Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. L-26112 April 27, 1973
REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, ET AL.,
vs.
HON. JAIME DE LOS ANGELES, ET AL.
R E S O L U T I O N *
For lack of necessary votes, the second motion for reconsideration of petitioner Tolentino dated May 11, 1972 and the supplement thereto dated May 15, 1972, including the prayer that the vote of Justice Barredo be declared null and void, are deemed denied. (Teehankee and Esguerra, JJ., dissent in a separate opinion; Barredo, Makasiar and Antonio, JJ., took no part.)
Separate Opinions
TEEHANKEE, J., dissenting:
1. Pending resolution by the Court are petitioner Tolentino's second motion for reconsideration dated May 11, 1972 (filed with prior leave as per the Courts resolution of April 25, 1972) and the supplement thereto dated May 15,1972.
The motion prays "that the Resolution of 4 October 1971 and the Resolution of 11 April 1972, reached by a divided court, be set aside and that the unanimous decision of this Court on 30 June 1967, be reaffirmed in toto."
The supplement recalls that petitioner "raised in his first motion for reconsideration the question of Mr. Justice Barredo's competency to participate in the case at bar. However, the majority resolution on the motion for reconsideration did not make a ruling thereon. Since the case at bar is the first case in this jurisdiction which calls for a definite ruling on the automatic disqualification of a judge or judicial officer under provisions of sec. 1 of Rule 137 of the Rules of Court, we respectfully pray that this Honorable Court decide the issue squarely so that both the bench and the bar may be properly guided on the application of the said rule. Besides, the issue presents a question of law which this Honorable Court is duty bound to decide; the issue is of such importance that, without going into the other aspects of the case, it could set to naught the Resolution of this Honorable Court dated October 4, 1971 and revive the Decision of June 30, 1967."1
The supplement accordingly prays that the Court "rule on the issue of Mr. Justice Barredo's disqualification; that he be declared disqualified and that his vote in the Resolution of October 4, 1971 be declared null and void; and that the Decision of June 30, 1967 be revived. "2
2. It will be recalled that it was also upon a second motion for reconsideration and supplements thereto of respondent Ayala that the Court's unanimous decision of 30 June 1967 penned by Chief Justice Concepcion3
granting mandamus and directing respondent judge "to order the issuance of a writ of execution for the enforcement of the decision in question"4
as prayed for by co-petitioners Republic and Tolentino, that said decision at bar was "set aside and the petition for certiorari and mandamus in this case (is) dismissed" by a six-three-two vote as per the Court's resolution of 4 October 1971.5
The new majority of six was composed of Justices Villamor (ponente), Makalintal, Zaldivar, Castro, Fernando and Barredo. The three dissenting votes were cast by Chief Justice Concepcion, Justice Reyes and the writer. Justice Dizon, who took no part ab initio maintained his abstention from the case while Justice Makasiar chose to abstain by virtue of his having been Solicitor General (succeeding Justice Barredo) and having represented petitioner Republic in some pleadings filed in the case at bar. It was noted at the time that "this is one of the matters that have been purposely deferred to await the completion of the membership of the Court."6
This was documented in the Court's resolution of July 22, 1968, wherein the Court (then composed of nine members with two vacancies) resolved "to defer the resolution of said second petition (of Tolentino) for resolution and said motion (of Ayala and Zobel) for immediate resolution for lack of consensus thereon" 6* as well as in the Court's resolution of November 8, 1968 (still with the same two vacancies) whereby "action on the pending matters in L-26112 ... (was deferred in the meantime.)"
3. Motions for reconsideration and setting aside of the Court's resolution of 4 October 1971 were presented by then Solicitor General Antonio, now a member of this Court, on behalf of petitioner Republic7 as well as by petitioner Tolentino. The motions for reconsideration were denied by the same six-three-two vote, as per the Court's resolution of 11 April 1972.8 The vote was the same, save that Justice Fernando this time qualified his concurring vote as "in the result" and that Justice Antonio had been appointed to the Court and qualified on April 10, 1972 but like his predecessor, Justice Dizon (who had retired on October 5, 1971), abstained (with Justice Makasiar) from taking part in the case.
4. With the appointment on June 29, 1972 of Justice Esguerra as a member of the Court vice Justice Villamor who retired on April 12, 1972, the preliminary vote taken on petitioner Tolentino's pending second motion for reconsideration was a close five-four-two. The bare majority six had been reduced to five with Justice Villamor's retirement. Justice Esguerra joined Chief Justice Concepcion, Justice Reyes and the writer, increasing from three to four the number in favor of granting reconsideration and reinstating the original decision at bar of 30 June 1967. Justices Makasiar and Antonio, as former Solicitors General who had represented petitioner Republic in the case at bar, abstained from taking part.
