Binua Vs Ong

G.R. No.
207176 June 18, 2014

Spouses Victor and Edna Binua, petitioners
vs.
Lucia P. Ong, respondent
Ponente: Associate Justice Bienvenido L. Reyes
FACTS:
On January 10, 2006, the RTC of Tuguegarao City found petitioner Edna Binua guilty of
Estafa and was ordered to pay respondent Lucia Ong the amount of P2,285,000.00 with ten
percent interest plus damages. To settle the amount, petitioner executed separate real estate
mortgages over her husband’s properties. Granting a new trial, the existence of a promissory note
dated March 04, 1997 which contained the agreement to pay Ong of the debts due to her led for
the nature of liability of petitioner Edna to be purely civil in character. As said action constitutes
novation, the civil liability of the debts incurred lead to her acquittal, with the condition that she
would pay her debt to respondent with interest as stipulated in the promissory note.
Because Edna failed to settle her debts, Ong was forced to foreclose the mortgage and
hold a public auction of said properties. Petitioners then filed the case for the Declaration of
Nullity of Mortgage Contracts, alleging that the mortgage documents were executed under
duress since it was made during the time Edna was suffering from her conviction. The Court of
Appeals dismissed said petition, considering the act of entering into a mortgage with respondent
for fear of facing jailtime is not intimidation. Said threats must be an unjust act, which in this
case, was not.
ISSUE:
1. Whether or not the Mortgage Contract is null and void as it was entered under duress,
fear and threat.
RULING:
1. No. The Court ruled that the petitioners’ arguments did not sufficiently establish nor
show any signs of duress, fear and threat allegedly forced upon them by respondent.
Under Article 1336 of the Family Code, intimidation only vitiates consent and invalidates
a contract upon the concurrence of the following requisites: (1) that the intimidation must be the
determining cause of the contract, or must have caused the consent to be given; (2) that the
threatened act be unjust or unlawful; (3) that the threat be real and serious, there being an evident
disproportion between the evil and the resistance which all men can offer, leading to the choice
of the contract as the lesser evil; and (4) that it produces a reasonable and well-grounded fear
from the fact that the person from whom it comes has the necessary means or ability to inflict the
threatened injury.
In the case at bar, what respondent merely did was to inform them of Edna’s conviction
for estafa. While it did invoke fear or dread, respondent’s act was not unlawful or evil in her part
since she was only informing of the court’s conviction of her criminal liability. Furthermore,
they failed to show how respondent coerced them into signing the mortgages, and said liability
was a valid judicial process by the Court. Thus, there consent was not vitiated, rendering the
contract to be valid and gives right to respondent over the real property of said lands.
COMMENT
The case presents one of the instances when a contract is considered voidable. Under
Article 1330 of the Civil Code, a contract where consent is given through mistake, violence,
intimidation, undue influence, or fraud is voidable. This circumstance is reiterated under Article
1390 (2), wherein contracts are voidable or annullable “where the consent is vitiated by mistake,
violence, intimidation, undue influence or fraud.” As aforementioned above, the requisites
necessary to prove that consent was taken through unlawful means was provided in Article 1336
and entails for all the elements to concur for consent to be vitiated.
While it should be established that said intimidation was made under the well-reasonable
and grounded fear of an imminent and grave evil upon his person or property, his spouse,
ascendants and descendants, this case highlights the second requisite for intimidation, that the
threatened act should be illegal as well. Simply put, if one is threatened and is compelled by the
intimidation, but the threat given was lawful, it cannot vitiate consent and the contract shall not
become voidable.

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G.R. No.

207176 June 18, 2014

Ponente: Associate Justice Bienvenido L. Reyes

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