Ma. Dorothy M.

Venus

202021841

EMERGENCE OF THE DOCUMENTED PROPERTY REGIME (1565-1745)

Legal Landscape

I. Perspectives on Legal Landscape:

A. Regalian Doctrine:
1. the longstanding perspective of the Philippine government and legal profession
regarding property rights prior to IPRA
2. premised on the belief that he sovereignty and property rights of the indigenes in the
politically undefined and unexplored archipelago were abruptly and subsequently
usurped by the Spanish Crown
B. John A Larkin: “less sweeping” perspective regarding property rights
1. Larkin, citing a 1784 decree by Governor Basco y Vargasm supports the erroneous
assertion that "until the late nineteenth century, all land technically belonged to the
government with the exception of property awarded to the early datus and their heirs
or land sold in usufruct by the government to private parties."
C. Both Regalian Doctrine and John A Larkin’s perspective are incorrect
D. Correct Perspective: No European government, in fact, asserted that the Indians had
no claim at all to any of their lands [barring a grant from the colonial sovereign]. Rather
they questioned just what sort of title and political jurisdiction native rulers possessed
under national and natural law.” In addition, cognizable customary rights were neither
awarded nor limited to those established at the time of the initial Spanish occupation
II. The primary innovation introduced by the Spaniards concerning legal rights to natural
resources: the concept that land could be exclusively owned by individuals.
A. Crown did NOT claim to own all land
B. Rather, what happened was the “gradual adoption of of the European of individual
ownership IN CONTRAST to the indigenous concept
III. 2 initially recognized private property rights:
1. those held pursuant to customary criteria (predicated on usage and possession)
2. those held by the Crown, i.e., terrenos realengos. (all areas not occupied by natives)
IV. Arrival of Legazpi:
A. private estates were established on behalf of Spanish citizens by royal grants of crown
land and these estates "expanded through additional purchase and donations of
customary property rights or through usurpation of contiguous ... holdings.
V. Spanish Colonial Gov’t and Land rights
A. the Spanish colonial government was bedeviled throughout its existence by confusion
and unrest over land rights
B. legal significance of land registration was never conclusively resolved
C. Oliver Wendell Holmes; opined that the Maura Law "withdrew the privilege to register
rights.
D. Land laws - consisted of "numberless single decrees forming a casuistical,
disconnected, complicated, and confused mass
E. Further complicated by the fact that Spanish admin kept no systematic records of
agricultural land due to not levying a land tax
 1. lands were levied on
a) produce (vandala)
b) income (industrial)
c) buildings (urbana)
d) people (tributi)
(1) abolished in 1884 —> replaced by a graduated poll
(2) poll tax was levied by means of certificate of identification (cedula personal),
every Christian resident of the colony was required to obtain. Those unable to
pay taxes levied against them were often subject to forced labor (polo)
VI. 1897: a fire destroyed the main Manila repository of documents pertaining to recognized
documentary property rights.
VII. Despite these, Spanish colonial gov’t still created and upheld a documented individual
private property regime over 3 centuries
VIII.incoming U. S. regime: believed that by 1898 an estimated 2.3 million hectares land, or
7.7 percent of the colony's total land mass, were privately owned.
A. Official records also indicated that church holdings encompassed only 170,918 hectares,
or less than six percent of the estimated private land total.
B. If these estimates are even somewhat credible, when the Ph. Revolution of 1896
erupted, the majority of documented private property rights recognized by the Spanish
regime were held by indigenous and Chinese mestizo elites

