The CA’s first division chaired by Presiding Justice Cancio C. Garcia, with the concurrence of Associate Justice Eliezer R. de los Santos and Mariano C. del Castillo, ordered the CLT company to surrender its transfer certificate of title No. T-177013 to the Caloocan registrar of deeds for cancellation.
The Appelate Court thus affirmed as genuine the two title of registered owner Hi-Grade Feeds Corp. covering 12,022 sq.m. of the Baesa property which it has been occupying for several decades now.
The CA said CLT failed to prove its claim that transfer certificate of title No. 4211 from which Hi-Grade’s title were derived were defective. CLT relied on "incompetent witnesses" and its presentation of evidence even ironically established the Hi-Grade titles as "genuine derivatives titles" of the previous title in the Maysilo Estate, the CA pointed out.
The court applied the two basic legal precepts in the law on land registration – (1) the date of registration is reckoned from the time of the title’s transcription in the record book of the registry of deeds, which in this case, is May 3, 1917; and (2) in the event of double registration of the same land, the earlier recorded title must prevail.
"We rule with no hesitancy," the Court of Appeals said, that Hi-Grade’s titles must prevail over that of CLT’s title.
The court stressed that TCT No. 4211 from where Hi-Grade’s titles emanated, was registered as a transfer title of OCT No. 994 on Sept. 9, 1918. In contrast, however, the court said, TCT R-17994 from where CLT’s title sprung was registered only on Sept. 18, 1978 also as a transfer title of OCT No. 994. Both documents reflected different dates on when the land respectively covered thereby was originally registered, namely, "the correct date May 3, 1917" in Hi-Grade’s evidence, and the confusing date "April 19, 1917" in CLT’s evidence.
The CA’s conclusions in this case, Presiding Justice Garcia pointed out, is "in fact very much in accord with two earlier decisions of the court involving lots in the Maysilo Estate. He cited the cases of Phil-Villege Development and Housing Corp. vs. Maximo R. Bonifacio, et al. and the Phil-Ville Development and Housing Corp. vs. CLT Realty Development Corp.