EN BANC

[G.R. No. L-46729. November 19, 1982.]

LAUSAN AYOG, BENITO AYOG, DAMASO AYOG, JULIO AYOG,

SEGUNDA AYOG, VICENTE ABAQUETA, BERNANDINO
ADORMEO, VIDAL ALBANO, FELICIANO ARIAS, ANTONIO
BALDOS, MAXIMO BALDOS ROMERO BINGZON, EMILIO
CADAYDAY, FRUCTUOSO CHUA, SR., HERACLEO CHUA,
GUILLERMO DAGOY, ABDON DEIMOS, NICASIO DE LEON,
JULIANA VDA. DE DIANNA, DEMOCRITO DEVERO, ALFREDO
DIVINAGRACIA, ESTEBAN DIVINAGRACIA, LEODEGARDIO
DIVINAGRACIA, NELLO DIVINAGRACIA, MERQUIADES
EMBERADOR, JESUS EMPERADO, PORFERIO ENOC,
SOFRONIO ENOC, RAFAEL GAETOS, NICOLAS GARLET,
TRINIDAD GARLET, FORTUNATA GEONZON, NICOLADA
NAQUILA, TORIBIO NAQUILA, EFREN OKAY, ELPIDIO OKAY,
SR., DIEGO ONGRIA, ERNESTO PEÑARES, VICENTE PATULOT,
IGNACIA RIBAO, JUANO RICO, JESUS ROSALITA, ARMANDO
TANTE and ANSELMO VALMORES, petitioners, vs. JUDGE
VICENTE N. CUSI, JR., Court of First Instance of Davao,
Branch I, PROVINCIAL SHERIFF OF DAVAO, and BIÑAN
DEVELOPMENT CO., INC., respondents. MINISTER OF
NATURAL RESOURCES and DIRECTOR OF LANDS, intervenors.

Marcelino C. Maximo, Enrique S. Empleo and Carlito H. Vailoces for

petitioners
Levi Damaso for respondent Biñan Dev't. Co.

SYNOPSIS

During the effectivity of the 1935 Constitution which expressly allowed

private juridical entities to acquire alienable lands of the public domain not
exceeding 1,024 hectares, respondent private corporation purchased from
the Bureau of Lands a parcel of public agricultural land with an area of 250
hectares and obtained favorable judgment from a civil court to evict the
occupants thereof. However, it was only when the 1973 Constitution took
effect that the sales patent and the Torrens title of the subject land were
issued and the judgment of the lower court became final and executory after
its affirmance on appeal. This action for prohibition was brought when
respondent corporation moved for execution of the judgment evicting the
defendants. Herein petitioners, some of whom were not defendants in the
ejectment case, contend that the adoption of the new Constitution was a
supervening fact which rendered it legally impossible to execute the lower
court's judgment. They invoked the constitutional prohibition under Section
11, Article XIV that "no private corporation or association may hold alienable
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 lands of the public domain except by lease not to exceed one thousand
hectares in area."
On review, the Supreme Court was unanimous in dismissing the
petition holding that the prohibition under Section 11, Article XIV of the 1973
Constitution has no retroactive application to the sales application of
respondent corporation because the latter had already acquired a vested
right to the land applied for at the time the new Constitution took effect;
further holding that petitioners who were not defendants in the ejectment
case should be excluded from the effect of the lower court's judgment.
Seven of the thirteen justices, however, made the clarification that only
those petitioners who do not derive their right of possession from any of the
defendants in the ejectment suit should be excluded from the effect of the
lower court's judgment.
Petition dismissed.

SYLLABUS

1. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW; SECTION 11, ARTICLE XIV OF THE

