Secretary of Department of Public Works and Highways v. Spouses Tecson, GR 179334

Secretary of Department of Public Works and Highways v. Spouses Tecson, GR 179334

FACTS:
In 1940, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) took respondents-movants' subject property without the benefit of expropriation proceedings for the construction of the MacArthur Highway. In a letter dated December 15, 1994,respondents-movants demanded the payment of the fair market value of the subject parcel of land. Celestino R. Contreras (Contreras), then District Engineer of the First Bulacan Engineering District of the DPWH, offered to pay for the subject land at the rate of Seventy Centavos (P0.70) per square meter, per Resolution of the Provincial Appraisal Committee (PAC) of Bulacan. Unsatisfied with the offer, respondents-movants demanded the return of their property, or the payment of compensation at the current fair market value. Hence, the complaint for recovery of possession with damages filed by respondents-movants. Respondents-movants were able to obtain favorable decisions in the Regional Trial Court (RTC) and the Court of Appeals (CA), with the subject property valued at One Thousand Five Hundred Pesos (₱1,500.00) per square meter, with interest at six percent (6%) per annum.
 
ISSUES: 

• Should the value of the property be the amount during the time of actual taking, considering the significant difference of the value from the time of actual taking to the present.

• Does the government’s taking of private property without the proper use of expropriation proceedings nullify the government’s use of the power of eminent domain.

 
RULING: 

• The court has ruled in a plethora of cases that the amount used for compensation of taking private property should be from the time of taking. While it may appear inequitable to the private owners to receive an outdated valuation, the long-established rule is that the fair equivalent of a property should be computed not at the time of payment, but at the time of taking. This is because the purpose of ‘just compensation’ is not to reward the owner for the property taken but to compensate him for the loss thereof. The owner should be compensated only for what he actually loses, and what he loses is the actual value of the property at the time it is taken.
• No. The government’s failure to initiate the necessary expropriation proceedings prior to actual taking cannot simply invalidate the State’s exercise of its eminent domain power, given that the property subject of expropriation is indubitably devoted for public use, and public policy imposes upon the public utility the obligation to continue its services to the public. To hastily nullify said expropriation in the guise of lack of due process would certainly diminish or weaken one of the State’s inherent powers, the ultimate objective of which is to serve the greater good.

 
Thus, the non-filing of the case for expropriation will not necessarily lead to the return of the property to the landowner. What is left to the landowner is the right of compensation.