TORRENS SYSTEM & TORRENS TITLE

Q: What is Torrens System?

A: It is a system for registration of land
under which, upon the landowners
application,
the
court
may,
after
appropriate proceedings, direct the register
of deeds for the issuance of a certificate of
title.
Q: What is a Certificate of Title?
A: Certificate of title is the transcript of the
decree of registration made by the Register
of Deeds in the registry. It accumulates in
one document a precise and correct
statement of the exact status of the fee
simple title which an owner possesses.
(Agcaoili Reviewer, p. 245, 2008 ed)
Q: What are the two types of
certificates of title?
A:
1. Original Certificate of Title (OCT) the
first title issued in the name of the
registered owner by the Register of
Deeds covering a parcel of land which
had been registered under the Torrens
system by virtue of a judicial or
administrative proceeding.
It consists of one original copy filed
in the Register of Deeds, and the
owners
duplicate
certificate
delivered to the owner.

1. Transfer Certificate of Title (TCT) the

title issued by the Register of Deeds in
favor of a transferee to whom the
ownership of a registered land has been
transferred by any legal mode of
Q: How are land titles acquired?
A: PERA PAID
1. Public grant
2. Emancipation patent or grant
3. Reclamation
4. Adverse
possession
/
acquisitive
prescription
5. Private grant or voluntary transfer
6. Accretion
7. Involuntary alienation
8. Descent or devise
Q: What is Torrens title?
A: It is a certificate of ownership issued
under the Torrens system of registration by
the government, through the Register of
Deeds (RD) naming and declaring the
owner in fee simple of the real property
described therein, free from all liens &
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encumbrances, except as may be expressly

noted there or otherwise reserved by law.
GR: A title once registered cannot be
impugned, altered, changed, modified,
enlarged or diminished.
XP: Direct proceeding permitted by law,
usually for the protection of innocent third
party.
Probative Value of Torrens Title
Torrens Title may be received in evidence in
all courts in the Philippines, and shall be
conclusive s to all matters contained
therein, principally as to the identity of the
land owner except as far as provided in the
Land Registration Act.
REGALIAN DOCTRINE
Under the Regalian doctrine, all lands of
whatever classification and other natural
resources not otherwise appearing to be
clearly within private ownership are
presumed to belong to the State which is
the source of any asserted right to
ownership of land.3 Accordingly, public
lands not shown to have been reclassified
or released as alienable agricultural land or
alienated to a private person by the State
remain part of the inalienable public
domain.4 Property of the public domain is
beyond the commerce of man and not
susceptible of private appropriation and
acquisitive prescription. Occupation thereof
in the concept of owner no matter how long
cannot ripen into ownership and be
registered as a title
Section 2. All lands of the public domain,
waters, minerals, coal, petroleum, and
other mineral oils, all forces of potential
energy, fisheries, forests or timber,
wildlife, flora and fauna, and other
natural resources are owned by the
State. With the exception of agricultural
lands, all other natural resources shall
not be alienated. The exploration,
development, and utilization of natural
resources shall be under the full control
and supervision of the State. The State
may directly undertake such activities,
or it may enter into co-production, joint
venture,
or
production-sharing
agreements with Filipino citizens, or
corporations or associations at least
sixty per centum of whose capital is

owned
by
such
citizens.
Such
agreements may be for a period not
exceeding twenty-five years, renewable
for not more than twenty-five years, and
under such terms and conditions as may
be provided by law. In cases of water
rights for irrigation, water supply
fisheries, or industrial uses other than
the development of water power,
beneficial use may be the measure and
limit of the grant.
The State shall protect the nation's
marine wealth in its archipelagic waters,
territorial sea, and exclusive economic
zone, and reserve its use and enjoyment
exclusively to Filipino citizens.
The Congress may, by law, allow smallscale utilization of natural resources by
Filipino citizens, as well as cooperative
fish farming, with priority to subsistence
fishermen and fishworkers in rivers,
lakes, bays, and lagoons.
The
President
may
enter
into
agreements
with
foreign-owned
corporations involving either technical
or financial assistance for large-scale
exploration,
development,
and
utilization of minerals, petroleum, and
other mineral oils according to the
general terms and conditions provided
by law, based on real contributions to
the economic growth and general
welfare of the country. In such
agreements, the State shall promote the
development and use of local scientific
and technical resources.
The President shall notify the Congress
of every contract entered into in
accordance with this provision, within
thirty days from its execution.
IPRA LAW
Sec 3
a. Ancestral Domains - Subject to Section
56 hereof, refer to all areas generally
belonging to ICCs/IPs comprising lands,
inland waters, coastal areas, and natural
resources therein, held under a claim of
ownership, occupied or possessed by
ICCs/IPs, by themselves or through their
ancestors, communally or individually since
time immemorial, continuously to the
present except when interrupted by war,
force majeure or displacement by force,
deceit, stealth or as a consequence of
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government projects or any other voluntary

