EN BANC
G.R. No. L-21064 February 18, 1970
J.M. TUASON and CO., INC., petitioner-appellee,
vs.
THE LAND TENURE ADMINISTRATION, THE SOLICITOR GENERAL and THE AUDITOR GENERAL, respondents-appellants.
Araneta, Mendoza and Papa for petitioner-appellee.
Office of the Solicitor General and M. B. Pablo for respondents appellants.
Separate Opinions
TEEHANKEE, J, concurrinng and dissenting:
I concur in the result of the main opinion, insofar as it reverses the decision of the lower Court which granted petitioner-appellees petition for a writ of prohibition and permanently enjoined respondents-appellees from instituting the proceedings for the expropriation of the "Tatalon Estate" as specifically authorized by Republic Act No. 2616.
The result is that respondents may now properly file the corresponding expropriation proceedings for the expropriation of the "Tatalon Estate". It will be recalled that in 1961, the Court in G.R. No. L-18128 upheld the preliminary injunction issued by the lower Court enjoining the filing of such expropriation proceedings, until decision of the prohibition case on the merits.
From the various views expressed by the members of the Court during the deliberations on the case, I gather that our decision now does not foreclose petitioner from raising in the expropriation proceedings what it may deem as proper and valid objections and defenses to the action, including those it has advanced in the present case, just as respondents may therein adduce additional facts besides, those of record, in support of the petition to be filed by them.
To the extent that the main opinion tends to prematurely judge petitioner's objections and defenses, I reserve my vote. I do not believe that all the relevant facts and circumstances are properly and adequately before the Court to enable it to rule on them now.
For purposes of this separate opinion, it shall suffice to list the principal issues which should properly be resolved, in my estimation, in the expropriation proceedings yet to be instituted.ℒαwρhi৷
1. To begin with, the question of what remains of the "Tatalon Estate" that may be subjected to expropriation proceedings has to be threshed out. The Solicitor General speculates in his memorandum (at page 12) that the lower Court's finding of fact that "only 11.68% of the Sta. Mesa Heights Subdivision remained unsold" is "deceptive", because "the remaining 11.68% could all be inside the Tatalon Estate." On the other hand, petitioner asserts categorically in its memorandum (at page 9) that "As a matter of fact, as of February 17, 1969, of the original area of about 109 hectares, 411,968.80 square meters had already been sold. Considering that 50,612.30 square meters are reserved for public parks, 3,724.20 square meters for alleys, and 241,989.50 square meters for streets, only 388,989.50 square meters, or less than 39 hectares, remain unsold."
2. Similarly, the question of whether there remain "bona fide" occupants on the property, who are the express beneficiaries of Republic Act 2616 or whether such occupants are merely illegal squatters and occupants as found by the lower court in its decision and asserted by petitioner is one of sharp conflict.
3. All these factual questions should first be determined, before the vital issues of necessity of the taking and whether it is for the public use, may be resolved. I do, not think that the re-examination of the Baylosis case can properly be undertaken now without the relevant facts before us. Whatever facts these are, as found by the lower court, appear to be adverse to respondents, but respondents shall have another opportunity at the expropriation proceedings to establish the necessary facts which could bring the questioned Act within confines of constitutional limits.
4. For the main opinion quotes with favor from Justice Tuason in the leading Guido case that "no fixed line of demarcation between what taking is for public use and what is not can be made; each case has to be judged according to its peculiar circumstances" and that, "the assertion of the right on the part of the legislature to take the property of one citizen and transfer it to another, even for a full compensation, when the public interest is not promoted thereby, is claiming a despotic power, and one inconsistent with every just principle and fundamental maxim of a free government." I share the view in the dissenting opinion of Justice J.B.L. Reyes that the constitutional provision is not necessarily limited to landed estates. (Article XIII, section 4). But that case clearly involved agrarian discontent and with the pertinent facts yet to be established, I am not prepared to say that it is in pari materia with the case at bar. We must first have the peculiar facts and circumstances governing the case at bar, before we can judge it.1
5. Neither do I agree with the observation that the constitutional power of Congress for the expropriation of lands is well-nigh all embracing and forecloses the courts from inquiring into the necessity for the taking of the property. It is noted that this is the first case where Congress has singled out a particular property for condemnation under the constitutional power conferred upon it. Does this square with the due process and equal protection clauses of the Constitution? Is the explanatory note of the bill later enacted as Republic Act 2616, without any evidence as to a hearing with the affected parties having been given the opportunity to be heard, and citing merely the population increase of Quezon City and the land-for-the-landless program sufficient compliance with these basic constitutional guarantees? Rather, does not the need for a more serious scrutiny as to the power of Congress to single out a particular piece of property for expropriation, acknowledged in the main opinion, call for judicial scrutiny, with all the facts in, as to the need for the expropriation for full opportunity to dispute the legislative appraisal of the matter? And who should bear the burden of demonstrating that the equal protection guarantee had been observed, the State or the owner whose property has been singled out?
6. Pertinent to note with reference to these questions is the guideline in the Guido case that "the size of the land expropriated, the large number of people benefited, and the extent of social and economic reform secured by the condemnation, clothes the expropriation with public interest and public use", and the Courts admonition in the subsequent Arellano Law College case that where such limitations and conditions governing the need of taking property for public use are not present, "the National Government may not confer upon its instrumentalities authority (to expropriate) which it itself may not exercise." This would indicate precisely that where Congress itself directly exercised the power to expropriate and singles out a specific property under the Act, rather than have the Executive agencies institute the corresponding expropriation proceeding under the general laws it has enacted in pursuance of its constitutional power, the question of its appraisal of the necessity and of the validity of its exercise of the authority to expropriate the specific property is not foreclosed from judicial scrutiny.
7. Finally, the main opinion acknowledges that existing contractual rights that have been acquired by vendor and purchasers of subdivided lots of the property shall be accorded the appropriate constitutional protection of non-impairment, at the expropriation proceedings. Importantly related to this unassailable dictum are questions not founded on primacy of property rights concepts or personal predilections or private notions of policy. These concern the fact that the Tatalon Estate has been subdivided into lots for sale to the public, with priority after the passage of Republic Act No. 2616 to the occupants (and such purchasers may have been theretofore landless themselves), and the Court's reason in dismissing the action for condemnation in the analogous Urban Estates. Inc. case that "the people on whose behalf this action has been instituted could acquire the remaining lots by direct purchase from the defendant like those (direct) purchasers."2 In view of the cardinal principle of eminent domain that just compensation of the market value of the land must be paid as well as of the constitutional limitation that the land be conveyed at cost to the individuals concerned, respondents may well consider that the objectives of the Act may be accomplished more expeditiously by a direct purchase of the available unsold lots for resale at cost to the remaining bona fide occupants in accordance with the Act's provisions or by extending financial assistance to enable them to purchase directly the unsold lots from petitioner. I do not see anything to be gained by respondents from the institution of expropriation proceedings, when petitioner-owner is actually selling the property in subdivided lots.
Reyes, J.B.L. and Castro, JJ., concur.
Footnotes
1 Vide. NARRA vs. Francisco, L-14111, Oct. 24, 1960, involving 85 has.; Prov. of Rizal vs. San Diego, Inc., involving 66 has.
2 88 Phil. 348, 354.
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