Classification of Public Lands

1. Classification of public lands is an executive prerogative.

⇒ The 1987 Constitution reverted back to the 1935 Constitution classification with
additional one category: national parks. (agricultural, timber or forest, and mineral
lands). Of these, only agricultural lands may be alienated.
⇒ C.A No. 141 (Public Land Act), as amended, remains to be the existing general law
governing the classification and disposition of lands of public domain, other than
timber and mineral lands.
§ Under the REGALIAN DOCTRINE embodied in our Constitution, land that has
not been acquired from the government, either by purchase, grant, or any
other mode recognized by law, belongs to the State as part of public domain.
§ No public land can be acquired by private persons through any other means,
and it is INDISPENSABLE that the PERSON CLAIMING TITLE TO PUBLIC
LAND SHOULD SHOW THAT HIS TITLE WAS ACQUIRED THROUGH
PURCHASE OR GRANT FROM THE STATE, or through any other mode of
acquisition recognize by law.
⇒ The classification of public land is an exclusive prerogative of the executive
department of the government and not the courts.
⇒ In absence of such classification, the land remains as unclassified land until it is
released therefrom and rendered open for disposition.
§ This is in consonance with the Regalian doctrine that all lands of public
domain belong to the State, and that the State is the source of any asserted
right to ownership in the land and charged with the conservation of such
patrimony.
A. System of classification
⇒ C.A No. 141 has governed the classification and disposition of lands of the
public domain.
⇒ The President is authorized, from time to time, to classify the lands of the
public domain into alienable and disposable, timber, or mineral lands.
⇒ Alienable and disposable lands of the public domain are further classified
according to their uses into:
1. Agricultural
2. Residential, commercial, industrial, or for similar productive
purposes
3. Education, charitable, or other similar purposes
4. Reservations for town sites and for public and quasi-public
uses.
⇒ Sec. 6 of the Public Land Act, the President, through a presidential
proclamation or executive order, can classify or reclassify land to be included
or excluded from the public domain.
§ The Secretary (DENR) is the only other public official empowered by
law to approve a land classification and declare such land as alienable
and disposable.
B. Classification of land according to ownership
⇒ Pursuant to Regalian Doctrine (Jura Regalia), all lands of public domain
belong to the State.
⇒ All lands not appearing to be clearly under private ownership are presumed to
belong to the State.
⇒ Land, which is an immovable property, may be classified as either:
1. Public dominion
a) Is intended for public use
b) Belong to the State, without being for public use, and is
intended for some public service or for the development of the
national wealth.
2. Private ownership
C. Classification of public lands according to alienability
⇒ Depends on the classification in the Constitution (Art XII, Sec. 3)
⇒ Executive prerogative
⇒ Limit on the type of public land that may be alienated: agricultural land (Art.
XII, Sec. 2)
D. Categories of alienable and disposable lands
⇒ Alienable and disposable lands of the State fall into two (2) categories:
1. Patrimonial lands of the State, or those classified as lands of
private ownership under Article 425 of the New Civil Code,
without limitation
2. Lands of public domain, or the public lands as provided by the
Constitution, but with the limitation that the lands must only
be agricultural.
⇒ A positive act of the government is necessary to enable such reclassification.
⇒ Removing the land from the ambit of public dominion needs a declaration of
such conversion which must be made in the form of law duly enacted by
Congress or by the Presidential proclamation in cases where the President is
duly authorized by law to that effect. (without such reclassification, Regalian
Doctrine is applicable)
E. Requirements to establish classification
⇒ Republic v. Fabio
- the Court held that it is not enough for PENRO and CENRO to certify that
land is alienable and disposable (A & D). The applicant for land registration
must prove that DENR Secretary had approved the land classification and
released the land of the public domain as A&D land, and that the land falls
within the land classification map as verified through survey by the PENRO or
CENRO. In addition, the applicant must present a certified copy of the DENR
Secretary’s declaration or the President’s proclamation classifying the land as
alienable and disposable.

