SUPREME COURT REPORTS ANNOTATED VOLUME 120 8/6/20, 12:08 PM

628 SUPREME COURT REPORTS ANNOTATED

Felipe vs. Heirs of Maximo Aldon
*
No. L-60174. February 16, 1983.

EDUARDO FELIPE, HERMOGENA V. FELIPE AND

VICENTE V. FELIPE, petitioners, vs. HEIRS OF MAXIMO
ALDON, NAMELY: GIMENA ALMOSARA, SOFIA
ALDON, SALVADOR ALDON, AND THE HONORABLE
COURT OF APPEALS, respondents.

Appeal; Factual issues are not as a rule passed upon by the

Supreme Court in an appeal by way of petition for review under Rule
45.·The defendants are now the appellants in this petition for
review. They invoke several grounds in seeking the reversal of the
decision of the Court of Appeals. One of the grounds is factual in
nature; petitioners claim that „respondent Court of Appeals has
found as a fact that the ÂDeed of Purchase and SaleÊ executed by
respondent Gimena Almosara is not a forgery and therefore its
authenticity and due execution is already beyond question.‰ We
cannot consider this ground because as a rule only questions of law
are reviewed in proceedings under Rule 45 of the Rules of Court
subject to well-defined exceptions not present in the instant case.
Contracts; Words and Phrases; Judgment the term used by the
court below, that the contract is „invalid‰ is imprecise.·In the
instant case, Gimena, the wife, sold lands belonging to the conjugal

_____________

* SECOND DIVISION.

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VOL. 120, FEBRUARY 16, 1983 629

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Felipe vs. Heirs of Maximo Aldon

partnership without the consent of the husband and the sale is not
covered by the phrase „except in cases provided by law.‰ The Court
of Appeals described the sale as „invalid‰·a term which is
imprecise when used in relation to contracts because the Civil Code
uses specific names in designating defective contracts, namely:
rescissible (Arts. 1380 et seg.), voidable (Arts. 1390 et seq.),
unenforceable (Arts. 1403, et seq.), and void or inexistent (Arts. 1409
et seq.) The sale made by Gimena is certainly a defective contract
but of what category? The answer: it is a voidable contract.
Same; Sale; A contract of sale of land made by the wife without
the husbandÊs consent is voidable.·The view that the contract made
by Gimena is a voidable contract is supported by the legal provision
that contracts entered by the husband without the consent of the
wife when such consent is required, are annullable at her instance
during the marriage and within ten years from the transaction
questioned. (Art. 173, Civil Code.)
Same; Same; WifeÊs contract of sale can be annulled by the
husband during the marriage, but not by the wife nor their children.
·The voidable contract of Gimena was subject to annulment by her
husband only during the marriage because he was the victim who
had an interest in the contract. Gimena, who was the party
responsible for the defect, could not ask for its annulment. Their
children could not likewise seek the annulment of the contract
while the marriage subsisted because they merely had an inchoate
right to the lands sold.
Same; Same; Actions; Succession; The wife who sold conjugal
lands without her husbandÊs consent cannot bring action for
annulment of the sale even after her husbandÊs death, but their
childrenheirs can with respect to their shares.·The termination of
the marriage and the dissolution of the conjugal partnership by the
death of Maximo Aldon did not improve the situation of Gimena.
What she could not do during the marriage, she could not do
thereafter. The case of Sofia and Salvador Aldon is different. After
the death of Maximo they acquired the right to question the
defective contract insofar as it deprived them of their hereditary
rights in their fatherÊs share in the lands. The fatherÊs share is one-
half (1/2) of the lands and their share is two-thirds (2/3) thereof,
one-third (1/3) pertaining to the widow.
Same; Prescription; Evidence; Fact that son of supposed vendee
still went to the supposed vendors for the latter to sign a deed of sale

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630 SUPREME COURT REPORTS ANNOTATED

Felipe vs. Heirs of Maximo Aldon

of the land shows that the former knew that the defect in the sale of
the land made by the wife alone. Prescription in such case is 30
years.·This actuation clearly indicated that the appellees knew the
lots did not still belong to them, otherwise, why were they interested
in a document of sale in their favor? Again why did Vicente V.
Felipe tell Gimena that the purpose of the document was to obtain
GimenaÊs consent to the construction of an irrigation pump on the
lots in question? The only possible reason for purporting to obtain
such consent is that the appellees knew the lots were not theirs. Why
was there an attempted improvement (the irrigation tank) only in
1970? Why was the declaration of property made only in 1974? Why
were no attempts made to obtain the husbandÊs signature, despite
the fact that Gimena and Hermogena were close relatives? All these
indicate the bad faith of the appellees. Now then, even if we were to
consider appelleesÊ possession in bad faith as a possession in the
concept of owners, this possession at the earliest started in 1951,
hence the period for extraordinary prescription (30 years) had not
yet lapsed when the present action was instituted on April 26, 1976.
Same; Same; Prescriptive period to file action is counted from
death of the father whose consent was not obtained by his wife in the
sale of conjugal lands, with respect to their heirs.·As to the second
question, the childrenÊs cause of action accrued from the death of
their father in 1959 and they had thirty (30) years to institute it
(Art. 1141, Civil Code.) They filed action in 1976 which is well
within the period.

