Cruz and Europa v. Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources

ancestors since time immemorial; that his grandfather built fences around the property for the holding of cattle and that his father cultivated some parts of the land. Cariño inherited the land in accordance with Igorot custom. He tried to have the land adjusted under the Spanish land laws, but no document issued from the Spanish Crown.[131] In 1901, Cariño obtained a possessory title to the land under the Spanish Mortgage Law. [132] The North American colonial government, however, ignored his possessory title and built a public road on the land prompting him to seek a Torrens title to his property in the land registration court. While his petition was pending, a U.S. military reservation[133] was proclaimed over his land and, shortly thereafter, a military detachment was detailed on the property with orders to keep cattle and trespassers, including Cariño, off the land.[134] In 1904, the land registration court granted Cariño's application for absolute ownership to the land. Both the Government of the Philippine Islands and the U.S. Government appealed to the C.F.I. of Benguet which reversed the land registration court and dismissed Cariño's application. The Philippine Supreme Court[135] affirmed the C.F.I. by applying the Valenton ruling. Cariño took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.[136] On one hand, the Philippine government invoked the Regalian doctrine and contended that Cariño failed to comply with the provisions of the Royal Decree of June 25, 1880, which required registration of land claims within a limited period of time. Cariño, on the other, asserted that he was the absolute owner of the land jure gentium, and that the land never formed part of the public domain. In a unanimous decision written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, the U.S. Supreme Court held: "It is true that Spain, in its earlier decrees, embodied the universal feudal theory that all lands were held from the Crown, and perhaps the general attitude of conquering nations toward people not recognized as entitled to the treatment accorded to those in the same zone of civilization with themselves. It is true, also, that in legal theory, sovereignty is absolute, and that, as against foreign nations, the United States may assert, as Spain asserted, absolute power. But it does not follow that, as against the inhabitants of the Philippines, the United States asserts that Spain had such power. When theory is left on one side, sovereignty is a question of strength, and may vary in degree. How far a new sovereign shall insist upon the theoretical relation of the subjects to the head in the past, and how far it shall recognize actual facts, are matters for it to decide."[137] The U.S. Supreme Court noted that it need not accept Spanish doctrines. The choice was with the new colonizer. Ultimately, the matter had to be decided under U.S. law. The Cariño decision largely rested on the North American constitutionalist's concept of "due process" as well as the pronounced policy "to do justice to the natives."[138] It was based on the strong mandate extended to the Islands via the Philippine Bill of 1902 that "No law shall be enacted in said islands which shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or deny to any person therein the equal protection of the laws." The court declared: "The acquisition of the Philippines was not like the settlement of the white race in the United States. Whatever consideration may have been shown to the North American Indians, the dominant purpose of the whites in America was to occupy land. It is obvious that, however stated, the reason for our taking over the Philippines was different. No one, we suppose, would deny that, so far as consistent with paramount necessities, our first object in the internal administration of the islands is to do justice to the natives, not to exploit their country for private gain. By the Organic Act of July 1, 1902, chapter 1369, section 12 (32 Statutes at Large, 691), all the property and rights acquired there by the United States are to be administered 'for the benefit of the inhabitants thereof.' It is reasonable to suppose that the attitude thus assumed by the United States with regard to what was unquestionably its own is also its attitude in deciding what it will claim for its own. The same