[Exclusion from Conjugal Partnership of Gains]

No. L-20825. December 28, 1964.

AMALIA PLATA, petitioner, vs. HON. NICASIO YATCO, Judge, Court of First
Instance of Rizal, Branch V; BENITO MACROHON, Sheriff of Quezon City and
The Spouses CESAREA E. VILLANUEVA and GREGORIO LEAÑO, respondents
FACTS:
Petitioner Amalia Plata, single, Filipino citizen had purchased a parcel of land in
Caloocan, Rizal in 1954. . On 13 February 1958, she sold the property to one Celso Saldaña,
but seven months afterwards, Saldaña resold the same property to "Amalia Plata, married
to Gaudencio Begosa."
On 24 September 1958, "Amalia Plata of legal age, Filipino, married to Gaudencio
Begosa", in consideration of a loan of P3,000, mortgaged to Cesarea Villanueva married to
Gregorio Leaño, the identical property and its improvements" of which the mortgagor
declares to be her(s) as the absolute owner thereof". The mortgage was also signed by
Gaudencio Begosa, as co- mortgagor.
For failure to pay the mortgage, the same was extra-judicially foreclosed under Act
3135, and sold to the mortgagee as the highest bidder. Subsequently, respondent Villanueva,
sued Gaudencio Begosa alone for illegal detainer and obtained judgment against him in the
court of first instance that became final. A writ of execution was duly issued, but Amalia
Plata resisted all efforts to eject her from the property, and she filed a third party claim,
averring ownership of the property. Upon motion of the judgment creditors, the court below
cited both Begosa and Plata for contempt for refusing to vacate the said property.
ISSUE:
Whether or not the property bounded by the detainer judgment against her husband
is a paraphernal property of the wife.

HELD:
Yes. The conveyance of the paraphernal property of the wife to a third person and its
subsequent reconveyance several months afterwards, does not transform it to conjugal
property, in the absence of proof that the money paid in the reconveyance came from conjugal
funds. Where a piece of land is paraphernal in origin, the fact that the husband signed a
mortgage deed thereof as a co-mortgagor does not by itself alone suffice to convert it into
conjugal property.
An illegal detainer judgment against the husband alone over a piece of land
paraphernal in character cannot bind nor affect the wife’s possession thereof. A wife not made
party defendant to an eviction suit against the husband over possession of land which is
paraphernal property of the wife, could validly ignore the judgment of eviction against her
husband, and it was no contempt of court for her to do so, because the writ of execution was
not lawful against her.