Customary Rights

I. King Philip II resolved that the greed brutality of Spanish colonialists to American indigenes
would not befall the Philippine natives.
A. an "irrevocable commitment of the Spanish colonial policy" was that the "natives as 'new
Christians,' merited some effective guarantees of their property rights.”
B. laws were promulgated to promote these guarantees, many of which also applied to
non-Christians.
C. 1529, Emperor Don Carlos ordered that all "laws which are in favor of the Indians should
be executed notwithstanding appeal."
1. Ex. Ordinance 8 of 1523 prohibited the taking of native "properties, farms, livestock,
and fruits unless the sales and ransoms are done voluntarily and entirely free.
II. King Philip II to Legazpi: while land could be apportioned among the colonists "you shall
not occupy or take possession of any private property of the Indians.
A. recommended: that Spaniards establish themselves "somewhat distant from the districts
and locations where the Indians have their settlements,
B. the Spaniards found an impressive amount of land already under cultivation when they
first arrived,BUT specific pre-contact land-tenure practices among the archipelago's
indigenes most likely will never will be known.
C. arable (farmable) land was already occupied and cultivated
III. before the Maura Law of 1894: customary property rights continued to endure, be
established, and be legally cognizable.

A. 1866: Excepting some large estates acquired in earlier times through donation, landed
property originated mainly through the right of occupation by the possessor and his
 rendering the land productive which even now is a common right recognized in
the laws of the Indies in favor of indigenous inhabitants.
IV. Among the Tagalogs, near manila: individual ownership rights varied in their degree of
exclusivity and were held by traditional leaders and small-scale cultivators.
A. leaders: datu (Islamicized term) or principalia or cacique (Hispanicized)
B. datus relied on indebted laborers to cultivate their fields and provide military manpower
in times of need.
C. Debt-free farmer-cultivators: self reliant and produced for the family, their holdings were
distinct from land owned by principalia
V. Customary property rights under colonial law:
A. common or individual property rights were equated with titles held in fee simple
1. fee simple: individual ownership of a parcel of land which, among other things, has
no restrictions on alienability and which, upon the owner's death, will pass to his or
her heirs.
B. only individually held rights, however, were alienable. Alienation of communal property
was illegal.
1. "Spanish law was explicit in this, and the fact that the policy of the Crown had to be
reiterated on frequent occasions indicates that the royal orders were not obeyed”
C. Colonial officials recognized the communal nature of customary property rights but but
procedures for securing official, documentary registration of communal holdings were
never promulgated.
1. Spanish regime only provided for the documentation and registration of individual
land rights.
a) Religious orders and institutions, and private corporations were legally equated
with individuals
2. indigenous communities
a) no documentary existence and were unable to secure any
b) therefore, communally held ancestral domains were legal abstractions, which
were not cognizable in concrete terms
VI. The absence of legal machinery for documenting community-based property rights:
facilitated an expanding pattern of illegal usurpation by Spaniards and native and Chinese
mestizo elites.
A. initially; most ancestral domains were unaffected by colonial usurpation (until the late
18th century. The further from Manila/ urbanized areas, indigenous patters remained
intact
VII. the most common method the Indians of the villages have for proving their territorial
property is by tradition, and the deposition of witnesses.
VIII.Manuel Bernaldez (colonial official) claimed that native land rights prompted controversy
and litigation and he called for the Crown to "oblige all the villages and private land
owners" to acquire official documentation of "their ownership, both private and communal

A. Community based property rights were not owned by the state and, therefore, they
were not public.

B. correct dichotomies: private/public and individual/communal

 C. Bernaldez’s scheme: Failure to secure official documentation would preclude indigenes
from gaining recognition of the ancestral domains.
1. effectively converted indigenes into squatters on Crown lands
2. presaged the confiscatory Maura Law by sixty-seven years.

Crown Lands/Terrenos Realengos

I. Crown lands (terrenos realengos): Lands not owned pursuant to customary laws

A. Royal lands symbolized the generosity that the Crown, and its authorized subordinates,
could bestow on those deemed to be deserving.

II. Modes for granting rights to royal lands:

1. Documented rights held pursuant to a titulo real came into being by way of a royal
grant (none made in the Philippines).

2. Titulos de concesion especial or extraordinario were based on special,

documented grants awarded on the Crown's behalf at the discretion of the
governor.

3. titulos de compra: documented lands purchased from the colonial regime

4. titulos de gratuito: Free grants awarded to settlers, and apparently some

indigenous occupants, in the form of repartimientos (apportionments)

III. Sanction: Once rights were documentarily confirmed, any subsequent encroachment on
adjoining areas could be accorded legal sanction by way of titulos de composicion con el
estado
A. newly established pueblos: granted land from the royal domain.