The Court took no conclusive action on the proposal then urged by the writer that section 9 of the Judiciary Act be availed of and representations be made with the President for the appointment of two appellate court justices to sit temporarily with the Court vice the two abstaining regular justices (Makasiar and Antonio) — since with the tentative vote of five to four resulting in failure to arrive at an absolute majority of six required to render judgment in any given case, it seemed a matter of fairness that the admittedly crucial and highly controversial, if not transcendental, issues involved in the case be decided by a full vote without abstentions which definitely prejudiced petitioner-movant, because the two votes could decisively tilt the scales in his favor and restore the original decision of 30 June 1967 granting mandamus for execution of the Batangas court of first instance's 1962 judgment in petitioner's favor as affirmed with modification on May 31, 1965 by this Court.9
5. At any rate, the pending questions have been overtaken by events. With the implementation of the 1973 revised Constitution 10 the full court membership has been thereby increased from eleven to fifteen, with a corresponding increase of the required majority to render judgment from six to eight. It is submitted that resolution of the pending motions, considering the importance of the issues and the precedents herein followed of likewise deferring for a number of years resolution of respondent Ayala's second motion for reconsideration of 19 September 1967 until completion of the membership of the Court, (supra, paragraph 2), should await the composition of the full Court, so that this case may finally be decisively resolved. 11 The Court, over the writer's dissent, has now opted, however, to deny the pending motions for reconsideration, for lack of necessary votes to grant the same.
6. A word as to petitioner's motion — incorporated in his pending second motion for reconsideration of May 11, 1972 — to strike out the remarks of Justice Makalintal in his concurring opinion of 11 April 1972 with reference to my dissenting opinion of the same date that "... The undisguised bitterness of the dissent, it would seem, proceeds from the fact that Tolentino has failed to collect this huge and, in our view, undeserved largesse." 12
As per the Court's resolution of 2 August 1972, the Court unanimously denied the motion to strike out. The writer himself was first to vote for such denial, in view of his conviction that every member of this Court should be perfectly free to express his views in any manner he deems fit when he chooses to write a separate personal opinion, accountable to no one except to himself, his conscience and his own sense of propriety and decorum.
Hence, the incident was disposed of much earlier on 2 August 1972, without the Court as yet having deliberated upon the merits of petitioner's second motion for reconsideration, contrary to respondents' erroneous conjecture in their urgent motion for resolution dated January 16, 1973 that the Court then already took up the merits of said motion for reconsideration.
7. From the writer's own viewpoint, he strove, as has been his norm, to state the grounds of his dissent forcefully, but objectively and with due regard for the contrary views of his colleagues. He was solely concerned with upholding the views shared by him with Chief Justice Concepcion (who had penned the original decision at bar of 30 June 1967 overturned by the resolution of 4 October 1971 and who filed the main dissenting opinion thereto 13) against usurpations of the public domain and violating the settled rules on finality and conclusiveness of the law of the case and the accepted norms of due process and fair play. These were the very views expounded and amplified by him when he wrote the main dissenting opinion against the resolution of 11 April 1972 denying the State's and Tolentino's motions for reconsideration. 14
8. Notwithstanding the denial now of the writ of mandamus sought by the petitioner Republic for execution of that portion of the Batangas court of first instance's 1962 judgment in its favor and affirmed without modification by the May 31, 1965 judgment of this Court in L-20950, annulling the expanded title and other subdivision titles to an estimated 2,500 hectares of the public domain wrongfully appropriated by respondent Ayala, including over 400 hectares of the public beach, foreshore and territorial sea, the writer reiterated with gratification, as stated in his dissenting opinion of April 11, 1972, that in some small measure the dissents had contributed to the clarification.
that the majority's position — although it denies reconsideration and maintains reversal of the June 30, 1967 decision at bar — is that the Government may now finally effect reversion and recover possession of all usurped areas of the public domain "outside (Ayala's) private land covered by TCT No. 722, which including the lots in T-9550 (Lots 360, 362, 363 and 182) are hereby reverted to public dominion." (Paragraph (a) of 1965 judgment.)
9. On petitioner Tolentino's second motion for reconsideration: —
(a) The Batangas court of first instance's 1962 judgment ordered all the defendants to jointly and severally pay intervenor Miguel Tolentino compensatory damages in the sum of P3,000.00 a year per hectare of Lot 360 from March 11, 1954, until he is placed in lawful possession of the said area." 15
(b) On appeal to this Court in case L-20950, this Court affirmed in its decision of 31 May 1965 the Batangas court of first instance's judgment with the sole modification that private respondents Dizons (purchasers from Ayala of Lot 360, a thirty-hectare lot of the public domain wrongfully titled by Ayala and without right sold by it to the Dizons but actually granted in lease by the Republic to Tolentino) were excluded from liability for the damages awarded to Tolentino, "there being no showing that defendants Dizons are not purchasers in good faith and for value."
