CHAPTER III

ORIGINAL REGISTRATION

I
ORDINARY REGISTRATION PROCEEDINGS

A. APPLICATIONS

Section 14. Who may apply. The following persons may file in the proper Court of First Instance an
application for registration of title to land, whether personally or through their duly authorized
representatives:

(1) Those who by themselves or through their predecessors-in-interest have been in open,
continuous, exclusive and notorious possession and occupation of alienable and disposable
lands of the public domain under a bona fide claim of ownership since June 12, 1945, or
earlier.

(2) Those who have acquired ownership of private lands by prescription under the provision
of existing laws.

(3) Those who have acquired ownership of private lands or abandoned river beds by right of
accession or accretion under the existing laws.

(4) Those who have acquired ownership of land in any other manner provided for by law.

Where the land is owned in common, all the co-owners shall file the application jointly.

Where the land has been sold under pacto de retro, the vendor a retro may file an application for the
original registration of the land, provided, however, that should the period for redemption expire
during the pendency of the registration proceedings and ownership to the property consolidated in
the vendee a retro, the latter shall be substituted for the applicant and may continue the
proceedings.

A trustee on behalf of his principal may apply for original registration of any land held in trust by him,
unless prohibited by the instrument creating the trust.

Cruz vs Secretary of DENR

Natural Resources and Environmental Law; Constitutional Law; IPRA; Regalian
Doctrine

GR. No. 135385, Dec. 6, 2000

FACTS:
Petitioners Isagani Cruz and Cesar Europa filed a suit for prohibition and mandamus as
citizens and taxpayers, assailing the constitutionality of certain provisions of Republic Act
No. 8371, otherwise known as the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997 (IPRA) and its
implementing rules and regulations (IRR). The petitioners assail certain provisions of the
IPRA and its IRR on the ground that these amount to an unlawful deprivation of the States
ownership over lands of the public domain as well as minerals and other natural resources
therein, in violation of the regalian doctrine embodied in section 2, Article XII of the
Constitution.

ISSUE:
Do the provisions of IPRA contravene the Constitution?

HELD:
No, the provisions of IPRA do not contravene the Constitution. Examining the IPRA, there
is nothing in the law that grants to the ICCs/IPs ownership over the natural resources
within their ancestral domain. Ownership over the natural resources in the ancestral
domains remains with the State and the rights granted by the IPRA to the ICCs/IPs over the
natural resources in their ancestral domains merely gives them, as owners and occupants of
the land on which the resources are found, the right to the small scale utilization of these
resources, and at the same time, a priority in their large scale development and exploitation.

Additionally, ancestral lands and ancestral domains are not part of the lands of the public
domain. They are private lands and belong to the ICCs/IPs by native title, which is a concept
of private land title that existed irrespective of any royal grant from the State. However, the
right of ownership and possession by the ICCs/IPs of their ancestral domains is a limited
form of ownership and does not include the right to alienate the same.

Secretary of DENR vs Yap

Natural Resources and Environmental Laws: Regalian Doctrine

GR No. 167707; Oct 8, 2008

FACTS:
This petition is for a review on certiorari of the decision of the Court of Appeals (CA)
affirming that of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) in Kalibo Aklan, which granted the petition
for declaratory relief filed by respondents-claimants Mayor Jose Yap et al, and ordered the
survey of Boracay for titling purposes.
On Nov. 10, 1978, President Marcos issued Proclamation No. 1801 declaring Boracay Island
as a tourist zone and marine reserve. Claiming that Proc. No. 1801 precluded them from
filing an application for a judicial confirmation of imperfect title or survey of land for titling
purposes, respondents-claimants filed a petition for declaratory relief with the RTC in
Kalibo, Aklan.
The Republic, through the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) opposed the petition
countering that Boracay Island was an unclassified land of the public domain. It formed part
of the mass of lands classified as public forest, which was not available for disposition
pursuant to section 3(a) of PD No. 705 or the Revised Forestry Code.

ISSUE:
Whether unclassified lands of the public domain are automatically deemed agricultural
land, therefore making these lands alienable.

