REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, PETITIONER, VS. THE HON. COURT OF APPEALS AND ENRIQUE COSALAN, RESPONDENTS.

Disputed in this case is the registration of a parcel of land
found within the Central Cordillera Forest Reserve. Petitioner, Republic of the Philippines appeals from the decision
of the Court of Appeals entitled Republic of the Philippines v. Hon. Francisco
Ma. Chanco,^[1]
which affirmed the decision of the Court of First Instance of Baguio and
Benguet in LRC Case No. 87, granting the application for registration of title.

Private respondent Enrique Cosalan, filed an application for
registration of title in the Court of First Instance of Baguio and Benguet over
a parcel of land situated in the Barrio of Kapunga, Tublay, Benguet consisting
an area of THREE HUNDRED THREE THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED AND FORTY (303,340)
square meters and described in Survey Plan Psu-139265.

The application was opposed by the Director of Forestry
(now Bureau of Forest Development) and the then Reforestation Administrator
alleging that neither the applicant nor his predecessors-in-interest have been in possession of the land applied
for and that the land involved is within the Central Cordillera Forest Reserve
established under Executive Proclamation No. 217, dated February 16, 1929, and
is therefore inalienable and indisposable.

After the issues were tried the trial court decreed:

“For all the foregoing, the application for registration of
the Petitioner is hereby granted but with a reduced area — deducting
therefrom thirty (30%) percent of the total area which is equivalent to 91,152
square meters leaving a balance of 212,698 square meters which is hereby
awarded to the petitioner. This portion
of 91,152 has to be taken and segregated from the ridge on the property and
from those near the boundary lines of the property which are forested. This Decision if unappealed, will be amended
to conform with the new technical description of the property so awarded after
it has been resurveyed.”^[2]

The decision of the trial court, which was affirmed in toto by
the appellate court, was premised on the following evidence:

“There is no question that the Petitioner Cosalan by himself
and through his predecessors have occupied a piece of land for more than 30
years in concept of owners x x x In order to support his claim, the Petitioner
presented x x x (two) laborers who worked on the land for many years, who
testified that this land now being applied for had been occupied by the
Petitioner and his predecessors for a long time as owner introducing
improvements thereof such as terraces and plantings such as rice, vegetables
and fruit trees x x x It appears that this land was originally owned by Acop
the grandfather of the Petitioner and which was later on inherited by the
daughter of Acop, one Aguinaya (both deceased) who was the mother of the
petitioner. Upon the demise of his
mother Aguinaya and his father Fernando Cosalan, the Petitioner inherited the
land from them.

“Even the Oppositors, through its witnesses, testified that
indeed the land applied for contained improvements which from their looks were
old, such as that testified to by Luis Baker^[3] of
the Bureau of Forestry who declared that ‘. . . I think the rice paddies were
4-5 hectares which to my estimation are 30 years old which can be seen through
the stone walls which had already moss.’ On the other hand another witness of
the Oppositors Atty. Crisogono S. Bartolo, Jr. of the Bureau of lands declared
also that ‘there were rice paddies of six hectares-with stone walls’ . . .
which in a way confirms the testimony of Mr. Baker about the old rice terraces.

x x x

“Inasmuch as the Petitioner herewith has proven that he and
his predecessors-in-­interest have occupied a portion of this property for more
than thirty years, a fact that can be gathered not only from the testimonies of
witnesses but from the very important piece of evidence consisting of documents
that show that the late Aguinaya, mother of the Petitioner, has applied for
this land for Free Patent as far back as 1933 which is 37 years ago, but which
application did not materialize for some reason or another (Exhibit
“H,” etc.), this case fits perfectly under the provision of the law
just cited. There is no question that
the Petitioner, including his wife are members of the so-called Igorote tribe
which belongs to the cultural minority.”^[4]

In assailing the decisions of the trial court and the Court of
Appeals, herein petitioner assigns as errors the following:

I

The lower court as well as the Court of
Appeals erred in not holding that the land applied for in this case, being
within the Central Cordillera Forest Reserve, cannot be subject of a land
registration proceeding;

II

The lower court as well as the Court of
Appeals erred in holding that respondent Enrique Cosalan is a member of the
National Cultural Minorities and in extending to him the benefits provided for
in Section 48 (c) of Commonwealth Act 141.

