G.R. No. L-14702; May 23, 1961
DIRECTOR OF LANDS, petitioner-appellant, vs. LELITA JUGADO, ET AL., respondents. PHILIPPINE NATIONAL BANK, intervenor-appellee.

FACTS

The Director of Lands filed a petition with the Court of First Instance of Negros Occidental on November 26, 1956, seeking the annulment and cancellation of Homestead Patent No. V-28407 issued to respondent Lelita Jugado on May 4, 1954. The petition alleged that the patent was fraudulently issued because the land was already covered by a prior and subsisting approved homestead application of one Conrada Villavera. The Philippine National Bank, claiming to be a mortgagee in good faith of the property, successfully intervened in the proceedings.
The intervenor, PNB, subsequently filed a motion to dismiss the petition. It argued that since the petition to cancel was filed on December 5, 1956, more than one year had elapsed from the issuance of the patent and the corresponding certificate of title. Consequently, the title had already become perfect, absolute, and indefeasible. The trial court agreed with the intervenor and issued an order dismissing the petition, prompting the Director of Lands to appeal.

ISSUE

The main issue is whether the appellant’s petition to cancel Homestead Patent No. V-28407 could prosper, considering it was filed more than one year after the patent’s issuance.

RULING

The Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s order of dismissal. The legal logic is anchored on the principle that once a homestead patent is registered and the corresponding certificate of title is issued, the land ceases to be part of the public domain and becomes private property governed by the Land Registration Act ( Act No. 496 ). Section 38 of this Act prohibits any challenge to the validity of a certificate of title after one year from the entry of the decree of registration. For public land grants, this one-year period is construed to begin from the issuance of the patent itself.
In this case, the patent was issued in May 1954, but the petition for annulment was filed only in December 1956, clearly beyond the one-year statutory period. Consequently, the title had become indefeasible, and the Director of Lands lost the right to contest its validity. The Court clarified that while Section 101 of the Public Land Law ( Commonwealth Act No. 141 ) provides a remedy for the reversion of fraudulently awarded public lands, such an action must be instituted by the Solicitor General in the name of the Republic of the Philippines. Since the present action was brought by the Director of Lands alone, it could not prosper under that provision. The dismissal was thus affirmed, but without prejudice to the Government’s right to institute the proper reversion action.