CARIÑO vs THE INSULAR GOVERNMENT, G.R. No. L-2746 December 6, 1906

MATEO CARIÑO vs THE INSULAR GOVERNMENT

G.R. No. L-2746 December 6, 1906

FACTS: On June 23, 1903, Mateo Cariňo went to the Court of Land Registration to petition his inscription as the owner of a 146 hectare land he’s been possessing in the then municipality of Baguio. Mateo only presented possessory information and no other documentation. The State opposed the petition averring that the land is part of the US military reservation. The CLR ruled in favor of Mateo. The State appealed. Mateo lost. Mateo averred that a grant should be given to him by reason of immemorial use and occupation as in the previous case Cansino vs Valdez & Tiglao vs Government.

ISSUE: Whether or not Mateo is the rightful owner of the land by virtue of his possession of it for some time.

HELD: No. The statute of limitations did not run against the government. The government is still the absolute owner of the land (regalian doctrine). Further, Mateo’s possession of the land has not been of such a character as to require the presumption of a grant. No one has lived upon it for many years. It was never used for anything but pasturage of animals, except insignificant portions thereof, and since the insurrection against Spain it has apparently not been used by the petitioner for any purpose.

While the State has always recognized the right of the occupant to a deed if he proves a possession for a sufficient length of time, yet it has always insisted that he must make that proof before the proper administrative officers, and obtain from them his deed, and until he did the State remained the absolute owner.

THE CARIÑO DOCTRINE: WHAT NOW? Confusion in the Courts: The Misinterpretation of Cariño Posted by kitangladintegratedngos under 1999 Leave a Comment

Vol. 4, No. 4, Fourth Quarter 1999

By Dante B. Gatmaytan

Introduction

Repeated efforts have been made to point out that the Philippine legal system has long recognized that indigenous peoples’ ownership rights over their ancestral domains. Cariño V. Insular Government, the United States Supreme Court, exercising appellate jurisdiction over the Philippine courts, is a case in point. It stated that lands held since time immemorial are private lands protected by the Bill of Rights.

This case has generated considerable discussion, but it has also been pointed out that Cariño and its subsequent interpretation by courts in the Philippines and United States. It will show that the Cariño decision haws been continuously misinterpreted in both jurisdictions.

Cariño is significant because the judicial recognition of indigenous peoples’ ownership of their ancestral domains is uncommon. Ironically, the United States Supreme Court that decided Cariño has been less than willing to recognize similar rights for the indigenous peoples’ of North America. Simply put, that Court has held that neither the discovery of the New World under international law, nor the resulting English colonial policy, requires the recognition of Indian title. The United States as a legatee of this policy was, therefore, not bound to recognize any rights belonging to indigenous peoples. The judicial doctrines in the United States have been explained as a result of racist attitudes that prevailed during the settlement of the United States. Many accounts of the settlement were crafted as the triumph of a people over the challenges of nature.

However, it was mostly a “violent, imperialistic process by which the West was wrested from its original owners.” Scholars have traced this attitude to the medieval era when the crusading theory of practice of the Church produced a highly refined legal tradition denying non-Christian peoples the rights of self-rule and jurisdictional authority over the lands they occupied and the property they possessed. This cultural racism was applied with the same force against any race of peoples, whose religion, civilization, or form of culture, differed from Christian European norms. This legacy was brought to the New World by the colonizers and used to support a set of legal privileges that discriminated against indigenous peoples and denied them rights of self-rule because of their deviation from European standards.

The westward expansion of the United States did not stop with the adjacent states. By the end of the nineteenth century, the United States has established itself not only as a sovereign nation worthy of inclusion into the international community, but had also asserted itself as a world power. There was agitation for greater glory beyond the territorial borders of the country, which echoed the same rhetoric used to justify the conquest to the Native Americans. There were calls for continued westward progress of the Caucasian race, “carrying civilization and blessing in its march.”

The stimulus in the United States was to push for the adoption of the expansionists’ platform. The Cuban insurrection against Spain had become a central theme in the debates about whether the

United States should engage in overseas expansion. Inflammatory reports of Spanish atrocities generated popular sympathy for insurgents, until a policy of non-intervention was disregarded, and war with Spain was viewed as the sole remedy to the Cuban situation. To the delight of the expansionists, the

United Stated went to war against Spain. Senator Albert J. Beveridge further spurred his United Stated went to war against Spain.

Senator Albert J. Beveridge further spurred his fellow Americans by reminding them that “we are conquering race, and that we must obey our blood and occupy new markers and new lands. “He pointed to the Philippines to the United States and delivered rounded by indigenous people who were never subdued by the Spanish empire.

The indications were that United States law will be used to settle land disputes between non-

Christian indigenous peoples and the United States President McKinley’s Instructions to the second Philippine Commission headed by William Howard Taft stated that:

In dealing with the uncivilized tribes of the Islands, the Commission should adopt the same course followed by Congress in allowing the tribes of our North American Indians to maintain their tribal organization and government, and under which many of these tribes are now living in peace and contentment, surrounded by a civilization to which they are unable or willing to confirm. Such tribal governments should, however, be subjected to wise and firm regulation; and without due and pretty interference constant and active effort should be exercised without due and petty interference constant and active effort should be exercised to prevent barbarous practices and introduce civilized customs.

The instructions were not surprising considering that the United States’ incursion into the Philippines coincided with the use of reservations and the allotment of lands to control Indians. But when the issue of ownership of ancestral domains in the Philippines was raised to the United States Supreme Court, the issue was decided differently. In the next portion of their paper, we will outline the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Cariño.

The facts of Cariño v. Insular Government were brief:

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 Paris, April 11, 1989 (30 Stat. At L., 1754), 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 efficient for the holding of cattle, according to the custom of the country, with 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 as a 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 1869-1879, he applied 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 sanitarium, etc., had been designated-a purpose 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, establishing only a possessory title, it said.

The issue according to Justice Holmes was whether the claimant, an Igorot, owned the land. The United States government contented that Spain had title to all the lands in the Philippines, except so far as it saw fit to permit private titles to be acquired. It maintained that no prescription can be claimed against Spanish empire and even if that was possible, a decree in 1880 had set a deadline for the registration of these titles. No title would be recognized as valid beyond that date. Since the land in question was not

registered, the government contended that it had become public (if it was already public). When the United States succeeded to the title of Spain, Cariño had no right which it was bound to respect. The Court disagreed with the United States in a decision that has remained as obscure as it is significant.

The Court admitted that Spain had embraced the universal feudal theory that all lands were held by the Crown. However, Justice Holmes, who spoke for the Court, said that in practice sovereignty 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 Igorots were never brought under the control of the Spaniards. The Court quipped that it would be almost certain that Spain would not have granted registration of the property that would not have made title valid. Regardless of Spain’s position about technical subtleties, this did not mean that under the dominion of the United States, Cariño had lost all his rights. He was not a mere trespasser when the government succeeded as the new sovereign. A contrary position, would “amount to 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 Court explained that the cases involving the land claims of Native Americans were inapplicable in this situation because 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. Evidently, however stated, the reason for our taking over the Philippines was different. No one, we suppose would deny that, so far 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… all the property and rights acquired there by the United States are to be administered “for the benefit of the inhabitants thereof.”

In the Court’s view, the United States had bound itself to administer the islands for the benefit of the inhabitants, and not to exploit it for profit. However, the decision did not stop there. It pointed out that the Philippine Bill of 1902 included a Bill of rights that extended those safeguards to all the inhabitants of the Philippines. The Court found it hard to believe that the United States interpreted the due process clause not to apply to the inhabitants of Benguet. The “property” under the organic act protected “only that which had become such by ceremonies of which presumably a large part of the inhabitants never 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.”

