3. Guingona, Jr. vs.

Carague
G.R. No. 94571. April 22, 1991

FACTS:

The 1990 budget consists of P98.4 Billion in automatic appropriation (with P86.8 Billion for debt
service) and P155.3 Billion appropriated under RA 6831, otherwise known as the General
Approriations Act, or a total of P233.5 Billion, while the appropriations for the DECS amount to
P27,017,813,000.00.

The said automatic appropriation for debt service is authorized by PD No. 18, entitled
Amending Certain Provisions of Republic Act Numbered Four Thousand Eight Hundred Sixty,
as Amended (Re: Foreign Borrowing Act), by PD No. 1177, entitled Revising the Budget
Process in Order to Institutionalize the Budgetary Innovations of the New Society, and by PD
No.1967, entitled An Act Strengthening the Guarantee and Payment Positions of the Republic
of the Philippines on its Contingent Liabilities Arising out of Relent and Guaranteed Loans by
Appropriating Funds For The Purpose.

The petitioners were questioning the constitutionality of the automatic appropriation for debt
service, it being higher than the budget for education, therefore it is against Section 5(5), Article
XIV of the Constitution which mandates to assign the highest budgetary priority to education.

ISSUE:

Whether or not the automatic appropriation for debt service is unconstitutional; it being higher
than the budget for education.

HELD:

No. While it is true that under Section 5(5), Article XIV of the Constitution Congress is mandated
to assign the highest budgetary priority to education, it does not thereby follow that the hands
of Congress are so hamstrung as to deprive it the power to respond to the imperatives of the
national interest and for the attainment of other state policies or objectives.

Congress is certainly not without any power, guided only by its good judgment, to provide an
appropriation, that can reasonably service our enormous debtIt is not only a matter of honor
and to protect the credit standing of the country. More especially, the very survival of our
economy is at stake. Thus, if in the process Congress appropriated an amount for debt service
bigger than the share allocated to education, the Court finds and so holds that said
appropriation cannot be thereby assailed as unconstitutional

2 . Separate Opinion of Justice Puno in Cruz v. Secretary of DENR

History of Philippine Land Laws
Facts:
In 1997, RA 8371 (Indigenous Peoples Rights Act/IPRA) was passed. Isagani Cruz and Cesar
Europa filed a petition for prohibition and mandamus, questioning the constitutionality of certain
provisions of IPRA: a) It allows the indigenous people/cultural community to OWN NATURAL
RESOURCES ; b) It defines ancestral lands and ancestral domains in such a way that it may
include private lands owned by other individuals; c) It categorizes ancestral lands and domains
held by native title as never to have been public land; d) It violates due process in allowing NCIP
(National Commission on Indigenous Peoples) to take jurisdiction over IP land disputes and
making customary law apply to these. In the first deliberation of the SC, the votes were 77, so
the case was redeliberated upon.

Issue:
Did the IPRA violate the Regalian Theory?
A. IPRA: Under the IPRA law, lands which have not been registered before, if granted with a
CADT/CALT, will be recognized as privately owned by the IPs from the beginning thus, has
never been part of public domain.
B. Regalian Theory: Lands which has not been recognized as privately owned belongs to the
State

Held:
No Final Decision. Petition dismissed due to lack of votes; Law remained valid and
constitutional (7 to grant 7 to dismiss).

Justice Punos Separate Opinion: The IPRA Law DID NOT VIOLATE the Regalian Theory
1. These lands claimed by the IPs have long been theirs BY VIRTUE OF NATIVE TITLE;
they have lived there even before the Spanish colonization. Native title refers to ICCs/IPs pre
conquest rights to lands and domains held under a claim of private ownership as far back as
memory reaches. These lands are deemed never to have been public lands and are
indisputable presumed to have been held that way since before the Spanish Conquest.

2. AND Native Title is an Exception to the Regalian Doctrine: ... Oh Cho vs Director of
Lands: This exception would be any land that should have been in the possession of an
occupant and of his predecessorsininterest since time immemorial

3. Native Titles provide a different Type of Private Ownership

Sec. 5. Indigenous concept of ownership. Indigenous concept of ownership sustains the
view that ancestral domains and all resources found therein shall serve as the material bases of
their cultural integrity. The indigenous concept of ownership generally holds that ancestral
domains are the ICCs/IPs private but community property which belongs to all
generations and therefore cannot be sold, disposed or destroyed. It likewise covers
sustainable traditional resource rights.

4. It complies with Regalian Doctrine: Natural Sources within ancestral domains are not
owned by the IPs
* The IPs claims are limited to lands, bodies of water traditionally and actually occupied by
ICCs/IPs, sacred places, traditional hunting and fishing grounds, and all improvements
made by them at any time within the domains;
* IPRA did not mention that the IPs also own all the other natural resources found within the
ancestral domains

Discussion related to the topic of the Torrens System and Mode of Acquiring Ownership
(land):
I. HISTORY ON THE MODE OF ACQUIRING LAND OWNERSHIP IN THE PHILIPPINES:
A. Laws of the Indies
The Regalian Theory is a Western legal concept first introduced by the Spaniards into the
country through the Laws of the Indies and the Royal Cedulas.
By virtue of Spains "discovery" and conquest of the Philippines, its lands became the
 exclusive patrimony and dominion of the Spanish Crown
Back then, the Spanish Government distributed the lands by issuing royal grants and
concessions to Spaniards, both military and civilian

B. ValentonvsMurciano Case (1904, American Regime)

Longtime occupation will not necessarily lead to ownership of the land
"While the State has always recognized the right of the occupant to a deed if he proves a
possession for a sufficient length of time, yet it has always insisted that he must make
that proof before the proper administrative officers, and obtain from them his
deed, and until he did that the State remained the absolute owner."

C. The Public Land Acts and the Torrens System

1903: 1st Public Land Act (Act No. 926)
34 Provides rules and regulations for the homesteading, selling, and leasing of portions of
the public domain of the
Philippine Islands

1919: 2nd Public Land Act (Act 2874)

34 more comprehensive but limited the exploitation of agricultural lands to Filipinos,
Americans and citizens of other countries which gave Filipinos the same privileges

1936: Present Public Land Law (Commonwealth Act No. 141)

34 Almost the same as Act 2874, except that it gave the Filipino citizens and corporations
which were previously only granted to Americans

**1903: Land Registration Law (Act 496)

34 It placed all public and private lands in the Philippines under the Torrens system
34 almost a verbatim copy of the Massachussetts Land Registration Act of 1898

II. TORRENS SYSTEM

Origin: Patterned after the Merchant Shipping Acts in South Australia by Sir Robert Torrens
Governments Role:
The government must issue an official certificate of title attesting to the fact that the person
named is the owner of the property described therein, subject to such liens and encumbrances
as thereon noted or the law warrants or reserves
Certificate of Title: The certificate of title is indefeasible and imprescriptible and all claims to
the parcel of land are quieted upon issuance of said certificate.

III. REGALIAN DOCTRINE

Despite of several legal developments on land distribution, the Regalian doctrine is still
retained in our Constitution.
Under this concept, all lands of the public domain as well as all natural resources
enumerated therein, whether on public or private land, belong to the State.