GR 193443; (April, 2012) (Digest)
G.R. No. 193443 ; April 16, 2012
JEAN TAN, et al., represented by MA. WILHELMINA E. TOBIAS, Petitioners, vs. REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, Respondent.
FACTS
Petitioners filed an application for land registration over a parcel of land in Indang, Cavite. They claimed acquisition through a 1996 Deed of Absolute Sale from Gregonio Gatdula and asserted that they and their predecessors-in-interest had been in open, continuous, exclusive, and notorious possession in the concept of an owner for more than 30 years. The Regional Trial Court (RTC) granted their application. The Republic appealed, and the Court of Appeals (CA) reversed the RTC, finding that petitioners failed to prove possession for the requisite period. The CA noted that the property was declared alienable and disposable only on June 21, 1983, and that petitioners’ possession, reckoned from that date, totaled only 18 years by the 2001 filing. It also found the evidence of possession, primarily tax declarations, insufficient to establish acts of dominion.
ISSUE
Whether petitioners have acquired a registrable title to the subject land through prescription under Section 14(2) of Presidential Decree No. 1529.
RULING
The Supreme Court denied the petition and affirmed the CA. The legal logic is anchored on the classification of the property and the applicable prescriptive period. For public agricultural lands, acquisitive prescription under Section 14(2) requires possession for at least thirty (30) years. Critically, this 30-year prescriptive period can only commence from the time the State officially reclassifies the property from public dominion to patrimonial property, making it susceptible to acquisition by prescription. The Court found that the subject land, while declared alienable and disposable in 1983, was only officially converted from agricultural to residential (a clear act of conversion to patrimonial) by a Department of Agrarian Reform Conversion Order dated July 13, 2000. Therefore, the counting of the 30-year period for prescription could only begin on July 13, 2000. From that date until the filing of the application on June 14, 2001, less than one year had elapsed. Consequently, petitioners could not have complied with the 30-year requirement. Their evidence of possession by predecessors-in-interest prior to the conversion order is irrelevant for prescription under Section 14(2), as possession over property still classified as public dominion does not ripen into ownership.