Director of Lands vs CA and Bisnar

G.R. No. 83609

October 26, 1989

Facts:
In this case, Ibarra and Bisnar claimed to be the owners in fee simple of the subject lands. They claimed that they inherited
the subject land and that they had been paying the taxes thereon.

The Director of Lands and the Director of Bureau of Forest Development opposed the application and one of their
grounds was that the properties in question are a portion of the public domain belonging to the Republic of the Philippines, not
subject to private appropriation.

The RTC granted the petition of Ibarra and Bisnar on the ground of prescription which was affirmed by the CA.

Issue:
Whether the subject land be owned by Ibarra ang Bisnar through prescription.

Decision:
No, the subject lands cannot be acquired through prescription.

As provided for under Section 6 of Commonwealth Act 141, which was lifted from Act 2874, the classification or
reclassification of public lands into alienable or disposable, mineral or forest lands is now a prerogative of the Executive Department of
the government and not the courts. With these rules, there should be no more room for doubt that it is not the court which determines the
classification of lands of the public domain into agricultural, forest or mineral but the Executive Branch of the government, through the
Office of the President.

It bears emphasizing that a positive act of the government is needed to declassify land which is classified as forest and to
convert it into alienable or disposable land for agricultural or other purposes. Also, unless and until the land classified as forest is
released in an official proclamation to that effect so that it may form part of the disposable agricultural lands of the public domain,
the rules on confirmation of imperfect title do not apply.

Here, the applicants and their predecessors- in-interest have been in open, public, continuous, peaceful and adverse
possession of the subject parcels of land under bona fide claims of ownership for more than eighty (80) years (not only 30) prior to the
filing of the application for registration, introduced improvements on the lands by planting coconuts, bamboos and other plants,
and converted a part of the land into productive fishponds. However, the properties in question are a portion of the public domain
belonging to the Republic of the Philippines, not subject to private appropriation.

Therefore, rules on confirmation of imperfect title cannot apply.

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