Liwag v.
Happy Glen Loop Homeowners Association asserted that petitioners have an existing right of way to a
> F.G.R. Sales, the original developer of Happy Glen Loop,
obtained a loan from Ernesto Marcelo (Marcelo), the owner of
T.P. Marcelo Realty Corporation.
> To settle its debt after failing to pay its obligation, F.G.R.
Sales assigned to Marcelo all its rights over several parcels of
land in the Subdivision, as well as receivables from the lots
already sold
> Marcelo represented to subdivision lot buyers, the National
Housing Authority (NHA) and the Human Settlement
Regulatory Commission (HSRC) that a water facility was
available in the Subdivision
> For almost 30 years, the residents of the Subdivision relied
on this facility as their only source of water
> Sometime in September 1995, Marcelo sold Lot 11, Block
No. 5 to Hermogenes, president of respondent Happy Glen
Loop Homeowners Association (Association).
> When Hermogenes died in 2003, petitioner Emeteria P.
Liwag, the widow of Hermogenes, subsequently wrote a letter
to respondent Association, demanding the removal of the
overhead water tank from the subject parcel of land
RULING:
An easement for water facility exists on Lot 11,
Block 5 of Happy Glen Loop Subdivision
In this case, the water facility is an encumbrance on Lot 11,
Block 5 of the Subdivision for the benefit of the community. It
is continuous and apparent, because it is used incessantly
without human intervention, and because it is continually kept
in view by the overhead water tank, which reveals its use to
the public.
Contrary to petitioners contention that the existence
of the water tank on Lot 11, Block 5 is merely tolerated, we
find that the easement of water facility has been voluntarily
established either by Marcelo, the Subdivision owner and
developer; or by F.G.R. Sales, his predecessor-in-interest and
the original developer of the Subdivision. For more than 30
years, the facility was continuously used as the residents sole
source of water.[31] The Civil Code provides that continuous
and apparent easements are acquired either by virtue of a title
or by prescription of 10 years.[32] It is therefore clear that an
easement of water facility has already been acquired through
prescription.
Sps. De la Cruz v. Ramiscal
> Ramiscal owner of a parcel of land.
> Sps De la Cruz occupants of land at the back of
Ramiscals property.
> Subject matter of this case: 1.10 m x 12.6 m pathway being
used by Sps De La Cruz as pathway
> Ramiscal filed a complaint seeking to demolish the
structure illegally constructed by the SpsDe La Cruz. She
public highwayother than the pathway in litigation.
HELD:
Sps De La Cruz are NOT entitled to right of way.
Petitioners herein failed to show by competent evidence other
than their bare claim that they and their tenants, spouses
Manuel and Cecilia Bondoc and Carmelino Masangkay,
entered into an agreement with respondent, through her
foreman, Mang Puling, to use the pathway to 18 th Avenue,
which would be reciprocated with an equivalent 1.50-meter
wide easement by the owner of another adjacent estate. The
hands of this Court are tied from giving credence to petitioners
self-serving claim that such right of way was voluntarily given
them by respondent for the following reasons:
First, petitioners were unable to produce any shred of
document evidencing such agreement. The Civil Code is clear
that any transaction involving the sale or disposition of real
property must be in writing.[27] Thus, the dearth of
corroborative evidence opens doubts on the veracity of the
naked assertion of petitioners that indeed the subject easement
of right of way was a voluntary grant from respondent.
Second, as admitted by the petitioners, it was only the
foreman, Mang Puling, who talked with them regarding said
pathway on the northern side of respondents property. Thus,
petitioner Elizabeth de la Cruz testified that she did not talk to
respondent regarding the arrangement proposed to them by
Mang Puling despite the fact that she often saw
respondent.[28] It is, therefore, foolhardy for petitioners to
believe that the alleged foreman of respondent had the
authority to bind the respondent relating to the easement of
right of way.
Third, their explanation that said Mang Puling submitted said
agreement to the Quezon City Engineers Office, in connection
with the application for a building permit but said office could
no longer produce a copy thereof, does not inspire belief. As
correctly pointed out by the trial court,[29] petitioners should
have requested a subpoena duces tecum from said court to
compel the Quezon City Engineers Office to produce said
document or to prove that such document is indeed not
available.
