Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
DECISION
HERMOSISIMA, JR., J.:
of Appeals) in Land Registration Case No. N-84, the application over which
[4]
On the other hand, sometime in the early part of 1960, Sinforoso Pascual filed an
application to register and confirm his title to a parcel of land, situated in Sibocon,
Balanga, Bataan, described in Plan Psu-175181 and said to have an area of 146,611
square meters. Pascual claimed that this land is an accretion to his property, situated in
Barrio Puerto Rivas, Balanga, Bataan, and covered by Original Certificate of Title No.
6830. It is bounded on the eastern side by the Talisay River, on the western side by
the Bulacan River, and on the northern side by the Manila Bay. The Talisay River as
well as the Bulacan River flow downstream and meet at the Manila Bay thereby
depositing sand and silt on Pascual's property resulting in an accretion thereon.
Sinforoso Pascual claimed the accretion as the riparian owner.
On March 25, 1960, the Director of Lands, represented by the Assistant Solicitor
General, filed an opposition thereto stating that neither Pascual nor his predecessors-
in-interest possessed sufficient title to the subject property, the same being a portion
of the public domain and, therefore, it belongs to the Republic of the Philippines. The
Director of Forestry, through the Provincial Fiscal, similarly opposed Pascual's
application for the same reason as that advanced by the Director of Lands. Later on,
however, the Director of Lands withdrew his opposition. The Director of Forestry
become the sole oppositor.
On June 2, 1960, the court a quo issued an order of general default excepting the
Director of Lands and the Director of Forestry.
Upon motion of Emiliano Navarro, however, the order of general default was lifted
and, on February 13, 1961, Navarro thereupon filed an opposition to Pascual's
application. Navarro claimed that the land sought to be registered has always been
part of the public domain, it being a part of the foreshore of Manila Bay; that he was a
lessee and in possession of a part of the subject property by virtue of a fishpond
permit issued by the Bureau of Fisheries and confirmed by the Office of the President;
and that he had already converted the area covered by the lease into a fishpond.
During the pendency of the land registration case, that is, on November 6, 1960,
Sinforoso Pascual filed a complaint for ejectment against Emiliano Navarro, one
Marcelo Lopez and their privies, alleged by Pascual to have unlawfully claimed and
possessed, through stealth, force and strategy, a portion of the subject property
covered by Plan Psu-175181. The defendants in the case were alleged to have built a
provisional dike thereon: thus they have thereby deprived Pascual of the premises
sought to be registered. This, notwithstanding repeated demands for defendants to
vacate the property.
The case was decided adversely against Pascual. Thus, Pascual appealed to the Court
of First Instance (now Regional Trial Court) of Balanga, Bataan, the appeal having
been docketed as Civil Case No. 2873. Because of the similarity of the parties and the
subject matter, the appealed case for ejectment was consolidated with the land
registration case and was jointly tried by the court a quo.
During the pendency of the trial of the consolidated cases, Emiliano Navarro died on
November 1, 1961 and was substituted by his heirs, the herein petitioners.
Subsequently, on August 26, 1962, Pascual died and was substituted by his heirs, the
herein private respondents.
On November 10, 1975, the court a quo rendered judgment finding the subject
property to be foreshore land and, being a part of the public domain, it cannot be the
subject of land registration proceedings.
(2) Denying the application of Sinforoso Pascual for land registration over the land in
question; and
(3) Directing said Sinforoso Pascual, through his heirs, as plaintiff in Civil Case No.
2873 and as applicant in Land Registration Case No. N-84 to pay costs in both
instances." [6]
The heirs of Pascual appealed and, before the respondent appellate court,
assigned the following errors:
"1. The lower court erred in not finding the land in question as an accretion by the
action of the Talisay and Bulacan Rivers to the land admittedly owned by applicants-
appellants [private respondents].
2. The lower court erred in holding that the land in question is foreshore land.
3. The lower court erred in not ordering the registration of the and is controversy in
favor of applicants-appellants [private respondents].
4. The lower court erred in not finding that the applicants-appellants [private
respondents] are entitled to eject the oppositor-appellee [petitioners]."
