Chapter 2 onwards Flashcards
What is Act No. 3344 for?
For unregistered lands.
The first systematic registration of lands
Spanish Mortgage Law (Act No. 496) - this was used during the American Time
What are referred to as “unregistered lands?”
Lands that were registered under Spanish Mortgage Law but not during the American Time.
Can Spanish titles still be countenanced as indubitable evidence of land ownership?
No. The system of registration under the Spanish Mortgage Law was abolished and all holders of Spanish titles/grants should register their lands under the Land Registration Act.
Mariano San Pedro v. CA
Diaz-Enriquez v. Director of Lands
Explain the sales patent.
Citizens may lease not more than 500 hectares of agricultural lands of the public domain. Private corporations and associations may lease a maximum if 1,000 hectares.
Explain the free patent.
They may lease a maximum of 12 hectares only. Must have actual and continuous cultivation for at least 30 years. (amended to 10)
Public Land Act applies only to?
Public Land Act is a special law that applies only to alienable agricultural lands.
Republic v. Noval
What is the only ground to review or reopen a decree of registration?
Extrinsic fraud. It is fraud employed to deprive parties of that day in court and thus prevent them from asserting the right to the property registered in the name of the applicant.
Taar v. Lauan
What is an imperfect title?
A title that is defective and does not convey full legal transfer of a parcel of land or real estate.
What is the Cadastral Act (Act No. 2259)?
Registration of unregistered lands initiated by the State. There are instances that no one gets the title.
What is the purpose of CARP?
To close the disparity between the rich and the poor.
Aim of free patents to residential lands?
It aims to ease the requirements and procedures in the titling of residential lands. It is always applicable to PUBLIC lands ONLY.
What is the effect of a sale not correctly registered?
A sale that is not correctly registered is binding only between the seller and the buyer, but it does not affect innocent third persons.
What is the Public Land Act?
It governs the judicial confirmation of imperfect or incomplete titles on the basis possession and occupation of alienable portions of the public domain in the manner and for the length of time required by law. Applies only to public land (v. Act No. 3344 of unregistered lands)
How about registered lands to be transferred? Which law aplies?
Land Registration Act or Decree (PD 1529)
What lands are included in the Public Land Act?
It governs lands of the
a. public domain, except timber and mineral lands
b. friar lands
c. privately-owned lands which reverted to the State
How may public lands be disposed of under the Public Land Act?
- For homestead settlement
- By sale
- By leaase
- By confirmation of imperfect or incomplete title
a. by judicial legalization
b. by administrative legislation (free patent)
Can a private land be affected by the free patent issued over it?
No. Private ownership of land is not affected by the issuance of a free patent over the same land.
What is a free patent?
It is the acquisition of PUBLIC land by means of an administrative confirmation of imperfect title. This was implemented to legalize the land rights of Filipinos who are founded to be occupying and cultivating such lands for a certain period of time.
What is the origin of the Public Land Act (Act No. 926)?
It operated on the assumption that title to public lands in the Philippine Islands remained in the government, and that the government’s title to public land sprung from the Treaty of Paris and other subsequent treaties between Spain and the United States.
What are public lands?
All lands of the public domain whose title still remained in the government and are thrown open to private appropriation and settlement.
What is the Agricultural Free Patent Reform Act (RA 11231)?
Farmers holding agricultural free patents may now sell their land or use it as collateral after President Duterte signed a measure that removed Commonwealth-era restrictions on lands covered by the Public Land Act.
What is the purpose of the cadastral system?
To serve the public interests by requiring that the titles to any lands “be settled and adjudicated.”
What kind of proceedings take place in the cadastral system?
Cadastral proceedings are in rem and are thus directed against property. There is no plaintiff and there is no defendant. In another sense, the Government is the plaintiff and all the claimants are defendants. A cadastral decree and a certificate of title are issued only after the applicants prove that they are entitled to the claimed lots, all parties are heard, and evidence is considered.
What actions are taken after the trial in a cadastral case?
The first adjudicates ownership in favor of one of the claimants. - decision, judgment, decree of court
The second action is the declaration by the court that the decree is final and its order for the issuance of the certificates of title by the Chief of the Land Registration Office. - such order is made if within 30 days from the date of receipt of a copy of the decision no appeal is taken from the decision.
The third and last action devolves upon the General Land Registration Office. An official, known as the chief surveyor, has one of his duties “to prepare final decrees in all adjudicated cases.”
What is the General Land Registration Office?
This office has been instituted “for the due effectuation and accomplishment of the laws relative to the registration of land.”
What is the effect of issuance of cadastral decree or Act No. 2259?
A certificate of title issued pursuant to Act No. 2259, after the lapse of 1 year, becomes incontrovertible.
Constitutional basis of the CARPER Law (RA 6657 as amended by RA 9700)
Article 2, Sec. 21: the State shall promote the comprehensive rural development and agrarian reform
Article 13, Sec. 4: an agrarian reform program shall be carried out in the country
What does agrarian reform mean?
