SEVILLE VS NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT COMPANY Absent any showing that the land has been classified as
ET. AL alienable, their possession thereof, no matter how
lengthy, cannot ripen into ownership. In other words, the FACTS: petitioners have not become the owners of the disputed property. On January 14, 1980, Calixtra Yap sold to LSBDA a certain parcel of lot. LSBDA filed a Miscellaneous Sales LSBD, who acquired a Miscellaneous Sales Patent over Application with the Bureau of Lands covering said lot the subject property, which eventually caused them to together with other lots acquired by them. After due have an Original Certificate of Title for the said land has notice and investigation, a Miscellaneous Sales Patent a valid claim over the property. was issued in the name of LSBDA, on the basis of which, an original certificate of title was transcribed in the registration book on their name.
LSBDA subsequently assigned all its rights over the
property to National Development Company. NDC leased the property to Philippine Associated Smelting and Refining Corporation, PHILPHOS and Lepanto Consolidated Mining.
On November 29, 1988, the estate of Joaquin Ortega
represented by judicial administrator Felipe Seville filed a complaint for recovery of real property, rentals and damages against the National Development Company. They argued that they acquired title to the disputed property by acquisitive prescription, because they and their predecessors in interest had been in possession of it for more than thirty years.
ISSUE: WON petitioners title, allegedly acquired by
them through acquisitive prescription, is valid.
RULING No. Petitioners title is not valid.
Under the Regalian Doctrine, all lands of public domain
belong to the state, which the source of any is asserted right to ownership of land. All lands not otherwise appearing to be clearly within ownership are presumed to belong to the state.
Although it may be true that Section 48, Chapter VIII of
the Public Land Act provides that those who by themselves or through their predecessor-in-interest have been in open, continuous, exclusive, and notorious possession and occupation of agricultural lands of the public domain for at least 30 years could acquire a title thereto, Section 4 of PD 1073 amended the same to limit its application to alienable and disposable lands of the public domain only.
In the case at bar, the Supreme Court reiterated that
unless public land is shown to have been reclassified or alienated to a private person by the state, it remains part of the inalienable public domain. Indeed, occupation thereof in the concept of owner, no matter how long, cannot ripen into ownership and be registered as a title.
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