G.R. No. 120154 - HEIRS OF SPOUSES BENITO GAVINO AND JUANA EUSTE REPRESENTED BY AMPARO G. PESEBRE AND BELEN G. VERCELUZ VS. COURT OF APPEALS AND JUANA VDA. DE AREJOLA REPRESENTED BY FLAVIA REYES.D E C I S I O N - Supreme Court E-Library

Ruling

accordingly, TCT No. 4873 was cancelled and TCT No. 4874 was issued in the name of Atty. Jacobo Briones. [12] On 22 April 1963 Juana Vda. de Arejola asked for and was given by the Gavino spouses an additional amount of P1,000.00 and a new deed of pacto de retro with option to buy was executed thus formalizing the earlier sale to the spouses and indicating therein the actual purchase price of P7,650.00. However, the certificate of title described in the contract of sale was still TCT No. 896 [13] despite the fact that it had already been cancelled and substituted by TCT No. 4873 in the name of Juana, and then by TCT No. 4874 in favor of Atty. Jacobo Briones. On 18 July 1963 Atty. Briones mortgaged the property to PNB for P4,000.00, [14] and a month later, the amount was increased by P700.00. [15] On 15 October 1963 Atty. Briones sold the property to the Gavino spouses. The latter alleged that they were constrained to buy the land because of their apprehension that they might lose their earlier investment of P7,650.00 on the same land under the sale by Juana in their favor on 22 April 1963. As a consequence, TCT No. 4874 was cancelled and TCT No. 5244 was issued in the name of Benito Gavino married to Juana Euste. [16] On 12 January 1968 Juana Vda. de Arejola together with the other judicial administrators of the estate of Luis P. Arejola, namely, Justiniano Exequiel and Dominador Aureas, manifesting that all of the foregoing sales executed by Juana were done without judicial authority to sell through the manipulations of Atty. Briones who acted for his own benefit, filed the instant case against him, his wife and the Gavino spouses. On 31 March 1969, during the pendency of the case, one Sulpicio Lovendino filed a complaint-in-intervention alleging that on 25 February 1969 the property was sold to him by the Gavino spouses for P15,000.00 and that by virtue thereof TCT No. 5244 was cancelled and TCT No. 10503 was issued in his name. [17] After Lovendino died his heirs manifested that they were not interested in substituting him because the lot had already been sold to a certain Gerardo Pesebre in 1971. [18] Be that as it may, it is undisputed that the property is now in the hands of Amparo Gavino Pesebre and Belen Gavino Verceluz, daughters of the spouses Benito Gavino and Juana Euste. On the basis of the antecedent facts a decision was rendered by the trial court on 29 August 1991 declaring the sales of the land to defendant spouses Benito Gavino and Juana Euste valid and lawful. It ordered that in the final distribution of the intestate estate of Luis P. Arejola the subject property be excluded from the estate chargeable however against Juana Vda. de Arejola's share, interest and participation therein, and that the Gavino spouses be granted attorney's fees of P5,000.00. [19] The plaintiffs (now private respondents) appealed to the Court of Appeals asserting in the main that the sale of the property by Juana Vda. de Arejola and Atty. Jacobo Briones