dealings entered into by government and
private individuals/corporations, and which
are necessary to ensure their economic,
social and cultural welfare. It shall include
ancestral
lands,
forests,
pasture,
residential, agricultural, and other lands
individually owned whether alienable and
disposable or otherwise, hunting grounds,
burial grounds, worship areas, bodies of
water, mineral and other natural resources,
and lands which may no longer be
exclusively occupied by ICCs/IPs but from
which they traditionally had access to for
their subsistence and traditional activities,
particularly the home ranges of ICCs/ IPs
who are still nomadic and/or shifting
cultivators.
NATIVE TITLE - refers to pre-conquest
rights to lands and domains which, as far
back as memory reaches, have been held
under a claim of private ownership by
ICCs/IPs, have never been public lands and
are thus indisputably presumed to have
been held that way since before the
Spanish Conquest.
h.
Indigenous
Cultural
Communities/Indigenous Peoples - refer
to a group of people or homogenous
societies identified by self-ascription and
ascription
by
others,
who
have
continuouslylived as organized community
on communally bounded and defined
territory, and who have, under claims of
ownership
since
time
immemorial,
occupied, possessed and utilized such
territories, sharing common bonds of
language, customs, traditions and other
distinctive cultural traits, or who have,
through resistance to political, social and
cultural inroads of colonization, nonindigenous religions and cultures, became
historically differentiated from the majority
of Filipinos. ICCs/IPs shall likewise include
peoples who are regarded as indigenous on
account of their descent from the
populations which inhabited the country, at
the time of conquest or colonization, or at
the time of inroads of non-indigenous
religions and cultures, or the establishment
of present state boundaries, who retain
some or all of their own social, economic,
cultural and political institutions, but who
may have been displaced from their
traditional domains or who may have
resettled outside their ancestral domains;

SEC. 11. Recognition of Ancestral

Domain Rights. The rights of ICCs/IPs to
their ancestral domains by virtue of Native
Title shall be recognized and respected.
Formal recognition, when solicited by
ICCs/IPs concerned, shall be embodied in a
Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title
(CADT), which shall recognize the title of
the concerned ICCs/IPs over the territories
identified and delineated.
SEC. 12. Option to Secure Certificate
of Title Under Commonwealth Act 141,
as amended, or the Land Registration
Act 496. Individual members of cultural
communities,
with
respect
to
their
individually-owned ancestral lands who, by
themselves or through their predecessorsin-interest, have been in continuous
possession and occupation of the same in
the
concept
of
owner
since
time
immemorial or for a period of not less than
thirty (30) years immediately preceding the
approval of this Act and uncontested by the
members of the same ICCs/IPs shall have
the option to secure title to their ancestral
lands
under
the
provisions
of
Commonwealth Act 141, as amended, or
the Land Registration Act 496. For this
purpose, said individually-owned ancestral
lands, which are agricultural in character
and
actually
used
for
agricultural,
residential, pasture, and tree farming
purposes, including those with a slope of
eighteen percent (18%) or more, are
hereby
classified
as
alienable
and
disposable agricultural lands. The option
granted under this section shall be
exercised within twenty (20) years from the
approval of this Act.
CA 141
CHAPTER IV. - Homesteads
Sec. 12. Any citizen of the Philippines over
the age of eighteen years, or the head of a
family, who does not own more than
twenty-four hectares of land in the
Philippines or has not had the benefit of
any gratuitous allotment of more than
twenty-four hectares of land since the
occupation of the Philippines by the United
States, may enter a homestead of not
exceeding
twenty-four
hectares
of
agricultural land of the public domain.
PD 1529
A. APPLICATIONS
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Section 14. Who may apply. The

