Facts:
Respondent
Local Superior of the Institute of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Ragusa filed an application for registration over a parcel of land, claiming that it acquired ownership by purchase through a
Deed of Sale dated September 19, 2005 and that it had since been in
continuous, uninterrupted, open and public possession in the
concept of an owner. It alleged that its predecessors-in-interest had possessed the same parcel in the same manner as early as 1940, and that the land was not occupied by any other person or entity. It also alleged the names and addresses of the adjoining lot owners as required by the Rules, and the trial court set the application for hearing after determining that the jurisdictional requirements were complied with. Petitioner
Republic of the Philippines, through the
Office of the Solicitor General, opposed the application on several grounds, including that neither the applicant nor its predecessors had been in
open, continuous, exclusive and notorious possession for at least thirty years; that the presented
tax declarations and payments were of recent vintage and were not
muniments of title; that the applicant’s reliance on a
Spanish title or grant could no longer be availed of because of failure to file within six months from February 16, 1976 as required by
P.D. No. 892; and that the parcel was a portion of the
public domain belonging to the Republic and thus not subject to appropriation. After trial, the
2nd Municipal Circuit Trial Court of Silang-Amadeo, Silang, Cavite granted the application, holding that the respondent’s predecessors, Andres Velando and Juana Velando, had exercised
absolute ownership and possession over the property since 1948 up to 2005 or for fifty-seven years, taking judicial notice that tax declarations kept intact in the Municipal Assessor’s Office of Silang started only in 1948. The trial court relied on testimony and tax assessment records to tack the period of possession and declared that the consolidated possession of the predecessors and respondent totaled fifty-seven years. On appeal, petitioner assigned as error the CA’s acceptance of possession as sufficient despite the DENR certification indicating that the land was declared
alienable and disposable only on March 15, 1982, and argued that the thirty-year period for registration should be reckoned only from that declaration date. On December 4, 2008, the
Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court, sustaining its finding of possession as far back as 1943 based on the testimony of Romulo Gonzales, who stated that he was ten years old in 1943 and already knew that his grandfather, Andres Velando, was the owner and had introduced improvements. The CA also invoked rulings including
Republic of the Philippines v. Bibonia and the
Naguit case, emphasizing that classification of the land as alienable only demonstrates that the State no longer intends to keep it as its own, and that the decisive matter is whether, at the time of application, the land had already been declared alienable. Dissatisfied, petitioner filed a
petition for review on certiorari under
Rule 45.
Issues:
Whether respondent met the statutory requirements under
Section 14(1) of P.D. No. 1529, such that the CA correctly affirmed the trial court’s grant of the application for registration in respondent’s favor despite petitioner’s argument that possession before the land’s declaration as alienable and disposable should not be counted.
Ruling:
Ratio:
Doctrine: