U.S. Supreme Court
Cariño v. Insular Government, 212
U.S. 449 (1909)
Cariño v. Insular Government of the Philippine
Islands
No. 72
Argued January 13, 1909
Decided February 23, 1909
212
U.S. 449
ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE PHILIPPINE
ISLANDS
Syllabus
Writ of error is the general, and appeal the exceptional, method
of bringing Cases to this Court. The latter method is in the main
confined to equity cases, and the former is proper to bring up a
judgment of the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands affirming a
judgment of the Court of Land Registration dismissing an
application for registration of land.
Although a province may be excepted from the operation of Act
No. 926 of 1903 of the Philippine Commission which provides for the
registration and perfecting of new titles, one who actually owns
property in such province is entitled to registration under Act No.
496 of 1902, which applies to the whole archipelago.
While, in legal theory and as against foreign nations,
sovereignty is absolute, practically it is a question of strength
and of varying degree, and it is for a new sovereign to decide how
far it will insist upon theoretical relations of the subject to the
former sovereign and how far it will recognize actual facts.
Page 212 U. S. 450
The acquisition of the Philippines was not for the purpose of
acquiring the lands occupied by the inhabitants, and under the
Organic Act of July 1, 1902, c. 1369, 32 Stat. 691, providing that
property rights are to be administered for the benefit of the
inhabitants, one who actually owned land for many years cannot be
deprived of it for failure to comply with certain ceremonies
prescribed either by the acts of the Philippine Commission or by
Spanish law.
The Organic Act of the Philippines made a bill of rights
embodying safeguards of the Constitution, and, like the
Constitution, extends those safeguards to all.
Every presumption of ownership is in favor of one actually
occupying land for many years, and against the government which
seeks to deprive him of it, for failure to comply with provisions
of a subsequently enacted registration act.
Title by prescription against the crown existed under Spanish
law in force in the Philippine Islands prior to their acquisition
by the United States, and one occupying land in the Province of
Benguet for more than fifty years before the Treaty of Paris is
entitled to the continued possession thereof.
7 Phil. 132 reversed.
The facts are stated in the opinion.
Page 212 U. S. 455
MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.
This was an application to the Philippine Court of Land
Registration for the registration of certain land. The application
was granted by the court on March 4, 1904. An appeal was taken to
the Court of First Instance of the Province of Benguet on behalf of
the government of the Philippines, and also on behalf of the United
States, those governments having taken possession of the property
for public and military purposes. The Court of First Instance found
the facts and dismissed the application upon grounds of law. This
judgment was affirmed by the supreme court, 7 Phil. 132, and the
case then was brought here by writ of error.
The material facts found are very few. The applicant and
plaintiff in error is an Igorot of the Province of Benguet, where
the land lies. For more than fifty years before the Treaty of
Page 212 U. S. 456
Paris, April 11, 1899, as far back as the findings go, the
plaintiff and his ancestors had held the land as owners. His
grandfather had lived upon it, and had maintained fences sufficient
for the holding of cattle, according to the custom of the country,
some of the fences, it seems, having been of much earlier date. His
father had cultivated parts and had used parts for pasturing
cattle, and he had used it for pasture in his turn. They all had
been recognized as owners by the Igorots, and he had inherited or
received the land from his father in accordance with Igorot custom.
No document of title, however, had issued from the Spanish Crown,
and although, in 1893-1894 and again in 1896-1897, he made
application for one under the royal decrees then in force, nothing
seems to have come of it, unless, perhaps, information that lands
in Benguet could not be conceded until those to be occupied for a
sanatorium, etc., had been designated -- a purpose that has been
carried out by the Philippine government and the United States. In
1901, the plaintiff filed a petition, alleging ownership, under the
mortgage law, and the lands were registered to him, that process,
however, establishing only a possessory title, it is said.
Before we deal with the merits, we must dispose of a technical
point. The government has spent some energy in maintaining that
this case should have been brought up by appeal, and not by writ of
error. We are of opinion, however, that the mode adopted was right.
