THE DIRECTOR OF LANDS, PETITIONER, VS. THE HONORABLE INTERMEDIATE APPELLATE COURT AND LINO ANIT, RESPONDENTS.

This petition for review on certiorari seeks to annul and
set aside the decision^[1] dated
September 28, 1983 of the then Intermediate Appellate Court in AC-G.R. No.
66095 which affirmed in toto the decision of the Court of First Instance
of Cavite, Branch I, granting the application of Lino Anit for the registration
of land title, but ordering that the title be issued in the name of Lino Anit’s
heirs, assigns or successors-in-interest.

The facts of this case are as follows: On October 20, 1975,
respondent Lino Anit, a Filipino who became an American citizen by virtue of
his service with the U.S. Navy, filed with the Court of First Instance of
Cavite an application for registration of a parcel of land with an area of
42,567 square meters situated at Ternate, Cavite, which case was docketed as
Land Registration Case No. TM-101, LRC Record No. N-47776.

After the required notices were published, the court heard the
application on March 29, 1976, during which time only one Florante Malimban,
through his counsel Vicente Forteza, informally registered his opposition to
the application. However, Malimban did
not file any formal pleading with the court.

Respondent claims that the subject parcel of land was originally
owned by Felix Garay, who sold the same to Jose Andra in 1943. In 1961, Andra sold the land to his parents,
the spouses Servando Anit and Natalia Benitez. Respondent allegedly entered into possession of the land sometime in
1966, planting thereon bamboo, mango, and banana trees, and camote. His parents died in 1967. Thereafter, the heirs, which include
respondent’s brothers and sisters Teodoro, Librada, Domingo, Pascuala, and
Victoria, allegedly executed a deed of partition wherein, among others, the
subject property was given to respondent. The deed of partition was never presented in evidence before the trial
court.

To identify the subject land, respondent presented a blue-print
copy of Plan Psu-04-003805.^[2]
Respondent failed to show the exact date when he became an American citizen.

On March 3, 1979,
the trial court rendered a decision^[3]
granting respondent’s application, the dispositive portion of which reads, as
follows:

WHEREFORE, considering the complete records under our present lights, judgment is hereby rendered and the
application is hereby granted in favor of the applicant LINO ANIT married to
Pelagia Lupisan of Ternate, Cavite, with postal address at 486 Higante
Drive, Daly City, State of California, United States of America, his heirs,
assigns and successors-in-interest, who
are hereby declared possessors and owners in fee simple of one parcel of land
containing forty-two thousand five hundred sixty seven (42,567) square meters
found at Sitio Batalay, Barrio Sapang, Municipality of Ternate, Province of
Cavite, and bearing the technical descrip­tions (Exhibit CC-4) under
Psu-04-003805 as set forth by Geodetic Engineer Leonardo C. Santos and approved
by the Regional Director Narciso V. Villapando on September 12, 1972 for the
Director of Lands;

Once this decision shall have become final, let the corresponding decree be therefore produced completely
and absolutely subject to Presidential Proclamation No. 1520 (dated November
28, 1975) for the tourism areas of concern of the Republic of the Philippines
and its future expropriation causes of actions for such field of governmental endeavor and program areas.

Provided further that the parcel of land described herein shall
however, be fully registered in the name (not of the applicant LINO ANIT) but
in the names of his wife Pelagia Lupisan of Ternate, Cavite and his other
heirs, assignees and successors-in-interest who are Filipino citizens, should
there be any and if they are not American but Filipino Citizens.

SO ORDERED.^[4]

Petitioner then appealed to the Court of Appeals, which affirmed
the decision of the trial court. After
his motion for reconsideration was denied, petitioner filed the instant
petition.

Petitioner claims that the Court of Appeals erred in upholding
the decision of the trial court on the grounds that (1) it acted contrary to
law when it confirmed respondent’s title on the basis of a mere blue print copy
of the survey plan; (2) it misapprehended the facts when it ruled that
respondent and his predecessors-in-interest had been for at least thirty years
in continuous, exclusive and notorious possession of the subject land; (3) it
erred in confirming respondent’s title to the exclusion of his co-heirs; and
(4) it erred in not holding that respondent’s title is not valid as against the
state.

We find the petition meritorious.

It is undisputed that the original tracing cloth plan of the land
applied for was not submitted in evidence by respondent, which omission is
fatal to his application. The
submission of the original tracing cloth plan is a statutory requirement of
mandatory character.^[5]

Respondent’s counsel on the other hand contends that he submitted
the original tracing cloth plan, together with other documents, to the Clerk of
Court when he filed the application. The application and supporting documents were then elevated to the Land
Registration Commission (now the National Land Titles and Deeds Registration
Administration) for approval of the survey plan by the Director of Lands. Respondent argues the fact that the
Commissioner of Land Registration issued a Notice of Initial Hearing would
indicate that respondent had submitted all the pertinent documents relative to
his application.

This argument had already been disposed of in Director of
Lands vs. Reyes,^[6]
wherein this Court held -?

Of course, the applicant attempts to justify the non-submission of
the original tracing cloth plan by claiming that the same must be with the Land
Registration Commission which checked or verified the survey plan and the
technical description thereof. It is
not the function of the LRC to check the original survey plan as it had no
authority to approve original survey plans. If, for any reason, the original tracing cloth plan was forwarded there,
the applicant may easily retrieve the same therefrom and submit the same in
evidence. This was not done.^[7]

Respondent further contends that petitioner failed to object to
the blue print copy of the survey plan when the same was offered in evidence,
thereby waiving the objection to said evidence.

