[ G.R. No. 1935. November 06, 1906 ] 6 Phil. 600
[ G.R. No. 1935. November 06, 1906 ]
CLARA ALFONSO BUENAVENTURA, PETITIONER AND APPELLEE, VS. THE COMMANDING GENERAL OF THE DIVISION OF THE PHILIPPINES, RESPONDENT AND APPELLANT. D E C I S I O N
ARELLANO, C.J.:
Judgment having been rendered in this case by the two judges of the Court of Land Registration, S. del Rosario and D. R, Williams, there was no motion for a new trial, and by a bill of exceptions and agreement between the parties that there was no issue of fact between them, there was presented directly to this court the opposition of the commanding general of the Division of the Philippines to the petition of Clara Alfonso Buenaventura that she be declared the owner of a parcel of land, with the building thereon, situated on Corregidor Island, Calles Churruca and Colon No. 2, municipality of San Jose, with an area of 172.82 square meters.
The following facts are admitted by the contestant and stated in the judgment: (1). “That the petitioner has been in possession of this land for more than thirty years, as shown by testimony at the trial, of herself and witnesses, and by the expediente posesorio recorded in the Registry o£ Property of Cavite on December 21, 1901.” (2) That “in spite of the ownership which she sets up, the petitioner, on the 15th of January, 1903, executed against her will a contract of lease in favor of the commanding general of the Division of the Philippines of this land, after a protest made on the 4th of said month in the municipal building of Corregidor Island and presented on the 8th to the Civil Governor of the Islands.” (Bill of exceptions, p. 2.)
The basis of the opposition is as follows: That all the land of Corregidor Island was declared a military reservation by the President of the United States in the executive order of April 16, 1902, and that all land declared by the President of the United States to be a military reservation is not subject to the legislative action of the Philippine Commission, nor to the effect of the laws of said Commission, nor as a consequence is it within the jurisdiction of any class of courts in the Philippine Islands; it being assumed that all military reservations are expressly excluded from the control granted to the Philippine Commission by the act of Congress of July 1,1902, section 12.
The trial court sets out as the principal basis of its decision in favor of the petitioner the following, literally quoted: “Sectioii 6 of Act No. 627 of the Civil Commission of these Islands enacted February 9 of last year (1903) provides, that lands not exceeding 16 hectares, as is the case herein, lying within military reservations, may be acquired by ordinary ^prescription of ten years, even though they may be considered public lands for failure to perfect their reduction to private ownership by ‘composicion’ with the Government in due time, in accordance with the legislation then in force concerning appropriation of Government lands.” (Bill of exceptions, p. 2.)
But the contestant insists that “the aforesaid act of Congress nullifies all those parts of the acts of the Philippine Civil Commission Numbered 627, 496 enacted on the 6th of November, 1.902, and 809 enacted on the 27th of July, 1903, that grant title’s of ownership of land lying on Corregidor Island to all those who had not titles perfected prior to April 11, 1902, or which were declared or confirmed in a private party subsequent to this date by the honorable court in pursuance of the legislation of the Philippine Civil Commission.” (Bill of exceptions, p. 3.)
The assignment of errors is limited to the following points: That the trial court erred in holding:
“1. That a possession of thirty years authorizes the registration of an absolute title in favor of the petitioner.
“2. That ordinary possession for ten years authorizes the registration of a complete and sufficient title in favor of the petitioner.
“3. That the ‘informacion posesoria’ recorded in the Registry of Property of Cavite on December 21, 1901, authorizes the registration of title in favor of the petitioner.” It is very evident that the trial court did not err in any of these three respects; it did not take into consideration only a possession for ten years or for thirty years, nor only the ’expediente de information posesoria’ for the adjudication of the land and the certification of the title of ownership. It took into consideration that the applicant is a native of the Philippine Islands, that the land is not greater than 16 hectares in area, and the possession for more than ten years on the 13th of August, 1898, and has taken into account:
First. Section 14 of the aforesaid act of Congress of July 1, 1902, which in its second part reads as follows:
“The Philippine Commission is authorized to issue patents without compensation to any native of said Islands, conveying title to any tract of land not more than sixteen hectares in extent, which were public lands and had been actually occupied by such native or his ancestors prior to and on the thirteenth of August, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight.”
Second. Section 6 of Act No. 627 of the Philippine Commission, approved February 9, 1903, is as follows: “The provisions of sections thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty, forty-one, and forty-two of Act Numbered One hundred and ninety, entitled ‘An Act providing a Code of Procedure in Civil Actions and Special Proceedings in the Philippine Islands,’ are hereby made applicable to all lands not more than sixteen hectares in extent within the limits of any military reservation, notwithstanding such lands would be public lands were it not for titles acquired in the manner stated in said sections thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty, forty-one, and forty-two.” In short, land of not more than 16 hectares in area within a military reservation may hereafter be acquired by ten years’ prescription, although because of its character as public land it could not heretofore have been acquired by prescriptive title.