1973 CONSTITUTION; PROVISION BARRING PRIVATE CORPORATIONS FROM
HOLDING ALIENABLE LANDS OF PUBLIC DOMAIN EXCEPT BY LEASE CANNOT
BE GIVEN RETROACTIVE EFFECT SO AS TO ADVERSELY AFFECT RIGHTS
ALREADY VESTED PRIOR TO ITS EFFECTIVITY. — We hold that Section 11,
Article XIV of the 1973 Constitution which provides that "no private
corporation or association may hold alienable lands of the public domain
except by lease not to exceed one thousand hectares in area" has no
retroactive application to the sales application of Biñan Development Co.,
Inc. because it had already acquired a vested right to the land applied for at
the time the 1973 Constitution took effect. That vested right has to be
respected. It could not be abrogated by the new Constitution. Section 2,
Article XIII of the 1935 Constitution allows private corporations to purchase
public agricultural lands not exceeding one thousand and twenty-four
hectares. Petitioners' prohibition action is barred by the doctrine of vested
rights in constitutional law.
2. WORDS AND PHRASES; "VESTED RIGHT" DEFINED. — "A right is
vested when the right to enjoyment has become the property of some
particular person or persons as a present interest" (16 C.J.S. 1173). It is "the
privilege to enjoy property legally vested, to enforce contracts, and enjoy the
rights of property conferred by the existing law" (12 C.J.S. 955, Note 46, No.
6) or "some right or interest in property which has become fixed and
established and is no longer open to doubt or controversy" (Downs vs.
Blount, 170 Fed. 15,20, cited in Balboa vs. Farrales, 51 Phil. 498, 502).
3.
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW; SECTION 11, ARTICLE XIV OF THE
1973 CONSTITUTION; CONTEMPORANEOUS CONSTRUCTION OF THE
CONSTITUTIONAL PROHIBITION BY A HIGH EXECUTIVE OFFICIAL CARRIES
GREAT WEIGHT AND ACCORDED MUCH RESPECT BY THE COURTS. —
Secretary of Justice Vicente Abad Santos in his 1973 opinion ruled that
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 where the applicant, before the Constitution took effect, had fully complied
with all his obligations under the Public Land Act in order to entitle him to a
sales patent, there would seem to be no legal equitable justification for
refusing to issue or release the sales patent. In opinion No. 140, series of
1974, he held that as soon as the applicant had fulfilled the construction or
cultivation requirements and has fully paid the purchase price, he should be
deemed to have acquired by purchase the particular tract of land and to him
the area limitation in the new Constitution would not apply. In opinion No.
185, series of 1976, Secretary Abad Santos held that where the cultivation
requirements were fulfilled before the new Constitution took effect but the
full payment of the price was completed after January 17, 1973, the
applicant was, nevertheless, entitled to a sales patent. Such a
contemporaneous construction of the constitutional prohibition by a high
executive official carries great weight and should be accorded much respect.
It is a correct interpretation of Section II of Article XIV.
4. ID.; DOCTRINE OF VESTED RIGHTS; APPLIED IN CASE AT BAR. —
In the instant case, it is incontestable that prior to the effectivity of the 1973
Constitution the right of the corporation to purchase the land in question had
become fixed and established and was no longer open to doubt or
controversy. Its compliance with the requirements of the Public Land Law for
the issuance of a patent had the effect of segregating the said land from the
public domain. The corporation's right to obtain a patent for that land is
protected by law. It cannot be deprived of that right without due process
(Director of Lands vs. CA, 123 Phil. 919).
5. ID.; SOCIAL JUSTICE; ADMINISTRATIVE AUTHORITIES SHOULD
FIND WAYS AND MEANS TO ACCOMMODATE SOME OF THE PETITIONERS IF
THEY ARE LANDLESS AND ARE TILLERS OF THE SOIL. — In the interest of
social justice, to avoid agrarian unrest and to dispel the notion that the law
grinds the faces of the poor, the administrative authorities should find ways
and means of accommodating some of the petitioners if they are landless
