ESPINO V. VICENTE (Donation)

492 SCRA 330
June 22, 2006

Facts: Petitioner’s parents Emerenciana and Doroteo were owners of 2 untitled parcels of land, a portion of which they sold to a Marissa Delos Santos in 1995. Sometime in 1996, their nephew’s wife Emma made Emerenciana and Petitioner Marcelina sign a document to be used in titling the properties in their name. Being both illiterate, they did not know that the document they signed was actually a Deed of Donation in favour of Emma.

Issue: Whether the assailed deed of donation enjoys the legal presumption of due execution and validity

Held: A donation is an act of liberality whereby a person disposes gratuitously a thing or a right in favour of another, who accepts it. Like any other contract, an agreement of the parties is essential. Consent in contracts presupposes the following requisites:

1. It should be intelligent, or with an exact notion of the matter to which it refers;
2. It should be free;
3. It should be spontaneous.

The parties’ intention must be clear and the attendance of a vice of consent, like in any other contract, renders the donation voidable.

It is evident that fraud attended the act of respondent Emma when she procured the signatures of Marcelina and Emerenciana. There is fraud when through insidious words or machinations of one of the contracting parties, the other is induced into a contract which without them, he would have agreed to. When one of the parties is unable to read, or if the contract is in a language not understood by him, and mistake or fraud is alleged, the person enforcing the contract must show that the terms thereof have been fully explained to the former.

SEVENTH DAY ADVENTIST CONFERENCE CHURCH OF SOUTHERN PHILIPPINES V. NOREASTERN MINDANAO OF SEVENTH DAY ADVENTIST (CIVIL)

Donation is an act of liberality whereby a person disposes gratuitously of a thing or right in favor of another person who accepts it. The donation could not have been made in favor of an entity yet inexistent at the time it was made. Nor could it have been accepted as there was yet no one to accept it.

Further, according to Article 1477 of the Civil Code, the ownership of the thing sold shall be transferred to the vendee upon the actual or constructive delivery thereof. On this, the noted author Arturo Tolentino had this to say:

"The execution of a public instrument xxx transfers the ownership from the vendor to the vendee who may thereafter exercise the rights of an owner over the same.

Here, transfer of ownership from spouses Cosio to respondent was made upon constructive delivery of the property when the sale was made through a public instrument. TCT No. 4468 was thereafter issued and it remains in the name of respondent.

ESPINO V. VICENTE (CIVIL)

A DONATION is an act of liberality whereby a person disposes gratuitously a thing or a right in favour of another, who accepts it. Like any other contract, an agreement of the parties is essential. Consent in contracts presupposed the following requisites:

1. It should be intelligent, or with an exact notion of the matter to which it refers;
2. it should be free; and
3. it should be spontaneous.

The parties' intention must be clear and that attendance of vice of consent, like in any other contract, renders the donation voidable.

It s evident that fraud attended the act of respondent Emma when she procured the signatures of Marceline and Emerciana. There is fraud when through insidious words or machinations of one of the contracting parties, the other is induces into a contract which without them, he would have agreed to. When one of the parties is unable to read, or if the contract is in a language not understood by him, and mistake or fraud is alleged, the person enforcing the contract must show that the terms thereof have been fully explained to the former.

ALVARICO V. SOLA (REMEDIAL)

Even assuming that Sola acquired title tot eh disputed property in bad faith, only the State can institute REVERSION PROCEEDINGS under Sec. 101 of the Public Land Act. Thus:

Sec. 101. All actions for reversion to the Government of lands of the public domain or improvements thereon shall be instituted by the Solicitor General or the officer acting in his stead, in the proper courts, in the name of the Republic of the Philippines.

In other words, a private individual may not bring an action for reversion or any action which would have the effect of canceling a free patent and the corresponding certificate of title issued on the basis thereof, suh that the land covered thereby will again form part of the public domain.

Only the Solicitor General of the officer acting in his stead may do so. Since Sola's title originated from a grant by the government, its cancellation is a matter between the grantor and the grantee. Clearly then, Alvarico has no standing at all to question the validity of Sola's title. It follows that he cannot recover the property because to begin with, he has not shown that he is the rightful owner thereof.

Anent Alvarico's contention that it was the intention of Fermina Sola for Amelita Sola to hold the property in trust for him, we held that if this was really the intention of Fermina, then this should have been clearly stated in the Deed of Self-Adjudication executed in 1983, in the Deed of Donation executed in 1984, or in a subsequent instrument. Absent any persuasive proof of that intention in any written instrument, we are not prepared to accept Alvarico's bare allegation concerning the donor's state of mind.