Case Digest: Chiongbian-Oliva vs. Republic, G.R. No. 163118. April 27, 2007.

Easement

CASE TITLE: Chiongbian-Oliva vs. Republic

GR No/ Date: G.R. No. 163118. April 27, 2007.

PONENTE: Quisumbing, J.

CASE WITH THE SC: Petition for Review on Certiorari 

PROCEDURAL ANTECEDENTS:

  1. RTC - Petition to reduce legal easement

  2. CA - Appeal

FACTS:

  • Doris Chiongbian-Oliva is the registered owner of a parcel of land in Talamban, Cebu City, under TCT No. 5455, originating from OCT No. 1066 granted on September 11, 1969, under Commonwealth Act No. 141.

  • The title contained a condition of preserving a forty-meter legal easement from the bank of any river or stream as permanent timberland.

  • In 2001, Doris Chiongbian-Oliva filed a petition to reduce the legal easement to three meters.


    • The DENR countered, stating the property is inalienable and the forty-meter easement was agreed upon during the free patent application.

  • RTC: Ruled in favor of Doris Chiongbian-Oliva, citing reclassification of the area as urban and applying DENR A.O. No. 99-21, reducing the easement to three meters.

    • Ordered the Register of Deeds to cancel the forty-meter easement and annotate a three-meter easement instead.

  • CA: Reversed the trial court's decision, upholding the DENR's stance that the property remains inalienable and requiring a positive act from the government to declassify it from forest land.

ISSUE:


Whether the applicable legal easement is forty meters. NO


ARGUMENTS/LEGAL BASES  

PETITIONER

RESPONDENTS

  • Petitioner argued that the property is residential based on tax declarations and certifications from the City Assessor, making the applicable legal easement only three meters under DENR Administrative Order No. 99-21, not forty meters for timberland.

  • 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.

PREVAILING PARTY: Petitioner

DECISION/DOCTRINE:


Simply stated, the issues are: (1) Is the property public or private land? and (2) Is the applicable legal easement forty or three meters?


On the first issue, C.A. No. 141, as amended, provides that lands of the public domain may be classified by the President, upon the recommendation of the Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources, into: 

  1. alienable or disposable; 

  2. timber; and 

  3. mineral lands.


However, only alienable or disposable lands may be disposed of through any of the forms of concession enumerated in the law. A free patent is one of such concessions and once it is registered and the corresponding certificate of title issued, the land covered by them ceases to be part of the public domain and becomes private property.


Verily, by the issuance of a free patent on September 11, 1969, and the subsequent issuance of OCT No. 1066 and TCT No. 5455, the property in this case had become private land. It is inconsistent for an alienable land of the public domain to be covered by a free patent and at the same time retain its character as public land.


On the second issue, Section 90(i) of C.A. No. 141 requires that a forty-meter legal easement from the bank of any river or stream shall be preserved as permanent timberland. More specifically, it provides:


(i) That the applicant agrees that a strip forty meters wide starting from the bank on each side of any river or stream that may be found on the land applied for, shall be demarcated and preserved as permanent timberland to be planted exclusively to trees of known economic value, and that he shall not make any clearing thereon or utilize the same for ordinary farming purposes even after patent shall have been issued to him or a contract of lease shall have been executed in his favor.  


To implement this, the DENR promulgated A.O. No. 99-21 which provides the guidelines in the processing, verification, and approval of isolated and cadastral surveys. Pertinent to this case are the following provisions:


2.1 Original Surveys:


2.1.a Public Lands:


All alienable and disposable (A and D) lands of the public domain shall be surveyed pursuant to Section 1 Par. (1) of R.A. 1273 [C.A. No. 141, Section 90(i)] whereby a strip of forty (40) meters wide starting from the banks on each side of any river or stream that may be found on the land shall be demarcated and preserved as permanent timberland.


Likewise, to be demarcated are public lands along the banks of rivers and streams and the shores of the seas and lakes throughout their entire length and within a zone of three (3) meters in urban areas, twenty (20) meters in agricultural areas and forty (40) meters in forest area, along their margins which are subject to the easement for public use in the interest of recreation, navigation, floatage, fishing and salvage.


x x x x


2.3 Survey of Titled Lands:


2.3.1 Administratively Titled Lands:


The provisions of item 2.1.a and 2.1.b shall be observed as the above. However, when these lands are to be subdivided, consolidated or consolidated-subdivided, the strip of three (3) meters which falls within urban areas shall be demarcated and marked on the plan for easement and bank protection.


The purpose of these strips of land shall be noted in the technical description and annotated in the title.


x x x x


Running in parallel vein is the Water Code of the Philippines which provides:


Art. 51. The banks of rivers and streams and the shores of the seas and lakes throughout their entire length and within a zone of three (3) meters in urban areas, twenty (20) meters in agricultural areas and forty (40) meters in forest areas, along their margins, are subject to the easement of public use in the interest of recreation, navigation, floatage, fishing and salvage. No person shall be allowed to stay in this zone longer than what is necessary for recreation, navigation, floatage, fishing or salvage or to build structures of any kind.


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 436018 and describes the property as Lot 2 of the consolidation-subdivision plan Pcs-07-002121, being a portion of Lot 6 and 7 Pcs-07-000974.19 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.


WHEREFORE, the instant petition is GRANTED. The assailed Decision dated August 7, 2003 and Resolution dated March 17, 2004 of the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. CV. No. 74409 are REVERSED, and the Decision dated December 13, 2001 of the Regional Trial Court of Cebu City, Branch 12 in SP. Proc. No. 10746-CEB is REINSTATED.


SO ORDERED.

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