TEODORICO SANTOS, ET AL., petitioners- appellees, vs.

THE HEIRS OF PEDRO

CRISOSTOMO and FABIAN TIONGSON, objectors-appellants.
GR NO.14234

FACTS: Petitioners, Teodorico de los Santos and the heirs of his deceased wife filed
a petition to trial court of Bulacan to procure the registration of a parcel of land in
the barrio of Santa Helena, municipality of Hagonoy, Bulacan Province, containing
an area of approximately 53 hectares.

The petitioners presented an official survey map describing the boundaries of such
lands adjacent to the lands of the heirs of Pedro Crisostomo and Fabian Tiongson
among others. However, the heirs of Pedro Crisostomo and Fabian Tiongson, as the
objectors of this petition, opposed and asserted that the parcel of land in question
was an integral part of a much larger tract of their owned land.

To support their claim, the objectors introduced a document, or an evidence

labeled Exhibit 2, which is a certified copy of a composition title, dating from far
back in Spanish times, in favor of the heirs of Fabian Tiongson, covering an area of
more than 450 hectares of land in the same place.

The petitioners in reply, presented a Contract of Sale with Pacto de Retro evidence
wherein stated that on March 4, 1904, a certain Jose Tiongson, (a descendant of
Fabian Tiongson ) declares that his parcel of nipa land situated in the same barrio,
have sold it with the right to repurchase to the spouses Teodorico T. Santos and
Vanancia Bautista for two hundred pesos (P200) which he received that day. But
he bind himself not to repurchase such land until after ten years of its enjoyment.
The land has an area of two and one half quinones (around 7 hectares in modern
measurement)… signed in the presence of his nephew Severo Tiongson and two
other witnesses.

The trial court ruled in favor of the petitioner based on the pacto de retro contract
of sale and the testimonies of the oral evidences tending to show their ownership.
The objectors entered a motion for rehearing; the petitioners opposed such motion
thru a memorandum, hence this petition to rehear by the appellants to the
Supreme Court.
ISSUE:
1. Whether or not the title to the parcel of land as described in the petition and
plotted in the official plan, is shown to be in the petitioners-appellees?

2. Whether or not the motion to rehear by the objectors-appellants be granted

in the light of newly discovered evidence?

RULE:
1. Yes. Because the higher court finds that the trial court’s decision in favor of
Teodorico Santos upon this point of actual possession must be taken to be correct.
A preponderance of the rather meager testimony submitted on the point of
possession sustains the claim of the petitioner as to the fact of possession since
1904, of the land which they claim as covered by pacto de retro contract of sale
and that the right to repurchase by the appellants had irrevocably deemed passed.

It might be argued, that the appellees were usurpers for claiming 53 hectares in
contrast to the approximately 7 hectares of land area stipulated in the contract
conveyed to the petitioner; however, the fact that the petitioners had maintained
adverse possession over the whole parcel for more than ten years, means
petitioners had acquired such lands via good prescriptive title by adverse
possession.

2. No. One of the bases of the petition to rehear is newly discovered evidence. The
Supreme Court considered the nature of the matter presented and disinclined to
accede to the new request for a new trial on the ground not only because no
sufficient excuse is made for the failure to produce such proof sooner, but because
the purported newly evidence is irrelevant or unconclusive. In particular, the
affidavit of Severo Tiongson, which is supposed to throw light on Exhibit B, refers
to a totally different document.

Wherefore, petition to rehear by the objector-appellants was ordered DENIED.