REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES vs. MARIANO F. LICHAUCO Case Digest


TITLE

REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES (Represented by the Land Tenure Administration, substituted by the Land Authority), plaintiff and appellant,
vs. MARIANO F. LICHAUCO, ET AL., defendants. JOSE M. LICHAUCO, TRINIDAD GONZALES, FRANCISCO CASTILLO and JOSE CASTILLO, defendants and appellants

August 19, 1972



FACTS

The Republic of the Philippines, by authority of Republic Act No. 1400, represented by the Land Tenure Administration, filed on December 2, 1957, in the Court of First Instance of Pangasinan a complaint against the defendants for the expropriation of the lands of the "Hacienda El Porvenir", having an area of 1,352.84245 hectares, situated in the municipalities of Tayug, Natividad, San Quintin and Sta. Maria, province of Pangasinan. In the complaint it was alleged, among other things, that the aggregate assessed value of the property was P434,440.00, and that the continuous agrarian conflicts between defendants and their tenants could be solved only through the purchase of said property by the government. Defendants, in their amended motion to dismiss, sought the dismissal of the complaint, alleging that the hacienda was no longer a co-ownership but had been partitioned among the several heirs of Crisanto Lichauco, and that Republic Act No. 1400 was unconstitutional.  On March 23, 1961, the plaintiff and the defendants filed in court an "Agreement and Joint Motion. The defendant-co-owners do hereby agree, as evidenced by their signature affixed hereto, to the expropriation of their property. . That the defendant-co-owners have agreed to the condemnation of their property in view of the conformity of the plaintiff to grant them the right of retention of the areas stated in the agreement. Acting on the foregoing Agreement and Joint Motion, the Court of First Instance of Pangasinan issued, on March 23, 1961, the order of condemnation of the property sought to be expropriated and set the provisional value of the property at P990,172.50.

Inasmuch as the defendants were not agreeable to the price of P1,787,048.80, or an average of P1,945.36 per hectare offered by the plaintiff in its memorandum-report dated June 15, 1961 (Exhibit A), the court created a Committee on Appraisal and appointed as members thereof Atty. Rodolfo E. Vinluan, to represent the Court; Mr. Alfredo Balingao of Tayug, Pangasinan, to represent the plaintiff; and Mr. Hermenegildo Acosta, also of Tayug, to represent the defendants. After hearing on the reports, the Court rendered its decision on October 26, 1962 in favour of the dependants. From this decision, plaintiff appealed, by reason of the amount involved. The Higher court affirmed the decision made by the trial court.



ISSUE

Whether or not the respondent court erred with the classification and appraisal of the value of the property expropriated.



RULING

The trial court simply considered the principles enunciated in those cases as guided in fixing the market value of the lands sought to be expropriated in the present case. The principles regarding evaluation enunciated in the Bustos case, namely: that the reasonable market value of a property is what it would bring when offered for sale by one who desires but is not obliged to sell, and is purchased by one who is under no necessity of having it; that the value of the property should be fixed as of the date of proceedings; and that the sales of properties in the same locality are creditable in determining the market value of lots in that vicinity, can not be said to be erroneous and without basis in law, as claimed by plaintiff-appellant, because said principles are taken from the decisions of this Court in the cases of Manila Railroad Co. vs. Caligsahan, 40 Phil. 326; and Manila Railroad Co. vs. Fabie, 17 Phil. 206. The trial court, therefore, did not err when it relied on the principles enunciated in those cases.



HELD  

No. the trial court did not base the market value of the Hacienda El Porvenir on the prices of the land expropriated in the cases mentioned by the plaintiff-appellant. The trial court simply considered the principles enunciated in those cases as guided in fixing the market value of the lands sought to be expropriated in the present case. With modifications as stated in this opinion, the decision, dated October 26, 1962, and the order, dated February 9, 1963, appealed from, are, in all other respects, affirmed.

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