REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES vs. ARCADIO IVAN A. SANTOS III and ARCADIO C. SANTOS, JR.

G.R. No. 160453 November 12, 2012

Facts:
Alleging continuous and adverse possession of more than ten years, respondent Arcadio
Ivan A. Santos III applied for the registration of Lot 4998-B in the RTC in Parañaque City, alleging
that the property had been formed through accretion and had been in their joint open,
notorious, public, continuous and adverse possession for more than 30 years. The property,
which had an area of 1,045 square meter, was located in Barangay San Dionisio, Parañaque
City, and was bounded in the Northeast by Lot 4079 belonging to respondent Arcadio C. Santos,
Jr., in the Southeast by the Parañaque River, in the Southwest by an abandoned road, and in
the Northwest by Lot 4998-A also owned by Arcadio Ivan.
The City of Parañaque opposed the application for land registration, stating that it
needed the property for its flood control program; that the property was within the legal
easement of 20 meters from the river bank; and that assuming that the property was not
covered by the legal easement, title to the property could not be registered in favour of the
applicants for the reason that the property was an orchard that had dried up and had not
resulted from accretion.
The RTC granted the application for land registration. The Republic, through the Office
of the Solicitor General, appealed before the CA, which affirmed the decision of the lower
court. Hence, his present recourse.
Issue:
1.) Whether or not Article 457 of the Civil Code was applicable herein; and
2.) Whether or not respondents could claim the property by virtue of acquisitive
prescription pursuant to Section 14(1) of Presidential Decree No. 1529 (Property
Registration Decree).
Held:
1.) No. Respondents as the applicants for land registration carried the burden of
proof to establish the merits of their application by a preponderance of evidence, by which is
meant such evidence that is of greater weight, or more convincing than that offered in
opposition to it. They would be held entitled to claim the property as their own and apply for its
registration under the Torrens system only if they established that, indeed, the property was an
accretion to their land.
Accretion is the process whereby the soil is deposited along the banks of rivers. The
deposit of soil, to be considered accretion, must be: (a) gradual and imperceptible; (b) made
through the effects of the current of the water; and (c) taking place on land adjacent to the
banks of rivers. Accordingly, respondents should establish the concurrence of the elements of
accretion to warrant the grant of their application for land registration.
The RTC and the CA grossly erred in treating the dried-up river bed as an accretion that
became respondents’ property pursuant to Article 457 of the Civil Code. That land was
definitely not an accretion. The process of drying up of a river to form dry land involved the
recession of the water level from the river banks, and the dried-up land did not equate to
accretion, which was the gradual and imperceptible deposition of soil on the river banks
through the effects of the current. In accretion, the water level did not recede and was more or
less maintained. Hence, respondents as the riparian owners had no legal right to claim
ownership of Lot 4998-B. Considering that the clear and categorical language of Article 457 of
the Civil Code has confined the provision only to accretion, we should apply the provision as its
clear and categorical language tells us to. Axiomatic it is, indeed, that where the language of the
law is clear and categorical, there is no room for interpretation; there is only room for
application. The first and fundamental duty of courts is then to apply the law.
2.) No. The principle that the riparian owner whose land receives the gradual
deposits of soil does not need to make an express act of possession, and that no acts of
possession are necessary in that instance because it is the law itself that pronounces the
alluvium to belong to the riparian owner from the time that the deposit created by the current
of the water becomes manifest has no applicability herein. This is simply because Lot 4998-B
was not formed through accretion. Hence, the ownership of the land adjacent to the river bank
by respondents’ predecessor-in-interest did not translate to possession of Lot 4998-B that
would ripen to acquisitive prescription in relation to Lot 4998-B.
Subject to the exceptions defined in Article 461 of the Civil Code (which declares river
beds that are abandoned through the natural change in the course of the waters as ipso facto
belonging to the owners of the land occupied by the new course, and which gives to the owners
of the adjoining lots the right to acquire only the abandoned river beds not ipso facto belonging
to the owners of the land affected by the natural change of course of the waters only after
paying their value), all river beds remain property of public dominion and cannot be acquired
by acquisitive prescription unless previously declared by the Government to be alienable and
disposable. Considering that Lot 4998-B was not shown to be already declared to be alienable
and disposable, respondents could not be deemed to have acquired the property through
prescription.