It means redistribution of lands, regardless of crops or fruits produced, to farmers and regular farmworkers who are landless, irrespective of tenurial arrangement, to include the totality of factors and support services designed to lift the economic status of the beneficiaries and all other arrangements alternative to the physical redistribution of lands, such as production or profit-sharing, labor administration, and the distribution of shares of stocks, which will allow beneficiaries to receive a just share of the fruits of the lands they work.
What is CARPER Law or RA 9700?
It is the amendatory law that extends again the deadline of distributing agricultural lands to farmers for five years.
What is the coverage of the CARP?
- all alienable and disposable lands of the public domain devoted to or suitable for agriculture
- all lands of the public domain exceeding the total area of 5 hectares and below to be retained by the landowner
- all government-owned lands that are devoted to or suitable for agriculture
- all private lands devoted to or suitable for agriculture, regardless of the agricultural products raised or can be raised on these lands
What are exemptions and exclusions of the CARP?
- Lands actually, directly and exclusively used and found to be necessary for parks, wildlife, forest reserves, reforestation, fish sanctuaries and breeding grounds, watersheds, and mangroves
- National defense, school sites and campuses including experimental farm stations operated by public or private schools for educational purposes
- Seeds and seedlings research and pilot production centers
- Church sites and convents appurtenant thereto, mosque sites and Islamic centers appurtenant thereto, communal burial grounds and cemeteries
- Penal colonies and penal farms actually worked by the inmates, government and private research and quarantine centers; and
- All lands with 18% slope and over, except those already developed shall be exempt from the coverage of the Act.
What are agricultural lands?
Lands which are arable and suitable.
What conditions must be satisfied in order for homestead grantees or their direct compulsory heirs to retain or keep their homestead?
a. they must still be the owners of the original homestead at the time of the CARL’s effectivity
b. they must continue to cultivate the homestead land
What is the jurisdiction of the Department of Agrarian Reform ?
Sec. 50, RA 6657
Jurisdiction is two-fold:
1. Essentially executive and pertains to the enforcement and administration of the laws, carrying them into practical operation and enforcing their due observance
2. Judicial and involves the determination of rights and obligation of the parties
Department of Agrarian Reform Adjudication Board
It has exclusive original jurisdiction over cases involving the rights and obligations of persons engaged in the management, cultivation and use of all agricultural lands covered by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law.
What is original jurisdiction?
It means jurisdiction to take cognizance of a cause at its inception, try it and pass judgment upon the law and facts.
What is exclusive jurisdiction?
It precludes the idea of coexistence and refers to jurisdiction possessed to the exclusion of others.
Qualified beneficiaries?
- agricultural lessees and share tenants
- regular farm workers
- seasonal farm workers
- other farm workers
- actual tillers or occupants of public lands
- collective or cooperatives of the above
- beneficiaries
- others directly working on the land
What is social justice?
Social justice in the land reform program also applies to landowners, not merely to farmers and farmworkers. This is precisely why the law - RA 6657 - and the applicable rules provide for the procedure for determining the proper beneficiaries and grantees or awardees of the lands covered or to be covered under the CARP.
These procedures ensure that only the qualified, identified, and registered farmers and/or farmworkers-beneficiaries acquire the covered lands which they themselves actually till.
Conversely, these procedures likewise ensure that landowners do not lose their lands to usurpers and other illegal settlers who wish to take advantage of the agrarian reform program to acquire lands to which they are not entitled.
What are the requisites for a particular land and its farmers, farmworkers, tillers, etc. to be covered under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program?
- The land should be covered by the corresponding Notice of Coverage
- The beneficiaries must be qualified and registered by the Department of Agrarian Reform, in coordination with the Barangay Agrarian Reform Committee (BARC). Copy of the BARC list or registry must be posted in accordance with the guidelines established by the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC).
What is the emancipation patent?
Title of absolute ownership over the land transferred to the tiller.
Rules governing the correction and cancellation of registered/unregistered emancipation patents and certificates of land ownership award
p. 51
Who is a landless beneficiary?
One who owns less than 3 hectares of agricultural land
Rule on transferability of awarded lands under CARP
Lands awarded to beneficiaries under the CARP may not be sold, transferred or conveyed for a period of 10 years.
What are the exceptions on the rule of transferability of awarded lands under CARP?
Through
- hereditary succession
- to the government
- to the Land Bank of the Philippines
- to other qualified beneficiaries.
Provided, however, that the children or the spouse of the transferor shall have a right to repurchase the land from the government or LBP within a period of 2 years.
Why is the IPRA considered valid?
The ownership given is the indigenous concept of ownership under the customary law which traces its origin to native title.
Who are ICC’s/IP’s?
Indigenous Cultural Communities or Indigenous Peoples refer to a group of people or homogenous societies who have continuously lived as an organized community on communally bounded and defined territory.