AURELIO BALBIN AND FRANCISCO BALBIN, PETITIONERS, VS. REGISTER OF DEEDS OF ILOCOS SUR, RESPONDENT.

Appeal from the resolution of the Commissioner of Land
Registration in LRC Consulta No. 366.

On November 15, 1961 petitioners presented to the register of
deeds of Ilocos Sur a
duplicate copy of the registered owners certificate of title (OCT No. 548) and
an instrument entitled “Deed of Donation inter-vivos”,
with the request that; the same be annotated on the title.  Under the terms of the instrument sought to
be annotated one Cornelio Balbin, registered owner of
the parcel of land described in OCT No. 548, appears to have donated inter-vivos an undivided two-thirds (2/3) portion thereof in
favor of petitioners.  The entire area of
the land is 11.2225 hectares.

The register of deeds denied the requested annota­tion for being
“legally defective or otherwise not sufficient in
law.” It appears that previously annotated in the memorandum of encumbrances
on the certificate are three separate sales of undivided portions of the land
earlier executed by Cornelio Balbin in favor of three
different buyers.  The pertinent entries
read:

“Entry No. 5658.  Sales.

Sale for the sum of
P400.00 executed by the registered owner, conveying an undivided portion of an
area of 3.710 square meters only in favor of Florentino
Gabayan, this Original Certificate of Title No. 548
is hereby cancelled with respect to said area of 3.710 square meters and in
lieu thereof, the name of the vendee x x x is hereby substituted to succeed to all rights,
participation in interest of the vendor. 
x x x

“Date of Instrument:  January 25, 1955, x x
x

x          x          x

“Entry No. 5659.  Sale of portion.

Sale for the sum of P100.00
executed by the registered owner, conveying an undivided portion of an area of
16.713 square meters in favor of Roberto Bravo, this Original Certificate of
Title No. 548 is hereby cancelled with respect to said undivided portion x x x and in lieu thereof the name
of the vendee x x x is
hereby substituted to succeed to all rights, participation and interest of the
vendor x x x

“Date of Instrument: 
June 9, 1953.  x x x

x          x          x

“Entry No. 5660.  Sale of portion.

Sale for the sum of
P400.00 executed by the registered owner, conveying an undivided portion of an
area of 15.000 square meters in favor of Juana Gabayan,
this Certificate of Title No. 548 is hereby cancelled with respect to said
undivided portion x x x and
in lieu there­of the name of the vendee x x x is here­by substituted to succeed to all rights,
participation and interest of the vendor x x x

“Date of instrument: 
February 12, 1952.  x x x“

The final part of the annotations referring to the
above-mentioned sales contains an additional memorandum stating that
“three co-owner’s duplicate certificates of title No. 548 have been issued
(by the register of deeds of Ilocos Sur) in the name of Florentino Gabayan, Roberto Bravo and Juana Gabayan
upon verbal request of Mr. Andres Cabeldo, Notary
Public of Caoayan, I. Sur,
for and in the name of the vendees, this 5th day of January, 1956 at Vigan, I. Sur.” Mainly
because these three other co-owner’s copies of the certificate of title No. 548
had not been pre­sented by petitioners the Register of Deeds refused to make
the requested annotation.

Unsatisfied, petitioners referred the matter to the Commissioner
of Land Registration, who subsequently upheld the action of the Register of
Deeds in a resolution dated April 10, 1962. 
With respect to the principal point in controversy, the Commissioner
observed:

“(1)  It appears that the donor is now merely a
co-owner of the property described in the Original Certificate of Title No.
548, having previously sold undivided portions thereof on three different
occasions in favor of three different buyers. 
Consequently, aside from the owner’s duplicate issued to Cornelio Balbin, there are now three co-owner’s duplicates which are
pre­sumably in the possession of the three buyers.  Accordingly, in addition to the owner’s duplicate
of Original Certificate of Title No. 548, the three co-owner’s duplicates must
likewise be surrendered.  The claim of
counsel for the donees that the issuance of the three
co-owner’s duplicates was unauthorized is beside the point.  Unless end until a court of competent
jurisdiction rules to the contrary, these titles are presumed to have been
lawfully issued.”

