In a decision promulgated March 16, the appellate court’s Special Seventeenth Division awarded the land title for the lot in Vigan City to petitioner Odon A. Teaño, who has been paying real estate taxes for the land since 1978.
“In the case at bench, we find that there exists certain circumstances which amply support the conclusion that extrinsic fraud indeed attended the issuance of the decree of registration over the parcel of land subject of the instant case,” the decision read.
Fortune Tobacco officials could not be immediately reached for comment.
Reports show that the disputed land was originally owned by a couple, who then sold it to Mr. Teaño in 1978. Unknown to Mr. Teaño, the Farmers of the North Tobacco Corp. (FNTC) filed with the Vigan City Regional Trial Court in 1967 an application for the registration titles for several parcels of land, including the questioned area. Neither the couple nor Mr. Teaño were summoned to the registration proceedings.
Despite failing to notify the owners of the land, the court allowed the registration of land in favor of FNTC. FNTC then sold the land to Fortune Tobacco.
Mr. Teaño claimed that he knew of the unlawful occupation of the land only in 2001, when he found out that Fortune Tobacco had built a concrete fence enclosing his property. He filed a case at the Vigan RTC, but it was dismissed, leading to the appeal.
Aside from accepting Mr. Teaño’s claims that he and the couple have not been notified of the registration proceedings, the appellate court found other anomalies in the process, such as the “highly suspect” instance where FNTC and Fortune Tobacco claimed that the notice of hearing for the original land titles were issued on Sept. 4, 1967 and published in the Official Gazette on the same day.
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