(c) This Court's 1965 judgment in Case L-20950 affirming the Batangas court of first instance's 1962 judgment awarding the proven compensatory damages of approximately P90,000 a year to Tolentino, with the sole modification of exempting the Dizons, clearly left the remaining defendants, herein respondents Ayala and Alfonso Zobel, jointly and severally liable for the damages so awarded. Manifestly, if the exclusion of the Dizons likewise exempted Ayala and Zobel from joint and several liability for the awarded damages, then this Court would not have affirmed the judgment for damages exempting only the Dizons but would have set aside this important portion of the judgment which was in favor of intervenor Tolentino.
(d) But respondents Ayala and Zobel (as defendants therein) had themselves acknowledged that they had been so held jointly and severally liable for the damages awarded Tolentino, expressly assigned this in their brief as an error of the trial court's judgment and alternatively prayed for and secured from this Court the modification on behalf of the Dizons that the Dizons be held entitled to retain possession of their illegally titled public fishponds wrongfully and without right sold to them by Ayala until reimbursed for their necessary expenses. 16
(e) Respondents Ayala and Zobel, apparently satisfied with this modification of the trial court's judgment, no longer moved for reconsideration thereof insofar as the Dizons were excluded from the damages they were jointly and severally sentenced to pay Tolentino (since they were the vendors and source of the illegally titled foreshore lots). They concentrated their motion for reconsideration on this Court's affirmance of the trial court's judgment ordering the cancellation of their wrongfully expanded titles to lands and waters of the public domain which motion was denied by this Court on December 6, 1965 and judgment thereafter entered on December 11, 1965.
(f) The judgment for damages against respondents Ayala and Zobel in favor of Tolentino thus became final and executory and res judicata.
When the present special civil action for mandamus to compel execution of the judgment was filed, respondents' contention was that "the extinction of the Dizons' liability carried with the extinction of the liability of Ayala and Zobel, because of their joint and several nature." This contention was rejected in the original decision of 30 June 1967 as "absolutely devoid of merit." And respondents in their first motion for reconsideration of 3 August 1967 entitled "motion for partial reconsideration" expressly abided by the Court's rejection of their contention and manifested that "we do not now insist upon it."
(g) What respondents stressed in their said first motion for reconsideration was that their liability for the damages awarded amounted as of that date to over P12 million "and may reach a million pesos more," and prayed for setting aside of the decision ordering execution of the judgment for damages "because, although that interpretation of the judgment of this Honorable Court in G. R. No. L-20950 might be correct literally, it is erroneous in law, it violates the intent of that judgment, and makes that judgment violate basic canons of justice and fair play."
This first motion for reconsideration was denied as per this Court's resolution of September 13, 1967 "because the points stressed therein are dependent upon a question settled by a former judgment that is admittedly final and executory."
(h) Where there is such a specific former judgment for damages in favor of Tolentino against respondents Ayala and Zobel long final and executory since entry on December 11, 1965 of the Court's judgment in L- 20950, the writer regretfully states that he cannot but register his dissent from the majority view that "(T)he real question of substantive law which has a material and persuasive bearing on the interpretation of the judgment of the trial court insofar as Ayala is concerned is not who should pay damages to Tolentino but rather whether or not he is entitled to damages at all. His right thereto being inexistent, his claim should not be entertained, against whichever party he may address it." 17
(i) The growing amount of the damages awarded Tolentino could in no way be faulted against him. As the late Justice Ozaeta stated on Tolentino's behalf at the rehearing on August 11, 1970, "defendants Ayala and Zobel are the ones to blame. Had they abided by the final judgment of the trial court as slightly modified by this Court in the Barrera decision, instead of prolonging the case up to now, the amount they would have had to pay then would have been only less than half a million pesos. The respondents themselves have brought upon their heads the evil consequences of their obstinacy in trying to reopen a final judgment." 18
(j) Respondents Ayala and Zobel had in their motion for leave to file second motion for reconsideration dated September 19, 1967 explicitly acknowledged their responsibility and readiness to answer for the growing amount of the damages awarded Tolentino stating therein that
(1) This case is of vital importance to them, imposing upon them a liability in excess of ONE MILLION PESOS.
(2) On the other hand, to grant leave to file a second motion for reconsideration does not cause petitioners any irreparable damage, because if the second motion be denied, petitioner Tolentino would be paid for the time it is under consideration at the rate of P3,000.00 per hectare per year, or approximately P8.00 per hectare or P240.00 per day; on the other hand, if the second motion be granted, then petitioner Tolentino would not be entitled to anything, so in either case, he suffers no irreparable damage.
