Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila
FIRST DIVISION
G.R. No. 84464             June 21, 1991
SPOUSES JAIME AND TEODORA VILLANUEVA, petitioners, 
vs.
THE HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS and CATALINA I.
SANCHEZ, respondents.
Franco L. Loyola for petitioners.

CRUZ, J.:
The Regional Trial Court of Cavite dismissed a complaint for the annulment of a deed
of sale, holding that it was not spurious. It was reversed by the Court of Appeals, which
found that the vendor's signature on the questioned document had indeed been forged.
The petitioners are now before us and urge that the decision of the trial court be
reinstated.
In her complaint below, herein private respondent Catalina Sanchez, claiming to be the
widow of Roberto Sanchez, averred that her husband was the owner of a 275 sq. meter
parcel of land located at Rosario, Cavite, which was registered without her knowledge
in the name of the herein petitioners on the strength of an alleged deed of sale executed
in their favor by her late husband on February 7, 1968. Involving the report of a
handwriting expert from the Philippine Constabulary Criminal Investigation Service,
who found that the signature on the document was written by another person, she
prayed that the deed of sale be annulled, that the registration of the lot in the name of
the petitioners be cancelled, and that the lot be reconveyed to her.1
In their answer, the petitioners questioned the personality of the private respondent to
file the complaint, contending that the late Roberto Sanchez was never married but had
a common-law wife by whom he had two children. On the merits, they claimed that
Roberto Sanchez had deeded over the lot to them in 1968 for the sum of P500.00 in
partial settlement of a judgment they had obtained against him. They had sued him
after he had failed to pay a P1,300.00 loan they had secured for him and which they had
been forced to settle themselves to prevent foreclosure of the mortgage on their
property.2
On the petitioner's motion, the trial court required the examination of the deed of sale
by the National Bureau of Investigation to determine if it was a forgery. Trial proceeded
in due time, with the presentation by the parties of their testimonial and documentary
evidence. On June 25, 1986, Judge Alejandro C. Silapan rendered judgment in favor of
the petitioners.
In his decision,3 the trial judge rejected the testimony of the handwriting experts from
the PC and the NBI, who had both testified that the standard signature of the late
Roberto Sanchez and the one written on the alleged deed of sale "were written by two
different people." He cited Go Fay v. Bank of the Philippine Islands 4 in support of his
action. Explaining the supposed differences between the signatures, he said that
Roberto Sanchez was "under serious emotional stress and intensely angry" when he
reluctantly signed the document after he had lost the case to them, "with the added fact
that they only wanted to accept his lot for P500.00 and not for the settlement of the
entire obligation of P1,300.00." At that, he said there were really no fundamental
differences between the signatures compared. Moreover, the signatures examined were
from 1970 to 1982 and did not include those written by Roberto Sanchez in 1968.
The decision also noted that Roberto Sanchez did not take any step to annul the deed of
sale although he had knowledge thereof as early as 1968. He thus allowed his action to
prescribe under Article 1431 of the Civil Code. As for the contract of a marriage
submitted by the private respondent, this should also be rejected because although the
document was dated September 21, 1964, the Torrens certificate issued to Roberto
Sanchez over the subject land on August 25, 1965, described his civil status as "single." It
was also doubtful if she could bring the action for reconveyance alone, even assuming
she was the surviving spouse of Roberto Sanchez, considering that he left illegitimate
children and collateral relatives who were also entitled to share in his estate.
As earlier stated, the decision was reversed by the Court of Appeals, 5 which held that
the trial court did err, as contended by the appellant, in holding that the deed of sale
was not spurious; that the action to annul it had already prescribed; that Catalina
Sanchez was not the widow of Roberto Sanchez; and that she had no capacity to
institute the complaint.
Before us now, the petitioners fault the respondent court for: a) upholding the
testimony of the expert witnesses against the findings of fact of the trial court; b)
annulling the deed of sale; c) declaring that the action to annul the deed of sale had not
yet prescribed; d) not declaring the private respondent guilty of estoppel; and e) not
sustaining the decision of the trial court.
We see no reason to disturb the judgment of the Court of Appeals. It is consonant with
the evidence of record and the applicable law and jurisprudence.
The Court notes at the outset that Catalina Sanchez has proved her status as the widow
of Roberto Sanchez with her submission of the marriage contract denominated as
Exhibit "A."6 That evidence rendered unnecessary the presumption that "a man and a
woman deporting themselves as husband and wife have entered into a lawful contract
of marriage" and may also explain why Roberto Sanchez could not marry the woman
by whom he supposedly had two illegitimate children, assuming these persons did
exist. It is strange that the trial court should reject Exhibit "A" in favor of the Transfer
Certificate of Title describing Roberto Sanchez as "single," 7 disregarding the elementary
principle that the best documentary evidence of a marriage is the marriage contract
itself. A Torrens certificate is the best evidence of ownership of registered land, not of
the civil status of the owner.