While the government of the Philippines was empowered to enact rules for perfecting titles to public lands and to issue patents to natives, the Court held that this power was confined to lands which were admittedly public. It “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.” The Court refused to believe that there was an intent to declare every native who had not a paper title a trespasser. This set the claims of all the wilder tribes afloat. The Court further held that there must be a presumption against the government when a private individual claims property as his or her own. It went so far as to say that the lands will be deemed private absent contrary proof. In what is probably the most potent statement ever made on this subject by any Court, it held:

Whatever the law upon these points may be…every presumption is and ought to be against the government in a case like the present. It might 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 even before Spanish conquest, and never to have been public land.

The Court proceeded to explain that the case would have been similarly resolved had the case tried by the laws of Spain. After examining the pertinent laws, the Court held that We do not discover such clear proof that it was bad by that [Spanish] 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 suggest pretty clearly that the natives were recognized as owing 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 tenants at will.

The Court pointed out that the Recopilacion de Leyes de Las Indias (that body of edicts, decrees and orders that set out Spain’s laws for her colonies) allowed confirmation of title through prescription, and that title was admitted to exist that owed nothing to the power of Spain beyond this recognition in their books. The Court further explained that Spanish law was not that stringent in requiring proof, ancient possession being sufficient.

“As prescription, even against Crown lands, was recognized by the laws of Spain, we see no sufficient reason for hesitating to admit the title was recognized in the Philippines in regard to lands over which Spain had only a paper sovereignty.”

Clearly, the reference to Spanish law was inconsequential. Justice Holmes discussed the issue only to clarify that Cariño’s claim would have also prevailed, (this time under prescription) had the Court resorted to Spanish laws. This part of the discussion was surplusage because the lands claimed by Cariño were already held to be private.

In concluding, Holmes wrote 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.”

In the following portion of the paper, we analyze the Court’s decision.

Cariño did not rely on precedent. Justice Holmes said that whatever theories justified claims over “discovered” lands, the truth was that conquerors were never able to see, much less secure most of these areas. The fact that the Igorots had never been assimilated or defeated by the Spaniards must surely have been a substantial consideration. The court said that title will not be extinguished simply because a territory is occupied by an alien force.

Holmes’s language stripped the veneer of nobility that has often been used to justify the dispossession of the Native Americans. The experience in America was exposed as nothing more than an ignoble, colossal capitalist venture meant to take lands at the Indians’ expense. Cariño made no explicit reference here to either superior culture or religion.

The Court then noted the second obstacles to the United States’ claim: the United States had not asserted a claim over the entire country. When Congress enacted the Philippine bill of 1902, it extended the Bill of Rights to the territory. The United States had stretched its protection, particularly the due process clause, to all the inhabitants of the Philippines. Ata this point, the Court had already characterized

the ancestral domain of the Igorots (and by extension, those of other native peoples) as private. It should be noted that the property here was private not because of recognition of title by any sovereign. This was the result of the Igorots’ “custom and long association” and “practice and belief.”

The Court also mocked Spain’s claims over the entire territory of the Philippines. Such claims could not defeat the claim of Cariño based on laws that Spain had not the power to enforce, or Cariño, living as he did with his unconquered folk, had no reason to heed. The resolution of the case was guided more by the Court’s determination to do justice rather than to apply obscure laws. This explains Holmes’ refusal to rely upon established doctrines and his liberal interpretation of the Philippine Bill. No weight was ever placed upon theories of conquest or alien laws that could not have been known to or understood by a people so removed from the potentates’ game of global takeover. Thus, unlike in North America, the Court refused to deprive the Indian of his rights by resorting to the laws of nations within the exclusive sphere of a mere handful of nations. It would not construe laws to deny the Igorots’ claim, and the executive and legislative acts in any way that “would amount to a denial of native titles.”

It might be suggested that there is a difference between the claims in Cariño and those of the North American Indians because the former involved the assertion of an individual’s private right consistent with western property schemes against those asserted by an entire community. But there is no evidence of this difference in Holmes’ language.

Neither can the differences in the result can be justified on the ground that the Court viewed the claimants as a “civilized” westernized people. The claimants in Cariño were also considered inferior peoples, if subtly. The court made conscious efforts to waive technicalities because the claimants were Igorots, and were referred to as “’wilder tribes.’”

But while they were, from the western legal perspective, considered savage and uncivilized, the Court still found it unfair to refuse recognition of their title.

Cariño has been consistently upheld by the Philippine Supreme Court. And while it originally involved the claim of an individual “under a claim of private ownership” the Philippine Supreme Court later expanded the doctrine to include lands held by a community, and lands that are “unoccupied and unimproved.” Unfortunately, some confusion has attended the application of doctrine.Cariño has been cited as authority for the Public Land Act which allows registration of public lands as private possession if the claimant has been in open, continuous, exclusive and notorious possession of the said lands for thirty years. The error is obvious. Cariño involved lands which had never been public. The prescriptive remedy under the Public Land Act admits that the land was initially public. However, it becomes private (and therefore may be titled) after the lapse of the prescriptive period.

Confusion in the Court had surfaced as early as 1931 in De Palas v. Saito and Madrazo. In that case, the Supreme Court held that the sale of property made by a member of the Bagobo tribe without the approval of the Director of the Non-Christian tribes was null and void. While the Bagobos retained their land, the decision showed the Court was confused about its character. Justice Johnson in the lone dissent explained that: There is absolutely no analogy between the relations of the non-Christian people of the Philippine Islands to the Philippine Government as compared with the relation of the American Indians to the American government.

A citizen of the Philippine Islands, whether non-Christian or Christian, has a perfect right to dispose of his private property freely without the necessity of securing the consent of any person of the Government…

Hundreds and thousands of the non-Christian people of the Philippine Islands have, through their industry and intelligence, become the absolute owners of private property… (Cariño vs. Insular Government, 7 Phil. 132; Cariño vs. Insular Government, 212 U.S. 449; 53 Law.Ed. 549; 41 Phil., 935).

In the United States the government distributed lands freely to the American Indians and the dispose of the same without the consent of the Secretary of the Interior. The Government, having given the Indian his land without cost, it had a perfect right to impose such condition upon the disposition of the same as the Government might deem wise. In the Philippine Islands, however, the non-Christian people have never been given land by the government. They are therefore under no obligation to the Government concerning the land they acquire.

Admittedly, the dissent’s interpretation of the jurisprudence on Native American land rights leaves much to be desired. However, its use of the Cariño doctrine was faithful to Holmes’ dictum. Because of this confusion, there are presently two streams of cases in the Philippines, both as prominent, as they are glaringly contradictory. In one line, lands held since time immemorial are recognized as private. It has even been held that subsequent reclassification of land cannot impair the rights of long-term occupants. In the other line, public agricultural lands become private lands and could therefore be titled. This is if the claimant can show that there has been continuous possession thereof for at least thirty years. Cariño has been cited as authority for both. A recent case cited both lines of cases without the Court observing any incongruity.

Some earlier cases did manage to make a distinction between the two claims. In these cases, the Court would first check if the land is private under the Cariño doctrine, and then examine if it has become private under the Public Land Act. While the Cariño doctrine may be in jurisprudential limbo, the case does surface periodically in the discussions of the other branches of government.

Courts in the United States had several occasions to apply the Cariño decision. As will be shown, however, these courts had, for the most part, also misinterpreted the doctrine. These cases may be divided into those that involved lands in its territories, and those involving claims within the continental United States.

In the Territories

The first claims involved lands in Mexico. In Pueblo de Sta. Rosa v. Fall, the claimants filed a bill in equity in the Supreme Court in the District of Columbia to restrain the Secretary of the Interior and the Commissioner of the General Land Office from opening its lands to sale, entry, and settlement as public lands of the United States. The plaintiffs alleged that the lands were granted and conceded to the pueblo of Sta. Rosa by the laws and customs of the Indians, antedating the Spanish discovery of America and the laws of Spain and Mexico. The lands were part of the territory ceded by Mexico to United States under the Gadsden Treaty.

