Cruz and Europa v. Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources

Philippine Republic. The belief that the Spanish Crown is the origin of all land titles in the Philippines has persisted because title to land must emanate from some source for it cannot issue forth from nowhere.[68] In its broad sense, the term "jura regalia" refers to royal rights,[69] or those rights which the King has by virtue of his prerogatives.[70] In Spanish law, it refers to a right which the sovereign has over anything in which a subject has a right of property or propriedad.[71] These were rights enjoyed during feudal times by the king as the sovereign. The theory of the feudal system was that title to all lands was originally held by the King, and while the use of lands was granted out to others who were permitted to hold them under certain conditions, the King theoretically retained the title.[72] By fiction of law, the King was regarded as the original proprietor of all lands, and the true and only source of title, and from him all lands were held.[73] The theory of jura regalia was therefore nothing more than a natural fruit of conquest.[74] The Regalian theory, however, does not negate native title to lands held in private ownership since time immemorial. In the landmark case of Cariño vs. Insular Government[75] the United States Supreme Court, reversing the decision[76]of the pre-war Philippine Supreme Court, made the following pronouncement: x x x Every presumption is and ought to be taken against the Government in a case like the present. It might, perhaps, be proper and sufficient to say that when, as far back as testimony or memory goes, the land has been held by individuals under a claim of private ownership, it will be presumed to have been held in the same way from before the Spanish conquest, and never to have been public land. x x x.[77] (Emphasis supplied.) The above ruling institutionalized the recognition of the existence of native title to land, or ownership of land by Filipinos by virtue of possession under a claim of ownership since time immemorial and independent of any grant from the Spanish Crown, as an exception to the theory of jura regalia. In Cariño, an Igorot by the name of Mateo Cariño applied for registration in his name of an ancestral land located in Benguet. The applicant established that he and his ancestors had lived on the land, had cultivated it, and had used it as far they could remember. He also proved that they had all been recognized as owners, the land having been passed on by inheritance according to native custom. However, neither he nor his ancestors had any document of title from the Spanish Crown. The government opposed the application for registration, invoking the theory of jura regalia. On appeal, the United States Supreme Court held that the applicant was entitled to the registration of his native title to their ancestral land. Cariño was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1909, at a time when decisions of the U.S. Court were binding as precedent in our jurisdiction.[78] We applied the Cariño doctrine in the 1946 case of Oh Cho vs. Director of Lands,[79] where we stated that "[a]ll lands that were not acquired from the Government either by purchase or by grant, belong to the public domain, but [a]n exception to the rule would be any land that should have been in the possession of an occupant and of his predecessors in interest since time immemorial, for such possession would justify the presumption that the land had never been part of the public domain or that it had been private property even before the Spanish conquest."[80] Petitioners however aver that the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Cariño was premised on the fact that the applicant had complied with the requisites of acquisitive prescription, having established that he and his predecessors-in-interest had been in possession of the property since time immemorial. In effect, petitioners suggest that title to the ancestral land applied for by Cariño was transferred from the State, as original owner, to Cariño by virtue of prescription. They conclude that the doctrine cannot be the basis for decreeing "by mere