G.R. No. L-36610 June 18, 1976
FACTS
On September 6, 1972, the herein private respondent Eliseo
Palatino filed with the respondent court an application for registration of
title under the Land Registration Law, of a parcel of land situated in Bataan
Province.
Notice of initial hearing was duly issued by the Commissioner
of Land Registration.
However, respondent trial court issued an order of general
default against all persons, including herein petitioner the Director of Lands,
for the failure of anyone, including the said Director of Lands or his
representative, to appear and oppose the application.
Consequently, notice of this order of general default was
received by petitioners.
On January 5, 1973, respondent court issued its order
granting the application for registration. Notice of the order was received by
herein petitioners.
Petitioners filed with the trial court a motion to life order
of general default and for reconsideration of the order on the ground that
adjudicating the lot applied for by the applicant, respondent Palatino, is
without basis in fact because the applicant could not have possessed the land
applied for at least thirty years immediately preceding the application for the
reason that the land was originally part of the United States Military
Reservation reserved by the then Governor General under Proclamation No. 10
dated February 16, 1925 and it was only on June 10, 1967 that the President of
the Philippines by Proclamation No. 210-B revoked Proclamation No. 10 and
declared such portion of the area therein embraced including the land applied
for, as are classified as alienable and disposable, opened for disposition
under the provisions of the Public Land Act.
Trial court denied the petitioners' motion to lift the order
of general default and for reconsideration of the order.
ISSUE
Whether petitioner’s contention is tenable.
RULING
The Court had reviewed the records of this case and it
is convinced that certain essential requisites of procedural law were not
complied with by the herein petitioners. There was a failure to perfect an
appeal and consequently this failure had the effect of rendering final and
executory the judgment or final order of the trial court. This fact certainly
deprives the appellate court, the Court, of jurisdiction to entertain the
appeal. By actual reckoning of time, it will be seen that the period for filing
and perfecting an appeal had been past overdue. Petitioners herein have
procrastinated too long on their rights and on the duties imposed on them that
the Court is now prevented from extending to them the relief they are now
seeking. Through inexcusable neglect and laches, the Government lost its case
Section 13 of the aforecited Rule 41 of the Rules of Court is crystal clear in
its language and tenor: Where the notice of appeal, appeal bond or record on
appeal is not filed within the period so prescribed, the appeal shall be
dismissed.
The decision or final order granting the registration of the
parcel of land applied for by herein private respondent Eliseo Palatino, having
become final and executory, there now remains only the issuance of the decree
and the certificate of title over the property. Thus, the Court declares,
following its time-honored dictum: After a decision has become final, the
prevailing party becomes entitled as a matter of right to its execution; that it becomes merely the ministerial
duty of the court to issue the writ of execution.
Should petitioners duly establish by competent evidence these
allegations, they may then raise the crucial question whether the private
respondent and his predecessors-in-interest may be deemed to have validly and
legally commenced occupation of the land and physically occupied the same en concepto de dueño for thirty years or more to
entitle them to registration under section 48(b) of the Public Land Act a
question which cannot be resolved now in view of the finding that there is
without jurisdiction to entertain the appeal since the decision or final order
granting registrations has long become final and executory.
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