5. MONTEVERDE VS.

GENEROSO
CASE TITLE: Tomas Monteverde vs. Sebastian Generoso, Provincial Governor, et. al.
No. 28491
September 29, 1928
TOPIC:

Easements in General

DOCTRINE:

Public authorities are not authorized to destroy private property consisting

of dams and fishponds summarily and without any judicial proceedings
whatever under the pretense that such property constitute a nuisance.

KEYWORD/S: private properties as nuisance; due process in removing nuisance; public

authorities order of removing nuisance
APPLICABLE LAW: Article 24 of the Law of Waters
FACTS:
Plaintiff Tomas Monteverde owns a parcel of land, with a Torrens title obtained in 1921,
situated in Santa Ana, Davao.
Said land is bounded on the northwest by Agdao River, which has a branch known as
the Tambongon Creek. This creek is navigable and runs through Monteverdes land, and
as such is of public ownership.
For fishpond purposes, Monteverde constructed two dams across the Agdao River and
five dams across the Tambongon Creek. These dams in the Agdao River were destroyed
by order of the district engineer of Davao because allegedly, those dams are nuisances
and thus, their action was just to safeguard the public health.
To prevent the contemplated action with reference to the Tambongon Creek, Monteverde
sought in the Court of First Instance of Davao to obtain an order of injunction in restraint
of the provincial governor, the district engineer, and the district health officer, but in this
attempt Monteverde was unsuccessful in the lower court.
ISSUE:
Is a provincial governor, a district engineer, or a district health officer authorized to
destroy private property consisting of dams and fishponds summarily and without any
judicial proceedings whatever under the pretense that such private property constitutes a
nuisance?
RULING:
No. The Court ruled that no law expressly empowers the provincial governor to order the
removal of obstructions and the destruction of nuisances in a navigable stream. On the
contrary, the law specifically grants to the municipal council the power by ordinance or
resolution "to declare, prevent, and abate nuisances."
The Court discussed that Nuisances are of two classes: Nuisances per se and per
accidens. As to the first, since they affect the immediate safety of persons and property,
they may be summarily abated under the undefined law of necessity. But if the nuisance
be of the second class, even the municipal authorities, under their power to declare and
abate nuisances, would not have the right to compel the abatement of a particular thing
or act as a nuisance without reasonable notice to the person alleged to be maintaining or
doing the same of the time and place of hearing before a tribunal authorized to decide
whether such a thing or act does in law constitute a nuisance.

The subject dams falls in the second category above-mentioned. And as such, it cannot
be ordered destroyed without undergoing the due process of law as mandated under the
Philippine Laws.

16. RONQUILLO, et. al. vs. ROCO, et. al.

CASE TITLE: Leogario Ronquillo, et. al. vs. Jose Roco, as Administrator of Vicente Roco
y Dominguez, et. al.
No. L-10619
February 28, 1958
TOPIC:

Legal Easements

DOCTRINE:

Easement of Right of Way may not be acquired by prescription.

KEYWORD/S: easement of right of way; discontinuous or intermittent easement of right

of way
APPLICABLE LAW: Article 620 of the New Civil Code
FACTS:
Plaintiffs filed a case against Defendants, averring, among others, that they have been in
the continuous and uninterrupted use of a road or passage way which traversed the land
of the defendants and their predecessors in interest, Vicente Roco, in going to Igualdad
Street and the market place of Naga City, from their residential land and back, for more
than 20 years.
The defendants and the tenants of Vicente Roco have long recognized and respected
the private legal easement of road right of way of said plaintiffs.
However, on May 12, 1953, the defendants Jose Roco thru his co-defendants,
Raymundo Martinez and their men, with malice aforethought and with a view to
obstructing the plaintiffs' private legal easement over the property of the late Vicente
Roco, started constructing a chapel in the middle of the said right of way construction
actually impeded, obstructed and disturbed the continuous exercise of the rights of the
plaintiffs over said right of way.
Furthermore, on July 10, 1954, the new defendants Natividad Roco and Gregorio Miras,
Jr. with the approval of the defendant, Jose Roco and with the help of their men and
laborers, by means of force, intimidation, and threats, illegally and violently planted
wooden posts, fenced with barbed wire and closed hermitically the road passage way
and their right of way in question against their protests and opposition, thereby
preventing them from going to or coming from their homes to Igualdad Street and the
public market of the City of Naga.
The Court of First Instance of Camarines Sur, in March 1955, dismissed the amended
and supplemental complaint of herein plaintiffs on motion of defendants that it did not
state a cause of action and on the ground that an easement of right of way though it may
be apparent is, nevertheless, discontinuous or intermittent and, therefore, cannot be
acquired through prescription, but only by virtue of a title.
Hence, this appeal was brought before the Supreme Court as it involves a question of
law.
ISSUE:
Can an easement of right of way be acquired thru prescription?
RULING:
No. The Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the lower court in dismissing the case.