and are really tillers of the son who in the words of President Magsaysay
deserve a little more food in their stomachs, a little more shelter over their
heads and a little more clothing on their backs. The State should endeavor to
help the poor who find it difficult to make both ends meet and who suffer
privations in the universal struggle for existence.
6. ID.; SECTION 11, ARTICLE XIV OF THE 1973 CONSTITUTION;
PURPOSE OF THE PROHIBITION AGAINST PURCHASES OF PUBLIC
AGRICULTURAL LANDS BY PRIVATE CORPORATIONS. — One purpose of the
constitutional prohibition against purchases of public agricultural lands by
private corporations is to equitably diffuse land ownership or to encourage
"owner-cultivatorship and the economic family-size farm" and to prevent a
recurrence of cases like the instant case. Huge landholdings by corporations
or private persons had spawned social unrest.
7. REMEDIAL LAW; CIVIL PROCEDURE; JUDGMENT; CANNOT BE
ENFORCED AGAINST PERSONS WHO WERE NOT PARTIES TO THE SUIT. — We
hold that the judgment cannot be enforced against the said petitioners who
were not defendants in that litigation or who were not summoned and heard
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 in that case. Generally, "it is an axiom of the law that no man shall be
affected by proceedings to which he is a stranger'' (Ed. A. Keller & Co. vs.
Ellerman & Bucknall Steamship Co 38 Phil. 514, 520).
8. ID.; ID.; ID.; REASON. — To enforce the judgment against those
who were not parties to the case and who occupy portions of the disputed
land distinct and separate from the portions occupied by the defendants in
the ejectment suit, would be violative of due process of law, the law which,
according to Daniel Webster in his argument in the Dartmouth College case,
is the law of the land, a law which hears before it condemns, which proceeds
upon inquiry and renders judgment only after trial. "The meaning is, that
every citizen shall hold his life, liberty, property, and immunities, under the
protection of the general rules which govern society." (Cited in Lopez vs.
Director of Lands. 47 Phil. 23, 32. See Gatchalian vs. Arlegui, L-35615 and
Tang Tee vs. Arlegui, L-41360, Feb. 17, 1977, 75 SCRA 234 and Berses vs.
Villanueva, 25 Phil. 473).
9. ID.; ID.; SPECIAL CIVIL ACTIONS; CONTEMPT; NO CONTEMPT OF
COURT IS COMMITTED BY A PARTY WHO PLOWED THE LAND AND
DESTROYED THE STANDING CROPS OF ONE OF PETITIONERS WHO IS NOT A
PARTY-DEFENDANT IN THE EJECTMENT CASE BELOW; PETITIONER'S REMEDY
IS NOT CONTEMPT BUT A CIVIL OR CRIMINAL ACTION. — We hold that no
contempt was committed. The temporary restraining order was not directed
to Biñan Development Co Inc., its officers, agents or privies. Emberador was
not named specifically in the trial court's judgment as one of the occupants
to be ejected. For the redress of whatever wrong or delict was committed
against Emberador by reason of the destruction of his improvements, his
remedy is not in a contempt proceeding but in some appropriate civil and
criminal actions against the destroyer of the improvements.
VASQUEZ, J., concurring:
REMEDIAL LAW; CIVIL PROCEDURE; JUDGMENT; COURT'S JUDGMENT
SHOULD BE CLARIFIED TO EXCLUDE FROM THE EFFECT OF THE EJECTMENT
DECISION ONLY PETITIONERS WHO DO NOT DERIVE THEIR RIGHT OF
POSSESSION FROM ANY OF THE DEFENDANTS IN THE LOWER COURT. — The
judgment in any case is binding and enforcible not only against the parties
thereto but also against "their successors in interest by title subsequent to
the commencement of the action" (Sec. 49[b], Rule 39, Rules of Court). We
have previously held that the judgment in an ejectment case may be
enforced not only against the defendants therein but also against the
members of their family, their relatives or privies who derive their right of
possession from the defendants (Ariem vs. Delos Angeles, 49 SCRA 343). A
further clarification of the dispositive portion is apparently needed to exclude
from the effect of the judgment in the ejectment case only the petitioners
who do not derive their right of possession from any of the defendants in the
ejectment suit.

