FRANCISCO I. CHAVEZ vs.

PUBLIC ESTATES AUTHORITY and AMARI

COASTAL BAY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
G.R. No. 133250. July 9, 2002

Facts:
On February 4, 1977, then President Ferdinand E. Marcos issued Presidential
Decree No. 1084 creating Public Estates Authority (PEA). PD No. 1084
tasked PEA to reclaim land, including foreshore and submerged areas, and to
develop, improve, acquire, lease and sell any and all kinds of lands. On the same
date, then President Marcos issued Presidential Decree No. 1085 transferring
to PEA the lands reclaimed in the foreshore and offshore of the Manila
Bay under the Manila-Cavite Coastal Road and Reclamation Project (MCCRRP).

On April 25, 1995, PEA entered into a Joint Venture Agreement (JVA for
brevity) with AMARI, a private corporation, to develop the Freedom Islands. The
JVA also required the reclamation of an additional 250 hectares of submerged
areas surrounding these islands to complete the configuration in the Master
Development Plan of the Southern Reclamation Project-MCCRRP. PEA and AMARI
entered into the JVA through negotiation without public bidding.

On April 27, 1998, petitioner Frank I. Chavez as a taxpayer, filed the

instant Petition for Mandamus. Petitioner assails the sale to AMARI of lands of
the public domain as a blatant violation of Section 3, Article XII of the 1987
Constitution prohibiting the sale of alienable lands of the public domain to private
corporations.

ISSUE: Whether or not the reclaimed, and still to be reclaimed, foreshore lands
and submerged areas are part of public domain and thus inalienable

RULING: Yes. The ownership of lands reclaimed from foreshore and submerged
areas is rooted in the Regalian doctrine which holds that the State owns all lands
and waters of the public domain.

The State policy prohibiting the sale to private parties of government reclaimed,
foreshore and marshy alienable lands of the public domain, first implemented in
1907 was thus reaffirmed in CA No. 141 after the 1935 Constitution took effect.
The prohibition on the sale of foreshore lands, however, became a constitutional
edict under the 1935 Constitution. Foreshore lands became inalienable as natural
resources of the State, unless reclaimed by the government and classified as
agricultural lands of the public domain, in which case they would fall under the
classification of government reclaimed lands.

After the effectivity of the 1935 Constitution, government reclaimed and marshy
disposable lands of the public domain continued to be only leased and not sold
to private parties. These lands remained sui generis, as the only alienable or
disposable lands of the public domain the government could not sell to private
parties.

Since then and until now, the only way the government can sell to private parties
government reclaimed and marshy disposable lands of the public domain is for
the legislature to pass a law authorizing such sale. CA No. 141 does not
authorize the President to reclassify government reclaimed and marshy lands
into other non-agricultural lands under Section 59 (d).

Lands classified under Section 59 (d) are the only alienable or disposable lands
for non-agricultural purposes that the government could sell to private parties.

http://sc.judiciary.gov.ph/jurisprudence/2002/jul2002/133250.htm