In resolving the issue, the Court explained that the title of the Indian inhabitants of a pueblo in Mexico has been recognized not only by the Mexican, but also by Spanish laws. Such recognition rests not upon title by grant or charter from the crown, but it may be established and was frequently established by prescription. It cited Cariño to stress that prescription against the Crown was recognized by Spanish laws. It said, “[t]here can be no question, we think that prior to the cession under the Gadsden Treaty the Papago Indians had acquired a title which was subject to recognition by the government of Mexico.” It concluded that, had the record title been established in Mexico to which this pueblo was clearly entitled, it

could not be divested by the sort of evidence adduced in this case. This would have been the proper case to cite Cariño because the claim was premised upon the laws and customs of Indians that antedated the Spanish discovery of America. The land was ceded by Spain to the United States. No grant was relied upon, and there was an assertion that both Spanish and Mexican laws relied upon, and there was an assertion that both Spanish and Mexican laws recognized such Indian title. Unfortunately, the court’s reliance upon Cariño was merely to recognize the right of the claimant through prescription, and not to reaffirm the rule that lands held since time-immemorial are private lands.

The second case came some twenty years later. Playa de Flor Land and Improvement CO. v. United States involved lands in Panama. The complainants, an unincorporated association, alleged that they had acquired title and rights of ownership to specific real property based on prescription under the name of Playa del Flor Land and Improvement Co., their predecessors in interest, and those who had been and were in the actual, open, notorious, and adverse possession, use, and cultivation of the lands for more than forty years before the Treaty between the United States and the Republic of Panama. They also alleged that they were forcibly and unlawfully evicted and dispossessed of the lands and improvements by the United States and that the joint owners had not been paid for the property taken from them.

The Court held that all of the collective facts necessary to prove adverse possession are shown in the record; there was actual possession; it was open, notorious, and visible; it was selfish and exclusive; it was hostile, even against the whole world, and it was a definite possession marked by the descriptions in documentary evidence, which were of color of title. The Court summarized the rulings of “similar and analogous” cases regarding the validity of land titles acquired under a former sovereign. It also cited Cariño, quoting that statement that recognized the private nature of lands held since time immemorial.

The Court touched upon the most important part of the decision stating that “[t]he principles announced [in these cases] are plain, simple, and easily understood. They are grounded on common honesty, right and justice, and they had received the approval of the executive and legislative branches of the government for more than a hundred years.” The Court understood the theme of the decision, and associated the ownership of land to the concept of human rights. It said:

Since we are so freely expressing our opinions to all questions herein, we might suggest that, despite all the argument undertaking to distinguish property rights and human rights, there never was a country and never will there be a country where, if property rights are ignored, human rights will be respected.

The decision followed the reasoning of the Holmes decisions. It anticipated, and sought to prevent the present situation in many countries where the refusal to recognize native title had crushed the essence of Indian identity. While technically, the case did not involve Indian lands,

the jurisprudence cited to support the court’s conclusion did.

Finally, the United States Supreme Court itself cited Cariño approvingly in United States v. Fullard-Leo. That case was an action to quiet title to the Palmyra Island in Hawaii. AT the time of the annexation of the Island by the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1862, the monarchy possessed a system of land ownership and land laws adequate to establish titles which were maintained by a proper record.

The facts of this case were clearly inconsistent with those in Cariño. The claimants in this case were alleging the issuance of a grant they were unable to produce. Predictably, therefore, the Court turned to the doctrine of the presumption of a lost grant. The Court explained the doctrine thus: …it may be safely

said that by the weight of authority, as well as the preponderance of opinion, it is the general rule of American law that a grant will be presumed upon proof of an adverse, exclusive, and uninterrupted possession for 20 years, and that such rule will be applied as a presumption juris et de jure, wherever, by possibility, aright may be acquired in any manner known to the law. See United States v. Pendell, 185 U.S. 189, 200-201, 22 S. Ct. 624, 628, 629, 46 L. Ed. 866.

