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.||| (Property
Registration Decree, Presidential Decree No. 1529, [June 11, 1978])
SECTION 44. Statutory Liens Affecting Title. — Every registered owner receiving a
certificate of title in pursuance of a decree of registration, and every subsequent purchaser
of registered land taking a certificate of title for value and in good faith, shall hold the same
free from all encumbrances except those noted in said certificate and any of the following
encumbrances which may be subsisting, namely:
First. Liens, claims or rights arising or existing under the laws and Constitution of
the Philippines which are not by law required to appear of record in the Registry of Deeds
in order to be valid against subsequent purchasers or encumbrances of record.
Second. Unpaid real estate taxes levied and assessed within two years immediately
preceding the acquisition of any right over the land by an innocent purchaser for value,
without prejudice to the right of the government to collect taxes payable before that period
from the delinquent taxpayer alone.
Third. Any public highway or private way established or recognized by law, or any
government irrigation canal or lateral thereof, if the certificate of title does not state that the
boundaries of such highway or irrigation canal or lateral thereof have been determined.
Fourth. Any disposition of the property or limitation on the use thereof by virtue of,
or pursuant to, Presidential Decree No. 27 or any other law or regulations on agrarian
reform.
||| (Property Registration Decree, Presidential Decree No. 1529, [June 11, 1978])

SECTION 17. Registration. — All contracts to sell, deeds of sale and other similar
instruments relative to the sale or conveyance of the subdivision lots and condominium
units, whether or not the purchase price is paid in full, shall be registered by the seller in the
Office of the Register of Deeds of the province or city where the property is situated. cdt
Whenever a subdivision plan duly approved in accordance with Section 4 hereof,
together with the corresponding owner's duplicate certificate of title, is presented to the
Register of Deeds for registration, the Register of Deeds shall register the same in
accordance with the provisions of the Land Registration Act, as amended: Provided,
however, that it there is a street, passageway or required open space delineated on a
complex subdivision plan hereafter approved and as defined in this Decree, the Register of
Deeds shall annotate on the new certificate of title covering the street, passageway or open
space, a memorandum to the effect that except by way of donation in favor of a city or
municipality, no portion of any street, passageway, or open space so delineated on the plan
 shall be closed or otherwise disposed of by the registered owner without the requisite
approval as provided under Section 22 of this Decree.
||| (Subdivision and Condominium Buyers' Protection Decree, Presidential Decree No. 957, [July 12,
1976])

SECTION 22. Alteration of Plans. — No owner or developer shall change or alter the roads, open
spaces, infrastructures, facilities for public use and/or other form of subdivision development as
contained in the approved subdivision plan and/or represented in its advertisements, without
the permission of the Authority and the written conformity or consent of the duly organized
homeowners association, or in the absence of the latter, by the majority of the lot buyers in the
subdivision.|||(Subdivision and Condominium Buyers' Protection Decree, Presidential Decree No.
957, [July 12, 1976])

As a registered co-owner of the road lots, Borbajo is entitled to avail of all the attributes of
ownership under the Civil Code — jus utendi, fruendi, abutendi, disponendi et vindicandi. Article
428 of the New Civil Code is explicit that the owner has the right to enjoy and dispose of a
thing, without other limitations than those established by law. A co-owner, such as Borbajo, is
entitled to use the property owned in common under Article 486 of the Civil Code. Therefore,
respondents cannot close the road lots to prevent Borbajo from using the same.||| (Borbajo v.
Hidden View Homeowners Inc., G.R. No. 152440, [January 31, 2005], 490 PHIL 724-736)

While petitioners correctly argue that certain requirements must be observed before
encumbrances, in this case the condition of the lot's registration as being subject to the law, may
be discharged and before road lots may be appropriated gratuity assuming that the lot in
question was indeed one, TCT Nos. 247778-R and 269758-R enjoy the presumption of regularity
and the legal requirements for the removal of the memorandum annotated on TCT No. 185702-
R are presumed to have been followed. ||| (China Banking Corp. v. Co, G.R. No. 174569,
[September 17, 2008], 587 PHIL 380-390)