JOSE GIORLA ET AL., APPLICANTS AND APPELLEES, VS. THE DIRECTOR OF LANDS, OPPONENT AND APPELLANT.

On July 30, 1923, Jose Giorla presented a petition for the
registration in favor of himself and his mother, brothers, and sisters
of a tract of land measuring 643 hectares, 33 ares, and 62 centiares
and situated in the barrio of Callos, municipality of Penaranda,
Province of Nueva Ecija. The land is bounded on the northeast by the
Estero Pagsanjan; on the southeast by the Estero Caranlang-Munti; on
the southwest by the Estero Macabaclay; and on the northwest by the
land of Severino Dionisio. The petition was opposed by the Director of
Lands on the ground that the petitioner was unable to show that the
land had been acquired from the Spanish Government by purchase or by
composicion or by possessory information, equivalent to title by
composicion, according to the provisions of the Royal Decree of
February 13, 1894, and that therefore the land must be considered the
property of the Government of the United States under the control and
administration of the Government of the Philippine Islands.

Upon trial the court below ordered the registration of the land in
the proportions of one undivided half of the land in favor of Maxima
Abad and the other half in favor of Angeles, Enriquez, Jose, Esperanza,
Ramon, and Victoria Giorla in undivided equal shares. From this
decision the Director of Lands appealed.

It appears from the evidence presented by the petitioners that the
land in question was the property of a peninsular Spaniard, Jose
Giorla, the husband of Maxima Abad and the father of Jose Giorla and
the latter’s brothers and sisters. About the year 1890, Jose Giorla,
senior, obtained a titulo real for the land, but at the beginning of
the insurrection against Spain in 1896, he and his family left the
Philippine Islands for Spain, carrying with them the title document. In
1904, Maxima Abad and her sons, Ramon Giorla and Jose Giorla, returned
to the Philippine Islands, but her husband, Jose Giorla, senior, and
her daughter Angeles Giorla, remained in Spain.

Jose Giorla, senior, died in Spain in the year 1907. Later on,
Maxima Abad made several efforts to have the title document in question
sent back to the Philippine Islands, and finally Angeles Giorla
delivered it to Don Ramon Santamaria, a Spaniard residing in the
Philippine Islands but then on vacation in Spain. Santamaria left for
the Philippines in 1916 on the Spanish ship Eizaguirre, carrying the
document with him for the purpose of delivering it to the Glorias in
the Philippine Islands. The Eizaguirre was wrecked by a floating mine
off the south coast of Africa and practically all of the passengers,
including Ramon Santamaria, lost their lives there. As a consequence,
the aforesaid title document was also lost.

The appellant questions the truthfulness of the evidence in regard
to the existence and loss of the title document, but there are several
circumstances which, in our opinion, sufficiently corroborate the
testimony of the witnesses for the appellees. The plan prepared for the
purpose of acquiring the titulo real is still in existence and shows
almost exactly the same contours as the plan of the land claimed by the
appellees. It is also clearly established that Giorla was recognized as
the owner of the land and that it was known in the province as the
“terreno del Castila.” The suggestion of the appellant that data as to
the issuance of the title document should be found in the Spanish
Government Archives in Manila is of very little weight; it is a well
known fact that practically all of the expedientes relating to land
titles in Nueva Ecija were lost in the destruction by fire of the
archives of the Inspection de Monies in September, 1896. Everything
considered, we can find no sufficient grounds for disturbing the
conclusions of the court below.

The decision appealed from is affirmed without coats. So ordered.

Malcolm, Villamor, Johns, Romualdez and Villa-Real, JJ., concur.