It is a well settled rule that forest lands or forest reserves
are not capable of private appropriation, and possession thereof, however long
cannot ripen into private ownership, unless such lands are reclassified and
considered disposable and alienable by the Director of Forestry.^[5]
Even then, possession of the land by the applicants prior to the
reclassification of the land as disposable and alienable cannot be credited as
part of the thirty-year requirement under Section 48 (b) of the Public Land
Act.^[6]

The pronouncement in the case of Director of Land Management
v. Court of Appeals^[7] would
seem to be on all fours in the present case. In the said case, respondent, Mino Hilario also sought to register a
parcel of land found within the Central Cordillera Forest Reserve, claiming it
as rightfully belonging to him being a member of the cultural minorities. The Court, however dismissed his claim and
agreed to the observation of the Solicitor General that Comm. Act 141, as
amended by R.A. 3872, applies to agricultural lands and to no other type of
land. Section 2 of the Public Land Act
clearly states that the “provisions of this Act apply to the lands of the
public domain; but timber and mineral lands shall be governed by special
laws x x x.

The Solicitor General in the above case further observed that:

“’The new subsection (c) of Section 48 of the Public Land Act
should be read together with the provision of the preceding subsection (b)
which expressly refers to ‘agricultural lands of the public domain.’ Perforce,
the term ‘lands of the public domain suitable to agriculture’ as used in the
said new subsection of Sec. 48 should mean the same thing as the term ‘agricultural
lands of public domain.’ x x x

x x x

“’What the law contemplates are lands that are agricultural
although not disposable, such as agricultural lands within a reservation for
fruit experiments . . . or those reserved for specific purpose, but certainly
not a forest reserve, a timber land, which the Constitution, the Public Land
Act itself, and jurisprudence have excluded from alienation.’”

The present case, however, admits of a certain twist as compared
to the case of Director of Lands, supra, in that evidence in this case
shows that as early as 1933, Aguinaya, mother of petitioner has filed an
Application for Free Patent^[8] for
the same piece of land. In the said
application, Aguinaya claimed to have been in possession of the property for 25
years prior to her application and that she inherited the land from her father,
named Acop, who himself had been in possession of the same for 60 years before
the same was transferred to her.

It appears, therefore,
that respondent Cosalan and his predecessors-in-interest have been in
continuous possession and occupation of
the land since the 1840s. Moreover,
as observed by the appellate court, the application of Aguinaya was returned to
her, not due to lack of merit, but –

“As the land
applied for has been occupied and cultivated prior to July 26, 1894, title
thereto should be perfected thru judicial proceedings in accordance with
Section 45 (b) of the Public Land Act No. 2874, as amended.”^[9]

Despite the general rule that forest lands cannot be appropriated
by private ownership, it has been previously held that “while the Government
has the right to classify portions of public land, the primary right of a
private individual who possessed and cultivated the land in good faith much
prior to such classification must be recognized and should not be prejudiced by
after-events which could not have been anticipated. . . Government in the first instance may, by
reservation, decide for itself what portions of public land shall be considered
forestry land, unless private interests have intervened before such reservation
is made.”^[10]

As early as in the case of Oh Cho v. Director of Lands^[11] this
Court has held that “all lands that were not acquired from the Government,
either by purchase or by grant,
belong to the public domain. An
exception to the rule would be any land that should have been in the possession
of an occupant and of his predecessors-in?interest since time immemorial,
for such possession would
justify the presumption that the land had never been part of the public domain
or that it had been a private property even before the Spanish conquest.”

While in Ramos v. Director of Lands^[12]
it was held that “forest reserves of public land can be established as
provided by law. When the claim of the citizen and the claim
of the Government as to a particular piece of property collide, if the
Government desires to demonstrate that the land is in reality a forest, the
Director of Forestry should submit to the court convincing proof that the land
is not more valuable for agricultural than for forest purposes. Great consideration, it may be stated,
should, and undoubtedly will be paid by the courts to the opinion of the
technical expert who speaks with authority on forestry matters. But a mere formal opposition on the part of
the Attorney-General for the Director of Forestry,
unsupported by satisfactory
evidence, will not stop the courts from giving title to the
claimant.”

