REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, PETITIONER, VS. HON. SOFRONIO G. SAYO, JUDGE, BR. I, CFI, NUEVA VIZCAYA, HEIRS OF CASIANO SANDOVAL, HEIRS OF LIBERATO BAYAUA, JOSE C. REYES, AND PHI…

Sought to be annulled and set aside in this special civil action
of certiorari is the
decision of respondent Judge Sofronio G. Sayo rendered on March
5, 1981 in Land Registration Case No. N-109, LRC
Record No. 20850, confirming, by virtue of a compromise agreement, the title of the private respondents over
a tract of land.

The spouses, Casiano Sandoval and Luz
Marquez, filed an original application for registration of a tract of land identified as Lot No.
7454 of the Cadastral Survey of Santiago, BL Cad. 211 (July 17, 1961) and having an area of 33,950
hectares.  The land was formerly part of
the Municipality of Santiago,
Province of Isabela, but had been
transferred to Nueva Vizcaya
in virtue of Republic Act No. 236.

Oppositions were filed by the Government, through the Director of
Lands and the Director of Forestry, and some others, including the Heirs of Liberato Bayaua.^[1]
In due course, an order of general default was thereafter entered on December 11, 1961 against the whole
world except the oppositors.

The case dragged on for about twenty (20) years until March 3,
1981 when a compromise agreement was entered into by and among all the parties,
assisted by their respective counsel, namely: 
the Heirs of Casiano Sandoval (who had since
died), the Bureau of Lands, the Bureau of Forest Development, the Heirs of Liberato Bayaua, and the
Philippine Cacao and Farm Products, Inc. 
Under the compromise agreement, the Heirs of Casiano
Sandoval (as applicants) renounced their claims and ceded –

1) in favor of the Bureau of Lands, an
area of 4,109 hectares;

2) in favor of the Bureau of Forest
Development, 12,341 hectares;

3) in favor of the Heirs of Liberato Bayaua, 4,000 hectares;
and

4) in favor of Philippine Cacao &
Farm Products, Inc., 8,000 hectares.

The remaining area of 5,500 hectares was, under the compromise
agreement, adjudicated to and acknowledged as owned by the Heirs of Casiano Sandoval, but out of this area, 1,500 hectares were
assigned by the Casiano Heirs to their counsel, Jose
C. Reyes, in payment of his attorney’s fees. 
In consideration of the areas respectively allocated to them, all the
parties also mutually waived and renounced all their prior claims to and over
Lot No. 7454 of the Santiago Cadastre.

In a decision rendered on March
5, 1981, the respondent Judge approved the compromise agreement and
confirmed the title and ownership of the parties in accordance with its terms.

The Solicitor General, in behalf of the Republic of the
Philippines, has taken the present recourse in a bid to have that decision of
March 5, 1981 annulled as being patently void and rendered in excess of
jurisdiction or with grave abuse of discretion. 
The Solicitor General contends that –

1) no evidence whatever was adduced by
the parties in support of their petitions for registration;

2) neither the Director of Lands nor the
Director of Forest Development had legal authority to enter into the compromise
agreement;

3) as counsel of the Republic, he should
have been but was not given notice of the compromise agreement or otherwise
accorded an opportunity to take part therein;

4) that he was not even served with
notice of the decision approving the compromise; it was the Sangguniang
Panlalawigan of Quirino Province
that drew his attention to the “patently erroneous decision” and
requested him to take immediate remedial measures to bring about its annulment.

The respondents maintain, on the other hand, that the Solicitor
General’s arguments are premised on the proposition that Lot
7454 is public land, but it is not. 
According to them, as pointed out in the application for registration,
the private character of the land is demonstrated by the following circumstances,
to wit:

1) the possessory
information title of the applicants and their predecessors-in-interest;

2) the fact that Lot
7454 was never claimed to be publc land by the
Director of Lands in the proper cadastral proceedings;

3) the pre-war certification of the National Library dated August
16, 1932 to the effect that the Estadistica de
Propiedades of Isabela
issued in 1896 and appearing in the Bureau of Archives, the property in
question was registered under the ‘Spanish system of land registration as private
property owned by Don Liberato Bayaua,
applicants’ predecessors-in-interest;

4) the proceeding for registration,
brought under Act 496 (the Torrens Act) presupposes that there is already a
title to be confirmed by the court, distinguishing it from proceedings under
the Public Land Act where the presumption is always that the land involved
belongs to the State.

