G.R. No. 155179 - VICTORINO QUINAGORAN, VS. COURT OF APPEALS AND THE HEIRS OF JUAN DE LA CRUZ.D E C I S I O N - Supreme Court E-Library

Ruling

WHEREFORE, for lack of merit, the motion to dismiss is hereby denied. [8] Petitioner's Motion for Reconsideration was also denied by the RTC. [9] Petitioner then went to the CA on a Petition for Certiorari and Prohibition seeking the annulment of the Orders of the RTC. [10] On May 27, 2002, the CA rendered the herein assailed Decision dismissing petitioner's action and affirming in toto the RTC. [11] Pertinent portions of said Decision, read: At the onset, we find that the complaint filed by the Heirs of Juan dela Cruz, represented by Senen dela Cruz adequately set forth the jurisdictional requirements for a case to be cognizable by the Regional Trial Court. The Complaint is captioned "recovery of portion of registered land" and it contains the following allegations: That since plaintiffs and defendant were neighbors, the latter being the admitted owner of the adjoining lot, the former's occupancy of said house by defendant was only due to the tolerance of herein plaintiffs; That plaintiffs, in the latter period of 1993, then demanded the removal of the subject house for the purpose of constructing a commercial building and which herein defendant refused and in fact now claims ownership of the portion in which said house stands; That repeated demands relative to the removal of the subject house were hence made but which landed on deaf ears; That a survey of the property as owned by herein plaintiffs clearly establishes that the subject house is occupying Four Hundred (400) square meters thereof at the north-west portion thereof, as per the approved survey plan in the records of the Bureau of Lands. x x x x It is settled that when the complaint fails to aver facts constitutive of forcible entry or unlawful detainer, as where it does not state how entry was effected or how and when dispossession started, the remedy should either be an accion publiciana or an accion reinvindicatoria in the proper regional trial court. In the latter instances, jurisdiction pertains to the Regional Trial Court. As another legal recourse from a simple ejectment case governed by the Revised Rules of Summary Procedure, an accion publiciana is the plenary action to recover the right of possession when dispossession has lasted more than one year or when dispossession was effected by means other than those mentioned in Rule 70 of the Rules of Court. Where there is no allegation that there was denial of possession through any of the methods stated in Section 1, Rule 70 of the Rules of Court, or where there is no lease contract between the parties, the proper remedy is the plenary action of recovery of possession. Necessarily, the action falls within the jurisdiction of the Regional Trial Court. Thus, we find that the private respondents [heirs of dela Cruz] availed of the proper remedy when they filed the action before the court a quo. Undoubtedly, the respondent court therefore did not act with grave abuse of discretion amounting to or in excess of jurisdiction in denying Q