DECISION

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 AQUINO, J : p

This case is about the application of section 11, Article XIV of the 1973
Constitution (disqualifying a private corporation from purchasing public
lands) to a 1953 sales award made by the Bureau of Lands, for which a sales
patent and Torrens title were issued in 1975, and to the 1964 decision of the
trial court, ejecting some of the petitioners from the land purchased, which
decision was affirmed in 1975 by the Court of Appeals. That legal question
arises under the following facts:
On January 21, 1953, the Director of Lands, after a bidding, awarded to
Biñan Development Co., Inc. on the basis of its 1951 Sales Application No. V-
6834 Cadastral Lot No. 281 located at Barrio Tamugan, Guianga (Baguio
District), Davao City with an area of about two hundred fifty hectares. Some
occupants of the lot protested against the sale. The Director of Lands in his
decision of August 30, 1957 dismissed the protests and ordered the
occupants to vacate the lot and remove their improvements. No appeal was
made from that decision.
The Director found that the protestants (defendants in the 1961
ejectment suit, some of whom are now petitioners herein) entered the land
only after it was awarded to the corporation and, therefore, they could not
be regarded as bona fide occupants thereof. The Director characterized
them as squatters. He found that some claimants were fictitious persons (p.
30, Rollo of L-43505, Okay vs. CA). He issued a writ of execution but the
protestants defied the writ and refused to vacate the land (p. 28, Rollo of L-
43505, Okay vs. CA). **
Because the alleged occupants refused to vacate the land, the
corporation filed against them on February 27, 1961 in the Court of First
Instance of Davao, Civil Case No. 3711, an ejectment suit (accion
publiciana). The forty defendants were identified as follows:
1. Vicente Abaqueta 21. Eniego Garlic
2. Candido Abella 22. Nicolas Garlic
3. Julio Ayog 23. Rufo Garlic
4. Arcadio Ayong 24. Alfonso Ibales
5. Generoso Bangonan 25. Julian Locacia
6. Lomayong Cabao 26. Filomeno Labantaban
7. Jose Catibring 27. Arcadio Lumantas
8. Teodolfo Chua 28. Santos Militante
9. Guillermo Dagoy 29. Toribio Naquila
10. Anastacia Vda. de Didal 30. Elpidio Okay
11. Alfredo Divinagracia 31. Guillermo Omac
12. Silverio Divinagracia 32. Emilio Padayday
13. Galina Edsa 33. Marcosa Vda. de Rejoy
14. Jesus Emperado 34. Lorenzo Rutsa
15. Porfirio Enoc 35. Ramon Samsa
16. Benito Ente 36. Rebecca Samsa
17. German Flores 37. Alfeao Sante
18. Ciriaco Fuentes 38. Meliton Sante
19. Pulong Gabao 39. Amil Sidaani
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 20. Constancio Garlic 40. Cosme Villegas.
That ejectment suit delayed the issuance of the patent. The trial court
found that the protests of twenty of the above-named defendants were
among those that were dismissed by the Director of Lands in his 1957
decision already mentioned.
O n July 18, 1961 the purchase price of ten thousand pesos was fully
paid by Biñan Development Co., Inc. On November 10, 1961, an official of
the Bureau of Lands submitted a final investigation report wherein it was
stated that the corporation had complied with the cultivation and other
requirements under the Public Land Law and had paid the purchase price of
the land (p. 248, Rollo).
It was only more than thirteen years later or on August 14, 1975 when
Sales Patent No. 5681 was issued to the corporation for that lot with a
reduced area of 175.3 hectares. The patent was registered. Original
Certificate of Title No. P-5176 was issued to the patentee.
The Director of Lands in his memorandum dated June 29, 1974 for the
Secretary of Natural Resources, recommending approval of the sales patent,
pointed out that the purchaser-corporation had complied with the said
requirements long before the effectivity of the Constitution, that the land in
question was free from claims and conflicts and that the issuance of the
patent was in conformity with the guidelines prescribed in Opinion No. 64,
series of 1973, of Secretary of Justice Vicente Abad Santos and was an
exception to the prohibition in section 11, Article XIV of the Constitution (p.
258, Rollo).
Secretary of Natural Resources Jose J. Eeido, Jr., in approving the
patent on August 14, 1975, noted that the applicant had acquired a vested
right to its issuance (p. 259, Rollo). llcd

