SECOND DIVISION
[UDK-16669. October 12, 2020.]
FROILAN SALES AND FELICIDAD CRESENCIA ARACELI R. SALES, petitioners,vs. ARMED FORCES AND POLICE SAVINGS & LOAN ASSOCIATION, INC., respondent.
NOTICE
Sirs/Mesdames :
Please take notice that the Court, Second Division, issued a Resolution dated 12 October 2020 which reads as follows:
"UDK-16669 (Froilan Sales and Felicidad Cresencia Araceli R. Sales v. Armed Forces and Police Savings & Loan Association, Inc.). — The Court resolves to GRANT Froilan Sales and Felicidad Cresencia Araceli R. Sales' (petitioners) motion for extension of thirty (30) days from the expiration of the reglementary period within which to file a petition for review on certiorari.
After a careful review of the case, the Court resolves to DENY the instant Petition for Review on Certiorari and AFFIRM the Resolutions dated October 10, 2019 1 and June 17, 2020 2 of the Court of Appeals (CA) in CA-G.R. SP No. 162536 for failure of petitioners to show that the CA committed any reversible error in the assai led Resolutions as to warrant the exercise of this Court's appellate jurisdiction.
Petitioners claim that the fraudulent and false representations allegedly made by the representative of respondent Armed Forces and Police Savings & Loan Association, Inc. (AFPSLAI) — which led them to believe that they could redeem or repurchase a property now owned by a third party — vitiated their consent and therefore invalidates the Compromise Agreement which was approved by the Regional Trial Court of San Mateo, Rizal, Branch 75, as subject to execution.
This argument is untenable.
While there is enough ground to dismiss the Petition for Certiorari outright based on technicalities alone — as pointed out by the CA in its assailed Resolutions and as petitioners more or less did not dispute at present — petitioners' arguments nonetheless fail to convince the Court that their consent in entering into the Compromise Agreement was secured through fraud and false representations of AFPSLAI's representative.
The Court concurs with the CA in applying Section 9, Rule 130 of the Revised Rules on Evidence, or the Parol Evidence Rule, as it denied to give consideration to the oral testimony of petitioners which contradicts the clear purport of the Compromise Agreement. Furthermore, it is settled that the imputation of fraud in a civil case requires the presentation of clear and convincing evidence. Mere allegations will not suffice to sustain the existence of fraud. 3
By sheer weight of the evidence submitted to the Court, it is apparent that the written provisions of the Compromise Agreement, which make no mention of the supposed arrangement that would subject the adjacent property to redemption or repurchase by petitioners, trump the contradictory testimony of the latter. Aside from the fact that such testimony is unsupported by any clear and convincing evidence, petitioners' allegations fail to impress upon the Court that the representative of AFPSLAI employed deceit, trickery, machination, or any of the sort in securing petitioners' consent for the purpose of entering into a Compromise Agreement. The undisputed fact that petitioners were assisted by counsel in agreeing to the explicit and unequivocal terms of the Compromise Agreement clearly speaks for itself, and undermines any bare allegation of fraud or falsity.
In the same vein, the allegations of lack of good faith on the part of AFPSLAI in entering into the Compromise Agreement do not hold water. In their attempt to establish such lack of good faith, petitioners assert that AFPSLAI merely ignored their efforts to negotiate and question the validity of AFPSLAI' s title to the property by claiming that the foreclosure sale did not actually take place. However, this is again not supported by any evidence other than their unsubstantiated allegations.
SO ORDERED."(Baltazar-Padilla, J., on leave.)
By authority of the Court:
(SGD.) TERESITA AQUINO TUAZONDivision Clerk of Court
Footnotes
1.Rollo, pp. 18-29.
2.Id. at 30-31.
3.Riguer v. Atty. Mateo, 811 Phil. 538, 547 (2017), citing Tankeh v. Development Bank of the Philippines, 720 Phil. 641, 676 (2013).