LORENZA C. ONGCO, PETITIONER, VS. VALERIANA UNGCO DALISAY, RESPONDENT, G.R. No. 190810, July 18, 2012. - The Lawyer's Post.
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Aware of her fatal shortcoming, petitioner Ongco would now like the Court to exceptionally allow intervention even after judgment has been rendered by the MTC in the land registration case. She cites instances in which this Court allowed intervention on appeal. However, the cases she cited are inapplicable to the present case, because the movants therein who wanted to intervene were found by the Court to be indispensable parties. Thus, under Section 7, Rule 3 of the Rules of Court, they had to be joined because, without them, there could be no final determination of the actions. Indeed, if indispensable parties are not impleaded, any judgment would have no effect.
In Galicia v. Manliquez,11 the first case cited by petitioner, the Court found that the defendant-intervenors were indispensable parties, being the indisputable compulsory co-heirs of the original defendants in the case for recovery of possession and ownership, and annulment of title. Thus, without them, there could be no final determination of the action. Moreover, they certainly stood to be affected by any judgment in the case, considering their “ostensible ownership of the property.”
In Mago v. CA,12 he intervenor was the rightful awardee of a piece of land that was mistakenly awarded by the NHA to another awardee. Thus, the latter was given title to land with an area that was more than that intended to be awarded to him. The NHA then cancelled the title mistakenly awarded and ordered the subdivision of the lot into two. The recipient of the mistakenly awarded title filed a Petition for injunction to enjoin the NHA from cancelling the title awarded. The Petition was granted and the judgment became final. The other awardee filed a Motion to Intervene, as well as a Petition for Relief from Judgment, which were both denied by the trial court. The CA affirmed the Decision of the court a quo. This Court, however, found that the intervention should have been granted, considering the indisputable admission of the NHA, the grantor-agency itself, that the intervenor was the rightful awardee of half of the lot mistakenly awarded. Thus, the intervenor stood to be deprived of his rightful award when the trial court enjoined the cancellation of the mistakenly awarded title and the subdivision of the lot covered by the title. The intervenor’s legal interest, in other words, was directly affected.
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