Cured flaw

Can an invalid transfer of a land to an alien be subsequently cured? This is the question answered in this case of Lina and Mina.

Lina and Mina were the Filipino widows of the Wee brothers whose father, Wee Huan, a Chinese, acquired title to a parcel of land with an approximate area of 1, 631 sq. m. sometime in 1936 from the Diestro family. At that time, the acquisition of land by an alien was prohibited under the 1935 Constitution. But the title of Wee Huan was not invalidated because the Diestros who filed the suits for the recovery of the land also violated the Constitution and were thus barred from questioning the validity of the sale and recovering title under the principle of "pari delicto" (equally at fault).

So, when Wee Huan died in 1944, the land was in inherited by his wife and the Wee brothers. Later on, when the Wee brothers also died, Lina and Mina acquired the respective shares of the brothers in the said parcel of land and had since occupied, possessed and paid the taxes thereon although the title remained in the name of the late Wee Huan.

Sometime in 1993, or about sixty years later, Lina and Mina discovered that the title of their late father-in-law, Wee Huan was burned during the war. So they filed a petition in the Regional Trial Court for the reconstitution of the lost and destroyed title of Wee Huan. To support their petition, they presented only the plan and technical description approved by the Land Registration Authority. The owner’s duplicate of the TCT was not submitted. Based on these documents, the RTC ordered the reconstitution of the title of Wee Huan.

The Solicitor General questioned said judgment and asked the Court of Appeals to annul the same. He contended that Mina and Lina were not the proper parties in the reconstitution of title, since their predecessor in-interest Wee Huan did not acquire title to the lot because he was a Chinese citizen and was constitutionally not qualified to own the subject land.

Was the Solicitor General correct?

The Solicitor General is indeed the proper party to assail the sale of the land to an alien since both the vendor and the vendee are deemed to have committed the constitutional violation and are thus in pari delicto.And the Republic which he represents is not barred from asserting itself and initiate an escheat of the land even after the lapse of sixty years because prescription never lies against the State.

But in this case, subsequent circumstances militate against the escheat proceedings because the land is now in the hands of Filipinos. The original vendee, Wee Huan has since died and the land has been inherited by his heirs and subsequently their heirs, Lina and Mina, who are Filipino citizens.

The constitutional proscription on alien ownership of lands of the public or private domain is intended to protect lands from falling into the hands of non-Filipinos. In this case, however, there would be no more public policy violated since the land is in the hands of Filipinos qualified to acquire and own such land. Thus the subsequent transfer of the property to qualified Filipinos may no longer be impugned on the basis of the invalidity of the initial transfer. The objective of the constitutional provision to keep our lands in Filipino hands has been achieved.

The reconstitution of title however is the mere re-issuance of a new certificate of title lost or destroyed in its original form and condition. It does not pass upon the ownership of the land covered by the lost or destroyed title. Any change in the ownership of the property must be the subject of the separate suit. Thus although Lina and Mina are in possession of the land, a separate proceeding is necessary to thresh out the issue of the ownership of the land (Lee vs. Republic 366 SCRA 524. G.R.128195, Oct. 3,2001).

In this case the Supeme Court reversed the decision of the Court of Appeals declaring the judgment of reconstitution of the RTC void. But it also set aside the said order of reconstitution of the RTC for lack of factual support since the owner’s duplicate of the title was not presented. In effect, the decision of the CA, which was set aside, was actually sustained although for a different reason. So back to square one for Lina and Mina.

This decision also seems to be contrary to the principle that a void title cannot be the source of a new and valid one precisely because it is void. That is why the action to declare it void does not also prescribe.

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