61. Brownwell vs Sun Life, GR No.

L-5731, June 22, 1954

FACTS:

Subject of this petition is the endowment policy which insured Aihara and
Gayapan and upon its maturity the proceeds were payable to said insured.
Brownell instituted this case to compel Sun Life to comply with the demand to
pay representing the half of the proceeds of endowment policy and payable to one
Naogiro Aihara, a Japanese national. Such claim is based on Section 5(b)
(2) of the Trading with the Enemy Act of the United States. Which claim was
approved and granted by the lower court ordering SLACOC to pay herein
petitioner.

ISSUE:

Whether or not such Act is still binding despite the complete independence
of the Philippines from American government?

HELD:

Yes.

The extension of the Philippine Property Act of 1946 is clearly implied

from the acts of the President of the Philippines and the Secretary of Foreign
Affairs, as well as by the enactment of R.A. Nos. 7, 8 and 477.

65. REPUBLIC vs. LARA

FACTS

The land in question was occupied by the enemy forces during the later part (1943) of the
Japanese occupation. It was converted into a campsite and airfield. The Japanese forces built
concrete airstrips, concrete taxi-ways, dug-outs, canals, concrete ramps, ditches, gravel roads,
and air raid shelters. Upon liberation, the United States Army took possession of the airfield; and
on July 4, 1946, the air base was handed over by the U.S. government to the Armed Forces of the
Philippines. The Philippine Army then took steps to negotiate for the purchase of the area for the
purpose of constructing thereat a permanent air base. A committee was appointed to make an
appraisal of the parcels covered; several land-owners sold their properties to the government at
the prices fixed by the Appraisal Committee. The extrajudicial negotiations, however, fell
through with respect to the greater majority of the land owners, who did not want to accept the
prices offered by the government.
A complaint for expropriation was filed by the Republic in the Court of First Instance of
Batangas, describing in detail the 187 parcels sought to be expropriated.

The lower Court fixed the provisional value of the parcels in question at P117,097.52, which
amount the plaintiff deposited with the Philippine National Bank to the credit of the City
Treasurer of Lipa. As none of the defendants questioned the purpose of the expropriation in their
respective answers, the lower Court appointed three commissioners to view the land, hear the
evidence, and ascertain the just and reasonable compensation for the properties sought to be
taken.

In the meantime, many of the defendants, with the approval of the Court, made withdrawals from
the provisional deposit made by the government.

The Republic of the Philippines as well as defendants Enrique Lara, et al., appealed this decision
of the Court of First Instance of Batangas.

The basic dispute naturally lies on the reasonable value of the lands sought to be expropriated,
with the question of the extent of damages and interest payable to the defendants as a secondary
issue.

One of the contentions of defendants-appellants is that they should be compensated for the
concrete air strips, runway, and taxi way built by the Japanese Army on the ground that a
belligerent occupant could not take private property without compensation; that the Japanese
forces were possessors of their lands in bad faith; and that therefore, the improvements
constructed thereon by them should, under our civil law, belong to the owners of the lands to
which they are attached.

ISSUE

Whether or not the Republic of the Philippines is under obligation to pay indemnity for
improvements made by the belligerent Japanese on private properties they have occupied.

Whether or not a belligerent occupant could take private property without compensation.

HELD

1. No. While the defendants-appellants remained the owners of their respective lands, The
Republic of the Philippines succeeded to the ownership or possession of the constructions
made thereon by the enemy occupant for war purposes, unless the treaty of peace should
otherwise provide; and it is under no obligation to pay indemnity for such constructions
and improvements in these expropriation proceedings. The rules of Civil Code
concerning industrial accession were not designed to regulate relations between private
persons and a sovereign belligerent, nor intended to apply to constructions made
exclusively for prosecuting a war, when military necessity is temporarily paramount.
 2. While art. 46 of the Hague Regulations provide that "private property may not be
confiscated", confiscation differs from the temporary use by the enemy occupant of
private land and buildings for all kinds of purposes demanded by the necessities; thus, the
U.S. War Department Rules of Land Warfare of 1940 provide that —

