March 4, 1999

DAR OPINION NO. 19-99

ATTY . DANTE S. DAVID

Suite 234-235, Madrigal Building

Escolta, Manila

Dear Atty. David:

This refers to the letter of your clients dated 16 January 1999 addressed to Secretary Horacio R. Morales, Jr. of the Department of Agrarian Reform seeking comments/recommendations so as to expedite the generation of Emancipation Patents (EPs) in their favor.

As gleaned from their letter, the property subject of controversy has an aggregate area of fifty (50) hectares, more or less, situated at Barangay Pulung Masle and Maquiapo, Guagua, Pampanga and allegedly owned by a certain Layug family; that the alleged tenants and their predecessors have been cultivating the property for a period of seventy (70) years now and religiously paying rentals to the Layug family on the belief that they are the owner/s thereof; that on 23 September 1973 the names of the alleged tenants were already included in the Master List of Tenants together with the corresponding numbers of their Certificates of Land Transfer (CLTs); that sometime in September 1989, at the instance of DAR Region III, the land was surveyed in preparation for the issuance of EPs, unfortunately no titles were generated because the property allegedly owned by the Layug family was found to be unregistered; that as a result thereof, payment of lease rentals was held in abeyance upon the advice of Provincial Agrarian Reform Officer (PARO) Vicente C. Jimenez; that after the alleged owner/s failed to substantiate their claim of ownership over the subject landholding, PARO Jimenez referred the matter to the Provincial Environment Officer (PENRO) for the possible issuance of Free Patents, but the alleged tenants objected to this proposal for it will, according to them, destroy the spirit and intent of P.D. No. 27; and that because of these uncertain negative developments, the alleged tenant-farmers are now facing ejectment cases before the Department of Agrarian Reform Adjudication Board (DARAB) for non-payment of lease rentals.

Please be informed that the acquisition of agricultural lands for distribution to qualified tenant-farmers under Presidential Decree No. 27 is subject to the following conditions, to wit:

a.         that the property is a private agricultural land;

b.         that it is primarily devoted to rice and corn under a system of share-crop or lease tenancy, whether classified as landed estate or not; and

c.         that it is tenanted.

Specifically, the beneficent provisions of the aforementioned law find no application to landholdings whose ownership is still public in character. Otherwise stated, public lands cannot be acquired and distributed to qualified Operation Land Transfer (OLT) farmer-beneficiaries nor can it be the subject of Emancipation Patents for the same are outside the purview of P.D. No. 27. However, the foregoing is not without exception. Alienable public lands held by a possessor, personally, or thru his predecessors in interest, openly, continuously and exclusively for the prescribed statutory period (i.e., 30 years under the Public Land Act, as amended) are converted to private property by mere lapse or completion of said period, ipso jure (Director of Land Management vs. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 94525, January 27, 1992). As likewise ruled by the Supreme Court in the case of Rural Bank of Compostela vs. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 122801, April 8, 1997, the possessor is deemed to have acquired by operation of law, a right to a government grant, without the necessity of a certificate of title being issued, and the land ceases to be part of the public domain and beyond the authority of the Director of Lands. Thus, even assuming that the subject property is a public land for failure of the Layug family to prove their claim of ownership, the same can still be possibly acquired and distributed to qualified tenant beneficiaries pursuant to P.D. No. 27 to give effect to the mandate of this social justice legislation.

Moreover, to require the tenant-farmers to apply instead for the issuance of Free Patents with the DENR would only entail additional wastage of time, effort and resources by the government. Accordingly, should all the conditions prescribed by law are complied with, it is submitted that in order to achieve the mandate of P.D. No. 27 to emancipate the tenants from the bondage of the soil and to transform them as owner-cultivators of a family-size farm, generation of EPs in their favor should now be undertaken with reasonable dispatch.

We wish to state, however, that this opinion is merely advisory and does not constitute as a decision on the merits on whatever case that might have been brought or will be brought before the proper forum.

Thank you for communicating with us and we hope to have clarified the matters with you.

Very truly yours,

(SGD.) DANILO T. LARA

Undersecretary for Legal Affairs, and Policy and Planning