Before that patent was issued, there was a trial in the ejectment suit.
Fifteen defendants (out of forty), namely, Julio Ayog, Guillermo Bagoy,
Generoso Bangonan, Jose Catibring, Porfirio Enoc, Jose Emperado, Arcadio
Lomanto, Toribio Naquila, Elpidio Okay, Alfeo Sante, Meliton Sante, Ramon
Samsa, Rebecca Samsa, Arcadio Sarumines and Felix Tahantahan, testified
that they entered the disputed land long before 1951 and that they planted
it to coconuts, coffee, jackfruit and other fruit trees (p. 28, Record on
Appeal).
The trial court did not give credence to their testimonies. It believed
the report of an official of the Bureau of Lands that in 1953 the land was free
from private claims and conflicts and it gave much weight to the decision of
the Director of Lands dismissing the protests of the defendants against the
sales award (p. 30, Record on Appeal).
Furthermore, the trial court during its ocular inspection of the land on
November 8, 1964 found that the plantings on the land could not be more
than ten years old, meaning that they were not existing in 1953 when the
sales award was made. Hence, the trial court ordered the defendants to
vacate the land and to restore the possession thereof to the company. The
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 Court of Appeals affirmed that judgment on December 5, 1975 in its decision
in Biñan Development Co., Inc. vs. Sante, CA-G.R. No. 37142-R. The review
of the decision was denied by this Court on May 17, 1976 in Elpidio Okay vs.
Court of Appeals, L-43505.
After the record was remanded to the trial court, the corporation filed a
motion for execution. The defendants, some of whom are now petitioners
herein, opposed the motion. They contended that the adoption of the
Constitution, which took effect on January 17, 1973, was a supervening fact
which rendered it legally impossible to execute the lower court's judgment.
They invoked the constitutional prohibition, already mentioned, that "no
private corporation or association may hold alienable lands of the public
domain except by lease not to exceed one thousand hectares in area."
The lower court suspended action on the motion for execution because
of the manifestation of the defendants that they would file a petition for
prohibition in this Court. On August 24, 1977, the instant prohibition action
was filed. Some of the petitioners were not defendants in the ejectment
case.
We hold that the said constitutional prohibition has no retroactive
application to the sales application of Biñan Development Co., Inc. because it
had already acquired a vested right to the land applied for at the time the
1973 Constitution took effect. LLphil

That vested right has to be respected. It could not be abrogated by the

new Constitution. Section 2, Article XIII of the 1935 Constitution allows
private corporations to purchase public agricultural lands not exceeding one
thousand and twenty-four hectares. Petitioners' prohibition action is barred
by the doctrine of vested rights in constitutional law.
"A right is vested when the right to enjoyment has become the property
of some particular person or persons as a present interest" (16 C.J.S. 1173).
It is "the privilege to enjoy property legally vested, to enforce contracts, and
enjoy the rights of property conferred by the existing law" (12 C.J. 955, Note
46, No. 6) or "some right or interest in property which has become fixed and
established and is no longer open to doubt or controversy" (Downs vs.
Blount, 170 Fed. 15, 20, cited in Balboa vs. Farrales, 51 Phil. 498, 502).
The due process clause prohibits the annihilation of vested rights. "A
state may not impair vested rights by legislative enactment, by the
enactment or by the subsequent repeal of a municipal ordinance, or by a
change in the constitution of the State, except in a legitimate exercise of the
police power" (16 C.J.S. 1177-78).
It has been observed that, generally, the term "vested right" expresses
the concept of present fixed interest, which in right reason and natural
justice should be protected against arbitrary State action, or an innately just
and imperative right which an enlightened free society, sensitive to inherent
and irrefragable individual rights, cannot deny (16 C.J.S. 1174, Note 71, No.
5, citing Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines, Inc. vs. Rosenthal, 192 Atl. 2nd
587).
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 Secretary of Justice Abad Santos in his 1973 opinion ruled that where
the applicant, before the Constitution took effect, had fully complied with all
his obligations under the Public Land Act in order to entitle him to a sales
patent, there would seem to be no legal or equitable justification for refusing
to issue or release the sales patent (p. 254, Rollo).
In Opinion No. 140, series of 1974, he held that as soon as the
applicant had fulfilled the construction or cultivation requirements and has
fully paid the purchase price, he should be deemed to have acquired by
purchase the particular tract of land and to him the area limitation in the
new Constitution would not apply.
In Opinion No. 185, series of 1976, Secretary Abad Santos held that
where the cultivation requirements were fulfilled before the new Constitution
took effect but the full payment of the price was completed after January 17,
1973, the applicant was, nevertheless, entitled to a sales patent (p. 256,
Rollo).
Such a contemporaneous construction of the constitutional prohibition
by a high executive official carries great weight and should be accorded
much respect. It is a correct interpretation of section 11 of Article XIV.
In the instant case, it is incontestable that prior to the effectivity of the
1973 Constitution the right of the corporation to purchase the land in
question had become fixed and established and was no longer open to doubt
or controversy.
Its compliance with the requirements of the Public Land Law for the
issuance of a patent had the effect of segregating the said land from the
public domain. The corporation's right to obtain a patent for that land is
protected by law. It cannot be deprived of that right without due process
(Director of Lands vs. CA, 123 Phil. 919). LLphil

