CASE DIGEST: Yap v. Grageda (G.R. No. L-31606, March 28, 1983)

CASE DIGEST: [ G.R. No. L-31606, March 28, 1983 ] DONATO REYES YAP AND MELITONA MARAVILLAS, PETITIONERS, VS. HON. EZEKIEL S. GRAGEDA, AS JUDGE OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE OF ALBAY AND JOSE A. RICO, RESPONDENTS.

FACTS: A residential lot in Albay was sold to a Chinese who later became a naturalized Filipino.

ISSUE: Can the vendor recover the lot?

HELD: No more, because the purpose of the constitutional provision has already been achieved. Note that the buyer has already become a naturalized Filipino.

"But the factual set-up has changed. The litigated property is now in the hands of a naturalized Filipino. It is no longer owned by a disqualified vendee. Respondent, as a naturalized citizen, was constitutionally qualified to own the subject property. There would be no more public policy to be served in allowing petitioner Epifania to recover the land as it is already in the hands of a qualified person. Applying by analogy the ruling of this Court in Vasquez vs. Giap and Li Seng Giap & Sons:

"'. . . if the ban on aliens from acquiring not only agricultural but also urban lands, as construed by this Court in the Krivenko case, is to preserve the nation's lands for future generations of Filipinos, that aim or purpose would not be thwarted but achieved by making lawful the acquisition of real estate by aliens who became Filipino citizens by naturalization.'"