LAW ON ENVIRONMENT AND

NATURAL RESOURCES

REPUBLIC VS LEE
G.R. NO. 64818, 13 MAY 1991
ISSUE:

 Whether or not public lands can be acquired by

private persons without any grant from the
government.
RULES OR REGULATIONS:
 Land Registration Law Act 496
 R.A. 1942

 R.A. 6236

 Art. 421-425, Civil Code of the Philippines

 Santiago vs. de los Santos

 ANALYSIS OF FACTS AND CIRCUMSTANCES:
 Republic of the Philippines, (petitioner)
 Maria P. Lee and Intermediate Appellate Court, (respondents)

On June 29, 1976, Maria P. Lee filed before the Court of First
Instance of Pangasinan, an application for registration in her favor of a
parcel of land consisting of 6,843 square meters, more or less, located at
Mangaldan, Pangasinan.
The Director of Lands, in representation of the Republic of the
Philippines, filed an filed an opposition, alleging that neither the
applicant nor her predecessors-in-interest have acquired the land under
any of the Spanish titles or any other recognized mode for the
acquisition of title; that neither she nor her predecessors-in-interest
have been in open, continuous, exclusive and notorious possession of the
land in concept of owner at least thirty (30) years immediately preceding
the filing of the application; and that the land is a portion of the public
domain belonging to the Republic of the Philippines.
After trial, the Court of First Instance, confirmed the title of land
to spouses Stephen and Maria Lee as their conjugal property.
On appeal, the Intermediate Appellate Court affirmed the the lower
courts’s decision.
 ARGUMENTS:
DIRECTOR OF LANDS/ MARIA P. LEE/
REPUBLIC OF THE PHILS. INTERMEDIATE APPELLATE
COURT
1. Lee failed to prove that she is the 1. Lee was able to prove her title to
real and absolute owner of the the land in question through
property, in fee simple. documentary evidence consisting of
Deeds of Sale and tax declarations
and receipts as well as her testimony.
2. The burden is upon her to prove by 2. The attending fiscal should have
clear, positive and absolute evidence cross-examined her on that point to
that her predecessors' possession was test her credibility.
indeed adverse, continuous, open,
public, peaceful and in concept of
owner.
3. It is not the fiscal, but the court 3. The reason said fiscal failed to do
which should be convinced, by so is that the latter is personally
competent proof, of private aware of facts showing that the land
respondent's registerable right over being applied for is a private land.
the subject parcel of land.
 CONCLUSION:

No public land can be acquired by private persons without any

grant, express or implied, from government. A grant is conclusively
presumed by law when the claimant, by himself or through his
predecessors-in-interest, has occupied the land openly, continuously,
exclusively, and under a claim of title since July 26, 1894 or prior thereto.

The most basic rule in land registration cases is that "no person
is entitled to have land registered under the Cadastral or Torrens system
unless he is the owner in fee simple of the same, even though there is no
opposition presented against such registration by third persons”.

Private respondent having failed to prove by convincing, positive

proof that she has complied with the requirements of the law for
confirmation of her title to the land applied for, it was grave error on the
part of the lower court to have granted her application.