FIRST
DIVISION
|
REPUBLIC OF THE
Petitioner, - versus - SAN
LORENZO DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION,
Respondent. |
|
G.R. No. 170724 Present: PUNO, CJ., Chairperson, SANDOVAL-GUTIERREZ, AZCUNA, and GARCIA, JJ. Promulgated: January 29, 2007 |
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D E C I S I O N
GARCIA, J.:
In this petition for review under Rule
45 of the Rules of Court, petitioner Republic of the Philippines seeks the
reversal and setting aside of the Decision[1] dated May
23, 2005 of the Court of Appeals (CA)-Cebu
City in CA-G.R. CV No. 73996, as
reiterated in its Resolution[2] of
December 7, 2005, dismissing the Republic's appeal from an
earlier decision
of the Municipal Trial Court in Cities (MTCC), Danao City, which ordered the
registration of title in the name of herein respondent San Lorenzo Development
Corporation over a 64,909-square meter parcel of land in Barangay Maslog, City of
Danao, Province of Cebu.
The facts:
On November 13, 1997, respondent San
Lorenzo Development Corporation filed with the MTCC of Danao City an
application for registration of title to a parcel of land, described as Lot 1
of the Consolidation-Subdivision Plan, Ccn-07-000094, being a portion of Lots
3151, 3152, 3158, 3159, 3160 and 3161, Cad. 681-D, Danao Cadastre, situated in Barangay
Maslog, City of
On
On
On
During the initial hearing, the
respondent corporation, through counsel, offered in evidence the following
documents to prove or establish the jurisdictional facts of the case, to wit:
|
Exhibit “A” |
- |
The
Petition for Registration containing seven (7) pages and mandatory annexes
designated as A-1 to A-3; |
|
Exhibit “A-1” |
- |
Lot
Plan No. Ccn-07000094 of |
|
Exhibit “A-2” |
- |
Technical Description of |
|
Exhibit “A-3” |
- |
Certification of Non-requirement of
Surveyor's Certificate; |
|
Exhibit “B” |
- |
Order resetting date of Initial Hearing
to |
|
Exhibit “B-1” |
- |
Newspaper Clipping; |
|
Exhibit “C” |
- |
Affidavit of Publication issued by Banat
News; |
|
Exhibit “D” |
- |
Certificate of Publication issued by the
Land Registration Authority; |
|
Exhibit “E” |
- |
Certificate of Posting issued by the
Court Sheriff; |
|
Exhibit “F” |
- |
Certificate of Publication issued by the
NPO; |
|
Exhibit “F-1” |
- |
Copy of Notice of Initial Hearing; |
|
Exhibit “G” |
- |
Copy of the Indorsement addressed to the Clerk of Court, MTCC, Danao City, from Salvador Oriel, Chief, Docket Division, Land Registration Authority, dated July 7,
1998; and |
|
Exhibit “H” |
- |
Notice of Appearance of the Solicitor General. |
Thereafter, the case was
called aloud in open court to determine whether there were other oppositors aside
from the Republic. There being none, the court issued an Order
of General Default on
Respondent corporation, to prove
that it and its predecessors-in-interest had been in possession of the land applied
for in the concept of an owner peacefully, continuously, adversely and
notoriously for a period required under the law, presented six
(6) witnesses. The six, who were predecessors-in-interest of
composite portions of the subject parcel of land, provided
testimonies to the effect that they had been in possession of the land, and had
subsequently sold their respective parcels thereof to the respondent. Their
testimonies were supported by tax declarations and deeds of sale.
On
WHEREFORE, premises considered, Judgment is
hereby rendered ordering the issuance of title to Lot 1 of the
Consolidation-Subdivision of Plan Ccn-07-000094, being a portion of Lot 3152,
3151, 3158, 3159, 3160 and 3161, Cad. 681-D, Danao Cadastre, situated in the
Barangay of Maslog, Danao City, Province of Cebu, Island of Cebu, containing an
area of SIXTY FOUR THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED NINE (64,909) square meters, for and
in the name of San Lorenzo Development Corporation, with principal office address
at Ground Floor, Stanford Tower Condominium, 1870 M.H. Del Pilar Street,
Malate, Metro Manila.
Upon finality of this Decision, let
a corresponding decree of registration be issued in favor of applicant in
accordance with Sec. 39 of PD 1529.
SO ORDERED.
On
In the herein assailed decision[4] of
1.
Whether or not the defective and/or want of notice
by publication of the initial hearing(s) of the case a quo vested the trial
court with jurisdiction to take cognizance thereof; and
2.