As the surviving spouse of Roberto Sanchez, the private respondent could validly file
the complaint for the recovery of her late husband's property, without prejudice to the
succession rights of his other heirs. Parenthetically, (and curiously), although the
supposed common-law wife and her illegitimate children were never presented at the
trial, their existence was readily accepted by the trial court on the basis alone of the
petitioner's unsupported statements.
Coming now to the questioned signature, we find it significant that the examination by
the NBI was requested by the petitioners themselves but in the end it was the private
respondent who presented the NBI handwriting expert as her own witness. 8 The
explanation is obvious. The petitioners hoped to refute the findings of the PC
handwriting expert with the findings of the NBI handwriting expert, but as it turned
out the findings of the two witnesses coincided. Both PC Examiner Corazon Salvador
and NBI Examiner Zenaida J. Torres expressed the informed view that the signature on
the deed of sale was not written by Roberto Sanchez.9
They did not conjure this conclusion out of thin air but supported it with
knowledgeable testimony extensively given on direct and cross-examination on the
various characteristics and differences of the signatures they had examined and
compared.10 The trial judge said the testimony of PC Examiner Salvador was not reliable
because her examination of the document was "done under circumstance not so
trustworthy before the action was instituted." But he did not consider the fact that her
findings were corroborated by NBI Examiner Torres, who conducted her own
examination at the instance of the petitioners themselves and after the action was
instituted. It is worth noting that the competence of the two expert witnesses was never
assailed by the petitioners nor was it questioned by the trial judge. The petitioners also
did not present their own handwriting expert to refute the findings of the government
handwriting experts.
The Court has itself examined the signatures of Roberto Sanchez in the several
instruments among the records of this case, including those dating back to before
196811 and is inclined to accept the findings of the handwriting experts. The case
invoked by the petitioners is not applicable because the differences in the signatures
compared in the case at bar were, as the trial judge found, caused not by time but by the
tension gripping Roberto Sanchez when he signed the deed of sale.
Incidentally, the petitioners have not sufficiently established the reason for such
tension, which appears to be a mere conjecture of the trial judge.1avvphi1 No proof was
submitted about their filing of the complaint against Roberto Sanchez. Petitioner Jaime
Villanueva himself admitted under oath that he did not read the decision in the case nor
did he ask his lawyer how much had been awarded against the defendant. 12 Nobody
testified about Roberto's state of mind when he allegedly signed the document, and in
Manila at that although the persons were residing in Cavite. Even the witnesses to the
Bilihan were not presented nor was any explanation for their absence offered.
The explanation given by the petitioners for their delay in registering the deed of sale is
not convincing. That delay lasted for all of thirteen years. The petitioners suggest they
are simple peasants and did not appreciate the need for the immediate transfer of the
property in their name. They also say that they forgot. The evidence shows, however,
that they understood the need for registering their property for purposes of using it as
collateral in case they wanted to borrow money. It would appear that they thought of
simulating the sale registering the subject lot when their own lands were insufficient to
secure a P100,000.00 loan their daughter wanted to borrow.
Concerning the question of prescription, we find that the applicable rule is not Article
1391 of the Civil Code but Article 1410. Article 1391 provides that the action for
annulment of a contract prescribes in four years in cases where the vice consists of
intimidation, violence, undue influence, mistake, fraud or lack capacity. The deed of
sale in question does not suffer from any of these defects. The supposed vendee's
signature having been proved to be a forgery, the instrument is totally void or
inexistent as "absolutely simulated or fictitious" under Article 1409 of the Civil Code.
According to Article 1410, "the action or defense for the declaration of the inexistence of
a contract does not prescribe."
Finally, petitioners invoke Article 1431 of the Civil Code and contend that the
respondent court erred in not declaring the private respondent and her late husband
estopped from questioning the deed of sale until after fourteen years from its execution.
The inference that Roberto Sanchez and the private respondent knew about the
instrument from that date has not been proved by the evidence of record. Moreover, we
fail to see the applicability of Article 1431, which provides that "through estoppel an
admission or representation is rendered conclusive upon the person making it and
cannot be denied or disproved as against the person relying thereon." Neither the
private respondent nor her late husband has made any admission or representation to
the petitioners regarding the subject land that they are supposed to have relied upon.
Our own finding is that the petitioners have not proved the validity and authenticity of
the deed of sale or even the circumstances that supposedly led to its execution by the
late Roberto Sanchez. On the contrary, we are convinced from the testimonies of the
handwriting experts that his signature had been forged on the questioned document
and that he had not conveyed the subject land to the petitioners. The deed of sale being
a forgery, it was totally void or inexistent and so could be challenged at any time, the
action for its nullification being imprescriptible. The private respondent, as the widow
of Roberto Sanchez, has the capacity to sue for the recovery of the land in question and
is not estopped from doing so.
WHEREFORE, the petition is DENIED and the challenged decision is AFFIRMED, with
costs against the petitioners.
SO ORDERED.