HEIRS OF RAFAEL GOZO REPRESENTED BY CASTILLO GOZO AND the public domain and is outside the commerce of man.
outside the commerce of man. It was only on 5
RAFAEL GOZO, JR. v. PHILIPPINE UNION MISSION CORPORATION October 1953 that the ownership of the property was vested by the State
OF THE SEVENTH DAY ADVENTIST CHURCH (PUMCO), SOUTH to the Spouses Gozo by virtue of its issuance of the OCT pursuant to the
PHILIPPINE UNION MISSION OF SDA (SPUMCO) AND SEVENTH DAY Homestead Patent granted by the President of the Philippines on 22
ADVENTIST CHURCH AT SIMPAK, LALA, LANAO DEL NORTE August 1953. Hence, the donation of the subject property which took place
REPRESENTED BY BETTY PEREZ; G.R. No. 195990, August 05, 2015; before 5 October 1953 is null and void from the very start.
PEREZ, J.:
As a void contract, the Deed of Donation produces no legal effect
The Facts whatsoever. Quod nullum est, nullum producit effectum. That which is a
nullity produces no effect Logically, it could not have transferred title to the
Petitioners claim that they are the heirs of Spouses Gozo. The respondents subject property from the Spouses Gozo to PUMCO-SDA and there can be
claim that they own a 5,000 square-meter portion of the property. The no basis for the church's demand for the issuance of title under its name.
assertion is based on the 28 February 1937 Deed of Donation in favor of Neither does the church have the right to subsequently dispose the
respondent Philippine Union Mission Corporation of the Seventh Day property nor invoke acquisitive prescription to justify its occupation. A void
Adventist (PUMCO-SDA). On the date the Deed of Donation is executed in contract is not susceptible to ratification, and the action for the declaration
1937, the Spouses Gozo were not the registered owners of the property yet of absolute nullity of such contract is imprescriptible.
although they were the lawful possessors thereof. The land in question was
part of the inalienable public domain
RULING:
The Deed of Donation was executed by the Spouses Gozo on 28 February
1937, the subject property was part of the inalienable public domain. It was
only almost after two decades later or on 5 October 1953 that the State
ceded its right over the land in favor of the Spouses Gozo by granting their
patent application and issuing an original certificate of title in their favor.
Prior to such conferment of title, the Spouses Gozo possessed no right to
dispose of the land which, by all intents and purposes, belongs to the State.
Under the Regalian doctrine, which is embodied in Article XII, Section 2 of
our Constitution, all lands of the public domain belong to the State, which is
the source of any asserted right to any ownership of land. All lands not
appearing to be clearly within private ownership are presumed to belong to
the State. Accordingly, public lands not shown to have been reclassified or
released as alienable agricultural land or alienated to a private person by
the State remain part of the inalienable public domain.
The classification of public lands is an exclusive prerogative of the
executive department of the government and not the Courts. In the
absence of such classification, the land remains as an unclassified land
until it is released therefrom and rendered open to disposition. This is in
consonance with the Regalian doctrine 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 conservation of such patrimony.
All lands not appearing to be clearly within private ownership are presumed
to belong to the State. Accordingly, all public lands not shown to have been
reclassified or released as alienable agricultural land or alienated to a
private person by the State remain part of the alienable public domain. As
already well-settled in jurisprudence, no public land can be acquired by
private persons without any grant, express or implied, from the
government; and it is indispensable that the person claiming title to public
land should show that his title was acquired from the State or any other
mode of acquisition recognized by law. 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, investigation
reports of Bureau of Lands investigators, and a legislative act or a statute.
The applicant may also secure a certification from the Government that the
land applied for is alienable and disposable.
It is beyond question that at the time the gratuitous transfer was effected by
the Spouses Gozo on 28 February 1937, the subject property was part of