(k) On the other hand, Tolentino filed his "Offer to pay Reimbursement" dated May 20, 1968 stating that he "would like to take immediate possession of Lot 360 involved herein so that he may proceed to its profitable development" and "offers to reimburse the Dizons for the necessary expenses they have incurred in Lot 360, after the same have been "established and determined," (G.R. No. L-20950), as the same have been established and determined by the Commissioner of Fisheries, pursuant to a directive by the Honorable, the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources." Respondents Ayala and Zobel washed their hands of the matter in their comments dated June 14, 1968 stating that "this matter (was) solely within the discretion of the petitioners and the Dizons, respondents not being privy to said matter." As indicated above, the Court as per its resolution of July 22, 1968 and November 8, 1968 "for lack of consensus" deferred resolution on all pending matters and Ayala's then pending second motion for reconsideration until there was a full court.
(l) The writer can only reiterate simply that Ayala (and its co-respondent Zobel), as shown above, were expressly adjudged liable jointly and severally to pay the damages awarded to Tolentino under the trial court's 1962 judgment as affirmed by this Court in L-20950, which rejected their specific assignment of error in their brief on appeal that they should not have been held so liable. Tolentino, as intervenor, being the awardee of the damages is therefore entitled, in law, to the damages awarded him in the judgment. The judgment being concededly res judicata may no longer be reopened, reviewed or revised, much less reversed, without violating the accepted norms of due process and fair play and the universal principles of finality and conclusiveness of judgments as the law of the case.
Rather than this unprecedented nullification by interpretation of the 1965 judgment for proven compensatory damages under the Court's divided resolution of 4 October 1971 overturning the original unanimous judgment at bar of 30 June 1967, mandamus for execution of the said 1965 judgment for damages should therefore issue, as decreed in the original decision at bar of 30 June 1967.
ESGUERRA, J., concurring:
I concur in the above dissent. With the majority resolution denying execution against Ayala and Zobel of the Batangas court's judgment awarding damages against them jointly and severally in favor of Tolentino, as affirmed by this Court in L-20950 (May 31, 1965) exempting only the Dizons from liability thereunder, the said judgment which is res judicata has been rendered nugatory, enforceable against no one.
Barredo, Makasiar and Antonio, JJ., took no part.
Separate Opinions
TEEHANKEE, J., dissenting:
1. Pending resolution by the Court are petitioner Tolentino's second motion for reconsideration dated May 11, 1972 (filed with prior leave as per the Courts resolution of April 25, 1972) and the supplement thereto dated May 15,1972.
The motion prays "that the Resolution of 4 October 1971 and the Resolution of 11 April 1972, reached by a divided court, be set aside and that the unanimous decision of this Court on 30 June 1967, be reaffirmed in toto."
The supplement recalls that petitioner "raised in his first motion for reconsideration the question of Mr. Justice Barredo's competency to participate in the case at bar. However, the majority resolution on the motion for reconsideration did not make a ruling thereon. Since the case at bar is the first case in this jurisdiction which calls for a definite ruling on the automatic disqualification of a judge or judicial officer under provisions of sec. 1 of Rule 137 of the Rules of Court, we respectfully pray that this Honorable Court decide the issue squarely so that both the bench and the bar may be properly guided on the application of the said rule. Besides, the issue presents a question of law which this Honorable Court is duty bound to decide; the issue is of such importance that, without going into the other aspects of the case, it could set to naught the Resolution of this Honorable Court dated October 4, 1971 and revive the Decision of June 30, 1967."1
The supplement accordingly prays that the Court "rule on the issue of Mr. Justice Barredo's disqualification; that he be declared disqualified and that his vote in the Resolution of October 4, 1971 be declared null and void; and that the Decision of June 30, 1967 be revived. "2
2. It will be recalled that it was also upon a second motion for reconsideration and supplements thereto of respondent Ayala that the Court's unanimous decision of 30 June 1967 penned by Chief Justice Concepcion3
granting mandamus and directing respondent judge "to order the issuance of a writ of execution for the enforcement of the decision in question"4
as prayed for by co-petitioners Republic and Tolentino, that said decision at bar was "set aside and the petition for certiorari and mandamus in this case (is) dismissed" by a six-three-two vote as per the Court's resolution of 4 October 1971.5
The new majority of six was composed of Justices Villamor (ponente), Makalintal, Zaldivar, Castro, Fernando and Barredo. The three dissenting votes were cast by Chief Justice Concepcion, Justice Reyes and the writer. Justice Dizon, who took no part ab initio maintained his abstention from the case while Justice Makasiar chose to abstain by virtue of his having been Solicitor General (succeeding Justice Barredo) and having represented petitioner Republic in some pleadings filed in the case at bar. It was noted at the time that "this is one of the matters that have been purposely deferred to await the completion of the membership of the Court."6
This was documented in the Court's resolution of July 22, 1968, wherein the Court (then composed of nine members with two vacancies) resolved "to defer the resolution of said second petition (of Tolentino) for resolution and said motion (of Ayala and Zobel) for immediate resolution for lack of consensus thereon" 6* as well as in the Court's resolution of November 8, 1968 (still with the same two vacancies) whereby "action on the pending matters in L-26112 ... (was deferred in the meantime.)"
