UNGAY MALOBAGO MINES, INC., PETITIONER, VS. HON. INTERMEDIATE APPELLATE COURT, DIRECTOR OF LANDS, GREGORIA BOLANOS, AUREA ARAOJO, GERVACIO ARAOJO, MARIA BERNAL, FELIX DETECIO, J…

Before us is a petition which seeks to set aside the decision of
the then Intermediate Appellate Court affirming the dismissal of the
petitioner’s action for annulment and cancellation of free patents granted to the private respondents on the ground that the petitioner has no personality to file an action for reversion, the lands involved
being public in character.

On July 20, 1962,
the President of the Philippines
granted the following mining patents on mineral claims located at Ungay Malobago, Rapu-Rapu, Albay:

“1.  lode patent No. V-52 to John Canson, Jr., on mineral claim known as ‘Catanduandes‘;

  2.  lode patent No. V-48
to petitioner, on mineral claims known as ‘Junior’;

  3.  lode patent No. V-53
to John Canson, Jr., on mineral claims known as ‘Oas‘;

  4.  lode patent No. V-46
to petitioner on mineral claim known as ‘Ester’;

  5.  lode patent No. V-51
to Carlos Stilianopulos on mineral claim knon
as ‘Jovellar‘;

  6.  lode patent No. V-49
to petitioner, in mineral claim known as ‘Manila’;

  7.  lode patent No. V-50
to Carlos Stilianopulos on mineral claim known as ‘Polangui‘; and

  8.  lode patent No. V-47
to petitioner on mineral claim known as ‘Ligao‘; (pp.
5-7, Decision Annex 1, Petition)

Way back on October 30,
1959, John Canson, Jr. and Carlos Stilianopulos assigned their rights to their mining claims
in favor of the petitioner.  The
assignment of rights was recorded in the Office of the Mining Recorder of Albay on December
2, 1959.

The aforestated mining patents, after
their issuance on July 20, 1962,
were all recorded in the Office of the Mining Recorder of Albay
on August 28, 1962 and
transcribed on September 4, 1962
in the Registration Book of the Registry of Deeds of Albay.  Consequently, the Register of Deeds of Albay issued the respective original certificates of titles
pursuant to Section 122 of Act No. 496 in the names of John Canson,
Jr., Carlos Stilianopulos, and the petitioner.

Subsequently, or from 1968 to 1974, the following free patents
were granted by the respondent Director of Lands and the corresponding original
certificates of titles were issued by the Register of Deeds of Albay:

“1.  Free Patent No.
458143 dated October 3, 1968
and corresponding Certificate of Title No. VH-12195 to appellee
Felix Detecio;

2.   Free
Patent No. 427824 dated November 21,
1968 and corresponding Certificate of Title No. VH-12256 to appelle Melanio Asuncion;

3.   Free Patent No. 433318 dated January
10, 1969 and corresponding Certificate of Title No. VH-12198 to appellee Jesus Asuncion;

4.   Free Patents No. 422847 dated November 11, 1968 and No. 421947
dated October 28, 1969 and
corresponding Certificates of Title Nos. VH-12185 and 12186, respectively, to appellee Maria Bernal;

5.   Free Patent No. 408568 dated July 8, 1968 and corresponding
Certificate of Title No. VH-11591
to appellee Gregorio Bolanos;
and

6.   Free Patent No. 0663 dated March 25, 1974 and the corresponding
Certificate of Title No. VH-19333 to appellee
Bienvenido Asuncion.

(Rollo,
pp. 200-201)

All of the above patents covered portions of the lots covered by
the patents belonging to the petitioner.

The petitioner filed a complaint for annulment and cancellation of
patents against the private respondents and prayed that all the free patent
titles issued in their favor for properties over which original certificates of title had already been issued in its
favor be declared null and void.

 The Director of Lands, who was impleaded as a formal defendant, filed his answer alleging,
among others, that the petitioner has
no personality to institute the cancellation proceedings inasmuch as the
government is the grantor and
not the petitioner, and it should
be the grantor who should institute the cancellation
proceedings.