following persons may file in the proper
Court of First Instance an application for
registration of title to land, whether
personally or through their duly authorized
representatives:
(1) Those who by themselves or through
their predecessors-in-interest have been
in open, continuous, exclusive and
notorious possession and occupation of
alienable and disposable lands of the
public domain under a bona fide claim
of ownership since June 12, 1945, or
earlier.
(2) Those who have acquired ownership
of private lands by prescription under
the provision of existing laws.
(3) Those who have acquired ownership
of private lands or abandoned river beds
by right of accession or accretion under
the existing laws.
(4) Those who have acquired ownership
of land in any other manner provided for
by law.
Where the land is owned in common, all the
co-owners shall file the application jointly.
Where the land has been sold under pacto
de retro, the vendor a retro may file an
application for the original registration of
the land, provided, however, that should
the period for redemption expire during the
pendency of the registration proceedings
and ownership to the property consolidated
in the vendee a retro, the latter shall be
substituted for the applicant and may
continue the proceedings.
A trustee on behalf of his principal may
apply for original registration of any land
held in trust by him, unless prohibited by
the instrument creating the trust.
Section 15. Form and contents. The
application for land registration shall be in
writing, signed by the application or the
person duly authorized in his behalf, and
sworn to before any officer authorized to
administer oaths for the province or city
where the application was actually signed.
If there is more than one applicant, the
application shall be signed and sworn to by
and in behalf of each. The application shall

contain a description of the land and shall

state the citizenship and civil status of the
applicant, whether single or married, and, if
married, the name of the wife or husband,
and, if the marriage has been legally
dissolved, when and how the marriage
relation terminated. It shall also state the
full names and addresses of all occupants
of the land and those of the adjoining
owners, if known, and, if not known, it shall
state the extent of the search made to find
them.
Section 16. Non-resident applicant. If
the applicant is not a resident of the
Philippines, he shall file with his application
an instrument in due form appointing an
agent or representative residing in the
Philippines, giving his full name and postal
address, and shall therein agree that the
service of any legal process in the
proceedings under or growing out of the
application made upon his agent or
representative shall be of the same legal
effect as if made upon the applicant within
the
Philippines.
If
the
agent
or
representative
dies,
or
leaves
the
Philippines, the applicant shall forthwith
make
another
appointment
for
the
substitute, and, if he fails to do so the court
may dismiss the application.
Section 18. Application covering two
or more parcels. An application may
include two or more parcels of land
belonging to the applicant/s provided they
are situated within the same province or
city. The court may at any time order an
application to be amended by striking out
one or more of the parcels or by a
severance of the application.
Section 20. When land applied for
borders on road. If the application
describes the land as bounded by a public
or private way or road, it shall state
whether or not the applicant claims any
and what portion of the land within the
limits of the way or road, and whether the
applicant desires to have the line of the
way or road determined.
B. PUBLICATION,
DEFAULT

OPPOSITION

the initial hearing which shall not be earlier

than forty-five days nor later than ninety
days from the date of the order.
The public shall be given notice of the
initial hearing of the application for land
registration by means of (1) publication; (2)
mailing; and (3) posting.
Section 25. Opposition to application
in ordinary proceedings. Any person
claiming an interest, whether named in the
notice or not, may appear and file an
opposition on or before the date of initial
hearing, or within such further time as may
be allowed by the court. The opposition
shall state all the objections to the
application and shall set forth the interest
claimed by the party filing the same and
apply for the remedy desired, and shall be
signed and sworn to by him or by some
other duly authorized person.
If the opposition or the adverse claim of
any person covers only a portion of the lot
and said portion is not properly delimited
on the plan attached to the application, or
in
case
of
undivided
co-ownership,
conflicting
claims
of
ownership
or
possession, or overlapping of boundaries,
the court may require the parties to submit
a subdivision plan duly approved by the
Director of Lands.
Section 26. Order of default; effect. If
no person appears and answers within the
time allowed, the court shall, upon motion
of the applicant, no reason to the contrary
appearing, order a default to be recorded
and require the applicant to present
evidence. By the description in the notice
"To all Whom It May Concern", all the world
are made parties defendant and shall be
concluded by the default order.
Where an appearance has been entered
and an answer filed, a default order shall be
entered against persons who did not
appear and answer.
C. HEARING JUDGMENT AND DECREE
OF REGISTRATION