F. Only A&D lands may be subject of disposition

 ⇒ Sec. 2
- provisions of this ACT shall be apply to the lands of the public domain
- timber and mineral lands shall be governed by special laws
- nothing in this Act provided shall be understood or construed to change or
modify the administration and disposition of the lands commonly called ‘friar
lands’ and those which being privately owned have reverted to or become the
property of the Republic of the Philippines, which administration and
disposition shall be governed by laws at present in force or which may
hereafter be enacted.
⇒ Sec. 6.
- The President, upon recommendation of the Secretary of DENR shall from
time to time classify the lands of the public domain into (a) alienable or
disposable; (b) timber; and (c) mineral lands, and from at any time and in a
like manner transfer such lands from one class to another, for the purposes of
administration and disposition.
- prerogative of executive department and not of courts
⇒ Sec. 9
- Purposes of administration and disposition, the lands of the public domain
alienable or open to disposition shall be classified according to the use or
purposes to which such lands are destined as….
- The President, upon recommendation by the Secretary of DENR shall from
time to time make the classifications provided for in this section and may at
any time and in a similar manner transfer lands from one class to another.
⇒ Sec. 10
- The words alienation, disposition or concession, as used in this Act, shall
mean any of the methods authorized by this Act for the acquisition, lease, use
of benefit of the lands of the public domain other than timber or mineral
lands.
⇒ Before the government could alienate or dispose of lands of the public
domain, the President must first officially classify these lands as alienable or
disposable, AND THEN declare them open to disposition or concession. (no
law reserving these lands for public or quasi-public use)
⇒ There must be a positive act of the government, such as an official
proclamation, declassifying inalienable public land into disposable land for
agricultural or other purposes.
⇒ Sec. 8
- limits alienable or disposable lands only to those lands which have been
officially delimited and classified.
G. Classification of Boracay Case