Under the Regalian Doctrine,^[2]
all lands not otherwise appearing to be clearly within private ownership are
presumed to belong to the State.  Hence
it is that all applicants in land registration proceedings have the burden of
overcoming the presumption that the land thus sought to be registered forms
part of the public domain.^[3]
Unless the applicant succeeds in showing by clear and convincing evidence that
the property involved was acquired by him or his ancestors either by
composition title from the Spanish Government or by possessory
information title, or any other means for the proper acquisition of public
lands, the property must be held to be part of the public domain.^[4]
The applicant must present competent and persuasive proof to substantiate his
claim; he may not rely on general statements, or mere conclusions of law other
than factual evidence of possession and title.^[5]

In the proceeding at bar, it appears that the principal document
relied upon and presented by the applicants for registration, to prove the
private character of the large tract of land subject of their applicant, was a
photocopy of a certification of the National Library dated August 16, 1932
(already above mentioned) to the effect that according to the Government’s Estadistica de Propiedades of Isabela
issued in 1896, the property in question was registered under the Spanish
system of land registration as private property of Don Liberato
Bayaua.  But,
as this Court has already had occasion to rule, that Spanish document, the Estadistica de Propiedades, cannot be considered a title to
property, it not being one of the grants made during the Spanish regime, and
obviously not constituting primary evidence of ownership.^[6]
It is an inefficacious document on which to base any finding of the private
character of the land in question.

And, of course, to argue that the initiation of an application
for registration of land under the Torrens Act is proof that the land is of
private ownership, not pertaining to the public domain, is to beg the
question.  It is precisely the character of the land as private which the
applicant has the obligation of establishing. 
For there can be no doubt of the intendment of the Land Registration
Act, Act 496, that every applicant show a proper title for registration;
indeed, even in the absence of any adverse claim, the applicant is not assured
of a favorable decree by the Land Registration Court, if he fails to establish
a proper title for official recognition.

It thus appears that the decision of the Registration
Court a quo is based solely on the compromise
agreement of the parties.  But that
compromise agreement included private persons who had not adduced any competent
evidence of their ownership over the land subject of the registration
proceeding.  Portions of the land in
controversy were assigned to persons or entities who had presented nothing
whatever to prove their ownership of any part of the land.  What was done was to consider the compromise
agreement as proof of title of the parties taking part therein, a totally
unacceptable proposition.  The result has
been the adjudication of lands of no little extension to persons who had not
submitted any substantiation at all of their pretensions to ownership, founded
on nothing but the agreement among themselves that they had rights and
interests over the land.

The assent of the Directors of Land and Forest Development to the
compromise agreement did not and could not supply the absence of evidence of
title required of the private respondents.

As to the informacion posesoria invoked by the private respondents,
it should be pointed out that under the Spanish Mortgage Law, it was considered
a mode of acquiring title to public lands, subject to two (2) conditions:  first, the inscription thereof in the
Registry of Property, and second, actual, public, adverse, and uninterrupted
possession of the land for twenty (20) years (later reduced to ten [10] years);
but where, as here, proof of fulfillment of these conditions is absent, the informacion posesoria cannot be
considered as anything more than prima facie evidence of possession.^[7]

Finally, it was error to disregard the Solicitor General in the
execution of the compromise agreement and its submission to the Court for
approval.  It is, after all, the
Solicitor General, who is the principal counsel of the Government; this is the
reason for our holding that “Court orders and decisions sent to the
fiscal, acting as agent of the Solicitor General in land registration cases,
are not binding until they are actually received by the Solicitor
General.”^[8]

It thus appears that the compromise agreement and the judgment
approving it must be, as they are hereby, declared null and void, and set
aside.  Considerations of fairness
however indicate the remand of the case to the Registration
Court so that the private parties may be afforded
an opportunity to establish by competent evidence their respective claims to
the property.

WHEREFORE, the decision of the respondent Judge complained
of is ANNULLED and SET ASIDE.  Land Registration Case No. N-109 subject of the petition is
REMANDED to the court of origin which shall conduct further appropriate
proceedings therein, receiving the evidence of the parties and thereafter
rendering judgment as such evidence and the law may warrant.  No pronouncement as to costs.

SO ORDERED.

Cruz, Gancayco, Griño-Aquino,
and Medialdea,
JJ., concur.

^[1]
See Municipality
of Santiago, Isabela v. C.A., et al., 120 SCRA 734, infra, involving parties surnamed Bayaua, claimants to Lots No. 49760A and No. 8000-A of the
Santiago cadastre, Province of Isabela, which lots
were declared to belong to the Municipality of Santiago.

^[2] Embodied “in Section 1 of Article XIII of
the Constitution of 1935 * * declaring that ‘all agricultural, timber, and
mineral lands of the public domain . . . and other natural resources of the
Philippines belong to the State . . .’” (Piñero, Jr. v.
Director of Lands, 57 SCRA 386) (See Secs. 2 and 3,
ART. XII, 1987 Constitution)

^[3] National Power Corporation v. C.A., 114 SCRA 318 [1982]; Armagui
v. Director of Forestry, 126 SCRA 69 [1983]

^[4] Director of Lands v. Reyes, 68 SCRA
2177 [1971]

^[5] Republic v. C.A., 167 SCRA 150 [1988]

^[6] Municipality of Santiago v. C.A., 120 SCRA 734, 743 [1983]

^[7]
Republic v. Feliciano, 148 SCRA 424 [1987]

^[8] Republic v. C.A.,
148 SCRA 480 [1987]; Republic v. C.A., 135 SCRA 157 [1985];
Republic v. Mendoza, 125 SCRA 539 [1983].