The conferment of a legal easement of right of way under
Article 649 is subject to proof of the following requisites: (1)
it is surrounded by other immovables and has no adequate
outlet to a public highway; (2) payment of proper indemnity;
(3) the isolation is not the result of its own acts; (4) the right of
way claimed is at the point least prejudicial to the servient
estate; and (5) to the extent consistent with the foregoing rule,
where the distance from the dominant estate to a public
highway may be the shortest.[31] The first three requisites are
not obtaining in the instant case.
Contrary to petitioners contention, the trial court found from
the records that Concepcion de la Pea had provided petitioners
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with an adequate ingress and egress towards Boni Serrano
Avenue.
ALCANTARA V RETA
The plaintiffs claimed that they were tenants or lessees of the
land owned by Reta;
> land has been converted by Reta into a commercial center;
and that Reta is threatening to eject them from the land.
>They assert that they have the right of first refusal to
purchase the land in accordance with Section 3(g) of
Presidential Decree No. 1517 since they are legitimate tenants
or lessees thereof.
RULING: No right of first refusal
- not the legitimate tenants contemplated by Presidential
Decree No. 1517, who can exercise the right of first refusal.
>Respondent Reta allowed petitioner Ricardo Roble to use
sixty-two (62) coconut trees for P186 from where he
gathered tuba. This arrangement would show that it is a
usufruct and not a lease. Usufruct gives a right to enjoy the
property of another with the obligation of preserving its form
and substance, unless the title constituting it or the law
otherwise provides.[15]
>Petitioner Roble was allowed to construct his house on the
land because it would facilitate his gathering of tuba. This
would be in the nature of a personal easement under Article
614 of the Civil Code
VELASCO V CUSI
petitioner discovered that the Bolton Street of the City of
Davao had encroached upon her a lot
petitioner filed an action to quiet title she claims to having
been occupied illegally as part of Bolton Street, Davao City
RULING:
>From the foregoing provision, Bolton Street which is a
public highway, already subsisting when O.C.T. No. 638 was
issued, as this fact is apparent too from the face of the
complaint itself, is deemed to have attached as a legal
notwithstanding the lack of an annotation thereof
>petitioner, therefore, cannot rely, as she almost entirely does
for the relief she seeks, on the aforequoted provision, which
she had repeatedly cited but without making mention, perhaps
conveniently, of the exception as expressly provided in the
later part of the legal provision invoked
>From her own allegations in her complaint, Bolton Street
cannot be a discontinuous easement as she claims it to be,
which may not be acquired by prescription. Nonetheless,
whether the mode of acquisition of the easement that Bolton
Street is, would be only by virtue of title, as petitioner
contends, this is not material or of any consequence, in the
present proceedings, once it indubitably appears as it does,
from the allegations of the complaint itself, that Bolton Street
constituted an easement of public highway on Lot No. 77,
from which petitioner's lot was taken, when the said bigger lot
was original registered. It remained as such legal
encumbrance, as effectively as if it had been duly noted on the
certificate of title, by virtue of the clear and express provision
of Section 39 of Act 496, it being admitted that at the time of
the registration of Lot 77, the public highway was already in
existence or subsisting. This fact erases whatever cause of
action petitioner may have to bring the complaint she filed in
the court a quo for quieting of title on a portion of the street
which she claims to be part of her lot, free from encumbrance
of any kind. The Order complained of has only this legal
postulate as its basis. Nothing has been mentioned therein on
the acquisition by the City of Davao of the lot in question by
prescription, and a discussion of this matter as is found in
petitioner's brief 3 would be entirely irrelevant.
VALISNO V. ADRIANO
>plaintiff Valisno is the absolute owner and actual possessor
of a parcel of land
>The plaintiff-appellant Valisno bought the land from the
defendant-appellees sister, Honorata Adriano Francisco
>The land which is planted with watermelon, peanuts, corn,
tobacco, and other vegetables adjoins that of the appellee
Felipe Adriano on the bank of the Pampanga River. Both
parcels of land had been inherited by Honorata Adriano
Francisco and her brother, Felipe Adriano, from their father,
Eladio Adriano. At the time of the sale of the land to Valisno,
the land was irrigated by water from the Pampanga River
through a canal about seventy (70) meters long, traversing the
appellee's land.