3. Motions for reconsideration and setting aside of the Court's resolution of 4 October 1971 were presented by then Solicitor General Antonio, now a member of this Court, on behalf of petitioner Republic7 as well as by petitioner Tolentino. The motions for reconsideration were denied by the same six-three-two vote, as per the Court's resolution of 11 April 1972.8 The vote was the same, save that Justice Fernando this time qualified his concurring vote as "in the result" and that Justice Antonio had been appointed to the Court and qualified on April 10, 1972 but like his predecessor, Justice Dizon (who had retired on October 5, 1971), abstained (with Justice Makasiar) from taking part in the case.
4. With the appointment on June 29, 1972 of Justice Esguerra as a member of the Court vice Justice Villamor who retired on April 12, 1972, the preliminary vote taken on petitioner Tolentino's pending second motion for reconsideration was a close five-four-two. The bare majority six had been reduced to five with Justice Villamor's retirement. Justice Esguerra joined Chief Justice Concepcion, Justice Reyes and the writer, increasing from three to four the number in favor of granting reconsideration and reinstating the original decision at bar of 30 June 1967. Justices Makasiar and Antonio, as former Solicitors General who had represented petitioner Republic in the case at bar, abstained from taking part.
The Court took no conclusive action on the proposal then urged by the writer that section 9 of the Judiciary Act be availed of and representations be made with the President for the appointment of two appellate court justices to sit temporarily with the Court vice the two abstaining regular justices (Makasiar and Antonio) — since with the tentative vote of five to four resulting in failure to arrive at an absolute majority of six required to render judgment in any given case, it seemed a matter of fairness that the admittedly crucial and highly controversial, if not transcendental, issues involved in the case be decided by a full vote without abstentions which definitely prejudiced petitioner-movant, because the two votes could decisively tilt the scales in his favor and restore the original decision of 30 June 1967 granting mandamus for execution of the Batangas court of first instance's 1962 judgment in petitioner's favor as affirmed with modification on May 31, 1965 by this Court.9
5. At any rate, the pending questions have been overtaken by events. With the implementation of the 1973 revised Constitution 10 the full court membership has been thereby increased from eleven to fifteen, with a corresponding increase of the required majority to render judgment from six to eight. It is submitted that resolution of the pending motions, considering the importance of the issues and the precedents herein followed of likewise deferring for a number of years resolution of respondent Ayala's second motion for reconsideration of 19 September 1967 until completion of the membership of the Court, (supra, paragraph 2), should await the composition of the full Court, so that this case may finally be decisively resolved. 11 The Court, over the writer's dissent, has now opted, however, to deny the pending motions for reconsideration, for lack of necessary votes to grant the same.
6. A word as to petitioner's motion — incorporated in his pending second motion for reconsideration of May 11, 1972 — to strike out the remarks of Justice Makalintal in his concurring opinion of 11 April 1972 with reference to my dissenting opinion of the same date that "... The undisguised bitterness of the dissent, it would seem, proceeds from the fact that Tolentino has failed to collect this huge and, in our view, undeserved largesse." 12
As per the Court's resolution of 2 August 1972, the Court unanimously denied the motion to strike out. The writer himself was first to vote for such denial, in view of his conviction that every member of this Court should be perfectly free to express his views in any manner he deems fit when he chooses to write a separate personal opinion, accountable to no one except to himself, his conscience and his own sense of propriety and decorum.
Hence, the incident was disposed of much earlier on 2 August 1972, without the Court as yet having deliberated upon the merits of petitioner's second motion for reconsideration, contrary to respondents' erroneous conjecture in their urgent motion for resolution dated January 16, 1973 that the Court then already took up the merits of said motion for reconsideration.