Aquino. J., concurring:

Prescription; Contracts; An action to declare void a sale of

conjugal land by the wife does not prescribe.·With more reason, the
wife cannot make such a disposition without the husbandÊs consent
since the husband is the administrator of the conjugal assets. In the
instant case, the Court of Appeals did not err in voiding the wifeÊs
sale of the conjugal land without the husbandÊs consent. As that
sale is contrary to law, the action to have it declared void or
inexistent does not prescribe. Moreover, there are indications that
the contract between the parties was an antichresis, a transaction

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which is very common in rural areas.

PETITION for review the decision of the Court of Appeals.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the Court.

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VOL. 120, FEBRUARY 16, 1983 631

Felipe vs. Heirs of Maximo Aldon

Romulo D. San Juan for petitioner.

Gerundino Castillejo for private respondent.

ABAD SANTOS, J.:

Maximo Aldon married Gimena Almosara in 1936. The

spouses bought several pieces of land sometime between
1948 and 1950. In 1960-62, the lands were divided into
three lots, 1370, 1371 and 1415 of the San Jacinto Public
Land Subdivision, San Jacinto, Masbate.
In 1951, Gimena Almosara sold the lots to the spouses
Eduardo Felipe and Hermogena V. Felipe. The sale was
made without the consent of her husband, Maximo.
On April 26, 1976, the heirs of Maximo Aldon, namely
his widow Gimena and their children Sofia and Salvador
Aldon, filed a complaint in the Court of First Instance of
Masbate against the Felipes. The complaint which was
docketed as Civil Case No. 2372 alleged that the plaintiffs
were the owners of Lots 1370, 1371 and 1415; that they had
orally mortgaged the same to the defendants; and an offer
to redeem the mortgage had been refused so they filed the
complaint in order to recover the three parcels of land.
The defendants asserted that they had acquired the lots
from the plaintiffs by purchase and subsequent delivery to
them. The trial court sustained the claim of the defendants
and rendered the following judgment:

„a. declaring the defendants to be the lawful owners of

the property subject of the present litigation;
b. declaring the complaint in the present action to be
without merit and is therefore hereby ordered
dismissed;
c. ordering the plaintiffs to pay to the defendants the
amount of P2,000.00 as reasonable attorneyÊs fees

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and to pay the costs of the suit.‰

The plaintiffs appealed the decision to the Court of Appeals

which rendered the following judgment:

„PREMISES CONSIDERED, the decision appealed from is

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632 SUPREME COURT REPORTS ANNOTATED

Felipe vs. Heirs of Maximo Aldon

hereby REVERSED and SET ASIDE, and a new one is hereby

RENDERED, ordering the defendants-appellees to surrender the
lots in question as well as the plaintiffsÊ-appellantsÊ muniments of
title thereof to said plaintiffs-appellants, to make an accounting of
the produce derived from the lands including expenses incurred
since 1951, and to solidarily turn over to the plaintiffs-appellants
the NET monetary value of the profits, after deducting the sum of
P1,800.00. No attorneyÊs fees nor moral damages are awarded for
lack of any legal justification therefor. No costs.‰

The ratio of the judgment is stated in the following

paragraphs of the decision penned by Justice Edgardo L.
Paras with the concurrence of Justices Venicio Escolin and
Mariano A. Zosa:

„One of the principal issues in the case involves the nature of the
aforementioned conveyance or transaction, with appellants claiming
the same to be an oral contract of mortgage or antichresis, the
redemption of which could be done anytime upon repayment of the
P1,800.00 involved (incidentally the only thing written about the
transaction is the aforementioned receipt re the P1,800). Upon the
other hand, appellees claim that the transaction was one of sale,
accordingly, redemption was improper. The appellees claim that
plaintiffs never conveyed the property because of a loan or mortgage
or antichresis and that what really transpired was the execution of
a contract of sale thru a private document designated as a ÂDeed of
Purchase and SaleÊ (Exhibit 1), the execution having been made by
Gimena Almosara in favor of appellee Hermogena V. Felipe.
„After a study of this case, we have come to the conclusion that
the appellants are entitled to recover the ownership of the lots in
question. We so hold because although Exh. 1 concerning the sale
made in 1951 of the disputed lots is, in Our opinion, not a forgery
the fact is that the sale made by Gimena Almosara is invalid,
having been executed without the needed consent of her husband,