the rule requiring respect for private property is not violated through damage resulting
from operations, movement, or combats of the army, that is, real estate may be utilized
for marches, campsites, construction of trenches, etc. Buildings may be used for shelter
for troops, the sick and wounded, for animals, for reconnaisance, cover defense, etc.
Fences, woods, crops, buildings, etc. may be demolished, cut down, and removed to clear
a field of fire, to construct bridges, to furnish fuel if imperatively needed for the army.
(Quoted in Hyde, Int. Law, Vol. II, p. 1894)

Consequently, the Japanese occupant is not regarded as a possessor in bad faith of the
lands taken from the defendants-appellants and converted into an airfield and campsite;
its use thereof was merely temporary, demanded by war necessities and exigencies.

66. CO Kim Cham vs Valdez Tan Keh (G.R. No. L-5 September 17, 1945)
FACTS:
The respondent judge refused to take cognizance of the proceedings in a civil case which were
initiated during the Japanese military occupation on the ground that the proclamation issued by
General MacArthur that “all laws, regulations and processes of any other government in the
Philippines than that of the said Commonwealth are null and void and without legal effect in
areas of the Philippines free of enemy occupation and control” had the effect of invalidating and
nullifying all judicial proceedings and judgments of the court of the Philippines during the
Japanese military occupation, and that the lower courts have no jurisdiction to take cognizance of
and continue judicial proceedings pending in the courts of the defunct Republic of the
Philippines in the absence of an enabling law granting such authority.

During the Japanese occupation, no substantial change was effected in the organization and
jurisdiction of the different courts that functioned during the Philippine Executive Commission,
and in the laws they administered and enforced.

ISSUES:
1. Whether or not under the rules of international law the judicial acts and proceedings of the
courts during a de facto government are good and valid.
1. It is a legal truism in political and international law that all acts and proceedings of the
legislative, executive, and judicial departments of a de facto government are good and valid. The
doctrine upon this subject is thus summed up by Halleck, in his work on International Law (Vol.
2, p. 444): “The right of one belligerent to occupy and govern the territory of the enemy while in
its military possession, is one of the incidents of war, and flows directly from the right to
conquer. We, therefore, do not look to the Constitution or political institutions of the conqueror,
for authority to establish a government for the territory of the enemy in his possession, during its
military occupation, nor for the rules by which the powers of such government are regulated and
limited. Such authority and such rules are derived directly from the laws war, as established by
the usage of the of the world, and confirmed by the writings of publicists and decisions of courts
— in fine, from the law of nations. . . . The municipal laws of a conquered territory, or the laws
which regulate private rights, continue in force during military occupation, excepts so far as they
are suspended or changed by the acts of conqueror. . . . He, nevertheless, has all the powers of
a de facto government, and can at his pleasure either change the existing laws or make new
ones.”
According to that well-known principle in international law, the fact that a territory which has
been occupied by an enemy comes again into the power of its legitimate government of
sovereignty, “does not, except in a very few cases, wipe out the effects of acts done by an
invader, which for one reason or another it is within his competence to do. Thus judicial acts
done under his control, when they are not of a political complexion, administrative acts so done,
to the extent that they take effect during the continuance of his control, and the various acts done
during the same time by private persons under the sanction of municipal law, remain good.

That not only judicial but also legislative acts of de facto governments, which are not of a
political complexion, are and remain valid after reoccupation of a territory occupied by a
belligerent occupant, is confirmed by the Proclamation issued by General Douglas MacArthur on
October 23, 1944, which declares null and void all laws, regulations and processes of the
governments established in the Philippines during the Japanese occupation, for it would not have
been necessary for said proclamation to abrogate them if they were invalid ab initio.