SABIO V INTERNATIONAL CORPORATE BANK

We agree with the Court of Appeals that the phrase permanent and perpetual right
of way should be construed in its ordinary and accepted signification, i.e., to provide
ingress to and egress from the dominant estate, or to provide passage in going to
the highway from the dominant estate and back. The MOA itself does not provide
that petitioners shall have free access to all the roads within the proposed
subdivision that respondents would establish on the estate. Had the parties
intended that petitioners be given such access, the same should have been
incorporated in the MOA. Once again, the courts cannot read into the MOA any other
intention that would contradict the apparent agreement. The courts cannot
embellish the precise stipulations of the MOA just for the convenience of petitioners.
An easement is an abnormal restriction on respondents property rights, and the
imposition thereof must be tempered and limited to the ordinary needs of
petitioners property, not to satisfy their caprices. The law requires that the right-ofway must be at the point least prejudicial to the servient estate, and when
applicable, where the distance from the dominant estate to a public highway may
be the shortest.[62]
While the proposed right-of-way traversed respondents properties, the same should
not encroach into the latters proposed subdivision roads. Petitioners access to all
the subdivision roads like any homeowner therein is not a necessity and goes
beyond mere convenience on their part. Otherwise, that would be stretching the
purpose and meaning of a right-of-way beyond its legal and general acceptation.
The fact is that respondents did not lack in satisfying the requirements in par. 2.d of
the MOA. Instead of the minimum width of 10 meters, the proposed right-of-way is
twenty-five (25) meters wide,[63] more than double the stipulated minimum width.
There is really no reason for petitioners to complain and want for more.