Title
Taar vs. Lawan
Case
G.R. No. 190922
Decision Date
Oct 11, 2017
Dispute over 71,014 sqm land in Tarlac; heirs' free patent applications denied, private respondents granted patents; Supreme Court upheld CA dismissal, citing improper certiorari remedy and lack of standing for private parties to challenge titles.
land dispute
free patent applications
cancellation

Case Summary (G.R. No. 190922)

Factual Background

Petitioners are successors in interest to parcels partitioned by a February 18, 1948 Decision of the Court of First Instance of Tarlac. Petitioners prepared a subdivision plan covering a 71,014-square-meter tract in Barangay Parsolingan, Genova, Tarlac, which the Municipal and cadastral authorities approved as Subdivision Plan No. Ccs-03-000964-D on February 6, 2001. Petitioners then applied administratively for free patents over the parcel under the Public Land Act.

Protest, DENR Investigation, and Initial DENR Ruling

On March 16, 2001 private respondents filed a verified protest to petitioners’ free patent applications, claiming their predecessors had been in exclusive, notorious possession and occupation of the land since 1948. The DENR Regional Office conducted an ocular inspection, required documentary submissions, and issued an Order on May 29, 2002 in which Director Sibbaluca found private respondents to be the actual occupants and observed no improvements attributable to petitioners. Director Sibbaluca cancelled Subdivision Plan No. Ccs-03-000964-D and denied petitioners’ free patent applications. That order attained finality because no party sought reconsideration or appealed.

Private Respondents’ Administrative Claims and Title Issuance

After Director Sibbaluca’s order attained finality, private respondents filed free patent applications through the Tarlac Community ENR Office. Their applications were approved on January 23, 2004. The DENR issued the corresponding free patents and certificates of title, denominated as Katibayan ng Orihinal na Titulo, in favor of private respondents.

Petitioners’ Administrative Petition and DENR Secretary’s Ruling

Petitioners filed a Verified Petition with the DENR Secretary on July 29, 2004 to annul Director Sibbaluca’s May 29, 2002 Order on the ground of extrinsic fraud and to cancel private respondents’ free patents and certificates. The DENR Undersecretary for Legal Affairs assembled an investigating team. The team’s ocular inspection and documentary inquiry found structures, fences, fruit and coconut trees associated with petitioners, leasehold contracts, and cultivated rice fields by several respondents. The team concluded petitioners were entitled to the property. Secretary Angelo T. Reyes adopted those findings in a Decision dated January 18, 2007 and ordered cancellation of the free patents and titles issued to private respondents.

Office of the President Review and Reinstatement of DENR Regional Order

Private respondents moved for reconsideration before Secretary Reyes; the motion was denied. They appealed to the Office of the President. In its Decision dated October 20, 2008, the Office of the President, through Executive Secretary Eduardo R. Ermita, reversed Secretary Reyes’ Decision and reinstated Director Sibbaluca’s May 29, 2002 Order on the ground that the DENR regional order had attained finality. Petitioners’ motion for reconsideration before the Office of the President was denied in a Resolution dated March 26, 2009.

Court of Appeals Proceedings

Petitioners filed a petition for certiorari under Rule 65 against private respondents and Executive Secretary Ermita in the Court of Appeals, alleging grave abuse of discretion by the Office of the President in failing to give effect to the February 18, 1948 partition decision. The Court of Appeals dismissed the petition outright by Resolution dated July 20, 2009. The appellate court held that certiorari was an inappropriate remedy because errors of judgment, not jurisdictional defects, were alleged and because an appeal under Rule 43 was available. The Court of Appeals denied petitioners’ motion for reconsideration in a Resolution dated January 15, 2010.

Petition for Review on Certiorari to the Supreme Court and Procedural Posture

Petitioners filed a Petition for Review on Certiorari before the Supreme Court on March 4, 2010, challenging the Court of Appeals Resolutions of July 20, 2009 and January 15, 2010. The Supreme Court required comments and memoranda from the parties. The Office of the Solicitor General appeared for the Office of the President. The parties filed memoranda, and the Supreme Court, in a resolution dated January 23, 2013, gave due course to the petition and set the case for resolution.

Issues Framed for Resolution

The Supreme Court phrased the issues as: (1) whether the Court of Appeals erred in dismissing petitioners’ petition for certiorari; (2) whether the February 18, 1948 Decision of the Court of First Instance bars private respondents from filing free patent applications over the property under res judicata; and (3) whether private respondents’ free patents and certificates of title are valid or were procured by fraud and misrepresentation.

Standards on Certiorari and Supreme Court’s Conclusion on Remedy

The Court reiterated that a petition for certiorari under Rule 65 is extraordinary and confined to errors of jurisdiction or grave abuse of discretion. Errors of judgment are not remedied by certiorari and are subject to appeal. The Court applied established precedents distinguishing jurisdictional errors from errors of judgment and emphasized that petitioners failed to allege or prove that an appeal under Rule 43 would be inadequate, slow, or insufficient to relieve them of the injurious effects of the Office of the President’s Decision. The Court therefore affirmed the Court of Appeals’ dismissal of the petition for certiorari as an improper remedy.

Res Judicata Analysis Regarding the 1948 Partition Decision

The Court analyzed res judicata principles and applied the four-element test: finality, jurisdiction of the rendering court, judgment on the merits, and identity of parties, subject matter, and causes of action. The Court found that while the February 18, 1948 Decision was final and on the merits and rendered by a competent court, it did not satisfy identity of parties or identity of subject matter in respect of private respondents’ subsequent free patent claims. The 1948 decree approved a partition agreement among certain predecessors-in-interest. Private respondents were not parties to that agreement, and no substantial identity or community of interest between the private respondents and the partitioning parties was demonstrated. Moreover, the subject matter differed in nature: the 1948 Decision approved a partition of a larger parcel, whereas the free patent applications sought to establish occupancy and cultivation rights over the specific tract as a public domain disposition. The Court therefore held that res judicata did not bar private respondents’ free patent applications.

Distinction Between Judicial Confirmation and Free Patents; Statutory Requirements

The Court explained the legal distinction between judicial confirmation of imperfect titles under Section 48 of the Public Land Act and administrative legalization by free patent under Section 44 of the Public Land Act as amended by Republic Act No. 6940. The Court noted that judicial confirmation presumes own

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