Whether or not deeds of sale and tax declarations/clearances
constitute the “well-nigh
incontrovertible” evidence necessary to acquire title through adverse occupation under
C.A. No. 141.
In the matter of jurisdiction,
petitioner Republic maintains that the MCTC never acquired
jurisdiction over the case on account of its failure
to conduct the initial hearing thereof within the period fixed in Section 23 of
P.D. No. 1529, otherwise known as the Property Registration Decree, which
mandates that the date and hour of initial hearing shall not
be earlier than 45 days nor later than 90 days from the
date of the Order. In the Republic’s own words:[6]
After a series of postponements, the trial court finally set the
initial hearing of the case on
Pursuant to Section 23, P.D. 1529,
the initial hearing of the case must have to be not earlier than forty-five
(45) days and not later than ninety (90) days from the
date of the order setting the date and hour of the initial hearing. The Order
having been issued on
Even if counted from June 8, 1998
(date of notice of hearing), still the
hearing on September 23, 1998 is seventeen (17) days
late than the prescribed period of ninety (90) days, the last
day
of which fell on September 6, 1998.
It is noteworthy that both
parties invoke the decision of the Court in Republic v. Manna
Properties, Inc.,[7] decided
A careful reading of Republic v. Manna Properties, Inc. will
support a finding in favor of the respondent but only as regards the issue of
jurisdiction. Speaking on that issue,
the Court in Manna Properties, Inc., wrote:
The duty and the power to set the hearing
date lie with the land registration court. After an applicant has filed his
application, the law requires the issuance of a court order setting the initial
hearing date. The notice of initial hearing is a court document. The notice of
initial hearing is signed by the judge and copy of the notice is mailed by the
clerk of court to the LRA [Land Registration Authority]. This involves a
process to which the party applicant absolutely has no participation.
Petitioner is correct that in land
registration cases, the applicant must strictly comply with the jurisdictional
requirements. In this case, the applicant complied with the jurisdictional
requirements.
The facts reveal that Manna Properties
was not at fault why the hearing date was set beyond the 90-day maximum period.
x x x.
We have held that “a party to an
action has no control over the Administrator or the Clerk of Court acting as a
land court; he has no right to meddle unduly with the business of such official
in the performance of his duties.”[8] A party cannot
intervene in matters within the exclusive power of the trial court. No fault is
attributable to such party if the trial court errs on matters within its sole
power. It is unfair to punish an applicant for an act or omission over which
the applicant has neither responsibility nor control, especially if the
applicant has complied with all the requirements of the law.
Moreover, it is evident
in Manner Properties, Inc. that
what is more important than the date on which the initial hearing is set is the
giving of sufficient notice of the registration proceedings via publication. In fact,
in its memorandum,[9]
petitioner Republic “concedes (a) that respondent should not be faulted if the initial hearing that was conducted on September 23, 1995 was
outside the 90-day period set forth under Section 23 of Presidential Decree No.
1529, and (b) that respondent might have substantially complied with the
requirement thereunder relating to the registration of the subject land.”[10] Hence,
on the issue of jurisdiction, we find for the
respondent, in that its application for registration was
rightfully given due course by the MTCC.
However, on the
more important issue of lack of evidence of possession on the part of the
respondent for the period required by law, the balance must tilt in favor of
the petitioner.
Very evident from Republic v. Manna Properties, Inc. is that the
reckoning date under the Public Land Act[11] for the acquisition
of ownership of public lands is
(b) Those who by themselves or through
their predecessors-in-interest have been in open, continuous, exclusive, and
notorious possession and occupation of agricultural lands of the public domain,
under a bona fide claim of acquisition of ownership, since June 12, 1945 or earlier,
immediately preceding the filing of the application for confirmation of title
except when prevented by war or force majeure. Those shall be conclusively presumed to have
performed all the conditions essential to a Government grant and shall be
entitled to a certificate of title under the provisions of this chapter.
(Emphasis supplied)
Similarly, Section
14 of P.D. No. 1529 – the Property
Registration Decree – provides, inter alia, as
follows:
Section 14. Who may apply. - The following
persons may file in the proper Court of First Instance an application for registration of
title to land, whether personally or through their duly authorized
representatives:
1.
