THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLANT, VS. ENCARNACION JACOBO, DEFENDANT AND APPELLEE.

Appeal from an order of the Court of First Instance of Bulacan, Hon.
Angel H. Mojica, presiding, granting a motion to quash the information
filed in said court against Encarnacion Jacobo for violation of Section
25-A in relation with Section 47 of Act No. 2152, as amended by Act
3208 of the Revised Administrative Code.

The record discloses that the present case originated with an
information filed in the Justice of the Peace Court of Guiguinto,
Bulacan, charging Encarnacion Jacobo with having violated an order of
the Secretary of Public Works and Communications directing her to
remove whatever obstruction she may have placed in the bed of Sapang Cabay
and to restore the bed of said stream to its original condition within
30 days from her receipt of said order. Trial of the case was held in
the said court, after which the justice of the peace held that the
evidence shows beyond reasonable doubt that the accused was guilty of
the charge. So she was fined in the sum of P20.00, with coats. Against
the said judgment the appeal was prosecuted to the Court of First
Instance where a new information was filed by the provincial fiscal.
Upon the docketing of the appeal in this court, a motion to quash was
presented and the judge, acting thereon, dismissed the case, holding:

“Acting upon the motion to quash and the opposition
thereto, and it appearing that ‘the prosecution concedes that the
accused applied for a free patent which was granted and Original
Certificate of Title No. P-134 was issued in her favor by the President
of the Philippines on December 29, 1963 which was correspondingly
spread in the records of the Bureau of Lands and duly registered in the
Register of Deeds of Bulacan on February 4, 1954’, it seems clear that
she could not be held guilty of having violated the provisions of Sec.
25-A in relation with Sec. 47 of Act 2152, as amended by Act 3208 of
the Revised Administrative Code, allegedly committed during the period
from December 17, 1955 to July 1956, as she was then the legal and
absolute owner of the property in question. It was no longer public
land but a private property of defendant. In the instant case there is
no showing that mistake or oversight has been committed by the
authorities concerned in the issuance of the title to the property in
question so much so that the doctrine in the case of Ledesma vs.
Municipality of Iloilo, 49 Phil., 769 invoked by the Fiscal is not
controlling.”

The Solicitor General has appealed from the above order, and in his
Brief he argues that according to the motion to quash itself, one Petra
Gatmaitan occupied prior to 1936 a portion of Sapang Cabay; that said
Petra Gatmaitan transferred her rights to Modesto Pascual who, in turn,
transferred his rights to the defendant; that the latter applied for a
free patent which was granted by the Secretary of Agriculture and
Natural Resources on December 29, 1953; and that an original
certificate of title was issued to defendant on February 4, 1954. The
order of the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources, which
ordered defendant to remove the gate of her fishpond on the ground that
the said gate was obstructing a public stream, was rendered on November
16, 1955.

A study of the information discloses that defendant-appellee had
been ordered to remove obstructions that she had placed in the bed of
Sapang Cabay. There is no allegation in the information that the Sapang
Cabay is a river within the meaning of Article 420 of the Civil Code.
The name of the stream itself indicates that it is only a creek. The
claim of the Solicitor General that no rights could have been acquired
by the defendant-appellee to the bed of the stream even though title
thereto had been issued, cannot be sustained. The Solicitor General
argues that it is not questioned that the Sapang Cabay is a
public stream. There is no allegation to such effect in the
information, and there is no statement in the motion to quash wherein
an admission of said fact is made by the defendant-appellee. The
Solicitor General further argues that a Torrens title of the
defendant-appellee speaks of an agricultural public land, so that a
public stream could not be deemed to have been included in
defendant-appellee’s patent. The trouble with the stand of the
Solicitor General is that it assumes that the Sapang Cabay is a public stream when the information filed by the fiscal himself contains no allegation to such effect.

But assuming for the sake of argument that the defendant-appellee
has included a public stream or has appropriated public waters in
violation of the provisions of Act No. 2152, as amended, the possession
by the defendant of a title to the property, which we assume to include
the obstruction sought to be removed, should preclude the existence of
malice or bad faith on her part. It is only after a judicial
declaration declaring the Sapang Cabay to be a public stream
or excluding the portion of the Sapang Cabay occupied by the gates of
the defendant-appellee’s land from the title of the latter, that
defendant-appellee may be held liable for maintaining the obstruction
or the gate in violation of the order of the Secretary of Public Works
and Communications.

The order of dismissal of the information is hereby affirmed, without costs. So ordered.

Paras, C. J., Bengzon, Bautista Angelo, Concepcion, Endencia, and Gutierrez David, JJ., concur.
Padilla and Barrera, JJ., concur in the result.