RESEARCH ON RIVER EASEMENT

G.R. No. 160453               November 12, 2012

REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, Petitioner, 

vs.
ARCADIO IVAN A. SANTOS III, and ARCADIO C. SANTOS, JR., Respondents.

Facts:

Alleging continuous and adverse possession of more than ten years, respondent Arcadio Ivan A.
Santos III (Arcadio Ivan) applied on March 7, 1997 for the registration of Lot 4998-B (the
property) in the Regional Trial Court (RTC) in Parafiaque City. The property, which had an area
of 1,045 square meters, more or less, was located in Barangay San Dionisio, Parañaque City,
and was bounded in the Northeast by Lot 4079 belonging to respondent Arcadio C. Santos, Jr.
(Arcadio, Jr.), in the Southeast by the Parañaque River, in the Southwest by an abandoned
road, and in the Northwest by Lot 4998-A also owned by Arcadio Ivan.

On May 21, 1998, Arcadio Ivan amended his application for land registration to include Arcadio,
Jr. as his co-applicant because of the latter’s co-ownership of the property. He alleged that the
property had been formed through accretion and had been in their joint open, notorious, public,
continuous and adverse possession for more than 30 years.

The City of Parañaque (the City) opposed the application for land registration, stating that it
needed the property for its flood control program; that the property was within the legal
easement of 20 meters from the river bank; and that assuming that the property was not
covered by the legal easement, title to the property could not be registered in favor of the
applicants for the reason that the property was an orchard that had dried up and had not
resulted from accretion.

RTC declared the Arcadio Santos III and Arcadio Santos Jr. are the TRUE and ABSOLUTE
owners of of the land being applied for. 

Decision:

The argument is legally and factually groundless. For one, respondents thereby ignore that the
effects of the current of the river are not the only cause of the formation of land along a river
bank. There are several other causes, including the drying up of the river bed. The drying up of
the river bed was, in fact, the uniform conclusion of both lower courts herein. In other words,
respondents did not establish at all that the increment of land had formed from the gradual and
imperceptible deposit of soil by the effects of the current.
The State exclusively owned Lot 4998-B and may not be divested of its right of ownership.
Article 502 of the Civil Code expressly declares that rivers and their natural beds are public
dominion of the State. It follows that the river beds that dry up, like Lot 4998-B, continue to
belong to the State as its property of public dominion, unless there is an express law that
provides that the dried-up river beds should belong to some other person.

Since property of public dominion is outside the commerce of man and not susceptible to
private appropriation and acquisitive prescription, the adverse possession which may be the
basis of a grant of title in the confirmation of an imperfect title refers only to alienable or
disposable portions of the public domain. It is only after the Government has declared the land
to be alienable and disposable agricultural land that the year of entry, cultivation and exclusive
and adverse possession can be counted for purposes of an imperfect title.

G.R. No. 163118             April 27, 2007

DORIS CHIONGBIAN-OLIVA, Petitioner, 
vs.
REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, THE DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL
RESOURCES AND THE REGISTER OF DEEDS OF CEBU CITY, Respondents.

Facts:

Petitioner Doris Chiongbian-Oliva is the registered owner of a parcel of land in Talamban, Cebu
City, as evidenced by Transfer Certificate of Title (TCT) No. 5455. This title originated from
Original Certificate of Title (OCT) No. 1066 from a free patent granted on September 11, 1969
under Commonwealth Act No. 141, as amended. The free patent, OCT No. 1066, and TCT No.
5455 contained the condition that a forty-meter legal easement from the bank of any river or
stream shall be preserved as permanent timberland.

Petitioner filed a petition for reduction of legal easement. Petitioner alleged that the property is
residential as shown by the tax declaration and the Certification of the Office of the City
Assessor. Thus, the applicable legal easement is only three meters pursuant to Department of
Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Administrative Order No. 99-21, and not forty
meters, which applies to timberlands and forest lands. Petitioner also alleged that enforcing the
forty-meter legal easement would virtually deprive her of the use and enjoyment of the
property since it consists only of 1,000 square meters.

The DENR countered that the property is inalienable. It also claimed that the applicant agreed
on the forty-meter legal easement when the free patent was applied for.

The trial court ruled in favor of petitioner.

Decision:

Since the property in this case was originally alienable land of the public domain, the application
for free patent contained the condition that a forty-meter legal easement from the banks on
each side of any river or stream found on the land shall be demarcated and preserved as
permanent timberland. However, after the property was administratively titled, it underwent
several surveys for purposes of subdivision, consolidation, or consolidation-subdivision as
evidenced by TCT No. 5455. This title provides that it is a transfer from TCT Nos. 3975 and
4360 and describes the property as Lot 2 of the consolidation-subdivision plan Pcs-07-002121,
being a portion of Lot 6 and 7 Pcs-07-000974. Thus, presently only three meters is required to
be demarcated and preserved as permanent timberland.

