E-commerce law to change land titling, registration

The e-commerce law will revolutionize the land titling and registration processes in the country.

Thus said Atty. Ivan John Uy, a member of the Philippine Judicial Academy and former chief information officer of the Supreme Court, who gave a comprehensive lecture on Republic Act 8792 or the Electronic Commerce Act of 2000 to officials of the Land Registration Authority (LRA) and Land Registration Systems Inc. (LARES) recently.

Uy’s lecture was part of three-day workshop focused on discussions on the digital conversion of land titles and supporting documents and the business processes in registries of deeds (RDs).

LRA Administrator Benedicto Ulep called for the workshop to beef up the operations of RDs nationwide.

With RA 8792, the RDs need not produce physical original titles to be kept in their vaults. Instead, they can just use the digitally produced and secured titles in their databases since RA 8792 ensures that these digital titles have the same legal value as that of the paper titles.

The new system offers a more robust and sustainable form of security against the loss of titles due to wear and tear, theft, accidents, fire and forces of nature.

The LRA can now adopt a backup and restoration program that will enable it to accurately and instantly restore the records of an RD in the event of a fire, thus saving time and resources in the reconstitution process.

Inspired by Uy’s lecture, the RD operations committee agreed to develop a secure production methodology that will guarantee the accurate and authenticated conversion of the records of RDs.