Petitioner Vs Vs Respondent Guillermo B. Guevara Luis M. Kasilag Lorenzo B. Vizconde
Petitioner Vs Vs Respondent Guillermo B. Guevara Luis M. Kasilag Lorenzo B. Vizconde
SYLLABUS
DECISION
TUASON , J : p
This is a petition for prohibition to prevent the Rural Progress Administration and
Judge Oscar Castelo of the Court of First Instance of Rizal from proceeding with the
expropriation of petitioner Justa G. Guido's land, two adjoining lots, part commercial,
with a combined area of 22,655 square meters, situated in Maypajo, Caloocan, Rizal,
just outside the north Manila boundary, on the main street running from this city to the
north. Four grounds are adduced in support of the petition, to wit:
Separate Opinions
TORRES , J., concurring :
I fully concur in the above opinion of Mr. Justice Tuason. I strongly agree with
him that when the framers of our Constitution wrote in our fundamental law the
provision contained in section 4 of Article XIII, they never intended to make it applicable
to all cases, wherein a group of more or less numerous persons represented by the
Rural Progress Administration, or some other governmental instrumentality, should
take steps for the expropriation of private land to be resold to them on the installment
plan. If such were the intention of the Constitution, if section 4 of its Article XIII will be
so interpreted as to authorize that government corporation to institute the
corresponding court proceedings to expropriate for the bene t of a few interested
persons a piece of private land, the consequence that such interpretation will entail will
be incalculable.
In addition to the very cogent reasons mentioned by Mr. Justice Tuason in
support of his interpretation of that constitutional provision, I wish to state in this
connection the situation created by the acquisition of the so-called friar lands at the
beginning of the establishment of civil government by the United States in these
islands. After the lapse of a few years, the tenants for whose bene t those haciendas
were purchased by the government, and who signed contracts of purchase by
installments of the lots occupied by them, having defaulted in their partial payments,
had to be sued by the government. Thousands of cases were led by the Director of
Lands accordingly, and, in the meantime, the Government which had been administering
those haciendas for a long period of years went into much expense in order to achieve
the purpose of the law. I take for granted that in this case the prospective purchasers,
in inducing the government to buy the land to be expropriated and sold to them by lots
on the installment plan do from the beginning have the best of intentions to abide by
the terms of the contract which they will be required to sign.
If I am not misinformed, the whole transaction in the matter of the purchase of
the friar lands has been a losing proposition, with the government still holding many
lots originally intended for sale to their occupants, who for some reason or other failed
to comply with the terms of the contract signed by them.
Without the sound interpretation thus given by this Court restricting within
reasonable bounds the application of the provision of section 4 of Article XIII of our
Constitution and clarifying the powers of the Rural Progress Administration under
Commonwealth Act No. 539, said corporation — or, for that matter, some other
governmental entity — might embark in a policy of indiscriminate acquisition of
privately-owned land, urban or otherwise, just for the purpose of taking care of the
wishes of certain individuals and, as outlined by Mr. Justice Tuason, regardless of the
merits of the case. And once said policy is carried out, it will place the Government of
the Republic in the awkward predicament of veering towards socialism, a step not
foreseen nor intended by our Constitution. Private initiative will thus be substituted by
government action and intervention in cases where the action of the individual will be
more than enough to accomplish the purpose sought. In the case at bar, it is
understood that contracts, for the sale by lots of the land sought to be expropriated to
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the present tenants of this herein petitioner, have been executed. There is, therefore, not
the slightest reason for the intervention of the government in the premises.