Under old as well as the New Civil Code, easements may be continuous discontinuous
(intermittent), apparent or non-apparent, discontinuous being those used at more or less
long intervals and which depend upon acts of man (Articles 532 and 615 of the Old and
New Civil Codes, respectively). Continuous and apparent easements are acquired
either, by title or prescription, continuous non-apparent easements and discontinuous
ones whether apparent or not, may be acquired only by virtue of a title (Articles 537 and
539, and 620 and 622 of the Old and New Civil Codes, respectively).
Art. 620 of the CC provides that only continuous and apparent easements may be
acquired by prescription. The easement of a right of way cannot be considered
continuous because its use is at intervals and is dependent on the acts of man.
However, the minority of SC justices, of which the writer (Montemayor, J.) of this opinion
is a part, believes that the easement of right of way may now be acquired through
prescription, at least since the introduction into this jurisdiction of the special law on
prescription through the Old Code of Civil Procedure, Act No. 190.
Said law, particularly, Section 41 thereof, makes no distinction as to the real rights which
are subject to prescription, and there would appear to be no valid reason, at least to the
writer of this opinion, why the continued use of a path or a road or right of way by the
party, specially by the public, for ten years or more, not by mere tolerance of the owner
of the land, but through adverse use of it, cannot give said party a vested right to such
right of way through prescription.

27. VALISNO vs. ADRIANO

CASE TITLE: Nicolas Valisno vs. Felipe Adriano
No. L-37409
May 23, 1988
TOPIC:

Voluntary Easements

DOCTRINE:

Existence of an apparent sign of easement between two estates,

maintained by the owner of both, shall be considered as a title.

KEYWORD/S: apparent sign of easement; water rights

APPLICABLE LAW: Article 624 of the New Civil Code
FACTS:
Appellant Valisno is the absolute owner and actual possessor of a 557,949 sq. meter
parcel of land situated in La Fuente, Santa Rosa, Nueva Ecija.
He bought the said property from Honorata Adriano Francisco, the deceased sister of
herein Appellee Adriano, sometime in June 1959.
The land which is planted with watermelon, peanuts, corn, tobacco, and other
vegetables adjoins that of the Appellee Felipe Adriano on the bank of the Pampanga
River. Both parcels of land had been inherited by Honorata Adriano Francisco and her
brother, Felipe Adriano, from their father, Eladio Adriano.
At the time of the sale of the land to Valisno, the land was irrigated by water from the
Pampanga River through a canal about seventy (70) meters long, traversing the
appellee's land.
On December 16, 1959, the Appellee levelled a portion of the irrigation canal so that the
appellant was deprived of the irrigation water and prevented from cultivating his 57hectare land.
Valisno filed in the Bureau of Public Works and Communications (BPWC) a complaint for
deprivation of water rights, which rendered decision in his favor, ordering Adriano to
reconstruct the irrigation canal, "otherwise judicial action shall be taken against him
under the provisions of Section 47 of Act 2152 (the Irrigation Act), as amended."
Instead of restoring the irrigation canal, the Appellee asked for a reinvestigation of the
case by the BPWC. A reinvestigation was granted. In the meantime, plaintiff Valisno
rebuilt the irrigation canal at his own expense because his need for water to irrigate his
watermelon fields was urgent.
Sometime in June 1960, Valisno filed a complaint for damages in the Court of First
Instance of Nueva Ecija claiming that he suffered damages when he failed to plant his
fields that year (1960) for lack of irrigation water and for the reconstruction of the canal
on Adriano's land.
After the reinvestigation, the Secretary of BPWC reversed the Bureau's decision by
issuing a final resolution dismissing Valisno's complaint.
Subsequently, on April 21, 1966, the trial court held that Valisno had no right to pass
through the defendant's land to draw water from the Pampanga River.
Valisno, then, appealed the decision before the Court of Appeals, which in turn certified
to SC, through a resolution, that this case involves a question of law and is beyond its
jurisdiction to decide.

ISSUE:
Whether Valisno has acquired the easement of water over Adrianos land.
RULING:
The Court set aside the appealed decision of the trial court and a new one is entered
ordering the Appellee to grant Appellant Valisno continued and unimpeded use of the
irrigation ditch traversing his land in order to obtain water from the Pampanga River to
irrigate appellant's land.
The existence of the irrigation canal on defendant's land for the passage of water from
the Pampanga River to Honorata's land prior to and at the time of the sale of Honorata's
land to Valisno was equivalent to a title for the vendee of the land to continue using it as
provided in Article 624 of the Civil Code:
Article 624. The existence of an apparent sign of easement between two
estates, established or maintained by the owner of both shall be
considered, should either of them be alienated, as a title in order that he
easement may continue actively and passively, unless at the time, the
ownership of the two estates is divided, the contrary should be provided
in the title of conveyance of either of them, or the sign aforesaid should
be removed before the execution of the deed.

More so, according to the appellant, the water right was the primary consideration for his
purchase of Honorata's property, for without it the property would be unproductive.
Water rights, such as the right to use a drainage ditch for irrigation purposes, which are
appurtenant to a parcel of land, pass with the conveyance of the land, although not
specifically mentioned in the conveyance.
Finally, as an easement of waters in favor of the appellant has been established, he is
entitled to enjoy it free from obstruction, disturbance or wrongful interference (19 CJ
984), such as the appellee's act of levelling the irrigation canal to deprive him of the use
of water from the Pampanga River.