Prescription, as a mode of acquiring ownership and other real rights over immovable property, is concerned with lapse of time in the manner and under conditions laid down by law, namely, that the possession should be in the concept of an owner, public, peaceful, uninterrupted, and adverse. Acquisitive prescription of real rights may be ordinary or extraordinary. Ordinary acquisitive prescription requires possession in good faith and with just title for 10 years. In extraordinary prescription, ownership and other real rights over immovable property are acquired through uninterrupted adverse possession for 30 years without need of title or of good faith.[20]
Here, petitioner himself admits the adverse nature of respondents’ possession with his assertion that Macario’s fraudulent acquisition of Dionisia’s share created a constructive trust. In a constructive trust, there is neither a promise nor any fiduciary relation to speak of and the so-called trustee (Macario) neither accepts any trust nor intends holding the property for the beneficiary (Salvacion, Aspren, Isabel). The relation of trustee and cestui que trust does not in fact exist, and the holding of a constructive trust is for the trustee himself, and therefore, at all times adverse.[21] Prescription may supervene even if the trustee does not repudiate the relationship.[22]
Then, too, respondents’ uninterrupted adverse possession for 55 years of 109 sq. m. of Lot No. 552 was established. Macario occupied Dionisia’s share in 1945 although his claim that Dionisia donated it to him in 1945 was only made in a 1948 affidavit. We also agree with the CA that Macario’s possession of Dionisia’s share was public and adverse since his other co-owners, his three other sisters, also occupied portions of Lot No. 552. Indeed, the 1977 sale made by Macario and his two daughters in favor of his son Roger confirms the adverse nature of Macario’s possession because said sale of 225 sq. m.[23]was an act of ownership over Macario’s original share and Dionisia’s share. In 1985, Roger also exercised an act of ownership when he sold 114 sq. m. to Caridad Atienza. It was only in the year 2000, upon receipt of the summons to answer petitioner’s complaint, that respondents’ peaceful possession of the remaining portion (109 sq. m.) was interrupted. By then, however, extraordinary acquisitive prescription has already set in in favor of respondents. That the RTC found Macario’s 1948 affidavit void is of no moment. Extraordinary prescription is unconcerned with Macario’s title or good faith. Accordingly, the RTC erred in ruling that Macario cannot acquire by prescription the shares of Salvacion, Aspren, and Isabel, in Dionisia’s 114-sq. m. share from Lot No. 552.
Moreover, the CA correctly dismissed petitioner’s complaint as an action for reconveyance based on an implied or constructive trust prescribes in 10 years from the time the right of action accrues.[24] This is the other kind of prescription under the Civil Code, called extinctive prescription, where rights and actions are lost by the lapse of time.[25] Petitioner’s action for recovery of possession having been filed 55 years after Macario occupied Dionisia’s share, it is also barred by extinctive prescription. The CA while condemning Macario’s fraudulent act of depriving his three sisters of their shares in Dionisia’s share, equally emphasized the fact that Macario’s sisters wasted their opportunity to question his acts.
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