We do not agree. Rule 143
of the Rules of Court provide:

These rules shall not apply to land registration, cadastral and
elections cases, naturalization and insolvency proceedings, and other cases not
herein provided for, except by analogy or in a suppletory character and
whenever practicable and convenient.

This Court had applied the aforementioned rule in a
naturalization proceeding, and held that —

By reason of this provision, literal
adherence to the Rules of Court, which include rules of evidence, is not obligatory in a proceeding like
that under considera­tion.^[8]

We see no reason for not applying Rule
143 to the case at bar. Besides, given
the mandatory character of the requirement for the submission of the original
tracing cloth plan of the land applied for, said requirement cannot be waived
either expressly or impliedly.

We likewise find merit in petitioner’s argument that respondent
had not shown that he and his predecessors-in-interest have been in continuous,
exclusive and notorious possession of the subject land. Respondent made no mention of how his
parents came to possess the subject property, or the manner their predecessors-in-interest
possessed the same, in his deposition^[9] taken
before Vice Consul Romulo Villamil at the Philippine Consulate in San
Francisco, California, U.S.A.

Similarly, the testimony of respondent’s sister Victoria Anit
Manalo, merely narrated who were her brother’s predecessors-in-interest and the
manner he acquired the subject property.

Clearly, respondent’s evidence does not establish the nature of
his predecessors-in-interest’s possession. No evidence was offered to show that his predecessors-in-interest had
paid taxes on the subject land^[10] or
that they had introduced any improvements thereon. In fact, respondent could only show that property taxes were
fully paid beginning 1966.^[11] As
this Court had said in Republic vs.
Lee:^[12]

Private respondent should have presented
specific facts that would have shown the nature of such possession. The phrase “adverse, continuous, open,
public, peaceful and in concept of owner” by which she described her own
possession in relation to that of her predecessors-in-interest are mere
conclusions of law which require factual support and substantiation.^[13]

Inasmuch as respondent had failed to prove having been in open,
continuous, and exclusive possession, either by himself or through his
predecessors-in-interest, for at least thirty years, then his application must
necessarily fail.

Equally damaging to respondent’s application is the fact that the
subject land was owned by his parents, Servando Anit and Natalia Benitez. When they died in 1967, the land passed by
intestate succession to their heirs, respondent and his brothers and sisters.

Section 14 of Presidential Decree No. 1529 provides that where
the land sought to be registered is owned in common, all the co-owners should
file the application jointly. Therefore, the application should have been filed in the names of all
the heirs of Servando Anit and Natalia Benitez, and not just in the name of
respondent. Though Victoria Anit Manalo
testified that the subject property was given to respondent as his share of
their parents’ estate by virtue of the extrajudicial partition executed by the
heirs of Servando Anit and Natalia Benitez, the deed evidencing said
extrajudicial partition was never presented in evidence before the trial
court. This Court has held that where
the applicants own merely an undivided share less than fee simple in the land
described in the application, the application should be dismissed without
prejudice to the right of the various owners of the undivided interest in the
land jointly to present a new application for registration.^[14]

We however do not find merit in petitioner’s last contention that
respondent’s title to the subject land is not valid against the state because
he is an American citizen. The
appellate court did not err in applying Section 14, Article XIV of the 1973
Constitution to respondent’s case. Said
provision provides:

Save in cases of hereditary succession, no private land shall be
transferred or conveyed except to individuals, corporations, or associations
qualified to acquire or hold lands of the public domain.

Petitioner argues that said provision has no application to the
case at bar since the subject
land is still part of the public domain. We do not agree. It is well-settled that open, continuous
and exclusive possession of at least 30 years of alienable public land ipso jure converts the same to private property.^[15]
It therefore follows that an heir
of a person who had occupied a piece of alienable public land in open,
continuous and exclusive possession for more than 30 years, may validly file an
application for said parcel of land since the same had already been converted
to private land.

In the case at bar, had
respondent proved open, exclusive and continuous possession for more than 30
years by his predecessors-in-interest, there would have been no bar to his
application. However, since he had not
shown the duration and nature of his predecessors-in-interest’s possession of
the subject land, his application would necessarily fail.

WHEREFORE, the decision appealed from is hereby REVERSED and SET ASIDE and
the instant application of Lino Anit is
hereby dismissed.

SO ORDERED.

Narvasa, C.J., (Chairman), Feliciano, Regalado, and Campos, Jr., JJ., concur.

^[1]
Justice Porfirio V. Sison, ponente; Justices Abdulwahid A. Bidin,
Marcelino R. Veloso and Desiderio P. Jurado, concurring.

^[2]
Exhibit “B”.

^[3]
Penned by Judge Pablo D. Suarez.

^[4]
Record on Appeal, pp. 15-16.

^[5]
Aguillon vs. Director of Lands, 17 Phil. 506; Director of Lands vs.
Reyes, 68 SCRA 177.

^[6]
68 SCRA 177.

^[7]
Id., at 189.

^[8]
In re Pardo, 47 O.G. 3447, 3449.

^[9]
Exhibit “K-3”.

^[10]
While Victoria Anit Manalo
testified that the land was previously declared in the name of her father, no tax
declaration was ever presented to support her claim. See T.S.N., May 11, 1977, p. 21. On respon­dent’s offer of evidence, see T.S.N. Augusts 7, 1978, pp.
4-7.

^[11]
Exhibit “J”, Certification of the Municipal Treasurer of Ternate,
Cavite.

^[12]
197 SCRA 13 (1991).

^[13]
Id., at 20.

^[14]
Santiago vs. Cruz, et al., 19 Phil. 145.

^[15]
De Ocsio vs. Court of Appeals, 170 SCRA 729.