Title
Aranda vs. Republic
Case
G.R. No. 172331
Decision Date
Aug 24, 2011
Petition for land registration denied; petitioner failed to prove alienability, disposability, and 30 years of continuous possession under the law.
original registration
parcel of land
insufficient evidence

Case Summary (G.R. No. 172331)

Origin of the Application and the Opposition

The petition for original registration was initially filed by ICTSI Warehousing, Inc. (ICTSI-WI) through its Chairman, Enrique K. Razon, Jr. The OSG filed an opposition contending that the property applied for remained public land and that the applicant did not meet the statutory requirements to obtain registration under C.A. No. 141, as amended. ICTSI-WI sought leave to amend the application, citing procedural and technical concerns: the petition allegedly lacked a certification of non-forum shopping, the technical description was allegedly based merely on boundaries reflected in a tax declaration, and the sale between the vendor and the applicant corporation could not proceed because the tax declaration remained in the name of Ramon Aranda, thereby preventing transfer and re-declaration in the name of ICTSI-WI.

Amendment of the Application and Petitioner’s Theory of Ownership

After the trial court admitted the amended application, it was filed in the name of Ramon Aranda, the present petitioner. He prayed that if the Land Registration Act provisions were not deemed applicable, the Court should nevertheless apply the liberal rule under Section 48 of Commonwealth Act No. 141, as amended. He relied on alleged long possession, asserting continuous possession of the land in the concept of owner, openly and adversely, for more than thirty (30) years prior to filing.

To support the application, petitioner’s sister, Merlita A. Enriquez, testified that in 1965 her father, Anatalio Aranda, donated the property to his brother, petitioner, supported by documents titled “Pagpapatunay ng Pagkakaloob ng Lupa” executed by her and her siblings on June 7, 2000. She stated that she first learned of the property in 1965, when she was eight years old, and that Ramon had been tilling it since then by planting rice and corn. She added that petitioner’s brother allegedly did not introduce permanent improvements and did not hire tenants. She further testified that there had been a donation document from that time, but it had been eaten by rats.

Another witness, Luis Olan, testified that his father, Lucio Olan, originally owned the land and that he had known it since he was six years old. He stated that Lucio cultivated the land by planting rice and later corn, and that they had open, peaceful, continuous, and adverse possession in the concept of owner until Lucio sold the property in 1946 to Anatalio Aranda. He said that after the sale, Anatalio’s children took over cultivation, planting rice and corn and adding some coconut trees. Luis claimed he had no copy of the sale document because his mother had given it to Anatalio.

Decision of the RTC

On January 31, 2001, the RTC rendered a Decision granting the application and ordered the issuance of a decree of registration in petitioner’s favor.

Appellate Review and the CA’s Reversal

The Republic appealed to the CA, which reversed the RTC Decision. The CA held that petitioner’s evidence failed to satisfactorily establish the character and duration of possession required by law because petitioner did not prove specific acts showing the nature of possession by his predecessors-in-interest. The CA also refused to give evidentiary weight to the documents “Pagpapatunay ng Pagkakaloob ng Lupa” and “Pagpapatunay ng Bilihang Lampasan ng Lupa”, which, as the CA noted, were both prepared only in 2000, when the registration application was filed, and were treated as factual proof of ownership by the parties to the compromise agreement. After the CA denied reconsideration, petitioner filed a petition for review on certiorari under Rule 45, alleging that the CA had misapprehended facts regarding compliance with the required thirty (30) years of open, exclusive, public, and adverse possession in the concept of owner.

Issues Framed for Review

Petitioner argued that the deeds of confirmation of the 1946 sale and the 1965 donation were competent proof of ownership transfer even if executed only in 2000. He further argued that the testimonies concerning the alleged loss and destruction of earlier copies were secondary evidence of the contents of the missing documents based on recollection, invoking an exception to the best evidence rule. He insisted that the CA had no legal basis to doubt the donation and sale, and that the confirmation deeds should not have been treated as merely a compromise agreement, given that the transactions were allegedly already perfected at the time they occurred.

Legal Basis: Requirements for Original Registration

The Supreme Court examined the statutory framework under P.D. No. 1529 for original registration of land in an ordinary registration proceeding. Under Section 14(1) of P.D. No. 1529, a petition may be granted only upon compliance with requisites that the land be alienable and disposable land of the public domain; that the applicant and/or predecessors-in-interest have been in open, continuous, exclusive, and notorious possession and occupation; and that such possession has been under a bona fide claim of ownership since June 12, 1945, or earlier.

The Court also reiterated the Regalian doctrine embodied in Section 2, Article XII of the 1987 Constitution, under which all lands of the public domain belong to the State and lands not clearly proven to fall within private ownership are presumed to belong to the State. Thus, absent proof that the land had been reclassified or alienated to private ownership by the State, it remains part of the inalienable public domain. The applicant must therefore present incontrovertible evidence showing that the land applied for is alienable or disposable.

Alienability and Disposable Status of the Land

In evaluating alienability, the Court noted that proof may be shown by positive acts of government such as a presidential proclamation or executive order, administrative action, investigation reports of Bureau of Lands investigators, or legislative enactments, or through a governmental certification that the land is alienable and disposable.

The Court observed that the trial court’s directive was followed by the DENR through the Assistant Regional Executive Director for Operations-Mainland Provinces, which issued a certification stating that the subject property fell within the alienable and disposable land under Project No. 22-A of Lipa, Batangas per LC Map 718 certified on March 26, 1928. However, petitioner also submitted a DENR certification dated January 14, 2000 issued by the DENR CENR Officer of Batangas City, Pancrasio M. Alcantara, stating that the property had been verified, based on projection from a technical reference map, to be within an alienable and disposable zone under Project No. 39, Land Classification Map No. 3601, certified on 22 December 1997, except for a twenty meters strip along a creek for streambank protection.

The Court held that petitioner failed to explain the discrepancies in the classification dates referenced in the government certifications. As a result, the Court found that the alienable and disposable status of the land was not clearly established, which undermined one of the threshold requirements for registration.

Possession in the Concept of Owner: Failure to Prove the Required Tenure and Character

The Court agreed with the CA that petitioner likewise failed to prove possession in the manner and for the duration required by law. Petitioner presented tax declarations and the deeds of confirmation relating to the 1946 sale and the 1965 donation. Still, as the CA had found, the history of the land showed it was declared for taxation purposes only beginning in 1981. The Court further noted that the Municipal Treasurer of Malvar certified that petitioner, who claimed to have received the property in 1965, had been paying realty taxes for the land for “more than five consecutive years including the current year [1999],” which the Court treated as starting only in 1994, or just three years before petitioner filed the original registration application.

While tax declarations and realty tax payments are generally not conclusive of ownership, the Court treated them as indicia of possession in the concept of owner, reasoning that one would not pay taxes for property not held in actual or constructive possession. On the evidence presented, petitioner’s tax payment history did not support the claimed long and continuous possession since the alleged transfers.

Failure to Prove Possession by Predecessors-in-Interest

The Court also held that petitioner failed to prove the alleged possession of his predecessors-in-interest. Luis Olan testified that he had accompanied his father on visits to the property since Luis was six years old, which would place the period at around 1936. Yet the Court pointed out that there was no evidence that Lucio Olan declared the property for taxation purposes at any time before the allege

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