As we cannot review the factual findings of the trial court and the Court
of Appeals, we cannot entertain petitioners' contention that many of them by
themselves and through their predecessors-in-interest have possessed
portions of land even before the war. They should have filed homestead or
free patent applications.
Our jurisdiction is limited to the resolution of the legal issue as to
whether the 1973 Constitution is an obstacle to the implementation of the
trial court's 1964 final and executory judgment ejecting the petitioners. On
that issue, we have no choice but to sustain its enforceability.
Nevertheless, in the interest of social justice, to avoid agrarian unrest
and to dispel the notion that the law grinds the faces of the poor, the
administrative authorities should find ways and means of accommodating
some of the petitioners if they are landless and are really tillers of the soil
who in the words of President Magsaysay deserve a little more food in their
stomachs, a little more shelter over their heads and a little more clothing on
their backs. The State should endeavor to help the poor who find it difficult
to make both ends meet and who suffer privations in the universal struggle
for existence.
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 A tiller of the soil is entitled to enjoy basic human rights, particularly
freedom from want. The common man should be assisted an possessing and
cultivating a piece of land for his sustenance, to give him social security and
to enable him to achieve a dignified existence and become an independent,
self-reliant and responsible citizen in our democratic society.
To guarantee him that right is to discourage him from becoming a
subversive or from rebelling against a social order where, as the architect of
the French Revolution observed, the rich are choking with the superfluities of
life but the famished multitude lack the barest necessities.
Indeed, one purpose of the constitutional prohibition against purchases
of public agricultural lands by private corporations is to equitably diffuse
land ownership or to encourage "owner-cultivatorship and the economic
family-size farm" and to prevent a recurrence of cases like the instant case.
Huge landholdings by corporations or private persons had spawned social
unrest.
Petitioners' counsel claims that Biñan Development Co., Inc. seeks to
execute the judgment in Civil Case No. 3711, the ejectment suit from which
this prohibition case arose, against some of the petitioners who were not
defendants in that suit (p. 126, Rollo).
Those petitioners are not successors-in-interest of the defendants in
the ejectment suit. Nor do they derive their right of possession from the said
defendants. Those petitioners occupy portions of the disputed land distinct
and separate from the portions occupied by the said defendants. prcd

We hold that judgment cannot be enforced against the said petitioners

who were not defendants in that litigation or who were not summoned and
heard in that case. Generally, "it is an axiom of the law that no man shall be
affected by proceedings to which he is a stranger" (Ed. A. Keller & Co. vs.
Ellerman & Bucknall Steamship Co., 38 Phil. 514, 520).
To enforce the judgment against those who were not parties to the
case and who occupy portions of the disputed land distinct and separate
from the portions occupied by the defendants in the ejectment suit, would be
violative of due process of law, the law which, according to Daniel Webster in
his argument in the Dartmouth College case, is the law of the land, a law
which hears before it condemns, which proceeds upon inquiry and renders
judgment only after trial. "The meaning is, that every citizen shall hold his
life, liberty, property, and immunities, under the protection of the general
rules which govern society." (Cited in Lopez vs. Director of Lands, 47 Phil. 23,
32. See Gatchalian vs. Arlegui, L-35615 and Tang Tee vs. Arlegui, L-41360,
February 17, 1977, 75 SCRA 234 and Berses vs. Villanueva, 25 Phil. 473.)
Contempt incident. — During the pendency of this case, or at about
four o'clock in the morning of December 12, 1978, Ciriaco Tebayan, Domingo
Nevasca, Rogelio Duterte and Sofronio Etac, employees of the Crown Fruits
and Cannery Corporation, plowed or bulldozed with their tractors a portion of
the disputed land which was occupied by Melquiades Emberador, one of the
petitioners herein. The disputed land was leased by Biñan Development Co.,
Inc. to the canning corporation.
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 The four tractor drivers destroyed the improvements thereon worth
about five thousand pesos consisting of coffee, coconut and banana plants.
Emberador was in the hospital at the time the alleged destruction of the
improvements occurred. However, it should be noted that Emberador was
not expressly named as a defendant in the ejectment suit. Apparently, he is
not included in the trial court's decision although he was joined as a co-
petitioner in this prohibition case.
The petitioners in their motion of January 11, 1979 asked that the four
tractor drivers and Honesto Garcia, the manager of Biñan Development Co.,
Inc., be declared in contempt of court for having disregarded the restraining
order issued by this Court on August 29, 1977, enjoining specifically Judge
Vicente N. Cusi and the provincial sheriff from enforcing the decision in the
ejectment suit, Civil Case No. 3711 (pp. 46-47, 138-141, Rollo).
Garcia and the four drivers answered the motion. The incident was
assigned for hearing to Judge Antonio M. Martinez of the Court of First
Instance of Davao. Judge Martinez found that the plowing was made at the
instance of Garcia who told the barrio captain, petitioner Lausan Ayog, a
Bagobo, that he (Garcia) could not wait anymore for the termination of this
case.
The record shows that on April 30, 1979 or four months after the said
incident, Emberador, in consideration of P3,500, as the value of the
improvements on his land, executed a quitclaim in favor of the Crown Fruits
and Cannery Corporation (Exh. 1, 2 and 3).
We hold that no contempt was committed. The temporary restraining
order was not directed to Biñan Development Co., Inc. its officers, agents or
privies. Emberador was not named specifically in the trial court's judgment
as one of the occupants to be ejected.
For the redress of whatever wrong or delict was committed against
Emberador by reason of the destruction of his improvements, his remedy is
not in a contempt proceeding but in some appropriate civil and criminal
actions against the destroyer of the improvements. LLphil

In resume, we find that there is no merit in the instant prohibition

action. The constitutional prohibition relied upon by the petitioners as a
ground to stop the execution of the judgment in the ejectment suit has no
retroactive application to that case and does not divest the trial court of
jurisdiction to enforce that judgment.
WHEREFORE, the petition is dismissed for lack of merit but with the
clarification that the said judgment cannot be enforced against those
petitioners herein who were not defendants in the ejectment case, Civil Case
No. 3711, and over whom the lower court did not acquire jurisdiction. The
contempt proceeding is also dismissed. No costs.
SO ORDERED.
Concepcion, Jr., Guerrero, Abad Santos, Relova and Gutierrez, Jr., JJ.,
concur.

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 Escolin, J., took no part.

Separate Opinions
FERNANDO, C.J., concurring:

States that the Court is unanimous as to the dismissal of the petition.

But while joining the concurring opinion of Justice Vasquez, he further states
that there are only seven votes as to the qualification therein mentioned,
although Justice Vasquez made clear that he was relying in the holding of
this Court in Ariem v. De los Angeles, L-32164, Jan. 31, 1973, 49 SCRA 343.
VASQUEZ, J., concurring:

I concur with the very ably written main opinion. However, I wish to
erase any possible erroneous impression that may be derived from the
dispositive portion insofar as it declares that the judgment in the ejectment
case may not be enforced against the petitioners who were not defendants
in Civil Case No. 3711 and over whom the lower court did not acquire
jurisdiction.
The judgment in any case is binding and enforceable not only against
the parties thereto but also against "their successors in interest by title
subsequent to the commencement of the action" (Sec. 49[b], Rule 39, Rules
of Court). We have previously held that the judgment in an ejectment case
may be enforced not only against the defendants therein but also against
the members of their family, their relatives or privies who derive their right
of possession from the defendants (Ariem vs. Delos Angeles, 49 SCRA 343).
A further clarification of the dispositive portion is apparently needed to
exclude from the effect of the judgment in the ejectment case only the
petitioners who do not derive their right of possession from any of the
defendants in the ejectment suit. LLphil

Teehankee, Makasiar, De Castro, Melencio-Herrera a n d Plana, JJ.,

concur.

Footnotes

** According to respondent corporation, some of the adverse claimants or

protestants were not landless farmers but were well-educated persons
belonging to the middle class. Thus, Elpidio Okay was an elementary school
principal. Vicente Rehoy was a landowner and barrio captain. Patricio de
Leon was a cashier and later assistant branch manager of the Philippine
National Bank. Ernesto Pañares was a high school teacher and later a college
professor. Francisco Mateo was a former college dean (p. 105, Rollo).
According to the 44 petitioners, they are tillers of the soil (p. 126, Rollo).

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