[7]
"The paramount issue to be resolved in this appeal as set forth by the parties in their
respective briefs is whether or not the land sought to be registered is accretion or
foreshore land, or, whether or not said land was formed by the action of the two rivers
of Talisay and Bulacan or by the action of the Manila Bay. If formed by the action of
the Talisay and Bulacan rivers, the subject land is accretion but if formed by the
action of the Manila Bay then it is foreshore land.
xxx
This makes this case quite unique because while it is undisputed that the subject land
is immediately attached to appellants' [private respondents'] land and forms the tip
thereof, at the same time, said land immediately faces the Manila Bay which is part of
the sea. We can understand therefore the confusion this case might have caused the
lower court, faced as it was with the uneasy problem of deciding whether or not the
subject land was formed by the action of the two rivers or by the action of the
sea. Since the subject land is found at the shore of the Manila Bay facing appellants'
[private respondents'] land, it would be quite easy to conclude that it is foreshore and
therefore part of the patrimonial property of the State as the lower court did in fact
rule x x x .
xxx
It is however undisputed that appellants' [private respondents'] land lies between these
two rivers and it is precisely appellants' [private respondents'] land which acts as a
barricade preventing these two rivers to meet. Thus, since the flow of the two rivers is
downwards to the Manila Bay the sediments of sand and silt are deposited at their
mouths.
It is, therefore, difficult to see how the Manila Bay could have been the cause of the
deposit thereat for in the natural course of things, the waves of the sea eat the land on
the shore, as they suge [sic] inland. It would not therefore add anything to the land but
instead subtract from it due to the action of the waves and the wind. It is then more
logical to believe that the two rivers flowing towards the bay emptied their cargo of
sand, silt and clay at their mouths, thus causing appellants' [private respondents'] land
to accumulate therein.
However, our distinguished colleage [sic], Mr. Justice Serrano, do [sic] not seem to
accept this theory and stated that the subject land arose only when x x x Pascual
planted 'palapat' and 'bakawan' trees thereat to serve as a boundary or strainer. But we
do not see how this act of planting trees by Pascual would explain how the land mass
came into being. Much less will it prove that the same came from the sea. Following
Mr. Justice Serrano's argument that it were the few trees that acted as strainers or
blocks, then the land that grew would have stopped at the place where the said trees
were planted. But this is not so because the land mass went far beyond the boundary,
or where the trees were planted.
In view of the foregoing, we have to deviate from the lower court's finding. While it is
true that the subject land is found at the shore of the Manila Bay fronting appellants'
[private respondents'] land, said land is not foreshore but an accretion from the action
of the Talisay and Bulacan rivers. In fact, this is exactly what the Bureau of Lands
found out, as shown in the following report of the Acting Provincial Officer, Jesus M.
Orozco, to wit:
'Upon ocular inspection of the land subject of this registration made on June 11, 1960,
it was found out that the said land is x x x sandwitched [sic] by two big rivers x x x
These two rivers bring down considerable amount of soil and sediments during floods
every year thus raising the soil of the land adjoining the private property of the
applicant [private respondents]. About four-fifth [sic] of the area applied for is now
dry land whereon are planted palapat trees thickly growing thereon. It is the natural
action of these two rivers that has caused the formation of said land x x x subject of
this registration case. It has been formed, therefore, by accretion. And having been
formed by accretion, the said land may be considered the private property of the
riparian owner who is the applicant herein [private respondents'] x x x .
In view of the above, the opposition hereto filed by the government should be
withdrawn, except for the portion recommended by the land investigator in his report
dated May 2, 1960, to be excluded and considered foreshore. x x x'
Because of this report, no less than the Solicitor General representing the Bureau of
Lands withdrew his opposition dated March 25, 1960, and limited 'the same to the
northern portion of the land applied for, compromising a strip 50 meters wide along
the Manila Bay, which should be declared public land as part of the foreshore' x x x. [8]
"(3). Ordering private oppositors Heirs of Emiliano Navarro to vacate that portion
included in their fishpond permit covered by Plan Psu-175181 and hand over
possession of said portion to applicants-appellants, if the said portion is not within the
strip of land fifty (50) meters wide along Manila Bay on the northern portion of the
land subject of the registration proceedings and which area is more particularly
referred to as fifty (50) meters from corner 2 towards corner 1; and fifty (50) meters
from corner 5 towards corner 6 of Plan Psu-175181. x x x [9]
20, 1981, such petition having been prematurely filed at a time when the Court
of Appeals was yet to resolve petitioners' pending motion to set aside the
resolution dated November 21, 1980.
On October 9, 1981, respondent appellate court denied petitioners' motion
for reconsideration of the decision dated November 29, 1978.
On October 17, 1981, respondent appellate court made an entry of
judgment stating that the decision dated November 29, 1978 had become final
and executory as against herein petitioners as oppositors in L.R.C. Case No.
N-84 and Civil Case No. 2873 of the Court of First Instance (now the Regional
Trial Court) of Balanga, Bataan.
