GR 211810; (August, 2019) (Digest)
G.R. No. 211810 , August 28, 2019
MILA B. RECAMARA, Petitioner, vs. PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, Respondent
FACTS
Petitioner Mila B. Recamara filed a petition for judicial reconstitution of Original Certificate of Title (OCT) No. 0-10245 before the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Dipolog City. She claimed her grandparents, spouses Macario Arellano and Damiana Dalman, were the owners in fee simple of a 486-square meter parcel, Lot No. 551 of the Dapitan Cadastre. As evidence, she presented a certified copy of Decree No. 299019, issued by the Court of First Instance of Zamboanga on October 25, 1929, which decreed Macario Arellano as the owner of Lot No. 551. An annotation on the decree, written in Spanish, indicated it was inscribed as OCT No. 10245. After Macario’s death, his heirs extrajudicially partitioned the lot. While processing the issuance of separate titles, they discovered the owner’s duplicate of OCT No. 0-10245 was missing, and the Registry of Deeds had no record of it. The RTC granted the petition, ordering the reconstitution of OCT No. 0-10245 based on Decree No. 299019. The Republic, through the OSG, appealed. The Court of Appeals reversed the RTC, holding that Mila failed to present any of the documents enumerated in Section 3 of Republic Act No. 26 (governing reconstitution of transfer certificates of title) and that the evidence failed to establish OCT No. 0-10245 was ever issued.
ISSUE
1. Whether the Court of Appeals erred in applying Section 3 of R.A. No. 26 .
2. Whether the Court of Appeals erred in failing to appreciate Decree No. 299019 as a sufficient basis for reconstitution.
RULING
1. Yes, the Court of Appeals erred in applying Section 3 of R.A. No. 26 . The petition was for the reconstitution of an original certificate of title, which is governed by Section 2 of R.A. No. 26 . Section 2(d) allows reconstitution based on “[a]n authenticated copy of the decree of registration… pursuant to which the original certificate of title was issued.”
2. No, the Court of Appeals did not err in ultimately denying the petition. While Decree No. 299019 is a proper source under Section 2(d), the Supreme Court scrutinized its intrinsic authenticity. The decree contained a fatal defect: it was issued on October 25, 1929, but the annotation stating it was inscribed as OCT No. 10245 was dated October 24, 1929—one day before the decree’s issuance. This chronological impossibility rendered the decree spurious. Reconstitution proceedings presuppose the prior existence of the certificate of title and aim to restore it. A spurious decree cannot be a basis for reconstitution, as it threatens the integrity of the Torrens system. Therefore, the petition for judicial reconstitution was correctly denied for lack of merit. The Decision and Resolution of the Court of Appeals were affirmed.