The proceeding for registration is likened to bills in equity to
quiet title, but it is different in principle. It is a proceeding
in rem under a statute of the type of the Torrens Act,
such as was discussed in
Tyler v. Court of Registration,
175 Mass. 71. It is nearer to law than to equity, and is an
assertion of legal title; but we think it unnecessary to put it
into either pigeon hole. A writ of error is the general method of
bringing cases to this Court, an appeal the exception, confined to
equity in the main. There is no reason for not applying the general
rule to this case.
Ormsby v. Webb, 134 U. S.
47,
134 U. S. 65;
Campbell v. Porter, 162 U. S. 478;
Metropolitan R. Co. v. District of Columbia, 195 U.
S. 322.
Page 212 U. S. 457
Another preliminary matter may as well be disposed of here. It
is suggested that, even if the applicant have title, he cannot have
it registered, because the Philippine Commission's Act No. 926, of
1903, excepts the Province of Benguet among others from its
operation. But that act deals with the acquisition of new titles by
homestead entries, purchase, etc., and the perfecting of titles
begun under the Spanish law. The applicant's claim is that he now
owns the land, and is entitled to registration under the Philippine
Commission's Act No. 496, of 1902, which established a court for
that purpose with jurisdiction "throughout the Philippine
Archipelago," § 2, and authorized in general terms applications to
be made by persons claiming to own the legal estate in fee simple,
as the applicant does. He is entitled to registration if his claim
of ownership can be maintained.
We come, then, to the question on which the case was decided
below -- namely, whether the plaintiff owns the land. The position
of the government, shortly stated, is that Spain assumed, asserted,
and had title to all the land in the Philippines except so far as
it saw fit to permit private titles to be acquired; that there was
no prescription against the Crown, and that, if there was, a decree
of June 25, 1880, required registration within a limited time to
make the title good; that the plaintiff's land was not registered,
and therefore became, if it was not always, public land; that the
United States succeeded to the title of Spain, and so that the
plaintiff has no rights that the Philippine government is bound to
respect.
If we suppose for the moment that the government's contention is
so far correct that the Crown of Spain in form asserted a title to
this land at the date of the Treaty of Paris, to which the United
States succeeded, it is not to be assumed without argument that the
plaintiff's case is at an end. It is true that Spain, in its
earlier decrees, embodied the universal feudal theory that all
lands were held from the Crown, and perhaps the general attitude of
conquering nations toward people not recognized as entitled to the
treatment accorded to those
Page 212 U. S. 458
in the same zone of civilization with themselves. It is true
also that, in legal theory, sovereignty is absolute, and that, as
against foreign nations, the United States may assert, as Spain
asserted, absolute power. But it does not follow that, as against
the inhabitants of the Philippines, the United States asserts that
Spain had such power. When theory is left on one side, sovereignty
is a question of strength, and may vary in degree. How far a new
sovereign shall insist upon the theoretical relation of the
subjects to the head in the past, and how far it shall recognize
actual facts, are matters for it to decide.
The Province of Benguet was inhabited by a tribe that the
Solicitor General, in his argument, characterized as a savage tribe
that never was brought under the civil or military government of
the Spanish Crown. It seems probable, if not certain, that the
Spanish officials would not have granted to anyone in that province
the registration to which formerly the plaintiff was entitled by
the Spanish laws, and which would have made his title beyond
question good. Whatever may have been the technical position of
Spain, it does not follow that, in the view of the United States,
he had lost all rights and was a mere trespasser when the present
government seized his land. The argument to that effect seems to
amount to a denial of native titles throughout an important part of
the island of Luzon, at least, for the want of ceremonies which the
Spaniards would not have permitted and had not the power to
enforce.
