G.R. No. 59447. December 27, 1982
REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, REPRESENTED BY THE DIRECTOR OF LANDS AND THE DIRECTOR OF FOREST DEVELOPMENT, PETITIONER, VS. HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS AND IGLESIA NI CRISTO, REPRE…
PLANA, J.:
These are two land registration cases instituted by the Iglesia
Ni Cristo (INC), a corporation sole, under Section 48 (b) of the Public Land
Act which reads:
“Sec. 48. The
following-described citizens of the Philippines occupying lands of the public
domain or claiming to own any such lands or an interest therein, but whose
titles have not been perfected or completed, may apply to the Court of First
Instance of the province where the land is located for confirmation of their
claims and the issuance of a certificate of title therefor, under the Land
Registration Act, to wit …
“xxx xxx xxx
“(b) Those who
by themselves or through their predecessors-in-interest have been in open,
continuous, exclusive and notorious possession and occupation of agricultural
lands of the public domain, under a bona fide claim of acquisition or
ownership, for at least thirty years immediately preceding the filing of the
application for confirmation of title except when prevented by war or force
majeure. These shall be conclusively
presumed to have performed all the conditions essential to a Government grant
and shall be entitled to a certificate of title under the provisions of this
chapter. x x x “.
In both cases, the applications for land registration were
granted by the lower courts, impelling the Republic to elevate the cases to this forum on this basic legal issue: whether the lands applied for may be
registered in the name of INC in the light of the Constitutional provision that
“no private corporation or association may hold alienable lands of the
public domain except by lease.” (Article XIV, Section 11). An ancillary question refers to the nature of
the lands subject of registration proceedings – whether they are private or
public.
The issues are not new. In
at least two decisions, (Meralco vs. Judge Castro-Bartolome, et al., 114 SCRA
799; Republic vs. Judge Candido P. Villanueva, 114 SCRA 875), this court has
ruled on the questions. Specifically, in
Republic vs. Judge Villanueva, this court, speaking thru Justice Ramon C.
Aquino, said:
“As correctly contended by the Solicitor General, the Iglesia
Ni Cristo, as a corporation sole or a juridical person, is disqualified to
acquire or hold alienable lands of the public domain, like the two lots in
question, because of the constitutional prohibition already mentioned and
because the said church is not entitled to avail itself of the benefits of
section 48 (b) which applies only to Filipino citizens or natural
persons. A corporation sole (an
“unhappy freak of English law”) has no nationality (Roman Catholic
Apostolic Adm. of Davao, Inc. vs. Land Registration Commission, 102 Phil.
596. See Register of Deeds vs. Ung Siu
Si Temple, 97 Phil. 58 and sec. 49 of the Public Land Law).
The contention in the comments of the Iglesia Ni Cristo (its
lawyer did not file any brief) that the two lots are private lands, following
the rule laid down in Susi vs. Razon and Director of Lands, 48 Phil. 424, is
not correct. What was considered private
land in the Susi case was a parcel of land possessed by a Filipino citizen
since time immemorial, as in Cariño vs. Insular Government, 212 U.S. 449, 531
L. ed. 594, 41 Phil. 935 and 7 Phil. 132.
The lots sought to be registered in this case do not fall within that
category. They are still public
lands. A land registration proceeding
under section 48(b) “presupposes that the land is public” (Mindanao
vs. Director of Lands, L-19535, July 10, 1967, 20 SCRA 641, 644).
As held in Oh Cho vs. Director of Lands, 75 Phil. 890, “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.”
In Uy Un vs. Perez, 71 Phil. 508, it was noted that the right of an
occupant of public agricultural land to obtain a confirmation of his title
under section 48 (b) of the Public Land Law is a “derecho dominical
incoativo” and that before the issuance of the certificate of title the
occupant is not in the juridical sense the true owner of the land since it
still pertains to the State.” (114 SCRA 881 – 882)
Following the above
cases, this court sustains the stand of the Republic, without need to inquire
into the veracity of the allegation in G.R. L-59447 that the evidence
presented therein do not prove INC continuity of possession of the land for the
period prescribed by law.
The appealed decisions of the lower courts are hereby set aside
and the INC applications for registration are hereby dismissed. No costs.
SO ORDERED.
Melencio-Herrera, Vasquez, Relova, and Gutierrez, Jr., JJ., concur.
Teehankee, (Chairman), dissents
in a separate opinion.