Without presenting those three (3) other duplicates of the title,
petitioners would want to compel annotation of the deed of donation upon the
copy in their possession, citing section 55 of Act 496, which provides that
“the pro­duction of the owner’s duplicate certificate of title whenever
any voluntary instrument is presented for regis­tration shall be conclusive
authority from the registered owner to the register of deeds to make a
memorandum of registration in accordance with such instrument.” Under this
provision, according to petitioners, the presentation of the other copies of
the title is not required, first, because it speaks of “registered
owner” and not one whose claim to or interest in the property is merely
annotated on the title, such as the three vendees-co-owners in this case; and
secondly, because the issuance of the duplicate copies in their favor was
illegal or unauthorized.

We find no merit in petitioners’ contention.  Sec­tion 55, supra, obviously assumes
that there is only one duplicate copy of the title in question, namely, that of
the registered owner himself, such that its production when­ever a voluntary
instrument is presented constitutes sufficient authority from him for the
register of deeds to make the corresponding memorandum of registration.  In the case at bar, the three other copies of
the title were in existence, presumably issued under section 43+ of
Act 496.  As correctly observed by the
Land Registration Commissioner, petitioners’ claim that the issuance of those
copies was unauthorized or illegal is beside the point, its legality being
presumed until otherwise declared by a court of competent jurisdic­tion.  There being several copies of the same title
in existence, it is easy to see how their integrity may be ad­versely affected
if an encumbrance, or an outright conveyance, is annotated on one copy and not
on the others.  The law itself refers to
every copy authorized to be issued as a duplicate of the original, which means
that both must con­tain identical entries of the transactions, particularly
voluntary ones, affecting the land covered by the title.  If this were not so, if
different copies were permitted to carry differing annotations, the whole
system of Torrens registration would cease to be reliable.

One other ground relied upon by the Land Registration
Commissioner in upholding the action taken by the Register of Deeds of Ilocos Sur is that since the property
subject of the donation is presumed conjugal, that is, property of the marriage
of the donor, Cornelio Balbin, and his deceased wife,
Nemesia Mina, “there should first be a
liquidation of the partnership before the surviving spouse may make such a conveyance.”
This legal conclusion may appear too general and sweeping in its implications,
for without a previous settlement of the partnership a surviving spouse may
dispose of his aliquot share or interest therein – subject of course to the
result of future liquidation. 
Nevertheless, it is not to be denied that, if the conjugal character of
the property is assumed, the deed of donation executed by the husband, Cornelio
Balbin, bears on its face an infirmity which
justified the denial of its registration, namely, the fact that the two-thirds
portion of said property which he donated was more than his one-half share, not
to say more than what remained of such share after he had sold portions of the
same Land to three other parties.

It appears that there is a case pending in the Court of First
Instance of Ilocos Sur (CC
No. 2221), wherein the civil status of the donor Cornelio Balbin
and the character of the land in question are in issue, as well as the validity
of the different conveyances executed by him.  The matter of registration of the deed of
donation may well await the out­come of that case, and in the meantime the
rights of the interested parties could be protected by filing the proper
notices of lis pendens.

In view of the
foregoing, the decisions of the Register of Deeds of Ilocos Sur and that of the
Commissioner of Land Registration are affirmed. 
No pronouncement as to costs.

Reyes, J.B.L.(Acting
C.J.), Dizon, Zaldivar,
Sanchez, Fernando, Teehankee, and Barredo, JJ., concur.

Capistrano, J., did not take
part.

Concepcion, C.J., and Castro, J., are
on leave.

+
Section 43.  Certificates where land registered in names of two or more
persons.  Where two or more
persons are registered owners as tenants in com­mon, or otherwise, one owner’s
duplicate certificate may be issued for the whole land, or a separate duplicate
may be issued to each for his undivided share.