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the lots being conjugal. AppelleesÊ argument that this was an issue
not raised in the pleadings is baseless, considering the fact that the
complaint alleges that the parcels Âwere purchased by plaintiff
Gimena Almosara and her late husband Maximo AldonÊ (the lots
having been purchased during the existence of the marriage, the
same are presumed conjugal) and inferentially, by force of law, could
not, be disposed of by a wife without her husbandÊs consent.‰

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VOL. 120, FEBRUARY 16, 1983 633

Felipe vs. Heirs of Maximo Aldon

The defendants are now the appellants in this petition for

review. They invoke several grounds in seeking the reversal
of the decision of the Court of Appeals. One of the grounds
is factual in nature; petitioners claim that „respondent
Court of Appeals has found as a fact that the ÂDeed of
Purchase and SaleÊ executed by respondent Gimena
Almosara is not a forgery and therefore its authenticity and
due execution is already beyond question.‰ We cannot
consider this ground because as a rule only questions of law
are reviewed in proceedings under Rule 45 of the Rules of
Court subject to well-defined exceptions not present in the
instant case.
The legal ground which deserves attention is the legal
effect of a sale of lands belonging to the conjugal
partnership made by the wife without the consent of the
husband.
It is useful at this point to re-state some elementary
rules: The husband is the administrator of the conjugal
partnership. (Art. 165, Civil Code.) Subject to certain
exceptions, the husband cannot alienate or encumber any
real property of the conjugal partnership without the wifeÊs
consent. (Art. 166, Idem.) And the wife cannot bind the
conjugal partnership without the husbandÊs consent, except
in cases provided by law. (Art. 172, Idem.)
In the instant case, Gimena, the wife, sold lands
belonging to the conjugal partnership without the consent
of the husband and the sale is not covered by the phrase
„except in cases provided by law.‰ The Court of Appeals
described the sale as „invalid‰·a term which is imprecise
when used in relation to contracts because the Civil Code
uses specific names in designating defective contracts,
namely: rescissible (Arts. 1380 et seq.), voidable (Arts. 1390
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et seq.), unenforceable (Arts. 1403, et seq.), and void or

inexistent (Arts. 1409 et seq.)
The sale made by Gimena is certainly a defective
contract but of what category? The answer: it is a voidable
contract.
According to Art. 1390 of the Civil Code, among the
voidable contracts are „[T]hose where one of the parties is
incapable of giving consent to the contract.‰ (Par. 1.) In the
instant case Gimena had no capacity to give consent to the
contract of sale. The capacity to give consent belonged not
even to the husband alone but to both spouses.

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Felipe vs. Heirs of Maximo Aldon

The view that the contract made by Gimena is a voidable

contract is supported by the legal provision that contracts
entered by the husband without the consent of the wife
when such consent is required, are annullable at her
instance during the marriage and within ten years from
the transaction questioned. (Art. 173, Civil Code.)
GimenaÊs contract is not rescissible for in such contract
all the essential elements are untainted but GimenaÊs
consent was tainted. Neither can the contract be classified
as unenforceable because it does not fit any of those
described in Art. 1403 of the Civil Code. And finally, the
contract cannot be void or inexistent because it is not one of
those mentioned in Art. 1409 of the Civil Code. By process
of elimination, it must perforce be a voidable contract.
The voidable contract of Gimena was subject to
annulment by her husband only during the marriage
because he was the victim who had an interest in the
contract. Gimena, who was the party responsible for the
defect, could not ask for its annulment. Their children
could not likewise seek the annulment of the contract while
the marriage subsisted because they merely had an
inchoate right to the lands sold.
The termination of the marriage and the dissolution of
the conjugal partnership by the death of Maximo Aldon did
not improve the situation of Gimena. What she could not do
during the marriage, she could not do thereafter.
The case of Sofia and Salvador Aldon is different. After
the death of Maximo they acquired the right to question

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the defective contract insofar as it deprived them of their

hereditary rights in their fatherÊs share in the lands. The
fatherÊs share is one-half (1/2) of the lands and their share
is two-thirds (2/3) thereof, one-third (1/3) pertaining to the
widow.
The petitioners have been in possession of the lands
since 1951. It was only in 1976 when the respondents filed
action to recover the lands. In the meantime, Maximo
Aldon died.
Two questions come to mind, namely: (1) Have the
petitioners acquired the lands by acquisitive prescription?
(2) Is the right of action of Sofia and Salvador Aldon barred
by the statute of limitations?