H. Public lands and governmental lands distinguished

⇒ Montano v. Insular Government
 § Public lands
- equivalent to public domain and does not by any means include all lands
of government ownership, but only so much said lands as are thrown open
to private appropriation and settlement by homestead and other like
general laws.
§ Government lands
- includes public lands and other lands of the government already reserved
or devoted to public use or subject to private right.
I. Cadastral survey of a municipality does not automatically classify lands within the
cadaster as A&D lands.
2. Under the Spanish Regime, all Crown lands were per se alienated and subject to adjudication
by the Courts.
3. Burden of proof rests with applicant to overcome presumption of State ownership
⇒ No public land can be acquired by private persons without any grant, express or
implied, from the government, and it is indispensable that the person claiming
title to a public land should show that their title was acquired from the State or
any other mode of acquisition recognized by law.
⇒ Imperfect titles to agricultural lands are subjected to rigorous scrutiny before
judicial confirmation is granted.
⇒ The burden of proof in overcoming the presumption of State ownership is on the
person applying for registration (or claiming ownership), who must prove that the
land subject of the application is alienable and disposable.
⇒ TO PROVE that the land subject of an application for registration is alienable:
- the applicant must establish the existence of a positive act of the government:
- such as presidential proclamation or an executive order,
- an administrative action,
- investigation reports of Bureau of Lands investigators
- and a legislative act or a statute
⇒ On the their hand, where there is sufficient evidence that the parcel of land
applied for is alienable and disposable and has been in possession of the
applicants and their predecessors-in-interest since time immemorial, it becomes
the duty of the government to demonstrate that the land is indeed not alienable
but is a forest land.
The Regalian doctrine does not negate “native title.”
⇒ Cruz v. SENR
- petitioners challenge the constitutionality of R.A No. 8373, otherwise known as
the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997 (IPRA), on the ground that it amounts
to an UNLAWFUL DEPRIVATION of the State’s ownership over lands of public
domain and all other natural resources therein, by recognizing the right of
ownership of Indigenous Cultural Communities or Indegenous Peoples (ICCs/IPs)
to their ancestral domain and ancestral lands on the basis of native title.
- also contended that by providing for an all-encompassing definition of ancestral
domains and ancestral lands which might even include private lands found within
said areas, the law violates the rights of private landowners.
- in addition petitions also questioned the provisions of IPRA defining the powers
and jurisdiction of National Commission on Indigenous Peoples and making
customary law applicable to the settlement of disputes involving ancestral
domains and ancestral lands on the ground that these provisions violate due
process clause of the Constitution.
- finally, petitions also assailed the validity of Rule VII, Part II, Section 1 of the NCIP
Admin Order No, 1, series of 1998.
- the administrative relationship of the NCIP to the Office of the President
is characterized as a lateral but autonomous relationship for the purposes of
policy and program coordination.
- said rule infringes upon the President’s power of control over executive
department under Sec 17, Article VII of the Constitution.
- seven Justices voted to dismiss the petition and other seven to grant.
- redeliberation voting remained the same.
- Under Rule 56 of Rules of Court the petition was dismissed and the validity of
law deemed upheld.
JUSTICES WHO VOTED TO DISMISS THE PETITION:
1. Justice Kapunan (joined by CJ Davide, Justices Bellosillo, Quisumbing, and
Santiago)
- stated that the Regalian theory does not negate native title to lands held in
private ownership since time immemorial, adverting to the landmark case of
Carino v. Insular Government where the United States Supreme Court,
through Justice Holmes, declared:
“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.”
- recognition of the existence of native title to land, or ownership of land by
Filipinos by virtues of possession under a claim of ownership since time
 immemorial and independent of any grant from the Spanish crown, as an
exemption to the theory of jura regalia.
- ancestral domain and lands have always been considered as private.
- there is a distinction between OWNERSHIP OF LAND UNDER NATIVE TITLE
and OWNERSHIP OF LAND BY ACQUISITIVE PRESCRIPTION AGAINST THE
STATE.
(a) presupposes that the land has been held by its possessor and his
predecessors-in-interest in the concept of an owner since time immemorial.
The land is not acquired from the state and there is no transfer of title from
the State as the land has been regarded as private in character as far as the
memory goes.
(b) involves a conversion of the character of the property from alienable public
land to private land, which presupposes a transfer of title from the State to a
private person.
2. Justice Puno
- ancestral domains and lands are not parts of public domain
- IPRA as a novel piece of legislation, stated in Carino case firmly established
a concept of private land title that existed irrespective of any royal grant from
the State and was based on the strong mandate extended to the Islands via
the Philippine Bill of 1903 that …
- The IPRA recognized the existence of ICCs/IPs as a distinct sector in the PH
society. It grants these people ownership and possession of their ancestral
domains and ancestral lands, and defined the extend of these lands and
domains.
- The ownership given is the indigenous concept of ownership under
customary law which traces its origins to native title.
- He also noted that land titles do not exist in the indigenous people’s
economic and social system. The concept of individual land ownership under
the civil law is alien to them.
3. Justice Mendoza
- not a justiciable controversy and petitioners have no legal standing to
question the constitutionality of said Act.

JUSTICES WHO VOTED TO GRANT THE PETITION:

1. Justice Vitug
- saying that the Carino doctrine cannot override the collective will of the
people expressed in the Constitution.
- It is in them that sovereignty resides and from them that all government
authority emanates.
 - it is not then for a court ruling or any piece of legislation to be confoemed to
by the fundamental law, but it is for the former to adapt to the latter, and it is
the sovereignty act that must stand inviolate.
2. Justice Panganiban
- more forthright when he stated that all Filipinos, whether indigenous or not, are
subject to the Constitution, and that no one is exempt from all its encompassing
provisions.

Carino Case
- Presumption of a certain title (a) as far back as testimony or memory went and (b) under a claim
of private ownership. Land held by this title is presumed to “never have been a public land”.