The acquisition of the Philippines was not like the settlement
of the white race in the United States. Whatever consideration may
have been shown to the North American Indians, the dominant purpose
of the whites in America was to occupy the land. It is obvious
that, however stated, the reason for our taking over the
Philippines was different. No one, we suppose, would deny that, so
far as consistent with paramount necessities, our first object in
the internal administration of the islands is to do justice to the
natives, not to exploit their country for private gain. By the
Organic Act of July 1, 1902, c. 1369, § 12, 32 Stat. 691, all the
property and rights acquired there by the
Page 212 U. S. 459
United States are to be administered "for the benefit of the
inhabitants thereof." It is reasonable to suppose that the attitude
thus assumed by the United States with regard to what was
unquestionably its own is also its attitude in deciding what it
will claim for its own. The same statute made a bill of rights,
embodying the safeguards of the Constitution, and, like the
Constitution, extends those safeguards to all. It provides that
"no law shall be enacted in said islands which shall deprive any
person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or
deny to any person therein the equal protection of the laws."
§ 5. In the light of the declaration that we have quoted from §
12, it is hard to believe that the United States was ready to
declare in the next breath that "any person" did not embrace the
inhabitants of Benguet, or that it meant by "property" only that
which had become such by ceremonies of which presumably a large
part of the inhabitants never had heard, and that it proposed to
treat as public land what they, by native custom and by long
association -- one of the profoundest factors in human thought --
regarded as their own.
It is true that, by § 14, the government of the Philippines is
empowered to enact rules and prescribe terms for perfecting titles
to public lands where some, but not all, Spanish conditions had
been fulfilled, and to issue patents to natives for not more than
sixteen hectares of public lands actually occupied by the native or
his ancestors before August 13, 1898. But this section perhaps
might be satisfied if confined to cases where the occupation was of
land admitted to be public land, and had not continued for such a
length of time and under such circumstances as to give rise to the
understanding that the occupants were owners at that date. We
hesitate to suppose that it was intended to declare every native
who had not a paper title a trespasser, and to set the claims of
all the wilder tribes afloat. It is true again that there is
excepted from the provision that we have quoted as to the
administration of the property and rights acquired by the United
States such land and property as shall be designated by the
President for military or other reservations,
Page 212 U. S. 460
as this land since has been. But there still remains the
question what property and rights the United States asserted itself
to have acquired.
Whatever the law upon these points may be, and we mean to go no
further than the necessities of decision demand, every presumption
is and ought to be against the government in a case like the
present. 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. Certainly, in a case
like this, if there is doubt or ambiguity in the Spanish law, we
ought to give the applicant the benefit of the doubt. Whether
justice to the natives and the import of the organic act ought not
to carry us beyond a subtle examination of ancient texts, or
perhaps even beyond the attitude of Spanish law, humane though it
was, it is unnecessary to decide. If, in a tacit way, it was
assumed that the wild tribes of the Philippines were to be dealt
with as the power and inclination of the conqueror might dictate,
Congress has not yet sanctioned the same course as the proper one
"for the benefit of the inhabitants thereof."
If the applicant's case is to be tried by the law of Spain, we
do not discover such clear proof that it was bad by that law as to
satisfy us that he does not own the land. To begin with, the older
decrees and laws cited by the counsel for the plaintiff in error
seem to indicate pretty clearly that the natives were recognized as
owning some lands, irrespective of any royal grant. In other words,
Spain did not assume to convert all the native inhabitants of the
Philippines into trespassers, or even into tenants at will. For
instance, Book 4, Title 12, Law 14 of the Recopilacion de Leyes de
las Indias, cited for a contrary conclusion in
Valenton v.
Murciano, 3 Phil. 537, while it commands viceroys and others,
when it seems proper, to call for the exhibition of grants, directs
them to confirm those who hold by good grants or
justa
prescripcion. It is true that it
Page 212 U. S. 461
begins by the characteristic assertion of feudal overlordship
and the origin of all titles in the King or his predecessors. That
was theory and discourse. The fact was that titles were admitted to
exist that owed nothing to the powers of Spain beyond this
recognition in their books.
Prescription is mentioned again in the royal cedula of October
15, 1754, cited in 3 Phil. 546:
"Where such possessors shall not be able to produce title deeds,
it shall be sufficient if they shall show that ancient possession,
as a valid title by prescription."