HELD:
No. To prove that the land subject of an application for registration is alienable, the
applicant must establish the existence of a positive act of the government such as a
presidential proclamation or an executive order, an administrative action, investigative
reports of the Bureau of Lands investigators, and a legislative act or statute.
A positive act declaring land as alienable and disposable is required. In keeping with the
presumption of state ownership, the Court has time and again emphasized that there must
be a positive act of the government, such as an official proclamation, declassifying
inalienable public land into disposable land for agricultural or other purposes.
The Regalian Doctrine dictates that all lands of the public domain belong to the State, that
the State is the source of any asserted right to ownership of land and charged with the
conservation of such patrimony.

All lands not otherwise appearing to be clearly within private ownership are presumed to
belong to the State. Thus, all lands that have not been acquired from the government, either
by purchase or by grant, belong to the State as part of the inalienable public domain.
 REPUBLIC ACT NO. 10607

AN ACT STRENGTHENING THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY, FURTHER AMENDING

PRESIDENTIAL DECREE NO. 612, OTHERWISE KNOWN AS "THE INSURANCE CODE", AS
AMENDED BY PRESIDENTIAL DECREE NOS. 1141, 1280, 1455, 1460, 1814 AND 1981, AND
BATAS PAMBANSA BLG. 874, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Philippines in Congress

assembled:

Section 1. Presidential Decree No. 612, as amended, is hereby further amended to read as follows:

"GENERAL PROVISIONS

"Section 1. This Decree shall be known as The Insurance Code.

"Section 2. Whenever used in this Code, the following terms shall have the respective meanings
hereinafter set forth or indicated, unless the context otherwise requires:

"(a) A contract of insurance is an agreement whereby one undertakes for a consideration to

indemnify another against loss, damage or liability arising from an unknown or contingent
event.

"A contract of suretyship shall be deemed to be an insurance contract, within the meaning of
this Code, only if made by a surety who or which, as such, is doing an insurance business as
hereinafter provided.

"(b) The term doing an insurance business or transacting an insurance business, within the
meaning of this Code, shall include:

"(1) Making or proposing to make, as insurer, any insurance contract;

"(2) Making or proposing to make, as surety, any contract of suretyship as a vocation

and not as merely incidental to any other legitimate business or activity of the surety;

"(3) Doing any kind of business, including a reinsurance business, specifically

recognized as constituting the doing of an insurance business within the meaning of
this Code;

"(4) Doing or proposing to do any business in substance equivalent to any of the

foregoing in a manner designed to evade the provisions of this Code.

"In the application of the provisions of this Code, the fact that no profit is derived from
the making of insurance contracts, agreements or transactions or that no separate or
direct consideration is received therefor, shall not be deemed conclusive to show that
the making thereof does not constitute the doing or transacting of an insurance
business.

"(c) As used in this Code, the term Commissioner means the Insurance Commissioner.
 "CHAPTER I
"THE CONTRACT OF INSURANCE

"TITLE 1
"WHAT MAY BE INSURED

"Section 3. Any contingent or unknown event, whether past or future, which may damnify a person
having an insurable interest, or create a liability against him, may be insured against, subject to the
provisions of this chapter.

"The consent of the spouse is not necessary for the validity of an insurance policy taken out by a
married person on his or her life or that of his or her children.

"All rights, title and interest in the policy of insurance taken out by an original owner on the life or
health of the person insured shall automatically vest in the latter upon the death of the original
owner, unless otherwise provided for in the policy.

"Section 4. The preceding section does not authorize an insurance for or against the drawing of any
lottery, or for or against any chance or ticket in a lottery drawing a prize.

"Section 5. All kinds of insurance are subject to the provisions of this chapter so far as the provisions
can apply.

"TITLE 2
"PARTIES TO THE CONTRACT

"Section 6. Every corporation, partnership, or association, duly authorized to transact insurance

business as elsewhere provided in this Code, may be an insurer.

"Section 7. Anyone except a public enemy may be insured.