7. From the writer's own viewpoint, he strove, as has been his norm, to state the grounds of his dissent forcefully, but objectively and with due regard for the contrary views of his colleagues. He was solely concerned with upholding the views shared by him with Chief Justice Concepcion (who had penned the original decision at bar of 30 June 1967 overturned by the resolution of 4 October 1971 and who filed the main dissenting opinion thereto 13) against usurpations of the public domain and violating the settled rules on finality and conclusiveness of the law of the case and the accepted norms of due process and fair play. These were the very views expounded and amplified by him when he wrote the main dissenting opinion against the resolution of 11 April 1972 denying the State's and Tolentino's motions for reconsideration. 14
8. Notwithstanding the denial now of the writ of mandamus sought by the petitioner Republic for execution of that portion of the Batangas court of first instance's 1962 judgment in its favor and affirmed without modification by the May 31, 1965 judgment of this Court in L-20950, annulling the expanded title and other subdivision titles to an estimated 2,500 hectares of the public domain wrongfully appropriated by respondent Ayala, including over 400 hectares of the public beach, foreshore and territorial sea, the writer reiterated with gratification, as stated in his dissenting opinion of April 11, 1972, that in some small measure the dissents had contributed to the clarification.
that the majority's position — although it denies reconsideration and maintains reversal of the June 30, 1967 decision at bar — is that the Government may now finally effect reversion and recover possession of all usurped areas of the public domain "outside (Ayala's) private land covered by TCT No. 722, which including the lots in T-9550 (Lots 360, 362, 363 and 182) are hereby reverted to public dominion." (Paragraph (a) of 1965 judgment.)
9. On petitioner Tolentino's second motion for reconsideration: —
(a) The Batangas court of first instance's 1962 judgment ordered all the defendants to jointly and severally pay intervenor Miguel Tolentino compensatory damages in the sum of P3,000.00 a year per hectare of Lot 360 from March 11, 1954, until he is placed in lawful possession of the said area." 15
(b) On appeal to this Court in case L-20950, this Court affirmed in its decision of 31 May 1965 the Batangas court of first instance's judgment with the sole modification that private respondents Dizons (purchasers from Ayala of Lot 360, a thirty-hectare lot of the public domain wrongfully titled by Ayala and without right sold by it to the Dizons but actually granted in lease by the Republic to Tolentino) were excluded from liability for the damages awarded to Tolentino, "there being no showing that defendants Dizons are not purchasers in good faith and for value."
(c) This Court's 1965 judgment in Case L-20950 affirming the Batangas court of first instance's 1962 judgment awarding the proven compensatory damages of approximately P90,000 a year to Tolentino, with the sole modification of exempting the Dizons, clearly left the remaining defendants, herein respondents Ayala and Alfonso Zobel, jointly and severally liable for the damages so awarded. Manifestly, if the exclusion of the Dizons likewise exempted Ayala and Zobel from joint and several liability for the awarded damages, then this Court would not have affirmed the judgment for damages exempting only the Dizons but would have set aside this important portion of the judgment which was in favor of intervenor Tolentino.
(d) But respondents Ayala and Zobel (as defendants therein) had themselves acknowledged that they had been so held jointly and severally liable for the damages awarded Tolentino, expressly assigned this in their brief as an error of the trial court's judgment and alternatively prayed for and secured from this Court the modification on behalf of the Dizons that the Dizons be held entitled to retain possession of their illegally titled public fishponds wrongfully and without right sold to them by Ayala until reimbursed for their necessary expenses. 16
(e) Respondents Ayala and Zobel, apparently satisfied with this modification of the trial court's judgment, no longer moved for reconsideration thereof insofar as the Dizons were excluded from the damages they were jointly and severally sentenced to pay Tolentino (since they were the vendors and source of the illegally titled foreshore lots). They concentrated their motion for reconsideration on this Court's affirmance of the trial court's judgment ordering the cancellation of their wrongfully expanded titles to lands and waters of the public domain which motion was denied by this Court on December 6, 1965 and judgment thereafter entered on December 11, 1965.
(f) The judgment for damages against respondents Ayala and Zobel in favor of Tolentino thus became final and executory and res judicata.
When the present special civil action for mandamus to compel execution of the judgment was filed, respondents' contention was that "the extinction of the Dizons' liability carried with the extinction of the liability of Ayala and Zobel, because of their joint and several nature." This contention was rejected in the original decision of 30 June 1967 as "absolutely devoid of merit." And respondents in their first motion for reconsideration of 3 August 1967 entitled "motion for partial reconsideration" expressly abided by the Court's rejection of their contention and manifested that "we do not now insist upon it."
(g) What respondents stressed in their said first motion for reconsideration was that their liability for the damages awarded amounted as of that date to over P12 million "and may reach a million pesos more," and prayed for setting aside of the decision ordering execution of the judgment for damages "because, although that interpretation of the judgment of this Honorable Court in G. R. No. L-20950 might be correct literally, it is erroneous in law, it violates the intent of that judgment, and makes that judgment violate basic canons of justice and fair play."