On October 26, 1981, a second motion for reconsideration of the decision
dated November 29, 1978 was filed by petitioners' new counsel.
On March 26, 1982, respondent appellate court issued a resolution
granting petitioners' request for leave to file a second motion for
reconsideration.
On July 13, 1984, after hearing, respondent appellate court denied
petitioners' second motion for reconsideration on the ground that the same
was filed out of time, citing Rule 52, Section 1 of the Rules of Court which
provides that a motion for reconsideration shall be made ex-parte and filed
within fifteen (15) days from the notice of the final order or judgment.
Hence this petition where the respondent appellate court is imputed to
have palpably erred in appreciating the facts of the case and to have gravely
misapplied statutory and case law relating to accretion, specifically, Article
457 of the Civil Code.
We find merit in the petition.
The disputed property was brought forth by both the withdrawal of the
waters of Manila Bay and the accretion formed on the exposed foreshore land
by the action of the sea which brought soil and sand sediments in turn trapped
by the palapat and bakawan trees planted thereon by petitioner Sulpicio
Pascual in 1948.
Anchoring their claim of ownership on Article 457 of the Civil Code, private
respondents vigorously argue that the disputed 14-hectare land is an
accretion caused by the joint action of the Talisay and Bulacan Rivers which
run their course on the eastern and western boundaries, respectively, of
private respondents' own tract of land.
Accretion as a mode of acquiring property under said Article 457, requires
the concurrence of the following requisites: (1) that the accumulation of soil or
sediment be gradual and imperceptible; (2) that it be the result of the action of
the waters of the river; and (3) that the land where the accretion takes place is
adjacent to the bank of the river. Accretion is the process whereby the soil is
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deposited, while alluvium is the soil deposited on the estate fronting the river
bank; the owner of such estate is called the riparian owner. Riparian owners
[12]
are, strictly speaking, distinct from littoral owners, the latter being owners of
lands bordering the shore of the sea or lake or other tidal waters. The [13]
Moreover, there is no dispute as to the location of: (a) the disputed land;
(b) private respondents' own tract of land; (c) the Manila Bay; and, (d) the
Talisay and Bulacan Rivers. Private respondents' own land lies between the
Talisay and Bulacan Rivers; in front of their land on the northern side lies now
the disputed land where before 1948, there lay the Manila Bay. If the accretion
were to be attributed to the action of either or both of the Talisay and Bulacan
Rivers, the alluvium should have been deposited on either or both of the
eastern and western boundaries of private respondents' own tract of land, not
on the northern portion thereof which is adjacent to the Manila Bay. Clearly
lacking, thus, is the third requisite of accretion, which is, that the alluvium is
deposited on the portion of claimant's land which is adjacent to the river bank.
Second, there is no dispute as to the fact that private respondents' own
tract of land adjoins the Manila Bay. Manila Bay is obviously not a river, and
jurisprudence is already settled as to what kind of body of water the Manila
Bay is. It is to be remembered that we held that:
'Bay. An opening into the land where the water is shut in on all sides except at the
entrance; an inlet of the sea; an arm of the sea, distinct from a river, a bending or
curbing of the shore of the sea or of a lake.' 7 C.J. 1013-1014."[17]
The disputed land, thus, is an accretion not on a river bank but on a sea
bank, or on what used to be the foreshore of Manila Bay which adjoined
private respindents' own tract of land on the northern side. As such, the
applicable law is not Article 457 of the Civil Code but Article 4 of the Spanish
Law of Waters of 1866.
The process by which the disputed land was formed, is not difficult to
discern from the facts of the case. As the trial court correctly observed:
"A perusal of the survey plan x x x of the land subject matter of these cases shows that
on the eastern side, the property is bounded by Talisay River, on the western side by
Bulacan River, on the southern side by Lot 1436 and on the northern side by Manila
Bay. It is not correct to state that the Talisay and Bulacan Rivers meet a certain
portion because the two rivers both flow towards Manila Bay. The Talisay River is
straight while the Bulacan River is a little bit meandering and there is no portion
where the two rivers meet before they end up at Manila Bay. The land which is
adjacent to the property belonging to Pascual cannot be considered an accretion
[caused by the action of the two rivers].
