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Laperal V Katigbak
Laperal V Katigbak
ROBERTO LAPERAL, JR., ET AL., plaintiffs-appellants, vs. RAMON L. KATIGBAK, ET AL., defendants-
appellees.
PONENTE: REGALA, J.
FACTS:
1. Ramon Katigbak and Evelina Kalaw were married in 1938, either of them had brought properties unto the marriage.
Ramon was an Asst. Atty. of the Bank of the Phil. Islands wherein his monthly salary was P200.00 (id)
2. The property in question was registered in the name of Evelina Kalaw-Katigbak.
3. 1939 - Ramon Katigbak, made a manifestation that he had no interest in the properties.
4. Evelina declares that her mother Pura Villanueva bought the property for her and had placed it only in her name as
was the practice of her mother.
5. Court of First Instance of Manila declared the property to be the separate or paraphernal property of the defendant-
appellee Evelina Kalaw.
6. Plaintiffs-appellants, the spouses Laperal, disagree with the said finding. Hence they appealed from the said decision.
They maintain that the realty in question, with its improvements and income, are conjugal assets of the spouses Evelina
Kalaw and Ramon Katigbak.
7. This litigation is a sequel to the one instituted by the Laperals against Katigbak and Kalaw in August, 1950 where in
they sought from the defendants the recovery of money evidenced by promissory notes executed in favor of the
Laperals by Katigbak and for the return of jewelry delivered by the Laperals to Katigbak for sale on commission which
the court granted hence the Laperals are after Katigbak and Kalaw.
ISSUE/S:
Whether or not the above findings warrant a rejection of the presumption that the property disputed, for the reason that
it was acquired during the marriage, is conjugal.
RULING:
The property in question is paraphernal despite it having been acquired during coverture.
RATIO:
The court held that properties acquired during the marriage are, by law, presumed conjugal. (Art. 160, Civil Code) The
presumption, however, is not conclusive but merely rebuttable, for the same law is unequivocal that it exists only "unless
it be proved that it (the property) belongs exclusively to the husband or to the wife." The presumption has been
sufficiently and convincingly disproven, the disputed land is in the name of the wife; the property was of such substantial
value as the husband then by himself could not have afforded to buy; the purchase price was furnished by the wife's
mother; it was established that it was a practice of the wife's parents to so provide their children with money to purchase
realties for themselves; and, the husband expressly acknowledged in the deed of sale that he did not have any interest
in the property.
The Supreme Court in Coingco v Flores held that the presumption that the properties in litigation are conjugal properties
because they were acquired during the coverture may be sufficiently rebutted by any one of the following facts: (1) the
titles to them are in the name of the wife alone; (2) that the husband gave his marital consent to their being mortgaged
by the wife; (3) that the wife was financially able to buy those properties. While it is true that each one of them, taken
separately, may not be sufficient to overcome the above-quoted presumption established by Art. 1407 of the Civil Code,
it is nonetheless true that all of them taken together, with all the other facts and circumstances established by the
evidence, might be, and were, considered by the lower court as sufficient to rebut the same presumption."