This first motion for reconsideration was denied as per this Court's resolution of September 13, 1967 "because the points stressed therein are dependent upon a question settled by a former judgment that is admittedly final and executory."
(h) Where there is such a specific former judgment for damages in favor of Tolentino against respondents Ayala and Zobel long final and executory since entry on December 11, 1965 of the Court's judgment in L- 20950, the writer regretfully states that he cannot but register his dissent from the majority view that "(T)he real question of substantive law which has a material and persuasive bearing on the interpretation of the judgment of the trial court insofar as Ayala is concerned is not who should pay damages to Tolentino but rather whether or not he is entitled to damages at all. His right thereto being inexistent, his claim should not be entertained, against whichever party he may address it." 17
(i) The growing amount of the damages awarded Tolentino could in no way be faulted against him. As the late Justice Ozaeta stated on Tolentino's behalf at the rehearing on August 11, 1970, "defendants Ayala and Zobel are the ones to blame. Had they abided by the final judgment of the trial court as slightly modified by this Court in the Barrera decision, instead of prolonging the case up to now, the amount they would have had to pay then would have been only less than half a million pesos. The respondents themselves have brought upon their heads the evil consequences of their obstinacy in trying to reopen a final judgment." 18
(j) Respondents Ayala and Zobel had in their motion for leave to file second motion for reconsideration dated September 19, 1967 explicitly acknowledged their responsibility and readiness to answer for the growing amount of the damages awarded Tolentino stating therein that
(1) This case is of vital importance to them, imposing upon them a liability in excess of ONE MILLION PESOS.
(2) On the other hand, to grant leave to file a second motion for reconsideration does not cause petitioners any irreparable damage, because if the second motion be denied, petitioner Tolentino would be paid for the time it is under consideration at the rate of P3,000.00 per hectare per year, or approximately P8.00 per hectare or P240.00 per day; on the other hand, if the second motion be granted, then petitioner Tolentino would not be entitled to anything, so in either case, he suffers no irreparable damage.
(k) On the other hand, Tolentino filed his "Offer to pay Reimbursement" dated May 20, 1968 stating that he "would like to take immediate possession of Lot 360 involved herein so that he may proceed to its profitable development" and "offers to reimburse the Dizons for the necessary expenses they have incurred in Lot 360, after the same have been "established and determined," (G.R. No. L-20950), as the same have been established and determined by the Commissioner of Fisheries, pursuant to a directive by the Honorable, the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources." Respondents Ayala and Zobel washed their hands of the matter in their comments dated June 14, 1968 stating that "this matter (was) solely within the discretion of the petitioners and the Dizons, respondents not being privy to said matter." As indicated above, the Court as per its resolution of July 22, 1968 and November 8, 1968 "for lack of consensus" deferred resolution on all pending matters and Ayala's then pending second motion for reconsideration until there was a full court.
(l) The writer can only reiterate simply that Ayala (and its co-respondent Zobel), as shown above, were expressly adjudged liable jointly and severally to pay the damages awarded to Tolentino under the trial court's 1962 judgment as affirmed by this Court in L-20950, which rejected their specific assignment of error in their brief on appeal that they should not have been held so liable. Tolentino, as intervenor, being the awardee of the damages is therefore entitled, in law, to the damages awarded him in the judgment. The judgment being concededly res judicata may no longer be reopened, reviewed or revised, much less reversed, without violating the accepted norms of due process and fair play and the universal principles of finality and conclusiveness of judgments as the law of the case.
Rather than this unprecedented nullification by interpretation of the 1965 judgment for proven compensatory damages under the Court's divided resolution of 4 October 1971 overturning the original unanimous judgment at bar of 30 June 1967, mandamus for execution of the said 1965 judgment for damages should therefore issue, as decreed in the original decision at bar of 30 June 1967.
ESGUERRA, J., concurring:
I concur in the above dissent. With the majority resolution denying execution against Ayala and Zobel of the Batangas court's judgment awarding damages against them jointly and severally in favor of Tolentino, as affirmed by this Court in L-20950 (May 31, 1965) exempting only the Dizons from liability thereunder, the said judgment which is res judicata has been rendered nugatory, enforceable against no one.
Barredo, Makasiar and Antonio, JJ., took no part.
Footnotes
* Inadvertently omitted in Vol. 50, SCRA.
1 At pp. 2-3.
2 At p. 8.
3 The Court then had eight members. The decision was concurred in by six Justices (Reyes, Makalintal, Bengzon, Zaldivar, Sanchez and Castro, JJ)with Justice Dizon not taking part. Reported in 20 SCRA 608.