On January 25, 1980,
the trial court rendered a decision dismissing the complaint.  It ruled that since the disputed properties
form part of disposable land of the public domain, the action for reversion should
be instituted by the Solicitor General in the name of the Republic of the Philippines
and that, therefore, the petitioner lacks personality to institute the
annulment proceedings.

The petitioner appealed
to the then Intermediate Appellate Court.

On April 5,
1984, the appellate
court affirmed the decision of the trial court. 
It ruled that the titles issued to the petitioner cover mineral lands
which belong to the public domain and that these cannot be the subject of
private ownership.  According to the
Court, under Section 101 of the Public Land Law, only the Solicitor General or
the officer acting in his stead has the authority to insitute
an action on behalf of the Republic for the cancellation of the respondents’
titles and and for reversion of their homesteads to
the Government.

In this instant petition,
the petitioner raises two issues: 
a) Whether or not the appellate court committed an error of law when it ruled that the lands in question belong to the public domain; and b)
whether or not the appellate court erred in dismissing the complaint on
the ground that the petitioner
had no personality to institute the same.

With regard to the first issue, the petitioner maintains that since its mining claims were perfected
prior to November 15, 1935, the date when the 1935 Constitution took effect,
the applicable law is the Philippine Bill of 1902 and that under this Act, a
valid location of a mining claim segregates the area from the
public domain.  (Gold Creek Mining
Corporation v. Rodriguez, 66 Phil. 259).

The Solicitor-General, on
the other hand, argues that the petitioner’s mining patents covered by Torrens Titles were granted only in 1962 by the President of the Philippines, by authority of the Constitution of the Philippines. 
Under the then Constitution, except for public agricultural lands,
natural resources which includes all mineral lands, shall not be
alienated.  (Art. XIII, Section 1, 1935
Constitution) Therefore, what
the mining patents issued in 1962 conveyed to petitioner was only the
ownership of, and the right to extract and utilize, the minerals within the area covered
by the petitioner’s Torrens Titles but not the ownership of the land where the
minerals are found.

We rule for the private
respondents.

The petitioner has been
beguiling, less than candid, and
inexplicably silent as to material dates in the presentation of its
case.  Nowhere in the records of this
petition is there any mention of a date before November 15, 1935 as to when essential acts regarding its
mining claims were executed.  It is
silent as to when the land was entered, measured, and plotted; when the legal
pests and notices were put up; when the claim was registered with the mining
recorder; whether or not the annual amount of labor or development; and
other requirements under the Philippine Bill of 1902 were followed.  These may have been complied with but not
necessarily before 1935.

A mere mention in the Torrens title that
the provisions of the Philippine Bill of 1902 were followed is not
sufficient.  The Philippine Bill provides
the procedures for the perfection of mining claims but not the dates when such
procedures were undertaken by any prospector or claimant.  The same
procedures would have to be followed even after the Jones Law of 1916 and the
Constitution of 1935 were promulgated, but subject to the restrictions of the
fundamental law.  The petitioner has
failed to state if and when new procedures, different from the 1902 procedures,
were provided by law to give a little substance to its case.  The petitioner is completely and strangely
silent about these vital aspects of its petition.

Petitioner has not established by clear and convincing evidence
that the locations of its mining claims were perfected prior to November 15, 1935 when the
Government of Commonwealth was inaugurated. 
In fact neither the original complaint nor the amended one alleged the perfection
of petitioner’s mining rights prior to November 15, 1935.  All
that petitioner offers as evidence of its
claims were the original certificates of titles covering mining patents which embodied a uniform “WHEREAS” clause stating
that the petitioner “has fully complied with all the
conditions, requirements, and provisions of the Act of the United States of Congress of July 1, 1902, as amended, x x x” In the absence
of proof that the petitioner’s claims were perfected prior to the 1935
Constitution, the provision of the latter with regard to inalienable lands of
the public domain will apply.