AND

Section 23. Notice of initial hearing,

publication, etc. The court shall, within
five days from filing of the application,
issue an order setting the date and hour of
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Section 27. Speedy hearing; reference

to a referee. The trial court shall see to it
that
all
registration-proceedings
are
disposed or within ninety days from the
date the case is submitted for decision,

The Court, if it deems necessary, may refer

the case or any part thereof to a referee
who shall hear the parties and their
evidence, and the referee shall submit his
report thereon to the Court within fifteen
days after the termination of such hearing.
Hearing before a referee may be held at
any convenient place within the province or
city as may be fixed by him and after
reasonable notice thereof shall have been
served the parties concerned. The court
may render judgment in accordance with
the report as though the facts have been
found by the judge himself: Provided,
however, that the court may in its
discretion accept the report, or set it aside
in whole or in part, or order the case to be
recommitted for further proceedings:
Section 28. Partial judgment. In a case
where only a portion of the land subject of
registration is contested, the court may
render partial judgment provided that a
subdivision plan showing the contested and
uncontested portions approved by the
Director of Lands is previously submitted to
said court.
Section 29. Judgment confirming title.
All conflicting claims of ownership and
interest in the land subject of the
application shall be determined by the
court. If the court, after considering the
evidence
and
the
reports
of
the
Commissioner of Land Registration and the
Director of Lands, finds that the applicant
or the oppositor has sufficient title proper
for registration, judgment shall be rendered
confirming the title of the applicant, or the
oppositor, to the land or portions thereof.
Section 30. When judgment becomes
final; duty to cause issuance of
decree. The judgment rendered in a land
registration proceedings becomes final
upon the expiration of thirty days to be
counted from the data of receipt of notice
of the judgment. An appeal may be taken
from the judgment of the court as in
ordinary civil cases.
NON-REGISTRABLE PROPERTIES
Properties of public dominion have been
described as those which, under existing
legislation, are not the subject of private
ownership and are reserved for public
purposes, as held by the SC in Republic vs.
Court of
Appeals, 131 SCRA 532, 537
(1984) .
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The following things are property of public

dominion, according to the Civil Code Art.
420 , to wit:
1. Those intended for public use, such
as roads, canals, rivers, torrent, ports
and bridges constructed by the State,
banks, shores, roadsteads, and others of
similar character;
2. 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.
It has been held that such properties of the
public dominion are held by the State by
Regalian Right. They are things res publicae
in
nature,
incapable
of
private
appropriation, as held in Republic vs.
Alagad,
169SCRA
466, 461
(1989).
Accordingly, the 1987 Constitution provides
that with the exception of agricultural
lands, all other natural resources shall not
be alienated,
Art. XI, Sec. 2.
Art. 502 of the Civil Code , deals with the
special properties, likewaters, likewise
enumerated the following to be of public
dominion, to wit:
1.Rivers and their natural beds;
2.Continuous or intermittent waters of
springs and brooks running intheir
natural beds and beds themselves;
3.Waters
rising
continuously
or
intermittently on lands, and theirbeds;
4.Lakes and lagoons formed by Nature
on public lands and their beds;
5.Rain water running through ravines or
sand beds, which are also of public
dominion;
6.Subterranean waters on public lands;
7.Waters found within the zone of
operation of public works, even if
constructed by a contractor;
8.Waters
rising
continuously
or
intermittently
on
lands
belonging
toprivate persons, to the State, to a
province, or to a city ormunicipality from
the moment they leave such lands;
9.The waste waters of fountains, sewers
and public establishments.
BAR Qs
Q:Assume the two properties are on a
cliff adjoining the shore of Laguna
Lake. Jessica and Jenny had a hotel
built on the properties. They had the
earth and rocks excavated from the

properties dumped on the adjoining

shore, giving rise to a new patch of
dry land. Can they validly lay claim to
the patch of land?
A: Jessica and Jenny cannot validly lay
claim to the price of dry land that resulted
from the dumping of rocks and earth
materials excavated from their properties
because it is a reclamation without
authority. The land is part of the lakeshore,
if not the lakebed, which is inalienable land
of the public domain. (2008 Bar
Question)

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