SAMUEL BONIEL, PETITIONER, VS. THE HONORABLE MANASES G. REYES, JUDGE OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE OF DAVAO, AND THE DIRECTOR OF LANDS, RESPONDENTS.

Original action of certiorari to set aside respondent court’s
dismissal order.

Petitioner, with six other co-petitioners had filed under date of
November 15, 1966 with
respondent court a “petition for review and annulment of original
certificate of title No. P-18131, Registry of Deeds of Davao”
which was docketed as Miscellaneous Case No. 2813 thereof.

Petitioners therein alleged to be the bona-fide actual occu­pants
and cultivators of a 46.2877-hectare parcel of public agricul­tural land
designated as Lot No. SI-17618-D and located at Bo. Langka,
Lupon, Davao province, and
that on October 12, 1965, one Ramon Ombay, late
husband of co-petitioner Mauricia Ombay,
had filed a free patent application for the land; that sometime on September
11, 1964, one Rafael S. Yap had clandestinely filed a sales application for the
very same parcel of land, which was favorably endorsed by the land inspector of
the Bureau of Lands who certified in the records the findings of his
investigation as to the absence of any claimants of the land; and that as a
result of such alleged fraud and collusion between Yap and the bureau
personnel, Yap was issued the sales patent in December, 1965 and the
corresponding original certificate of title No. P-18131 on February 11, 1966.  Petitioners prayed of respondent court that
it annul Yap‘s title and instead award the land to them.

No summons were issued, since no adverse parties were impleaded by petitioners. 
The Director of Lands, however, having ap­parently been informed of the
petition, filed through counsel under date of March 25, 1967 a motion to
dismiss the petition, on the ground that respondent court had no jurisdiction
over the subject matter, since a petition for review of the director’s action
of issuance of sales patent and for annulment of title may not be availed of
under the summary pro­ceedings provided by section 112 of the Land Registration
Act for non-controversial matters – nor jurisdiction over his person because he
had not been made either a defendant or respondent in the case, nor had summons
been served upon him.  The Director in a
supplemental petition further urged the dismissal of the petition on grounds of
non-exhaustion by petitioners of administrative remedies, petitioners’ lack of
legal capacity and personality to institute the petition and lack of cause of
action.

Respondent court in its order of May 30, 1967 overruled peti­tioners’
opposition which contended that their petition for review ”within one year
after entry of the decree of registration” was properly filed under the
provisions of Section 38 of the Land Registration Act, and dismissed the
petition, noting that from the very petition, the land claimed was not private
property but public land.  Petitioners,
after the denial of their motion for reconsideration by respondent court’s
order dated June 30, 1967, sought to perfect an appeal to this Court but
respondent court sustained in its order of September 9, 1967 the Director of
Land’s opposition that the record on appeal and appeal bond had been filed out of
time on the ground that petitioners’ motion for reconsideration was mere pro
forma and did not toll the 30-day reglementary
period for appeal.

Hence, the present petition by petitioner Boniel,
wherein he mainly insists that respondent court properly acquired jurisdiction,
through his petition below, over the subject matter of the action and over the
person of the Director of Lands.  The
Solicitor-General having failed to file an answer through some inadvertence, as
special attorney Buenaventura M. Gonzalez of the Bureau of Lands office in Davao City
handled the incidents in the lower court, the case was deemed submitted for
decision without respondents’ answer.

The petition clearly must fail. 
Respondent court did not err, much less act with grave abuse of discretion,
in dismissing the peti­tion, since petitioner plainly violated the elementary
rules of proce­dure in seeking through a unilateral petition to annul the
certificate of title duly issued to Rafael S. Yap as sales patentee, instead of
filing an ordinary action impleading Yap and the
Director of Lands as indispensable parties without whom no final determination
of the ac­tion could be had,^[1]
assuming petitioner had a cause of action. 
Controversial issues such as those raised by petitioner seeking to di­vest
a third person of his registered title may not be brought in sum­mary or
self-styled miscellaneous unilateral proceedings.^[2]

Section 38 of the Land Registration Act (Act No. 496) could not
properly be invoked by petitioner for his unilateral petition for re­view of
the decree of registration, since the same applies only when by virtue of a
decree of registration issued by a court in a land regis­tration proceeding,
whether original or compulsory, a person claims to have been deprived of the
land or an interest therein, in which case within one year from entry of the
decree he may in the same proceed­ing ask for review and the issuance of the
decree in his own name and implead the adverse
party.  But here, the land is not claimed
to be private property of petitioner nor of his co-petitioners but was
admittedly formerly a part of the alienable and disposable public land awarded
under sales patent to Yap.

Accordingly, since petitioner and his co-petitioners make no
claim of their application for a free patent to the land having been approved
nor of a patent in their favor having been awarded, they had no valid cause of
action to file an action for annulment of Yap‘s patent and for cancellation of the title issued to Yap
by virtue thereof.  Their claim based on
alleged fraudulent issuance of title to the public land in favor of Yap should
be addressed in proper administrative proceed­ings to the Director of Lands,
who if he finds the claim substantiated, may then take the necessary steps
towards the reversion of the land to the public domain, and petitioners may
then press for favorable action on their application and the award of the land
to them.  The mere reversion of the land
to the State would not entitle them of itself to an award of the land to them, which
is beyond respondent court’s juris­diction.^[3]

By virtue of this resolution of the basic issues of the case and
on the correctness of respondent court’s action in dismissing the pe­tition, it
becomes unnecessary to rule on the secondary issue whether petitioner’s appeal
was improperly disallowed by respondent court. 
Likewise, by virtue of the Court’s disposition of the case, the recent
motion filed on July 28, 1970 by Rafael S. Yap for leave to intervene in the case
as an indispensable party, alleging that he only very re­cently learned of the pendency of the case at bar, need not be acted upon.

WHEREFORE, the petition for certiorari is hereby
denied.  No costs.

Reyes, J.B.L., Acting C.J., Makalintal,
Zaldivar, Ruiz Castro, Fernando, Barredo,
and Makasiar,
JJ., concur.

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

^[1]
Rule 2, sec. 1; Rule 3, secs. 2 and 7, Rules of
Court.

^[2]
See:  Re petition for cancellation,
Bishop of Moncadian Church of the Phil. Inc.,
L-26543-44, July 31, 1970; Vicente vs. de los
Santos, 27 SCRA 1 (1969) and cases cited.

^[3] Gamao vs. Calamba,
L-13349, Sept. 30, 1960    (109 Phil.
542); Rellin vs. Cabigas,
L-15926, Oct. 31, 1960, (109 Phil. 1128); Director of Lands vs. Luna,
L-14641, Nov. 23, 1960; Sumail vs. Judge of
Court of First Instance of Cotabato, L-8278, Apr. 30,
1955 (96 Phil. 946).