Duterte signs law simplifying land titling

By Prince Golez

President Rodrigo Duterte signed Republic Act No. (RA) 11573 improving the confirmation process for imperfect land titles.

RA 11573 simplifies the procedure and requirements in granting land titles to help farmers secure tenure rights easily.

It amends Commonwealth Act 141 or the Public Land Act and Presidential Decree 1529 or the Property Registration Decree to “simplify and remove ambiguity” in the interpretation and implementation of similar and related provisions of land laws.

Under the new law, any Filipino may apply for a free patent for up to 12 hectares of land which they continuously occupied and cultivated and paid the real estate tax prior to the filing.

All applications for agricultural free patents must be filed before the Community Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

For provinces with no CENRO, the patent should be filed with the Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office (PENRO).

“The CENRO and PENRO are mandated to process the application within 120 days from filing, including compliance with the required notices and other legal requirements,” RA 11573 stated.

The application must be forwarded to the PENRO if the area of the land is below five hectares; to the DENR Regional Director if the land area is at least five up to 10 hectares; and to the Environment Secretary if the area of land is more than 10 up to 12 hectares.

“Upon receipt of the recommendation from the CENRO, or upon the completion of the processing of the application within the reglementary period, the PENRO, DENR Regional Director, or the Secretary of the DENR, as the case may be, shall approve or disapprove the application for an agricultural free patent within five days,” the newly-signed law read.

In case of conflicting claims among different claimants, the parties may seek the proper administrative and judicial remedies.

The measure also shortens the period of possession required for perfection of imperfect titles from 74 years to 20 years except when prevented by war or force majeure.

It likewise allows those who have acquired ownership of private lands or abandoned riverbeds by right of accession or accretion under the provision of existing laws and those who have acquired ownership of land in any other manner provided by law to file a petition in the regional trial court for confirmation of their claims.

Section 7 of RA 11573 also requires applicants to secure a certification by a duly designated DENR geodetic engineer that the land is alienable and disposable agricultural lands.

Said certification shall be imprinted in the approved survey plan submitted by the application in the land registration court.

The imprinted certification in the plan must contain the geodetic engineer’s sworn statement that the land is within the alienable and disposable lands of the public domain and should state the applicable Forestry Administrative Order, DENR Administrative Order, Executive Order, Proclamations and the Land Classification Project Map Number covering the subject land.

“Should there be no available copy of the required documents, Project Number and date or release in the land classification map should be stated in the sworn statement declaring that it is existing in the inventory of the Land Classification Map records of the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority and is being used by the DENR,” the new law noted.

A geodetic engineer who will “prepare willfully or through gross inexcusable negligence,” a projection map with false or incomplete data, and the DENR who will certify the said map, will be penalized with a fine of up to P500,000, or imprisonment of up to six years, or both, at the discretion of the court.

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Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)