Legal library › Case digests › Civil Law
Case digest · Native title; the presumption against the Government
Cariño vs. Insular Government of the Philippine Islands
An Igorot of Benguet whose family had held land as owners for generations applied to register it. The Philippine and U.S. governments had taken possession of the land for public and military purposes.
Facts
Before 1898
For more than fifty years before the Treaty of Paris, as far back as the findings go, Mateo Cariño, an Igorot of the Province of Benguet, and his ancestors had held the land as owners. His grandfather lived on it and maintained fences for holding cattle, according to the custom of the country. His father cultivated parts of it and used parts for pasture, as Cariño did in his turn. The Igorots recognized them all as owners.
1893–1897
No document of title had issued from the Spanish Crown. Cariño applied for one under the royal decrees then in force, in 1893–1894 and again in 1896–1897, but nothing seems to have come of it.
1901
He filed a petition alleging ownership under the mortgage law, and the land was registered to him, a process said to establish only a possessory title.
1904–1907
Cariño applied to the Court of Land Registration to register the land, and that court granted the application on March 4, 1904. The Government of the Philippines and the United States, which had taken possession of the land for public and military purposes, appealed to the Court of First Instance of Benguet. That court dismissed the application on grounds of law, and on March 25, 1907, the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands affirmed.
February 23, 1909
The case reached the Supreme Court of the United States by writ of error, and the Court decided it in an opinion by Justice Holmes.
Issue
Could Cariño register land that his family had held as owners for generations under Igorot custom, even though no title had ever issued from the Spanish Crown?
Ruling
Yes. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the judgment, holding that “law and justice require that the applicant should be granted what he seeks.”
Going “no further than the necessities of decision demand,” the Court held that every presumption is and ought to be against the Government in a case like this one, and that Spain did not purport to convert all the native inhabitants into trespassers or even tenants at will. Land held under a claim of private ownership as far back as testimony or memory goes may be presumed to have been held that way from before the Spanish conquest, and never to have been public land. Even under the law of Spain, the Court found no clear proof that Cariño’s title was bad: when the decree of June 25, 1880 took effect, his father was owner of the land by the very terms of the decree, and any doubt or ambiguity in the Spanish law should benefit the applicant. It also relied on the Organic Act of July 1, 1902, under which the property acquired by the United States was to be administered for the benefit of the inhabitants, and whose due process clause, the Court reasoned, embraced the inhabitants of Benguet. Cariño should not be deprived, through a refined interpretation of an almost forgotten law of Spain, of what the people among whom he lived held to be his property.
“It might, perhaps, be proper and sufficient to say that when, as far back as testimony or memory goes, the land has been held by individuals under a claim of private ownership, it will be presumed to have been held in the same way from before the Spanish conquest, and never to have been public land.”
Doctrine
Native title is the exception to the Regalian doctrine. Land held under a claim of private ownership as far back as testimony or memory goes is presumed never to have been public land, so the claimant does not need a grant from the State. In Republic vs. Pasig Rizal Co., Inc., G.R. No. 213207, February 15, 2022, the Supreme Court en banc wrote: “Excepted from the scope of public domain are lands subject of a claim of ownership based on native title as explicitly recognized in Cariño v. Insular Government.” The Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act of 1997 (R.A. No. 8371, Sec. 3(l)) now defines native title in similar terms.
Compare: no title
In Collado vs. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 107764, October 4, 2002, applicants whose earliest known predecessor had the land surveyed in 1902 lost, because the land had been inside a watershed reservation since 1904: “It is axiomatic that the possession of forest lands or other inalienable public lands cannot ripen into private ownership.”
Bar tip
Native title is the one exception to the presumption of State ownership. Do not confuse it with long possession under the Public Land Act: possession of land that is not alienable and disposable will not ripen into ownership, however long. Remember, too, that Cariño was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, on writ of error to the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands.
Hear it explained
Land Titles Jurisprudence Ep. 1, at 3:31
Follow Forlawssake
Get the next case explainer when it’s out.
New videos and episodes come out on YouTube, Spotify and TikTok. Follow there, and the app tells you when the next one is posted. It’s free.
This digest is general legal information for education, not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for reading the decision. Quoted passages are taken word for word from the full text.