In this case, the trial court properly took judicial notice that Talamban, Cebu City is an urban
area. Judicial notice is the cognizance of certain facts which judges may properly take and act
on without proof because they already know them. A municipal jurisdiction, whether designated
as chartered city or provincial capital, is considered as urban in its entirety if it has a population
density of at least 1,000 persons per square kilometer. The City of Cebu was created on
October 20, 1934 under Commonwealth Act No. 58. It is a highly urbanized city classified as
entirely urban. Thus, all its barangays, including Talamban, are considered urban.

Conformably with the foregoing considerations, the reduction of the legal easement of forty
meters on petitioner’s property covered by TCT No. 5455 to three meters now is in order.

G.R. No. L-3099             May 21, 1951

CIPRIANA GONZALES, plaintiff-appellee, 
vs.
PURIFICACION, GUILLERMO, EUSTACIO AND FAUSTINA, all surnamed DE DIOS, assisted by
their guardian CARLOTA INDUCIL defendants-appellants.

Plaintiff is the owner of a fishpond situated in the barrio of Bambang, Bulacan, adjacent to the
fishpond of defendants. The only source of water of her fishpond is Kay Pateng River, to which
it has neither ingress nor egress, because it has been completely cut off from it by the fishpond
of the defendants. After the several attempts made by her to obtain from the defendants a
right of way to and from said river to furnish a source of water to her fishpond proved futile,
she filed the present action in the Court of First Instance of Bulacan.

Decision:

The only question which is presented to us for determination is whether there is law which
justifies the grant to the appellee of an easement of water over the land of the appellants in
order to give to the appellee a source of water to irrigate her fishpond.

The Court of Appeals holds the view that the claim of the appellee finds support in the
provisions of articles 118 to 125 of the Law of Waters 1866 and articles 557 and 558 of the Civil
Code, which were also relied upon by the court a quo. On this point the Court of Appeals said:
"A perusal of the provisions of the Law of Waters on this point shows that the easement of
aqueduct is granted for any of the purposes mentioned in article 113 of said law, such as
irrigation, public bath, or use of factories and drainage.
We agree with the Court of Appeals that articles 557 and 558 of the Civil Code can be invoked
in support of the claim of the appellee. Article 557 provides that "any person who wishes to use
upon his own land any water of which he may have the control is entitled to take it through the
intervening estates, subject to the obligation of indemnifying the owners thereof." The phrase
"of which he may have the control" should be interpreted in connection with article 558 (1)
which means that he has a right to dispose of the water. This was interpreted to mean one who
has obtained from the government a grant to use water from a river (Gonzales vs. Banzon, 51
Phil., 15). The use to which the water may be applied must also be interpreted in the same
way: that the water be sufficient for the use intended (558[1]). And according to Manresa
"Puede el agua solicitarse para cualquiera de los usos necesarios de la vida." 

If a person who has obtained from the Government a grant to use water a river from irrigation
was given the right to construct a canal over the intervening lands of other private owners upon
payment of indemnity, no valid reason is seen for not granting the same privilege to the herein
appellee who desires to draw water from a river for the use of her fishpond. A fishpond comes
within the classification of agricultural land and is regarded as an important source of revenue
(Molina vs. Rafferty, 38 Phil. 167). It is generally constructed in low lands or swampy places
and draw its breadth of life from brooks and rivers. It is just as rich and valuable as any piece
of agricultural land and in some regions it is regarded as the main source of wealth. It is an
undertaking to be encouraged and promoted, for it contributes to the economic development of
the people. Our law should be interpreted in a sense that may give it life if it can be done
without doing violence to reason or to any rule of statutory construction.

There can, therefore, be no doubt with regard to the right of the appellee to draw the water
she needs for her fishpond through the land of the defendants if she has obtained the
necessary permit to use the water from the Government. The law requires that this permit be
obtained from the Director of Public Works. 

SYLLABUS

1. REGISTRATION OF LAND; EASEMENTS. — The registration of a piece of land under

the Torrens system extinguishes all the voluntary easements on said land, if they are
not noted in the original Torrens certificate of title. 

2. ID.; ID.; VOLUNTARY EASEMENTS. — An irrigation canal opened in another person’s

land with the knowledge and consent of the owner thereof is a voluntary easement. 

3. COMPULSORY EASEMENT; USE OF WATERS. — It having been proven that the

defendant, who opened an irrigation canal on another person’s land, obtained from the
Bureau of Public Works a grant of the use of a certain quantity of waters from a river
sufficient to irrigate his lands; that the passage opened in the most convenient and
least onerous to third parties, and that he is willing to indemnify the owner of the land,
said defendant has the right to maintain said canal, upon payment of the proper
indemnity.