August 21, 2001

DAR OPINION NO. 13-01

ROLANDO S. GAMBOA

OIC-PARO

DAR Provincial Office

Urdaneta, Pangasinan

Dear PARO Gamboa:

This refers to your letter dated 20 July 2001 addressed to Director Gloria J. Fabia, BLAD, pertaining to Emancipation Patents/Certificates of Land Ownership Award (EPs/CLOAs) which had been signed and sealed during the administration of former DAR Secretary Horacio R. Morales, Jr., but were refused registration by the Register of Deeds (ROD).

You stated that said titles were not immediately registered due to lack of documentary requirements; that though the documents are now complete and ready for registration, the Register of Deeds refused to register because the signatory is not Secretary Hernani A. Braganza; and, that you are inquiring whether or not there is any guideline to this effect, requesting this Office that if there is none, we should request the Land Registration Authority (LRA) Administrator to instruct all Register of Deeds to allow registration of pending land titles.

Be informed that where the instrument to be presented for registration complies with all the requisites for registration, the Register of Deeds is duty-bound to immediately register said instrument. The duties enjoined upon the Register of Deeds pursuant to Section 57 of P.D.  No. 1529 (Property Registration Decree) are clearly ministerial and mandatory in character.

That the signatory is not Secretary Hernani A. Braganza should not be a ground for refusal of registration by the Register of Deeds considering that when erstwhile DAR Secretary Horacio R. Morales, Jr. signed said EPs/CLOAs, they were done in the exercise of his authority and, therefore valid acts as such of an incumbent public officer. To regenerate new EPs and CLOAs for signature of the present Secretary may no longer be practicable and advisable for, after all, the documents are now apparently all complete and the requisites for registration already complied with.

You are accordingly instructed to present forthwith the EPs/CLOAs for registration with the concerned Register of Deeds. Consulta, should it still be necessary, is proper only if said instruments are denied registration in writing by the ROD, setting forth the defects of the instruments or the legal grounds relied upon.

Please be guided accordingly.

Very truly yours,

(SGD.) VIRGILIO R. DE LOS REYES

Undersecretary for Policy, Planning and Legal
Affairs Office

Copy furnished:

Dir. Gloria J. Fabia

Bureau of Land Acquisition and Distribution

This Department