This court has nothing to decide concerning the objections raised to such a decision of the Court of Land Registration in accordance throughout with the provisions of law, but the contention of the contestant is that Act No. 627 of the Philippine Commission, upon which the court has based its decision, is contrary to section 12 of the act of Congress.
It will be well to quote this and the following sections referring to public lands:
“SEC. 12. That all the property and rights which may have been acquired in the Philippine Islands by the United States under the treaty of peace with Spain, signed December tenth, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, except such land or other property as shall be designated by the President of the United States for military and other reservations of the Government of the United States, are hereby placed under the control of the Government of said Islands, to be administered for the benefit of the inhabitants thereof, except as provided in this act.
“SEC. 13. That the Government of the Philippine Islands, subject to the provisions of this act and except as herein provided, shall classify according to its agricultural character and productiveness, and shall immediately make rules and regulations for the lease, sale, or other disposition of the public lands other than timber or mineral lands, but such rules and regulations shall not go into effect or have the force of law until they have received the approval of the President, and when approved by the President they shall be submitted by him to Congress at the beginning of the next ensuing session thereof and unless disapproved or amended by Congress at said session they shall at the close of such period have the force and effect of law in the Philippine Islands: Provided, That a single homestead entry shall not exceed sixteen hectares in extent.
“SEC. 14. That the Government “of the Philippine Islands is hereby authorized and empowered to enact rules and regulations and to prescribe terms and conditions to enable persons to perfect their title to public lands in said Islands, who, prior to the transfer of sovereignty from Spain to the United States, had fulfilled all or some of the conditions required by the Spanish laws and royal decrees of the Kingdom of Spain for the acquisition of legal title thereto, yet failed to secure conveyance of title; and the Philippine Commission is authorized, to issue patents, without compensation, to any native of said Islands, conveying title to any tract of land not more than sixteen hectares in extent which were public lands and had been actually occupied by such native or his ancestors prior to and on the thirteenth of August, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight.”
There appears to us to be great weight in the argument contained in the following paragraphs from the brief herein filed by W. H. Lawrence, as amicus curie.
“Considering the question from another point of view, we reach the same conclusion. Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that at the time when the act of Congress of July 1, 1902, was passed, the land subject of the present action had not been converted from public domain to private property, and let it be admitted hypothetically that section 6 of Act No. 627 and paragraph 6 of section 54 of Act No. 926 should be interpreted, not as rules of evidence but as general grants of public lands. As such grants they are valid and authorized by Congress. This will clearly appear from a careful examination of sections 12, 13, and 14 of the Philippine Bill. Section 12 excepts from the general grant of pubjic lands to the Government of the Islands all those which the President may reserve for military purposes. Section 13 provides for the alienation of such public agricultural lands as are unoccupied and to which private parties have not acquired partial or imperfect rights. Section 14 authorizes the Government of the Philippine Islands to perfect the titles of such persons as have complied partially with the requirements for the grant of public lands, and the titles of those natives whose mere possession antedates the 13th day of August, 1898.
“It is to be noted that in section 13 Congress prohibits the alienation of purely public lands within military reservations, using the phrase ‘in accordance with the provisions and limitations of this act while in section 14, which authorizes the completion of inchoate titles, there is no mention of limitations or exceptions whatever.
“The evident intention of Congress was to recognize three classes of lands in these Islands: (1) Lands of private ownership; (2) lands of purely public character; and (3) lands occupied or claimed, with some semblance of equity, by private parties, but in respect to which there exists no known grant from the Government. It was the purpose of Congress to reserve a portion from the second class for military purposes, and to convey the rest to the Government of £he Philippine Islands for the benefit of the people of the Islands. With respect to the third class, Congress directed that patents should be issued to the occupants who were established thereon or to persons who had acquired equities therein, and that the ownership of such occupants and equitable owners of said lands should be confirmed. Section 54 of Act No. 926 and section 6 of Act No. 627 were intended to advance and carry out this purpose, and in ratifying Act No. 926, Congress, as well as the President, confirmed this intention and the means adopted for carrying it into effect.
“To assert that Congress had the intention of authorizing the confirmation of inchoate titles in the native residents of Bulacan and to refuse a like privilege to the residents of Corregidor Island is to suppose unjust, illogical, unnatural, and very unequal legislation, and to doubt the beneficent purposes of the American nation toward the Filipino people. Some of the military reservations were established before the Philippine bill was passed, some have been chosen since that date, and it is probable that others will be selected hereafter. Is it possible that Congress could have intended to destroy the possessory and equitable rights of occupants within the limits of the old reservations and t6 confirm such rights in favor of those who live on reservations established subsequent to the date on which the law of public lands went into force? Can we attribute to Congress the intention of extending their favor .to some Filipinos and of refusing it to others in like conditions, determining the selection by chance or in accordance with geographical limitations?”
