CASE DIGEST FACTS CITY OF BAGUlO, REFORESTATION

ADMINISTRATION v. HON. PIO R. MARCOS

FACTS:

Civil Reservation Case No. 1 in April 1912 was a cadastral proceeding

which led to a decision rendering Baguio Townsite as among public lands in
November 1922.

In July 1961, Belong Lutes petitioned the cadastral court to reopen said
case with a prayer that the land be registered in his name because 1) he and
his predecessors have been in actual, open, adverse, peaceful and continuous
possession and cultivation of the land since Spanish times, or before July 26,
1894, paying the taxes thereon; and 2) his predecessors were illiterate Igorots
without personal notice of the cadastral proceedings and hence were not able
to file their claim to the land in question within the statutory period.

On the contrary, Francisco Joaquin Sr., Francisco Joaquin Jr., and

Teresita Buchholz – tree farm lessees to the land upon agreements executed by
the Bureau of Forestry – opposed Lutes’ petition in December 1961 on the
grounds that 1) the reopening was filed outside the 40-year period provided in
RA 931; 2) the petition to reopen the case was not published; and 3) as lessees
of the land, they have standing on the issue. The City of Baguio likewise
opposed Lutes’ petition in May 1962.

The cadastral court eventually denied the private petitioners opposition

to Lutes’. Petitioners questioned the cadastral court's jurisdiction over the
petition to reopen in the Court of Appeals. The appellate court ruled that as
lessees, private petitioners had no right to oppose the reopening of the
cadastral case – hence this petition.