The state of dried-up water

Arc, Sr. judicially applied for the registration of Lot 4998-B (“the property”).

The property, which had an area of 1,045 sqm, more or less, was bound in the northeast by Lot 4079 belonging to Arc’s son, Arc, Jr.; in the southeast by the Parañaque River; in the southwest by an abandoned road; and in the northwest by Lot 4998-A also owned by Arc, Sr.

Arc, Sr. later amended his application for land registration to include Arc, Jr. as his co-applicant because of the latter’s co-ownership of the property.

They alleged that the property had been formed through accretion and had been in their joint open, notorious, public, continuous and adverse possession for more than 30 years.

The City Government opposed the application for land registration, stating that it needed the property for its flood control program; that the property was within the legal easement of 20 meters from the river bank; and that assuming that the property was not covered by the legal easement, title to the property could not be registered in favor of the applicants for the reason that the property was an orchard that had dried up and had not resulted from accretion.

Based on the evidence presented by Arc, Sr. and his junior, it was established that the land subject of this application was previously part of the Parañaque River which became an orchard after it dried up.

It was established that the lot adjoining the same property is owned Arc Jr., after it was obtained by him through inheritance from his deceased mother.

Q: What is accretion?

A: Accretion is the gradual and imperceptible deposit made through the effects of the current of the water. It is the process whereby the soil is deposited along the banks of rivers.

Q: Who owns the land formed through accretion?

A: Article 457 of the Civil Code provides that “(t)o the owners of lands adjoining the banks of rivers belong the accretion which they gradually receive from the effects of the currents of the waters.”

Q: What should the father and son do in order to be able to claim that the property subject of the application belong to them by way of accretion?

A: They must be able to establish the merits of their application by a preponderance of evidence, by which is meant such evidence that is of greater weight, or more convincing than that offered in opposition to it. They would be held entitled to claim the property as their own and apply for its registration under the Torrens system only if they established that, indeed, the property was an accretion to their land.

Accordingly, they should establish the concurrence of the elements of accretion to warrant the grant of their application for land registration.

Hence, for the parcel of land to be considered accretion, they must show that the deposit of soil must be: (a) gradual and imperceptible; (b) made through the effects of the current of the water; and (c) taking place on land adjacent to the banks of rivers.

Q: Is the property subject of the application a product of accretion?

A: No. Arc, Sr. and his junior were not able to show that the gradual and imperceptible deposition of soil through the effects of the current of the river had formed the property in question. Instead, their evidence revealed that the property was the dried-up river bed of the Parañaque River.

The process of drying up of a river to form dry land involved the recession of water level from the river banks, and the dried-up land did not equate to accretion, which was the gradual and imperceptible deposition of soil on the river banks through the effects of the current. In accretion, the water level did not recede and was more or less maintained.

Q: Who is the owner of the land subject of the application?

A: Since the land in question is definitely not an accretion, Arc, Sr. and his son, as the riparian owners, had no legal right to claim ownership of the land considering that the clear and categorical language of Article 457 of the Civil Code is confined only to accretion.

It is thus the State that exclusively owns the subject lot and may not be divested of its right of ownership. Article 502 of the Civil Code expressly declares that rivers and their natural beds are public dominion of the State. It follows that river beds that dry up, like Lot 4998-B, continue to belong to the State as its property of public dominion unless there is an express law that provides that the dried-up river beds should belong to some other person.

Q: How come it is the State that owns the subject property?

A: Under the Regalian doctrine, all lands not otherwise appearing to be clearly within private ownership are presumed to belong to the State.

No public land can be acquired by private persons without any grant, express or implied, from Government. It is indispensable that there is a showing of a title from the State. Occupation of public land in the concept of owner, no matter how long, cannot ripen into ownership and be registered as a title.

Q: What are the properties that form part of the public dominion?

A: Article 420 of the Civil Code lists the properties considered as part of public dominion, namely: (a) those intended for public use, such as roads, canals, rivers, torrents, ports and bridges constructed by the State, banks, shores, roadsteads, and others of similar character; and (b) those which belong to the State, without being for public use, and are intended for some public service or for the development of the national wealth. Article 502 of the Civil Code also declares that the rivers and their natural beds are of public dominion.

Q: The above notwithstanding, can the subject land still be awarded to the father and son given that they had taken possession of the property continuously, openly, publicly and adversely for more than 30 years based on their predecessor-in-interest being the adjoining owner of the parcel of land along the river bank?

A: Still, no. Under Section 14(1) of Presidential Decree No. 1529 (Property Registration Decree), applicants for confirmation of imperfect title must prove the following, namely: (a) that the land forms part of the disposable and alienable agricultural lands of the public domain; and (b) that they have been in open, continuous, exclusive and notorious possession and occupation of the land under a bona fide claim of ownership either since time immemorial or since June 12, 1945.

Arc, Sr. and his junior failed to perform acts showing their possession of the property “continuously, openly, publicly and adversely” in that length of time. Their payment of taxes for a limited period of time does not even establish their claimed possession of 30 years.

Even conceding, for the sake of argument, that they possessed the land for more than 30 years in the character they claimed, they did not thereby acquire the land by prescription or by other means without any competent proof that the land was already declared as alienable and disposable by the Government.

Absent that declaration, the land still belonged to the State as part of its public dominion.

(Source: Republic of the Philippines vs. Santos et al, G.R. No. 160453, November 12, 2012)

Ma. Soledad Deriquito-Mawis, Dean, College of Law, Lyceum of the Philippines University; chairperson, Philippine Association of Law Schools; and founder of Mawis Law Office