Applicant Pascual x x x has not presented proofs to convince the Court that the land
he has applied for registration is the result of the settling down on his registered land
of soil, earth or other deposits so as to be rightfully be considered as an accretion
[caused by the action of the two rivers]. Said Art. 457 finds no applicability where the
accretion must have been caused by action of the bay." [18]
The conclusion formed by the trial court on the basis of the foregoing
observation is that the disputed land is part of the foreshore of Manila Bay and
therefore, part of the public domain. The respondent appellate court, however,
perceived the fact that petitioners' own land lies between the Talisay and
Bulacan Rivers, to be basis to conclude that the disputed land must be an
accretion formed by the action of the two rivers because private respondents'
own land acted as a barricade preventing the two rivers to meet and that the
current of the two rivers carried sediments of sand and silt downwards to the
Manila Bay which accumulated somehow to a 14-hectare land. These
conclusions, however, are fatally incongruous in the light of the one
undisputed critical fact: the accretion was deposited, not on either the eastern
or western portion of private respondents' land where a river each runs, but on
the northern portion of petitioners' land which adjoins the Manila Bay. Worse,
such conclusions are further eroded of their practical logic and consonance
with natural experience in the light of Sulpicio Pascual's admission as to
having planted palapat and bakawan trees on the northern boundary of their
own land. In amplification of this, plainly more reasonable and valid are
Justice Mariano Serrano's observations in his dissenting opinion when he
stated that:
"As appellants' (titled) land x x x acts as a barricade that prevents the two rivers to
meet, and considering the wide expanse of the boundary between said land and the
Manila Bay, measuring some 593.00 meters x x x it is believed rather farfetched for
the land in question to have been formed through 'sediments of sand and salt [sic] . . .
deposited at their [rivers'] mouths.' Moreover, if 'since the flow of the two rivers is
downwards to the Manila Bay the sediments of sand and silt are deposited at their
mouths,' why then would the alleged cargo of sand, silt and clay accumulate at the
northern portion of appellants' titled land facing Manila Bay instead of merely at the
mouths and banks of these two rivers? That being the case, the accretion formed at
said portion of appellants' titled [land] was not caused by the current of the two rivers
but by the action of the sea (Manila Bay) into which the rivers empty.
The conclusion x x x is not supported by any reference to the evidence which, on the
contrary, shows that the disputed land was formed by the action of the sea. Thus, no
less than Sulpicio Pascual, one of the heirs of the original applicant, testified on cross-
examination that the land in dispute was part of the shore and it was only in 1948 that
he noticed that the land was beginning to get higher after he had planted trees thereon
in 1948. x x x
x x x it is established that before 1948 sea water from the Manila Bay at high tide
could reach as far as the dike of appellants' fishpond within their titled property,
which dike now separates this titled property from the land in question. Even in 1948
when appellants had already planted palapat and bakawan trees in the land involved,
inasmuch as these trees were yet small, the waves of the sea could still reach the
dike. This must be so because in x x x the survey plan of the titled property approved
in 1918, said titled land was bounded on the north by Manila Bay. So Manila Bay was
adjacent to it on the north. It was only after the planting of the aforesaid trees in 1948
that the land in question began to rise or to get higher in elevation.
The trees planted by appellants in 1948 became a sort of strainer of the sea water and
at the same time a kind of block to the strained sediments from being carried back to
the sea by the very waves that brought them to the former shore at the end of the dike,
which must have caused the shoreline to recede and dry up eventually raising the
former shore leading to the formation of the land in question." [19]
In other words, the combined and interactive effect of the planting of palapat
and bakawan trees, the withdrawal of the waters of Manila Bay eventually
resulting in the drying up of its former foreshore, and the regular torrential
action of the waters of Manila Bay, is the formation of the disputed land on the
northern boundary of private respondents' own tract of land.
The disputed property is an accretion on a sea bank, Manila Bay being an inlet or an
arm of the sea; as such, the disputed property is, under Article 4 of the Spanish Law of
Waters of 1866, part of the public domain.
"Lands added to the shores by accretions and alluvial deposits caused by the action of
the sea, form part of the public domain. When they are no longer washed by the
waters of the sea and are not necessary for purposes of public utility, or for the
establishment of special industries, or for the coast-guard service, the Government
shall declare them to be the property of the owners of the estates adjacent thereto and
as increment thereof."
In the light of the aforecited vintage but still valid law, unequivocal is the
public nature of the disputed land in this controversy, the same being an
accretion on a sea bank which, for all legal purposes, the foreshore of Manila
Bay is. As part of the public domain, the herein disputed land is intended for
public uses, and "so long as the land in litigation belongs to the national
domain and is reserved for public uses, it is not capable of being appropriated
by any private person, except through express authorization granted in due
form by a competent authority." Only the executive and possibly the
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legislative departments have the right and the power to make the declaration
that the lands so gained by action of the sea is no longer necessary for
purposes of public utility or for the cause of establishment of special industries
or for coast guard services. Petitioners utterly fail to show that either the
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