"Section 8. Unless the policy otherwise provides, where a mortgagor of property effects insurance in
his own name providing that the loss shall be payable to the mortgagee, or assigns a policy of
insurance to a mortgagee, the insurance is deemed to be upon the interest of the mortgagor, who
does not cease to be a party to the original contract, and any act of his, prior to the loss, which would
otherwise avoid the insurance, will have the same effect, although the property is in the hands of the
mortgagee, but any act which, under the contract of insurance, is to be performed by the mortgagor,
may be performed by the mortgagee therein named, with the same effect as if it had been performed
by the mortgagor.

"Section 9. If an insurer assents to the transfer of an insurance from a mortgagor to a mortgagee,

and, at the time of his assent, imposes further obligations on the assignee, making a new contract
with him, the acts of the mortgagor cannot affect the rights of said assignee.

"TITLE 3
"INSURABLE INTEREST

"Section 10. Every person has an insurable interest in the life and health:

"(a) Of himself, of his spouse and of his children;

 "(b) Of any person on whom he depends wholly or in part for education or support, or in
whom he has a pecuniary interest;

"(c) Of any person under a legal obligation to him for the payment of money, or respecting
property or services, of which death or illness might delay or prevent the performance; and

"(d) Of any person upon whose life any estate or interest vested in him depends.

"Section 11. The insured shall have the right to change the beneficiary he designated in the policy,
unless he has expressly waived this right in said policy. Notwithstanding the foregoing, in the event
the insured does not change the beneficiary during his lifetime, the designation shall be deemed
irrevocable.

"Section 12. The interest of a beneficiary in a life insurance policy shall be forfeited when the
beneficiary is the principal, accomplice, or accessory in willfully bringing about the death of the
insured. In such a case, the share forfeited shall pass on to the other beneficiaries, unless otherwise
disqualified. In the absence of other beneficiaries, the proceeds shall be paid in accordance with the
policy contract. If the policy contract is silent, the proceeds shall be paid to the estate of the insured.

"Section 13. Every interest in property, whether real or personal, or any relation thereto, or liability in
respect thereof, of such nature that a contemplated peril might directly damnify the insured, is an
insurable interest.

"Section 14. An insurable interest in property may consist in:

"(a) An existing interest;

"(b) An inchoate interest founded on an existing interest; or

"(c) An expectancy, coupled with an existing interest in that out of which the expectancy
arises.

"Section 15. A carrier or depository of any kind has an insurable interest in a thing held by him as
such, to the extent of his liability but not to exceed the value thereof.

"Section 16. A mere contingent or expectant interest in any thing, not founded on an actual right to
the thing, nor upon any valid contract for it, is not insurable.

"Section 17. The measure of an insurable interest in property is the extent to which the insured might
be damnified by loss or injury thereof.

"Section 18. No contract or policy of insurance on property shall be enforceable except for the
benefit of some person having an insurable interest in the property insured.

"Section 19. An interest in property insured must exist when the insurance takes effect, and when
the loss occurs, but need not exist in the meantime; and interest in the life or health of a person
insured must exist when the insurance takes effect, but need not exist thereafter or when the loss
occurs.

"Section 20. Except in the cases specified in the next four sections, and in the cases of life, accident,
and health insurance, a change of interest in any part of a thing insured unaccompanied by a
corresponding change of interest in the insurance, suspends the insurance to an equivalent extent,
until the interest in the thing and the interest in the insurance are vested in the same person.

"Section 21. A change of interest in a thing insured, after the occurrence of an injury which results in
a loss, does not affect the right of the insured to indemnity for the loss.

"Section 22. A change of interest in one or more of several distinct things, separately insured by one
policy, does not avoid the insurance as to the others.

"Section 23. A change of interest, by will or succession, on the death of the insured, does not avoid
an insurance; and his interest in the insurance passes to the person taking his interest in the thing
insured.

"Section 24. A transfer of interest by one of several partners, joint owners, or owners in common,
who are jointly insured, to the others, does not avoid an insurance even though it has been agreed
that the insurance shall cease upon an alienation of the thing insured.

