G.R. No. 94525 . January 27, 1992.
Director of Land Management, petitioner, vs. Court of Appeals (Seventh Division) and Pompeyo Maliwat and Amelia G. Maliwat, respondents.

FACTS

Feliciano Juco and his predecessors-in-interest had been in open, continuous, exclusive, and notorious possession of a 16-hectare parcel of land in Tanay, Rizal, since 1939, cultivating it and building a house thereon. In 1957, the land was surveyed, and sales applications by others were filed with the Bureau of Lands. Juco protested and, after administrative proceedings, was adjudged on December 18, 1969, to have the preferential right to purchase the property, which was then still classified as public land. He filed his own application to purchase on August 29, 1971.
Subsequently, Juco died. His heirs sold the property to spouses Pompeyo and Amelia Maliwat in 1972. The Maliwats thereafter filed an application for registration of title. The Director of Lands opposed, asserting the land was public. The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s decision ordering registration in favor of the Maliwats, prompting this petition by the Director.

ISSUE

Whether the subject land remained public land or had been converted to private property through Juco’s possession, thereby making it registrable under the Torrens system in favor of the Maliwats.

RULING

The Supreme Court denied the petition and affirmed the Court of Appeals. The land had become private property through Juco’s open, continuous, exclusive, and adverse possession in the concept of an owner since 1939. This possession, when tacked to the Maliwats’ possession after their purchase in 1972, far exceeded the 30-year period required under Section 48(b) of the Public Land Act ( Commonwealth Act No. 141 , as amended).
The Court applied the established doctrine that such possession for the statutory period ipso jure converts alienable public land into private property. A legal fiction arises whereby the possessor is conclusively presumed to have performed all conditions for a government grant, and title vests without the need for an official certificate. Consequently, Juco’s subsequent administrative application to purchase in 1971 did not negate the title that had already vested in him prior to that filing. The land was thus beyond the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Lands at the time of the Maliwats’ application for registration, which was properly granted.