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SYLLABUS
DECISION
MALCOLM , J : p
This is an appeal by the applicant and appellant from a Judgment of the Court of
First Instance of Nueva Ecija, denying the registration of the larger portion of parcel No.
1 (Exhibit A of the petitioner), marked by the letters A, B, and C on the plan, Exhibit 1, of
the Government.
One Restituto Romero y Ponce apparently gained possession of a considerable
tract of land located in the municipality of San Jose, Province of Nueva Ecija, in the year
1882. He took advantage of the Royal Decree of February 13, 1894, to obtain a
possessory information title to the land, registered as such on February 8, 1896. Parcel
No. 1, included within the limits of the possessory information title of Restituto Romero,
was sold in February, 1907, to Cornelio Ramos, the instant petitioner, and his wife
Ambrosia Salamanca.
Ramos instituted appropriate proceedings to have his title registered.
Opposition was entered by the Director of Lands on the ground that Ramos had not
acquired a good title from the Spanish government and by the Director of Forestry on
the ground that the rst parcel was forest land. The trial court agreed with the
objectors and excluded parcel No. 1 from registration. So much for the facts.
As to the law, the principal argument of the Solicitor-General is based on the
provisions of the Spanish Mortgage Law and of the Royal Decree of February 13, 1894,
commonly known as the Maura Law. The Solicitor-General would emphasize that for
land to come under the protective aegis of the Maura Law, it must have been shown
that the land was cultivated for six years previously, and that it was not land which
pertained to the "zonas forestales." As proof that the land was, even as long ago as the
years 1894 to 1896, forestal and not agricultural in nature is the fact that there are yet
found thereon trees from 50 to 80 years of age.
We do not stop to decide this contention, although it might be possible, following
the doctrine laid down by the United States Supreme Court with reference to Mexican
and Spanish grants within the United States, where some recital is claimed to be false,
to say that the possessory information, apparently having taken cognizance of the
requisites for title, should not now be disturbed. (Hancock vs. McKinney [1851], 7 Tex.,
192; Hornsby and Roland vs. United States [1869], 10 Wall., 224.) It is su cient, as will
later appear, merely to notice that the predecessor in interest to the petitioner at least
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held this tract of land under color of title.
Subsection 6 of Section 54, of Act No. 926, entitled The Public Land Law, as
amended by Act No. 1908, reads as follows:
"6. All persons who by themselves or their predecessors in interest
have been in the open, continuous, exclusive, and notorious possession and
occupation of agricultural public lands, as de ned by said Act of Congress of
July rst, nineteen hundred and two, under a bona fide claim of ownership except
as against the Government, for a period of ten years next preceding the twenty-
sixth day of July, nineteen hundred and four, except when prevented by war or
force majeure, shall be conclusively presumed to have performed all the
conditions essential to a government grant and to have received the same, and
shall be entitled to a certi cate of title to such land under the provisions of this
chapter."
There are two parts to the above quoted subsection which must be discussed.
The rst relates to the open, continuous, exclusive, and notorious possession and
occupation of what, for present purposes, can be conceded to be agricultural public
land, under a bona fide claim of ownership.
Actual possession of land consists in the manifestation of acts of dominion over
it of such a nature as a party would naturally exercise over his own property. Relative to
actuality of possession, it is admitted that the petitioner has cultivated only about one
fourth of the entire tract. This is graphically portrayed by Exhibit 1 of the Government,
following:
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