G.R. No. 140752 - DIONISIO CARAAN, REPRESENTED BY HEIDI CARAAN AND ERLINDA CARAAN, VS. COURT OF APPEALS AND SPOUSES SALCEDO R. COSME AND NORA LINDA S. COSME.D E C I S I O N - Supreme Court E-Library

Ruling

WHEREFORE, premises considered, judgment is hereby rendered in favor of the plaintiffs [herein private respondents], whereby defendant [herein petitioner] is ordered to: (a) Vacate the premises concerned and to deliver and surrender the possession of the same to the plaintiff; (b) To pay plaintiffs the sum of P54,000.00 as reasonable compensation for the use and occupancy of the premises subject matter of the above-entitled case; (c) Pay the plaintiffs the sum P30,000.00 as moral damages; (d) Pay the plaintiffs the sum of P20,000.00 as attorney's fees and to pay the cost of the suit. [3] Herein petitioner Dionisio Caraan then appealed the RTC judgment to the CA. On October 29, 1999, the CA promulgated its Decision ruling thus: ... Absent any countervailing factum probandum adduced by the defendant-appellant [herein petitioner], the indefeasibility of the Torrens title under their [herein private respondents'] names buttresses the presumption ad homini that they have a better right of ownership over the land. ... The defendant-appellant [herein petitioner] cannot seek refuge on his contention that he is a holder of a residential permit allegedly issued by the Bureau of Forest Development. Within the aegis of Section 3 (ff) of Presidential Decree No. 705, otherwise known as the Revised Forestry Code, a "[p]ermit is a short-term privilege or authority granted by the State to a person to utilize any limited forest resources or undertake a limited activity within any forest land without any right to occupation and possession therein." ... ... Neither is the defendant-appellant a possessor in the concept of an owner, which fact is a conditio sine qua non in order to be entitled to ownership through acquisitive prescription. ... mere possession with a juridical title, e.g., as a usufructuary, a trustee, a lessee, an agent or a pledgee, not being in the concept of owner, cannot ripen into ownership by acquisitive prescription, unless the juridical relation is first expressly repudiated and such repudiation has been communicated to the other party. [4] ... The appellate court then affirmed the RTC judgment ordering petitioner Dionisio Caraan to vacate subject premises and to deliver and surrender possession thereof to herein private respondents. The CA, however, deleted the sums for compensatory and moral damages and attorney's fees awarded by the RTC in favor of private respondents. No motion for reconsideration of the CA Decision was filed. In the meantime, petitioner Dionisio Caraan died and his surviving heirs filed with this Court a petition for review on certiorari with motion that said heirs be substituted as petitioners in this case. Petitioners insist that private respondents' TCT No. 214949 is a derivative of OCT No. 614 and TCT No. 3548 which had been declared spurious and null and void; Dionisio Caraan has a better right of possession because he had been in open, public, adverse, continuous, and uninterrupted possession in the concept of owner