As a matter of fact, within the limits of a military reservation already established or to be established hereafter, there may be found land of private ownership, with a perfect and complete title, or land which has not yet passed to private ownership, but which is in the possession of a private party, or to which the private party has an initial, imperfect, and incomplete title.
There are two cases. In the first case, if within the limits of a military reservation there is land of private ownership with a perfect and complete title, the contestant himself recognizes that it can not be comprised in the reservation, for in his brief he says that the laws of the Philippine Commission are ineffectual to confer titles of ownership of land situated on Corregidor Island “upon those who had not absolute titles prior to the 11th day of April, 1902;” from which it may be inferred that such laws would not be ineffectual if the titles were absolute, and consequently that the Philippine Commission is competent to enact laws providing that when a military reservation is announced, an owner of land comprised therein may object to its being included. For this purpose, it is provided in Act No. 627 that the Governor-General give due notice of the reservation to the judge of the Court of Land Registration, advising him that all lands, buildings, and rights in real property of private parties included within the described boundaries (of the reservation) must immediately be brought within the law of registration of property and be registered as such law provides (sec. 2). And in section 1 it is provided that such lands “as are not declared public lands shall be registered in accordance with said law.” This is the first application of the control or administration which the Congress of the United States has granted to the Government of the .Philippine Islands.
The treaty of Paris not only safeguarded the right of ownership, but also such rights as pertain in accordance with law to the peaceful possessor of property of all kinds, and Congress in the said law, in the second paragraph of section 14, authorized the Philippine Commission—and this is the second case—to convert possession into ownership, or, in other words, “to issue patents without compensation to any native of said Islands, conveying title to any tract of land not more than sixteen hectares in extent which were public lands and had been actually occupied by such native or his ancestors prior to and on the thirteenth day of August, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight.” Public land “before and on the thirteenth day of August, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight,” was public land before the treaty of Paris and before any military reservation, and yet possession of this public land on or before the 13th of August, 1898, was sufficient so that after the act of Congress it might be converted into private property and excluded from any reservation which might be established.
If for the sole reason of being now found within the limits of a military reservation, land is free from the control and disposition of the Insular Government, we are unable to understand how the Insular Government or the Philippine Commission can carry into force the provisions of the act of Congress contained in the three sections above quoted.
With like effect as possession existing on or before the 13th of August, 1898, Congress has taken into consideration the applications for titles to public lands presented before the change of sovereignty and which were then pending award or “composicion” or issuance of patent, such applications, being prior to the treaty of Paris and before the possibility of any reservation, and being considered by Congress an initial right or an imperfect title, in accordance with section 14 of the act of Congress, might be perfected and converted into an effective right and a perfect title of ownership. It is not only those public lands which remain after deducting the assignments for military reservations or for other purposes which fall within the control or administration of the Insular Government. Even such public lands as are found within the limits of a reservation, military or otherwise, if on or before the 13th day of August they were in possession of a native and did not exceed 16 hectares in area, fall or remain under the control and administration of the Insular Government, in order that the Philippine Commission may, in accordance with the law of Congress, exclude them from such reservation and issue with respect to them free patents or certificates of ownership.
Therefore, the final exception of section 12, “except as provided in this act,” is not the same exception contained in the foregoing text of the section, “except such as shall be designated for military reservations,” etc., but refers to the exceptions or limitations contained in the other sections of the act relative to public lands.
In addition to the right of ownership and the right of possession and other rights in real property of private character safeguarded by the treaty of Paris, Congres&has placed at the disposition and under the control of the Insular Government of the Philippines, to be converted into a right of private ownership, the actual visible possession on or before the 13th of August, 1898, and the right to a title or title unperfected at the time of the change of sovereignty, this possession and right existing prior to the treaty of Paris, by virtue of the act of Congress, established as private the public lands conveyed by Spain to the United States in said treaty. Thus it is that the action and the powers of the Government and of the Commission embrace all the public lands in the Philippine Islands, so that by means of laws and orders there may be carried out the intention of Congress that from the public lands which are to constitute reservations, military or otherwise, as well as from the rest which are to be at the free disposition and administration of the Insular Government, there may be segregated those parts of the public lands to which there is proven either a right of possession or an application for title prior to the change of sovereignty.
We therefore affirm in all respects the judgment appealed from. So ordered.
Torres, Mapa, and Johnson, JJ., concur.