Those who by themselves or through their
predecessors-in-interest have been in open, continuous, exclusive and
notorious possession and occupation of alienable and disposable lands of the
public domain under a bona fide claim of ownership since June 12, 1945, or earlier; (Emphasis
supplied)
Here, in support
of its application for registration, the respondent
corporation submitted a certification from the Community Environment and
Natural Resources Office (CENRO) that the parcel of land sought to be
registered forms part of the general area classified as alienable and
disposable public land under Forestry Administrative Order No. 4-467 dated
The respondent's application was granted by the two (2) courts
below on the premise that, reckoned to
date, possession of the subject parcel of land since the declaration of
alienability and disposability on June 7, 1938 was more
than fifty (50) years already. Adverse possession for at least thirty (30)
years had long been completed. This reasoning was fraught
with errors.
First, the law, as mentioned earlier,
requires that the possession of lands of the public domain must be from at
least
x x x. The original Section 48(b) of C.A.
No. 141 provided for possession and occupation of lands of the public domain
since
(b) Those who by themselves or
through their predecessors-in-interest have been in open, continuous,
exclusive, and notorious possession and occupation of agricultural lands of the
public domain, under a bona fide claim of acquisition of ownership, since
June 12, 1945 or earlier, immediately preceding the filing of the application
for confirmation of title except when prevented by war or force majeure. These shall be
conclusively presumed to have performed all the conditions essential to a
Government grant and shall be entitled to a certificate of title under the
provisions of this chapter.
Section 48(b) of the Public Land
Act, as amended by PD No. 1073, presently requires, for judicial confirmation
of an imperfect or incomplete title, the possession and occupation of the piece
of land by the applicants, by themselves or through their
predecessors-in-interest, since
As the law now stands, a mere
showing of possession for thirty years or more is not sufficient. It must be
shown, too, that possession and occupation
had started on
Second, the acceptance by the
courts a quo of the
CENRO certificate of alienability and disposability as evidence of possession
since the date of said certificate is patently erroneous.
According to the CENRO certification, the subject land was alienable and
disposable public land since
The Public Land Act requires that the
applicant must prove two things, to wit:
1.
That the land is alienable public land; and
2.
That his open, continuous, exclusive and notorious
possession and occupation of the same must either be since time immemorial or
for the period prescribed in the Public Land Act.[13]
All that the CENRO
certificate evidences is the alienability of the land involved, not the
open, continuous, exclusive and notorious possession and occupation thereof by the respondent or its
predecessors-in-interest for the period prescribed by law.
As in Manna Properties, Inc., while the Court acknowledges tax declarations as sufficient basis for inferring possession,
the tax declarations presented by the respondent in this case do not
serve to prove their cause:
The 1945 tax declaration must be presented
considering that the date,
Here, the earliest
of the tax declarations presented by the respondent was in
the year 1948 for Lots 3152, 3159 and 3161; 1963 for
Lastly, while it is true that the issue
of whether or not the respondent corporation has
presented sufficient proof or the required possession raises a question of
fact, which ordinarily cannot be entertained in a petition under Rule 45, one of
the exceptions to that rule is when, as here, the evidence
on record does not support the conclusions of both the trial and the
appellate courts.
On the whole, we find merit in
the petition.
WHEREFORE, the instant petition is GRANTED. Accordingly,
the decision dated May 23, 2005 of the Court of Appeals-Cebu
City in CA-G.R. CV No. 73996, as reiterated in its resolution
of December 7, 2005, is REVERSED and SET
ASIDE,
and
the application
for registration filed by respondent
San Lorenzo Development Corporation is DENIED.
No costs.
SO ORDERED.
CANCIO C. GARCIA
Associate Justice
WE CONCUR:
REYNATO S. PUNO
Chief Justice
Chairperson
|
ANGELINA SANDOVAL-GUTIERREZ Associate Justice |
RENATO C. CORONA Associate Justice |
ADOLFO S. AZCUNA
Associate Justice
C E R T I F I C A T I O N
Pursuant
to Article VIII, Section 13 of the Constitution, it is hereby certified that
the conclusions in the above decision had been reached in consultation before
the case was assigned to the writer of the opinion of the Court’s Division.
REYNATO S. PUNO
Chief Justice
[1] Penned by Associate Justice Isaias P. Dicdican, with Associate
Justices Vicente L. Yap and Enrico A. Lanzanas, concurring; Rollo, pp.
39-46.
[2]
[3]
[4] Supra note 1.
[5] Supra note 2.
[6] Petition, pp. 19-20; Rollo, pp. 25-26.
[7] G.R. No. 146527, 450 SCRA 247.
[8] Banco Espanol-Filipino
v. Palanca, 37 Phil. 921 (1918).
[9] Rollo pp. 150-185.
[10]
[11] Commonwealth Act No. 141, as amended.
[12] G.R.
No. 132963,
[13] Republic v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 108998,
[14] Supra note 6 at 261.