Witness for the oppositor
Forester Valentin de la Cruz, Jr. himself stated that the property in
question is not within any existing
reforestation project and that the applicant has introduced tremendous
improvements, such as the construction of a residential house made of strong
materials, irrigation dikes, and terraces,
not to mention that no less than 50% of the lot was planted with fruit
bearing trees of different variety, such as avocado, bananas, mangoes and
coffee.^[13]

The appellate court
likewise observed that the land adjoining on the west is already a private land
belonging to the heirs of Aguinaya, designated as lot FP-7629, which was
conceivably covered by a free patent,
as shown by Exhibit “A.” The Court of Appeals was of the
opinion that, “if lot FP-7629 was already private land and devoted to
farming, it follows that the land in question is suitable for
agriculture.”^[14]

The trial court did not
adjudicate the entire 303, 340 square meters, because it found:

“That the land to which the petitioner is entitled is smaller
in area than the one applied for can be gleaned from the very Exhibit
“H,” etc. of the Petitioner which is the Free Patent Application of
his mother as stated above which consists of scattered lots with an approximate
total area of only fifteen hectares, at most. During the ocular inspection of the land when it was observed that a
large portion of the area is still forested, the Government Oppositor,
Reforestation Administration through counsel Tobias manifested that ‘More than
one half (of the land is forested) because, I see, your Honor that only at the
bottom can we find the area is improved.’ Atty. Fernando for the Applicant
partly confirmed this by manifesting that:

‘If your Honor
please, the improvements are located exactly on the center and at the bottom of
the property applied for and that the only reforested area are found in the
ridge and along the boundary lines of the property. So that I believed (sic) that only about twenty five (25%)
percent to thirty (30%) percent are actually forested with pine trees and that
rest are well improved, your Honor.’

It would then be just and equitable if the
forested portion, any, about 30% of the total area applied for be segregated
therefrom as such forested area no doubt belong to the Central Cordillera
Forest Reserve. This area so detached could
not have been a part and parcel of the land allegedly passed by Acop to his
heirs down to the present Petitioner as it is a public forest and shows no sign
of occupancy and improvement.”^[15]

For the reasons given We do not find justification to disturb the
findings of the lower courts. The land
in question having been in open and continuous possession of respondent and his
predecessors-in-interest since time immemorial, the Government cannot just
disturb their rights, by declaring said property as forest or part of forest
reserve.

WHEREFORE, the decision appealed for is hereby affirmed in
toto. Cost de officio.

SO ORDERED.

Melencio-Herrera, (Chairman), Paras, Padilla, and Regalado, JJ., concur.

^[1]
CA-G.R. No. SP-00077-R, entitled Republic of the Philippines vs. Hon. Francisco
Ma. Chanco and Enrique Cosalan, promulgated June 4, 1974. Ponente: J. Mateo Canonoy; J. Conrado M. Vasquez and J. B.S. de la Fuente,
concurring.

^[2]
Original Record, p. 328.

^[3]
TSN, December 12, 1967, p. 17-B.

^[4]
Original Record, pp. 324-325.

^[5]
Vano v. Government of the
Philippine Islands, 41 Phil. 161 (1920); Adorable v. Director of
Forestry, 107 Phil. 401 (1960); Director of Forestry v. Muñoz, 23 SCRA 1183 (1968); Director of Lands v.
Court of Appeals, 133 SCRA 701 (1984);
Republic v. Court of Appeals, 89 SCRA 648 (1979).

^[6]
Republic v. Court of Appeals,
L-56948, 154 SCRA 476 (1987).

^[7]
G.R. No. 81961, 172 SCRA 455 (1989).

^[8]
Exhibit “H.”

^[9]
Exhibit “H-1” and “H-2.”

^[10]Ankron
v. Government of the Philippine Islands, 10 Phil 10 (1919); Republic v.
C.A., L-46048, 168 SCRA 77 (1988); Republic v. C.A., G.R. No. 62572-73,
182 SCRA 290 (1990).

^[11]
G.R. No. 48321, 75 Phil. 890 (1946).

^[12]
G.R. No. 13298, 39 Phil. 175 (1918).

^[13]
TSN, July 20, 1968, pp. 11-12.

^[14]
Decision, p. 7.

^[15]
Trial Court’s Decision, p. 4; Original Records, p. 327.