It may be that this means possession from before 1700; but, at
all events, the principle is admitted. As prescription, even
against Crown lands, was recognized by the laws of Spain, we see no
sufficient reason for hesitating to admit that it was recognized in
the Philippines in regard to lands over which Spain had only a
paper sovereignty.
The question comes, however, on the decree of June 25, 1880, for
the adjustment of royal lands wrongfully occupied by private
individuals in the Philippine Islands. This begins with the usual
theoretic assertion that, for private ownership, there must have
been a grant by competent authority; but instantly descends to fact
by providing that, for all legal effects, those who have been in
possession for certain times shall be deemed owners. For cultivated
land, twenty years, uninterrupted, is enough. For uncultivated,
thirty. Art. 5. So that, when this decree went into effect, the
applicant's father was owner of the land by the very terms of the
decree. But, it is said, the object of this law was to require the
adjustment or registration proceedings that it described, and in
that way to require everyone to get a document of title or lose his
land. That purpose may have been entertained, but it does not
appear clearly to have been applicable to all. The regulations
purport to have been made "for the adjustment of royal lands
wrongfully occupied by private individuals." (We follow the
translation in the government's brief.) It does not appear that
this land ever was royal land or wrongfully occupied. In Article 6,
it is provided that
"interested parties not included within the two preceding
Page 212 U. S. 462
articles [the articles recognizing prescription of twenty and
thirty years] may legalize their possession, and thereby acquire
the full ownership of the said lands, by means of adjustment
proceedings, to be conducted in the following manner."
This seems, by its very terms, not to apply to those declared
already to be owners by lapse of time. Article 8 provides for the
case of parties not asking an adjustment of the lands of which they
are unlawfully enjoying the possession, within one year, and
threatens that the treasury "will reassert the ownership of the
state over the lands," and will sell at auction such part as it
does not reserve. The applicant's possession was not unlawful, and
no attempt at any such proceedings against him or his father ever
was made. Finally, it should be noted that the natural construction
of the decree is confirmed by the report of the council of state.
That report puts forward as a reason for the regulations that, in
view of the condition of almost all property in the Philippines, it
is important to fix its status by general rules on the principle
that the lapse of a fixed period legalizes completely all
possession, recommends in two articles twenty and thirty years, as
adopted in the decree, and then suggests that interested parties
not included in those articles may legalize their possession and
acquire ownership by adjustment at a certain price.
It is true that the language of Articles 4 and 5 attributes
title to those "who may prove" possession for the necessary time,
and we do not overlook the argument that this means may prove in
registration proceedings. It may be that an English conveyancer
would have recommended an application under the foregoing decree,
but certainly it was not calculated to convey to the mind of an
Igorot chief the notion that ancient family possessions were in
danger, if he had read every word of it. The words "may prove"
(
acrediten), as well, or better, in view of the other
provisions, might be taken to mean when called upon to do so in any
litigation. There are indications that registration was expected
from all, but none sufficient to show that, for want of it,
ownership actually gained would be lost.
Page 212 U. S. 463
The effect of the proof, wherever made, was not to confer title,
but simply to establish it, as already conferred by the decree, if
not by earlier law. The royal decree of February 13, 1894,
declaring forfeited titles that were capable of adjustment under
the decree of 1880, for which adjustment had not been sought,
should not be construed as a confiscation, but as the withdrawal of
a privilege. As a matter of fact, the applicant never was
disturbed. This same decree is quoted by the Court of Land
Registration for another recognition of the common law prescription
of thirty years as still running against alienable Crown land.
It will be perceived that the rights of the applicant under the
Spanish law present a problem not without difficulties for courts
of a different legal tradition. We have deemed it proper on that
account to notice the possible effect of the change of sovereignty
and the act of Congress establishing the fundamental principles now
to be observed. Upon a consideration of the whole case, we are of
opinion that law and justice require that the applicant should be
granted what he seeks, and should not be deprived of what, by the
practice and belief of those among whom he lived, was his property,
through a refined interpretation of an almost forgotten law of
Spain.
Judgment reversed.