4 This decision was that rendered on June 2, 1962 by the CFI of Batangas in Civil Case No. 373 thereof, entitled "Republic of the Phil., plaintiff-appellee vs. Ayala y Cia., et al., defendants-appellants; Miguel Tolentino, et al., intervenors-appellees," in favor of plaintiff Republic and intervenors Tolentino and affirmed on appeal, with modification, by this Court per its decision of May 31, 1965 in case G.R. No. L-20950; reported in 14 SCRA 259.
J. Barrera was ponente of the unanimous decision which was concurred in by six other justices (Bengzon, CJ. and Bautista Angelo, Reyes, J.B.L., Paredes, Makalintal and Bengzon, JJ. Concepcion, Dizon. Regala and Zaldivar, JJ. took no part).
5 Reported in 41 SCRA 422.
6 Notes in parenthesis supplied.
7 The grounds for reconsideration were thus stated by the Solicitor General:
"I. That the resolution of October 4, 1971 in effect disturbs a judgment long final and executory, and which the law of the case expresses in clear and unequivocal terms the import thereof:
"II. That the questioned resolution is based on erroneous conclusions of fact and of law: and
"III. That public policy and the rule of law demand that the judicial pronouncements in the resolution dated October 4, 1971 be re-examined with utmost circumspection."
8 Reported in 44 SCRA 255.
9 Supra, fn. 4.
10 Cf. the Ratification cases, Javellana vs. Exec. Sec L-36142, etc., Mar. 31, 1973.
11 "SEC. 2. (1) The Supreme Court shall be composed of a Chief Justice and fourteen Associate Justices. It may sit en banc or in two divisions. .
"(2) ... All other cases, which under its rules are required to be heard en banc, shall be decided with the concurrence of at least eight Members. .
"(3) Cases heard by a division shall be decided with the concurrence of at least five Members, but if such required number is not obtained, the case shall be decided en banc: Provided, that no doctrine or principle of law laid down by the Court in a decision rendered en banc or in division may be modified or reversed except by the Court sitting en banc (1973 Revised Constitution). .
12 For the proper context, the whole par. of Justice Makalintal's separate opinion containing the quoted remarks (underscored) sought to be stricken out, reads:
"To make my own position clear I deem it proper and necessary to state the question as I see it and thereby circumscribe what I understand to be the real thrust of the majority resolution. That question is whether respondent Ayala, under the judgment of the Court of First Instance as affirmed with modification by this Court on appeal, is liable to petitioner Tolentino for the compensatory damages mentioned in said judgment, "in the sum of P3,000 a year per hectare of Lot 360 from March 11, 1954, until he is placed in lawful possession of said area." Considering the area of the said lot, the damages reach a total of P90,000 yearly, or over P1-1/2 million from 1954 up to the present, plus the corresponding predictable increase every year hereafter. The undisguised bitterness of the dissent, it would seem, proceeds from the fact that Tolentino has failed to collect this huge and, in our view, under served largesse. Thus it is said: "Tolentino has been left now holding an empty verdict awarding him against Ayala compensatory damages of close to P2 million ... .' Again there is here a begging of the question." (44 SCRA at pp. 264-265)
13 41 SCRA at pp. 498-547.
14 44 SCRA at pp. 277-306. For ready reference, the grounds of the writer's dissent as concurred in by Chief Justice Concepcion and Justice J.B.L. Reyes were restated and titled therein as follows:
"I. The majority resolution would, as stressed by the Chief Justice, "promote usurpations of the public domain, as well as the simulation of sales thereof by the usurper, by exempting him from responsibility for damages" and violate the settled rules on the finality and conclusiveness of the law of the case and the accepted norms of due process and fair play.
"II. No justification for denying writ of execution for cancellation of void titles and reversion of public lands covered thereby to public dominion. The writ of mandamus should issue at least for this purpose as ordered in the original decision of June 30, 1967 now set aside.
"III. Defendants Dizons may no longer be left free to retain and enjoy for all time the admittedly public (foreshore) areas usurped and converted by them into fishponds.
IV. What has come clearly through all this is that problems, problems and more problems have arisen and have been left unresolved by the majority resolutions setting aside the unanimous decision at bar of June 30, 1967 and refusing execution of petitioners' long final and executory 1965 judgment against Ayala.
"V. The majority resolution has not spelled out what distinct ambiguity and special factors mark this case such as to warrant an unprecedented breach of the universal and absolute rule that a final judgment is beyond review, revision or reversal.
15 Paragraph (c) of the dispositive part of the decision.
16 See the writer's dissenting opinion of October 4, 1971, 41 SCRA at pp. 482-498.
17 Separate concurring op. of Justice Makalintal of April 11, 1972, 44 SCRA at p. 267; emphasis copied.
18 Transcript of Ozaeta oral argument for petitioner Tolentino at rehearing of Aug. 11, 1970, p. 6.
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