1. referred to as terreno comunal (common land) or dehesa comunal (common

pasture).

2. legua comunal (common league) 20,000 square feet reserved in some pueblos for
common use.

IV. bienes propios: Royal lands used by a municipality or barrio for the payment of public
expenses

V. Grantees: held usufructuary rights (titles), could pass the lands to legitimate heirs, sales
were proscribed without the consent of the audiencia's "fiscal".

VI. terrenos baldios (abandoned Crown lands) : deemed to revert to the Crown after 2 years

Royal Grants

I. 1571-1626: The Spanish governors, acting in the name of the Crown, made at least 208
royal land grants (concessiones especial)
A. made on behalf of soldiers, colonial officials, ordinary Spanish citizens, and native
leaders “deserving of Gov’t reward”
II. royal grants: described by size measurements used in New Spain (Mexico)
A. estancia para danado mayor: large estate, intended for cattle breeding, was only
three-fifths as large and was intended for grazing goats, sheep, pigs, or horses.
B. caballeria: 68 hectares
 C. cabalita,or peonia, was half as large
D. pedazo: irregular plots of unknown size
III. most common form of royal grant in the Ph: titolos de concesion especial o
extraordinario
A. usually made on behalf of soldiers and other colonial officials or subjects in return for
service.
B. The governor-general decided whether or not a request for a special or extraordinary
grant was merited, including whether or not to sell land rights to natives.
1. not authorized to approve grants "within lands already settled and cultivated
I. Most of the land covered by royal grants was located in or near Manila
A. grants made in the jurisdiction Tondo (modern Metro Manila): made of behalf of
Spaniards, included:
1. nineteen cattle ranches (estancias mayor),
2. nine estancias menor,
3. fifty-four caballerias
II. Pampanga: main native beneficiaries of early royal grants were in Pampanga. (1585-159)
sixty-seven grants were made as reward for aid extended on behalf of the Spanish colonists
III. discontinuance of issuing royal grants: food shortage in Manila cause by failure to cultivate
agricultural and grazing lands covered by royal grants, coupled with the rapacious conduct
of the encomenderos and the non-productive consumption of Spaniards in Manila,
IV. Purchase or donation of customary rights became the only legal means to acquire
documented recognition of ownership
V. The Philippine colony quickly lost much of its attraction for Spaniards interested in
establishing themselves as farmers or plantation owners.
A. good for people whose labor was exploited and whose lands were threatened with
usurpation
B. Many Spaniards who took up farming eventually mortgaged their lands to religious
institutions.
VI. Later part of 17th century: only the religious orders provided a stable exogenous element in
terms of land allocation and usage —> enabled religious orders to steadily expand their
rights over prime agricultural lands
VII. royal grants prompted change in natural resource allocation despite the small areas
affected, and the short period during which they were issued.
VIII.One of the most important changes was the commoditization of land rights.
IX. local native elites, mimicking the Spanish, began to secure individually documented rights to
agricultural land in southern Luzon, Ilocos and Visayas.
A. local land ownders encroached on communal and Crown lands, which were then sold
B. late 19th century: mergence of large private estates or haciendas owned by native and
mestizo landlords —-> growth of this class is linked to the the economic development of
the Islands which followed the great expansion of trade in the mid-century

Church Estates

I. Initially, there was a royal prohibition against land ownership by religious institutions but
Manila bishop, Domingo Salazar urged and lead prohibition to revoked by the Crown
 A. ecclesiastical estates became "the largest single item of Spanish-owned latifundia
II. End of the Spanish Era: provinces surrounding Manila (including Cavite, Laguna de Bay,
Bulacan, and Tondo (Rizal), were included in these "monastic haciendas."
III. modes of acquisition
A. primary: purchase and donation (+ illegal transaction by natives)
B. Once established, many estates expanded by way of illegal encroachments onto
adjoining areas.
IV. friars’ methods to populate estates:
A. Exemption from forced labor, i.e., casas de reservas were provided to natives who
worked on the estates.
B. Cash advances
C. tenants were loaned crops, tools, and work animals
I. 19th century: friar estates had become "a substantial source of income for the orders.
A. some friars would speak against illegal acquisition of ancestral domains but priestly valor
was a deviation from the norm
B. By 1898 there were thirty-one friar estates that covered approx. 170,917 hectares
including land in Bulacan, Laguna, Cavite, and Rizal
II. These provinces would provide the most important support for the Ph Revolution in 1896

