REGALIAN DOCTRINE

“Jura Regalia”
Regalian Doctrine 1987 Philippine Constitution
G.R. No. 247866 
Philippines. This is the start of the Spanish Empire in the
Philippines. Since they conquered the Philippines, they
applied the Regalian Doctrine. The Regalian Doctrine
unilaterally declared all lands discovered and explored by
Spanish trades and conquistadores as under the ownership
and exploitation of the Spanish crown. It set forth the
management and ownership of all lands and natural
resources to be under the Spanish Government as well as
the private ownership of title emanating from it. In effect, it
treated ancestral domains and lands as part of the public
domain owned by the King of Spain.

Origin
The Regalian Doctrine has been entrenched in the
Constitution of the Philippines since 1935.
What is the Regalian Doctrine
• The regalian doctrine is to the effect that all lands of the public
domain belong to the State, and that the State is the source of
any asserted right to ownership in land and charged with the
conversation of such patrimony. Under this doctrine, all lands
not otherwise appearing to be clearly within private ownership
are presumed to belong to the State. A positive act of the
executive branch is needed to declassify a forest land into
alienable or disposable land for agriculture or other purposes.
References
• https://lawphil.net/judjuris/juri2020/sep2020/gr_247866_20
20.html#:~:text=Under%20the%20Regalian%20Doctrine%
2C%20all,for%20agricultural%20or%20other%20purposes
.
• https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url
=https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/IPeoples/EMRI
P/RightToLand/SantiagoPhilippinesCordillera.pdf&ved=2a
hUKEwjo67Tq5-_9AhUdSWwGHaTNDaAQFnoECCMQ
AQ&usg=AOvVaw3rk8eI0mckODVgNiXoxal4