Buemer vs. Amores (Digest)

Willem BUEMER vs.
Avelina AMORES
GR No. 19570 – December 3, 2012
Perlas-Bernabe
SUBJECT: What constitutes ACP: presumption
FACTS:
Petitioner, a Dutch National, and respondent, a Filipina, were married. After several years, the
RTC declared the nullity of their marriage in a decision on the basis of petitioner’s psychological
incapacity. Consequently, petitioner filed a petition for dissolution of Conjugal Partnership
praying for 6 properties claimed to have been acquired during the subsistence of their marriage.
In defense, respondent averred that, with the exception of 2 properties, she and petitioner did not
acquire any conjugal properties during their marriage, the truth being that she used her own
personal money (her earnings from selling jewelry as well as products from Avon, Triumph and
Tupperware) to purchase the other 4 properties and by way of inheritance. She submitted a joint
affidavit executed by both of them attesting to the fact that she bought one of the properties using
her own money.
Petitioner testified that the questioned properties were registered in the name of respondent, these
properties were acquired with the money he received from the Dutch government as his
disability benefit since respondent did not have sufficient income to pay for their acquisition. He
also claimed that the joint affidavit they submitted before the Register of Deeds was contrary to
Art. 89 (FC), hence, invalid.
RTC: dissolved the parties’ conjugal properties, awarding all the parcels of land to respondent as
her paraphernal properties; the tools and equipment in favor of petitioner as his exclusive
properties; and 2 house as co-owned by the parties. It ruled that petitioner could not have
acquired any right whatsoever over the 4 properties because of his prior knowledge of the
constitutional prohibition against foreign ownership of private lands.
 Petitioner insisted before the CA that the money used to purchase the foregoing
properties came from his own capital funds and that they were registered in the name of
his former wife only because of the constitutional prohibition. Thus, he prayed for
reimbursement of ½ of the value of what he had paid in the purchase of the 4 properties,
waiving the other half in favor of his estranged ex-wife.
CA: Affirmed in toto the RTC decision. It stressed the fact that petitioner was “well-aware of
the constitutional prohibition for aliens to acquire lands in the PH.” Hence, he cannot invoke
equity to support his claim for reimbursement.
ISSUE: WON petitioner’s claim for reimbursement for the purchase price of the questioned
properties should be sustained.
HELD: No.
In the case of Muller vs. Muller, foreigner cannot seek reimbursement on the ground of equity
where it is clear that he willingly and knowingly bought the property despite the prohibition
against foreign ownership of PH land enshrined under the Sec. 7, Art. XII of the Cosntitution,
which reads:
Save in cases of hereditary succession, no private lands shall be transferred or conveyed except to
individuals, corporations, or associations qualified to acquire or hold lands of the public domain.
Undeniably, petitioner openly admitted that he “is well aware of the constitutional prohibition”
and even asseverated that, because of such prohibition, he and respondent registered the subject
properties in the latter’s name. Clearly, petitioner’s actuations showed his palpable intent to skirt
the constitutional prohibition. On the basis of such admission, the SC finds no reason why it
should not apply the Muller case.
Also, as explained in Muller, the time-honored principle is that he who seeks equity must do
equity, and he who comes into equity must come with clean hands. In the present case,
petitioner’s statements regarding the real source of the funds used to purchase the subject parcels
of land dilute the veracity of his claims: While admitting to have previously executed a joint
affidavit that respondent’s personal funds were used to purchase one the lots, he likewise
claimed that his personal disability funds were used to acquire the same. Evidently, these
inconsistencies show his untruthfulness. Thus, as petitioner has come before the Court with
unclean hands, he is now precluded from seeking any equitable refuge
In any event, the SC cannot grant reimbursement to petitioner given that he acquired no vested
right whatsoever over the subject properties by virtues of its unconstitutional purchase. Surely, a
contract that violates the Constitution and the law is null and void, vests no rights, creates no
obligations and produces no legal effect at all.
Neither can the SC grant petitioner’s claim for reimbursement on the basis of unjust enrichment
because the provision on unjust enrichment, Art. 22 (NCC) does not apply if the action is
proscribed by the Constitution or by application of the pari delicto doctrine. It may be unfair and
unjust “but it is founded in general principles of policy.”

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Willem BUEMER vs.

SUBJECT: What constitutes ACP: presumption

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