Ancestral Domains: Usurpation and Response

I. audiencia: (unsuccessfully) responsible for:

A. seeing that customary property rights were respected
B. that possession of ancestral domains illegally sold, donated, or otherwise usurped was
restored among the rightful owners
II. In effect —> Crown's legal admonitions on behalf of indigenes were balanced against the
prerequisite of sustaining the colonial regime.
III. Illegal conveyances of communal holdings around modern metro manila
A. Tagalog leaders, unilaterally or through collusion and coercion, sold inalienable village
lands to each other or to Spanish citizen
B. Spanish resistance to encroachment on native landholdings was characterized "weak
and sporadic.
C. colonial laws were "ineffective in preventing indigenous communal holdings from being
replaced by individual private properties cultivated by Tagalogs under a feudal-like
organization.
D. Betrayal by traditional leaders was exacerbated by the continuous expansion of friar
estates,
IV. some people threaten by usurpation resisted, some were easy to convince
V. Colonial regime’s response to the rising clamor: make the orders prove titles to the lands in
the same manner that was required of other corporations and individuals.
VI. June 7, 1687, A royal cedula directed the Manila audencia to invesigate to the amount,
value, and income of all lands held by the friars. —> report reflected grave problems
VII. October 30, 1692, another royal cedula authorized a Councilor of the Indies to survey the
status of property rights throughout the Spanish empire.
 A. Nothing in the cedula, or the subsequent Sierra commission, indicated that the friars or,
more generally, the church had been or were illegal land grabbers.
B. Juan de Sierra Osorio by order of the Mexican audiencia was commissioned to go to the
Philippines and investigate the land situation.
1. Sierra summoned the friars and gave them one year to prove their legal right to the
lands they occupied and claimed. The papal bull, De La Cena, censured temporal
authorities who usurped religious property, wealth or jurisdiction.
VIII.Sierra's inquiry proved fruitless,
IX. in 1698 Sierra was replaced by another Mexican oider, Juan Ozaeta y Oro who made peace
with the friars, and found their titles to be in proper legal form.
X. Controversies over legal rights to land continued
A. Native peoples in the Philippines, as well as other Spanish colonies, continued to endure
and resist illegal usurpations
B. Result:complaints on behalf of native land rights continued to be heard in Madrid.
1. The Crown's concerns were peace and order and the financial viability of the colony.
XI. 1736, Power over Ph affairs was delegated to a Pedro Calderon Enriquez. Most famous
inquiry: occurred in 1745 as a result of largest agrarian uprisings in the colony prior to the
outbreak of the Philippine Revolution in 1896.
A. Friars claimed ecclesiastical exemption from Calderon's inquiry and refused to submit
their documentary titles for investigation.
B. Calderon ordered friars to vacate and restore to the rightful owners land that had been
illegally usurped
XII. Complaints against the Spanish usurpations were not usually so successful.
A. even Calderon recommended that “he friars should be left in possession of such estates
as they had”
B. attidudes naturally dampened natives’ faith in the legal process
C. Calderon continued to fight against prospective encroachments and usurpations
XIII.(Other than litigation or direct intervention by higher authorities) , the only means within the
colonial legal system for preventing illegal encroachment was the composicion de tierras
A. composicion de tierras: another form of purchase, defective titles were legitimized upon
payment of a fee to the insular regime
B. In the PH, composicion:
1. conducted by insular Spanish officials’ visits to private estates
2. measurement was taken and if it was determined that the actual size of a
landholding was larger than that stated in the recorded title a fee was exacted.
3. Free depended on the size of the area usurped