4/30/2021 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly Judgments were rendered ten (10) years back. Spouses Ishwar have won their cases. The Choithram family should have accepted this settled matter a long time ago. Spouses Ishwar agreed to the compromise simply because after more than a decade of litigation, their lots or the value thereof have not been returned to them. In fact, up to the present time, or 17 years from the filing of the complaint and more than nine (9) years after our "denied-with-finality judgment," they have not been fully paid. A compromise agreement is valid and binding, not because it is the settlement of a controversy. Once the compromise is perfected, the parties are bound to abide by it in good faith. In the cases at bar, the Choithram family persisted in dilatory tactics even after the court battle was supposed to have ended with finality. Their claims have been adjudged invalid but they continued the conflict. Under the compromise agreement, the post-dated check for P10,000,000.00 should have been cashed not later than August 4, 1993, and the P15,000,000.00 check not later than September 3, 1993. The post dated checks could not be cashed. Instead, a P10,000,000.00 check was tendered on September 12, 1993, or 8 days late. The checks were personal checks payable to the Clerk of Court, meaning that spouses Ishwar could not even encash them until ordered by the trial court. The check for P15,000,000.00 was tendered on September 12, 1993, or 8 days late. It has to be emphasized at this point that the compromise agreement is evidently in amounts substantially less than what the Choitram family should pay spouses Ishwar. The compromise is spouses Ishwar's concession to the Choithram family for them to end the seemingly interminable litigation. We thus rule that the trial court committed reversible error when it applied equitable considerations under Article 1229 of the Civil Code to justify the defaults of Choithram and Ortigas. In Commercial Credit Corporation of Cagayan de Oro v. Court of Appeals,[4] this Court held: "(Article 1229) . . . applies only to obligations or contract, subject of a litigation, the condition being that the same has been partly or irregularly complied with by the debtor. The provision also applies even if there has been no performance, as long as the penalty is iniquitous or unconscionable. It cannot apply to a final and executory judgment." Moreover, equity does not apply to a situation when fraud and dilatory schemes exist. The incidents, during the supposed tender of payment, support a finding of continuing insincerity, recalcitrance, and bad faith on the part of the Choitram family. But these were not taken into account by the trial court. In the first place, the tender of payment was effected late with no valid reason for the delay. Second, the tender of payment is of doubtful validity. It bears reiterating that the https://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/52364 7/9