> the defendant levelled a portion of the irrigation canal so
that the appellant was deprived of the irrigation water and
prevented from cultivating his 57-hectare land.
> plaintiff filed in the Bureau of Public Works and
Communications a complaint for deprivation of water rights
RULING:
The existence of the irrigation canal on defendant's land for
the passage of water from the Pampanga River to Honorata's
land prior to and at the time of the sale of Honorata's land to
the plaintiff was equivalent to a title for the vendee of the land
to continue using it as provided in Article 624 of the Civil
Code:
Article 624. The existence of an apparent sign of
easement between two estates, established or
maintained by the owner of both shall be
considered, should either of them be alienated, as a
title in order that he easement may continue actively
and passively, unless at the time, theownership of the
two estates is divided, the contrary should be
provided in the title of conveyance of either of them,
or the sign aforesaid should be removed before the
execution of the deed.
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This provision shall also apply in case of the division of a As an easement of waters in favor of the appellant has been
thing owned in common on by two or more persons (Civil established, he is entitled to enjoy it free from obstruction,
Code) disturbance or wrongful interference (19 CJ 984), such as the
This provision was lifted from Article 122 of the Spanish Law appellee's act of levelling the irrigation canal to deprive him of
of Waters which provided: the use of water from the Pampanga River.
Article 122. Whenever a tract of irrigated land which
previously received its waters from a single point is
divided through inheritance, sale or by virtue of some
other title, between two or more owners, the owners
of the higher estates are under obligation to give free
passage to the water as an easement of conduit for the
irrigation of the lower estates, and without right to
any compensation therefore unless otherwise
stipulated in the deed of conveyance. (Art. 122,
Spanish Law of Waters of August 3, 1866.)
No enlightened concept of ownership can shut out the Idea of
restrictions thereon, such as easements. Absolute and
unlimited dominion is unthinkable, inasmuch as the proper
enjoyment of property requires mutual service and forbearance
among adjoining estates (Amor vs. Florentino, 74 Phil. 403).
As indicated in the decision dated March 22, 1960 of the
Bureau of Works "the principal issue involved in this case
falls under the subject of servitude of waters which are
governed by Article 648 of the new Civil Code and the
suppletory laws mentioned in the cases of Lunod vs. Meneses
11 Phil. 128) and Osmena vs. Camara (C.A. 380 62773) which
are the irrigation law and the Spanish Law of Waters of
August 3, 1866, specifically Article 122 thereof.
The deed of sale in favor of Valisno included the "conveyance
and transfer of the water rights and improvements"
appurtenant to Honorata Adriano's property. By the terms of
the Deed of Absolute Sale, the vendor Honorata Adriano
Francisco sold, ceded, conveyed and transferred to Dr. Nicolas
Valisno all "rights, title, interest and participations over the
parcel of land above- described, together with one Berkely
Model 6 YRF Centrifugal Pump G" suction, 6" discharge 500-
1500 GPM, with Serial No. 5415812 and one (1) set of suction
pipe and discharge of pipe with elbow, nipples, flanges and
footvalves," and the water rights and such other improvements
appertaining to the property subject of this sale. According to
the appellant, the water right was the primary consideration
for his purchase of Honorata's property, for without it the
property would be unproductive.
Water rights, such as the right to use a drainage ditch for
irrigation purposes, which are appurtenant to a parcel of land,
pass with the conveyance of the land, although not specifically
mentioned in the conveyance. The purchaser's easement of
necessity in a water ditch running across the grantor's land
cannot be defeated even if the water is supplied by a third
person (Watson vs. French, 112 Me 371 19 C.J. 868-897). The
fact that an easement by grant may also have qualified as an
easement of necessity does detract from its permanency as
property right, which survives the determination of the
necessity (Benedicto vs. CA, 25 SCRA 145).

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