the AMA Computer Learning Center. However, respondent
Diosdado apparently constructed a fence on the disputed alley, preventing
petitioners and their lessees from using it. After he rejected their request to
re-open the alley, petitioners were constrained to institute a complaint for
injunction and damages. In in their complaint asserted that the Dasal brothers
and Inocencio earlier agreed to reserve a portion of respondent Diosdado's lot
as an alley to provide ingress and egress to their property. Respondent
Diosdado disavowed having knowledge about the subdivision of Lot 1833-L-1 and
claimed that his signature appearing on the supposed Subdivision Agreement of
Lot 1833-L-1 was forged. Likewise, he was not aware that a portion of the area
assigned to him was reserved as an alley. However, since his house was already
erected on Lot 1833-L-1-D, he no longer objected to such assignment. He also
insisted that the alley was intended as a foot path for the use only of
Inocencio and no one else, and that his property was not a servient estate
insofar as petitioners' lot was concerned. Instead, petitioners should have
asked for a right of way from Enrico, who sold the realty to them. Ultimately,
respondent Diosdado denied that petitioners had to pass through the existing
alley in his lot to go to and from their property; only that it was more
convenient for them to use the same.
ISSUE:
Whether
or not the petitioners are legally entitled to the use of the alley in dispute.
HELD:
The
Court ruled in negative. It found no reason to deviate from the pronouncement
of the Court of Appeals that petitioners are not entitled to use the alley
found on the property of respondents. In Republic v. Ortigas, the Court
elucidated that the foregoing provision contemplates roads and streets in a
subdivided property, not public thoroughfares built on a private property that
was taken from an owner for public purpose. Given that the alley involved in
the case at hand refers to one located inside a private subdivided property,
reliance on Section 50 of Presidential Decree No. 1529 is proper. Section 50 of
Presidential Decree No. 1529 supersedes Section 44 of Act No. 496. Section 50
of Presidential Decree No. 1529 now allows the Register of Deeds to register a
subdivision plan containing streets or passageways, duly approved by the
Commissioner of Land Registration or the Bureau of Lands, sans court approval.
The Register of Deeds is enjoined to annotate on the new certificate of title a
memorandum to the effect that the streets or passageways delineated as such
shall not be closed by the registered owner without court approval. Therefore,
the best evidence that the alley in Diosdado's property is truly a street or
passageway reserved for the use of all occupants of Lot 1833-L-1, as
subdivided, and not merely Inocencio, would be the memorandum to that effect
annotated on the certificate of title covering it.
In the case at bar, petitioners
presented Transfer Certificate Title No. T-21393, covering Lot 1833-L-1-D in
the name of respondent Diosdado, which bears the following statement:
"NOTE: Existing Alley of 3.00 m. wide along Line 5-1 is reserved."
This annotation does not explicitly state for whom the use of the alley on Lot
1833-L-1-D was reserved. After careful examination of the approved Subdivision
Plan from which the title was derived, it demonstrates that it is equally
ambiguous for whose benefit the existing alley was reserved since it was only
designated as such. Moreover, it bears stressing that the annotation on
respondent Diosdado's title does not comply with the required tenor of the
memorandum under Section 50, signaled by the use of the word shall in the said
provision. Absent clear and express terms in the Subdivision Agreement and the
Subdivision Plan for Lot 1833-L-1 drawn up by the parties herein as to the
nature of the burden upon respondent Diosdado's estate, the Court may determine
their intention, as may be gathered from their contemporaneous and subsequent
acts. The Court also noted that a voluntary easement defined by Article 619 of
the Civil Code as that created by will of the owners was not established by the
documentary evidence proffered by petitioners. The Court proceeds there being
none to determine whether a legal easement was created over the disputed alley
in favor of petitioners. The conferment of a legal or compulsory easement of
right of way is governed by Articles 649 and 650 of the Civil Code must concur
such as the dominant estate is surrounded by other immovables and has no
adequate outlet to a public highway (Art. 649, par. 1); There is payment of
proper indemnity (Art. 649, par. 1); The isolation is not due to the acts of
the proprietor of the dominant estate (Art. 649, last par.); and The right of
way claimed is at the point least prejudicial to the servient estate; and
insofar as consistent with this rule, where the distance from the dominant
estate to a public highway may be the shortest (Art. 650).