Clean
Clean
6 pt
6 pt
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Dissenting opinion
TEEHANKEE, J.:
I am constrained to
dissent from the majority decision which applies the precedent set forth in the
case of Republic vs. Villanueva and Iglesia ni Cristo[1] and the companion case of MERALCO vs.
Castro-Bartolome[2], both decided on June 29, 1982, for the same
grounds and considerations stated in my joint dissenting opinion therein which
I herewith reproduce by reference for brevity’s sake[3], as well as in my dissenting opinion in Republic
vs. Gonong and Iglesia ni Cristo.[4]
I just wish to add that
it is premature to apply the Villanueva case as a precedent since the
same as well as the Gonong case are not yet
final and the Court en banc is up to now considering the Iglesia ni Cristo’s
pending motion for reconsideration filed in the Villanueva case which
raises a number of serious constitutional issues, among them the constitutional
guaranty of free exercise of religion which as stressed in Basa
vs. Federacion Obrera[5] is a fundamental personal right and liberty
and has a preferred position in the constitutional system and hierarchy of
values, and the Iglesia ni Cristo’s constitutional right to equal protection of law in
the light of the precedent in Roman Catholic Apostolic Administrator of Davao, Inc. vs. Land Registration Commission[6] which recognizes the right of therein
petitioner Roman Catholic Apostolic Administrator as a corporation sole to
register lands purchased from Filipino citizens. As contended by respondent Iglesia ni
Cristo in the case at bar, to “require (it) to
establish its chapels on properties already titled is an emasculation of its
right to equal treatment before the law.”[7] Such serious constitutional issues should
be referred to the Court en banc for proper determination, since
our Division is incompetent to rule thereon.
What was held by the
Court in the above-cited case of Roman Catholic Apostolic Administrator
is equally applicable to the Iglesia ni Cristo in the case at bar, mutatis
mutandis, as follows: The
provisions of the Corporation Law (section 157 of the old Corporation Law and
section 112 of the new Corporation Law) “leave(s) no room for doubt that
the bishops or archbishops, as the case may be, as corporations sole are merely
administrators of the church properties that come to their possession,
and which they hold in trust for the church.
It can also be said that while it is true that church properties could
be administered by a natural person, problems regarding succession to said
properties cannot be avoided to rise upon his death. Through this legal fiction, however, church
properties acquired by the incumbent of a corporation sole pass, by operation
of law, upon his death not to his personal heirs but to his successor in
office. It could be seen, therefore,
that a corporation sole is created not only to administer the temporalities of
the church or religious society where he belongs but also to hold and transmit
the same to his successor in said office.
If the ownership or title to the properties do not
pass to the administrators, who are the owners of church properties? x x x Considering that nowhere can We find any provision
conferring ownership of church properties on the Pope although he appears to be
the supreme administrator or guardian of his flock, nor on the corporations
sole or heads of dioceses as they are admittedly mere administrators of said
properties, ownership of these temporalities logically fall and devolve upon
the church, diocese or congregation acquiring the same,” and “indeed
it is absurd to conceive that while the corporations sole that might be in
need of acquiring lands for the erection of temples where the faithful can
pray, or schools and cemeteries which they are expressly authorized by law to
acquire in connection with the propagation of the Roman Catholic Apostolic
faith or in furtherance of their freedom of religion, they could not register
said properties in their name. As
professor Javier J. Nepomuceno very well says ‘Man in
his search for the immortal and imponderable, has, even before the dawn of
recorded history, erected temples to the Unknown God, and there is no doubt
that he will continue to do so for all time to come, as long as he continues
‘imploring the aid of Divine Providence’ (Nepomuceno’s
Corporation Sole, VI Ateneo Law Journal, No. 1, p.
41, September, 1956).”
There appears no justification, therefore, to consider religious
corporations sole such as the Iglesia ni Cristo as disqualified from
filing the corresponding applications for registration of the parcels of land
acquired by them from private persons on the ground that they are not natural
persons when the real owners and beneficiaries of such lands are in fact the
members of the said church and congregation who are natural persons.
I therefore vote for the denial of the two petitions at bar and
to uphold the questioned decisions granting the Iglesia
ni Cristo
applications for land registration and upholding its title to the lands
involved.
[1]
114 SCRA 875.
[2]
114 SCRA 799.
[3]
114 SCRA at pages 813 – 826 and 887 – 899.
[4]
G.R. No. 56025, prom. on
November 25, 1982.
[5]
61 SCRA 93 (1974).
[6]
102 Phil 596 (1957).
[7]
INC comment in G.R.
No. 60188; Record, p. 42.