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VOL. 120, FEBRUARY 16, 1983 635

Felipe vs. Heirs of Maximo Aldon

Anent the first question, We quote with approval the

following statement of the Court of Appeals:

„We would like to state further that appellees [petitioners herein]

could not have acquired ownership of the lots by prescription in
view of what we regard as their bad faith. This bad faith is revealed
by testimony to the effect that defendant-appellee Vicente V. Felipe
(son of appellees Eduardo Felipe and Hermogena V. Felipe)
attempted in December 1970 to have Gimena Almosara sign a
ready-made document purporting to sell the disputed lots to the
appellees. This actuation clearly indicated that the appellees knew
the lots did not still belong to them, otherwise, why were they
interested in a document of sale in their favor? Again why did
Vicente V. Felipe tell Gimena that the purpose of the document was
to obtain GimenaÊs consent to the construction of an irrigation
pump on the lots in question? The only possible reason for
purporting to obtain such consent is that the appellees knew the lots
were not theirs. Why was there an attempted improvement (the
irrigation tank) only in 1970? Why was the declaration of property
made only in 1974? Why were no attempts made to obtain the
husbandÊs signature, despite the fact that Gimena and Hermogena
were close relatives? All these indicate the bad faith of the
appellees. Now then, even if we were to consider appelleesÊ
possession in bad faith as a possession in the concept of owners, this
possession at the earliest started in 1951, hence the period for
extraordinary prescription (30 years) had not yet lapsed when the

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present action was instituted on April 26, 1976.

As to the second question, the childrenÊs cause of action

accrued from the death of their father in 1959 and they had
thirty (30) years to institute it (Art. 1141, Civil Code.) They
filed action in 1976 which is well within the period.
WHEREFORE, the decision of the Court of Appeals is
hereby modified. Judgment is entered awarding to Sofia
and Salvador Aldon their shares of the lands as stated in
the body of this decision; and the petitioners as possessors
in bad faith shall make an accounting of the fruits
corresponding to the share aforementioned from 1959 and
solidarity pay their value to Sofia and Salvador Aldon;
costs against the petitioners.
SO ORDERED.

Concepcion, Jr., Guerrero and De Castro, JJ.,

concur.

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Felipe vs. Heirs of Maximo Aldon

Makasiar, (Chairman), J., In the result.

Aquino, J., See concurrence.
Escolin, J., (No part.)

AQUINO, J., concurring:

I concur in the result. The issue is whether the wifeÊs sale

in 1951 of an unregistered sixteen-hectare conjugal land,
without the consent of her husband (he died in 1959), can
be annulled in 1976 by the wife and her two children.
As a rule, the husband cannot dispose of the conjugal
realty without the wifeÊs consent (Art. 166, Civil Code).
Thus, a sale by the husband of the conjugal realty without
the wifeÊs consent was declared void (Tolentino vs.
Cardenas, 123 Phil. 517; Villocino vs. Doyon, L-19797,
December 17, 1966, 18 SCRA 1094 and L-28871, April 25,
1975, 63 SCRA 460; Reyes vs. De Leon, L-22331, June 6,
1967, 20 SCRA 369; Bucoy vs. Paulino, L-25775, April 26,
1968, 23 SCRA 248; Tinitigan vs. Tinitigan, L-45418,
October 30, 1980, 100 SCRA 619).
With more reason, the wife cannot make such a
disposition without the husbandÊs consent since the

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husband is the administrator of the conjugal assets.

In the instant case, the Court of Appeals did not err in
voiding the wifeÊs sale of the conjugal land without the
husbandÊs consent. As that sale is contrary to law, the
action to have it declared void or inexistent does not
prescribe. Moreover, there are indications that the contract
between the parties was an antichresis, a transaction
which is very common in rural areas.
Decision modified.

Notes.·Husband may dispose conjugal land without

wifeÊs consent for a big conjugal liability which might
endanger the familyÊs economic standing. (Tinitigan vs.
Tinitigan, Sr., 100 SCRA 619).
A pacto de retro sale of conjugal real property, effected
by the husband without the wifeÊs consent, was considered

637

VOL. 120, FEBRUARY 18, 1983 637

People vs. Disney

ratified by her when she gave her conformity to the

extension of the period of redemption by signing the
annotation on the margin of the deed. (Reyes vs. De Leon,
20 SCRA 369).
The contract of sale of conjugal property, in its entirety,
executed by the husband without the wifeÊs consent may be
annulled by the wife. (Bucoy vs. Paulino, 23 SCRA 248).
Averment of mistake in the complaint is not essential
where fraud was alleged and the latter was found to be the
cause of the mutual mistake of both contracting parties,
vis-a-vis, a third person who committed the fraudulent act.
(Rural Bank of Caloocan, Inc. vs. Court of Appeals, 104
SCRA 151).
Article 1191 of the new Civil Code applies in cases of
rescission of a contract to sell realty. (Roque vs. Lapuz, 96
SCRA 741).

··o0o··

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