Article XIII, Section 1
of the 1935 Constitution provides:

“All agricultural, timber, and mineral lands of the public
domain, waters, minerals, coal, petroleum, and other mineral oils, all forces
of potential energy, and other natural resources of the Philippines belong to the State, and their disposition, exploitation,
development, or utilization shall be limited to citizens of the Philippines, or
to corporations or associations at least sixty per centum of the
capital of which is owned by such citizens, subject to any existing right,
grant, lease, or concession at the time of the inauguration of the Government
established under this Constitution.  Natural
resources, with the exception of public agricultural land, shall not be
alienated and no license, concession, or lease for the exploitation,
development, or utilization of any of the natural resources shall be granted
for a period exceeding twenty-five years, renewable for another twenty-five
years, except as to water rights for irrigation, water supply, fisheries, or industrial uses other than the development of water
power, in which cases beneficial use may
be the measure and the limit of the grant.” (Emphasis supplied)

Therefore, applying the aforequoted
provision to the case at bar, we conclude that the issuance of the lode patents
on mineral claims by the President of the Philippines in 1962 in favor of the
petitioner granted to it only the right to extract or utilize the minerals
which may be found on or under the surface of the land.  On the other hand, the issuance of the free
patents by the respondent Director of Lands in 1979 in favor of the private
respondents granted to them the ownership and the right to use the land for
agricultural purposes but excluding the ownership of, and the right to extract
or utilize, the minerals which may be found on or under the surface.

There is no basis in the records for the petitioner’s stand that
it acquired the right to the mineral lands prior to the effectivity
of the 1935 Constitution, thus, making such acquisition outside its purview and
scope.

Every application for a concession of public land has to be
viewed in the light of its peculiar circumstances.  (Director of Lands v. Funtilar,
142 SCRA 57, 69).

In the case at bar, although the original certificates of titles
of the petitioner were issued prior to the titles of the private respondents,
the former cannot prevail over the latter for the provisions of the
Constitution which governed at the time of their issuance prohibited the
alienation of mineral lands of the public domain.

In the case of Republic v. Animas (56 SCRA 499), this
Court ruled that a grantee does not become the owner of a land illegally
included in the grant just because title has been issued in his favor:

“A patent is void at law if the officer who issued the patent
had no authority to do so (Knight v. Land Ass., 142 U.S.
161, 12 Sup. Ct., 258, 35L ED.
974; italics supplied).  If a person
obtains a title under the Public Land Act which includes, by mistake or
oversight, lands which cannot be registered under the Torrens System, or when
the Director of lands did not have jurisdiction over the same because it is a
public forest, the grantee does not, by virtue of said certificate of title
alone, become the owner of the land illegally included.  (See Ledesma v. Municipality
of Iloilo, 49 Phil. 769)”

Moreover, patents and land grants are construed favorably in
favor of the Government, and most strongly against the grantee.  Any doubt as to the intention or extent of
the grant, or the intention of the Government, is to be resolved in its
favor.  (See Republic v.
Court of Appeals, 73 SCRA 146, 156). 
Hence, as earlier stated, in the absence of proof that the petitioner
acquired the right of ownership over the mineral lands prior to the 1935
Constitution, the titles issued in its favor must be construed as conveying
only the right to extract and utilize the minerals thereon.

The appellate court did not likewise err in concluding that the
petitioner has no personality to institute the action below for annulment and
cancellation of patents.  The mineral
lands over which it has a right to extract minerals remained part of the
inalienable lands of the public domain and thus, only the Solicitor General or
the person acting in his stead can bring an action for reversion.  (See Sumail v.
Judge of the Court of First Instance of Cotabato, et
al., 96 Phil. 946; and Heirs of Tanak Pangawaran Patiwayan v. Martinez,
142 SCRA 252).

WHEREFORE, the petition is hereby DISMISSED for
lack of merit.  The decision of the
Intermediate Appellate Court is AFFIRMED.  Costs against the petitioner.

SO ORDERED.

Fernan, (Chairman), Feliciano, Bidin, and Cortes, JJ., concur.