"Section 25. Every stipulation in a policy of insurance for the payment of loss whether the person
insured has or has not any interest in the property insured, or that the policy shall be received as
proof of such interest, and every policy executed by way of gaming or wagering, is void.

"TITLE 4
"CONCEALMENT

"Section 26. A neglect to communicate that which a party knows and ought to communicate, is
called a concealment.

"Section 27. A concealment whether intentional or unintentional entitles the injured party to rescind a
contract of insurance.

"Section 28. Each party to a contract of insurance must communicate to the other, in good faith, all
facts within his knowledge which are material to the contract and as to which he makes no warranty,
and which the other has not the means of ascertaining.

"Section 29. An intentional and fraudulent omission, on the part of one insured, to communicate
information of matters proving or tending to prove the falsity of a warranty, entitles the insurer to
rescind.

"Section 30. Neither party to a contract of insurance is bound to communicate information of the
matters following, except in answer to the inquiries of the other:

"(a) Those which the other knows;

"(b) Those which, in the exercise of ordinary care, the other ought to know, and of which the
former has no reason to suppose him ignorant;

"(c) Those of which the other waives communication;

"(d) Those which prove or tend to prove the existence of a risk excluded by a warranty, and
which are not otherwise material; and
 "(e) Those which relate to a risk excepted from the policy and which are not otherwise
material.

"Section 31. Materiality is to be determined not by the event, but solely by the probable and
reasonable influence of the facts upon the party to whom the communication is due, in forming his
estimate of the disadvantages of the proposed contract, or in making his inquiries.

"Section 32. Each party to a contract of insurance is bound to know all the general causes which are
open to his inquiry, equally with that of the other, and which may affect the political or material perils
contemplated; and all general usages of trade.

"Section 33. The right to information of material facts may be waived, either by the terms of
insurance or by neglect to make inquiry as to such facts, where they are distinctly implied in other
facts of which information is communicated.

"Section 34. Information of the nature or amount of the interest of one insured need not be
communicated unless in answer to an inquiry, except as prescribed by Section 51.

"Section 35. Neither party to a contract of insurance is bound to communicate, even upon inquiry,
information of his own judgment upon the matters in question.

"TITLE 5
"REPRESENTATION

"Section 36. A representation may be oral or written.

"Section 37. A representation may be made at the time of, or before, issuance of the policy.

"Section 38. The language of a representation is to be interpreted by the same rules as the language
of contracts in general.

"Section 39. A representation as to the future is to be deemed a promise, unless it appears that it
was merely a statement of belief or expectation.

"Section 40. A representation cannot qualify an express provision in a contract of insurance, but it
may qualify an implied warranty.

"Section 41. A representation may be altered or withdrawn before the insurance is effected, but not
afterwards.

"Section 42. A representation must be presumed to refer to the date on which the contract goes into
effect.

"Section 43. When a person insured has no personal knowledge of a fact, he may nevertheless
repeat information which he has upon the subject, and which he believes to be true, with the
explanation that he does so on the information of others; or he may submit the information, in its
whole extent, to the insurer; and in neither case is he responsible for its truth, unless it proceeds
from an agent of the insured, whose duty it is to give the information.

"Section 44. A representation is to be deemed false when the facts fail to correspond with its
assertions or stipulations.
"Section 45. If a representation is false in a material point, whether affirmative or promissory, the
injured party is entitled to rescind the contract from the time when the representation becomes false.

"Section 46. The materiality of a representation is determined by the same rules as the materiality of
a concealment.

"Section 47. The provisions of this chapter apply as well to a modification of a contract of insurance
as to its original formation.

"Section 48. Whenever a right to rescind a contract of insurance is given to the insurer by any
provision of this chapter, such right must be exercised previous to the commencement of an action
on the contract.

"After a policy of life insurance made payable on the death of the insured shall have been in force
during the lifetime of the insured for a period of two (2) years from the date of its issue or of its last
reinstatement, the insurer cannot prove that the policy is void ab initio or is rescindable by reason of
the fraudulent concealment or misrepresentation of the insured or his agent.