The Court quoted Cariño saying that land held by individuals under a claim of private ownership since time immemorial are presumed to be private. There was never an intimation that the title of Cariño was founded on a grant. He had attempted to secure a grant but his efforts had not amounted to anything. This was not the case in Fullard.

The use of in Cariño these cases was not always proper. Pueblo was tailor-made for the doctrine. Unfortunately, it used the doctrine to uphold a prescriptive right, something for which was Cariño never designed to be authority. Playa relied on the Cariño decision to state that title will not be denied for failure of the claimant to produce title. If nothing else, it seemed to find support in natural law, a position not previously unexplored by the United States Supreme Court. Fullard-Leo was not analogous to Cariño. The claimant in that case had relied upon a previous grant destroyed in a fire. Cariño was never given title by the Spanish government, although it was not for want of trying.

In the United States There have been two attempts to cite in Cariño cases involving Native Americans. Both efforts, however, failed. In 1995, Tee-Hit-Ton Indians cited the case to bolter their claim that the U.S. government’s taking of timber from Indian-occupied lands was compensable. The Supreme Court, however, not only distinguished Cariño from the Alaskan controversy, but also attempted to belittle it. The Court stated that it is well-settled that in all the States of the Union the tribes who inhabited the islands of the States held claim to such lands after the coming of the white man, “under what is sometimes termed original Indian title or permission from the whites to occupy.” The Court explained that that meant “mere possession not specially recognized as ownership by Congress.”

The Court explained that: [a]fter conquest they were permitted to occupy portions of the territory over which they had previously exercised “sovereignty” as we use that term. This is not a property right but amounts to a right of occupancy that the sovereign grants and protects against intrusion by third parties where right of occupancy may be terminated and such lands fully disposed of by the sovereign itself without legally enforceable obligation to compensate the Indians.

In a footnote, the Court dismissed the applicability of the Cariño doctrine: The basis of the Court’s decision [in Cariño] however, distinguishes it from applicability to the Tee-Hit-Ton claim. The court chiefly upon the purpose of our acquisition of the Philippines as revealed by the Organic Act of July 1, 1902, which was to administer property and rights “for the benefit of the inhabitants thereof”… This purpose in acquisition and its effect on land held by the natives was distinguished from the settlement of the white race in the United States where “the dominant purpose was to occupy the land.” 212 U.S., at page 458, 29 S. Ct. at page 336. The Court further found that the Spanish law and exercise of Spanish sovereignty over the islands tended to support rather than defeat a prescriptive right. Since this was no communal claim to a vast uncultivated area, it was natural to apply the law of prescription rather than a rule of sovereign ownership of dominion. Cariño claim was to a 370-acre farm that his grandfather had fenced some fifty years before and was used by three generations as a pasture for livestock and some cultivation of vegetable and grain. The case bears closer analogy to the ordinary prescriptive rights situation rather than to a recognition by this court of any aboriginal use and possession amounting to fee simple ownership.

The second attempt by Alaskan tribes to use Cariño also failed. In , Aleut Community of St. Paul Island v. United States the Indians claimed that under Russian Law, they had a right to an accounting of funds allegedly misspent. The United States had failed in its obligation to deal with the tribe in fairness and honor. The Indian Claims Commission dismissed the claim on the government’s motion, and the plaintiffs appealed.

The Court of Claims held that the Indians’ title was no more than aboriginal in nature and did not have attributes of fee simple title. Again, the reference to Cariño was dismissed because in that case, the Supreme Court found fee simple title of certain land had been established by the plaintiff via prescription. Said the Court:

The case is of little aid to appellants at bar, however, because the Court in Cariño held that the plaintiff there had met the requirements of prescription as set out in the Spanish Civil Code, and that under the circumstances of the American occupation of the Philippines that title had to be protected. As pointed out above, the appellants at bar have failed to prove that they achieved the undisturbed possession necessary under Russian law to obtain title by prescription. Without a showing that they had obtained title by prescription under Russian law, appellants have no grounds upon which to ask that appellee respect their “proprietary rights.”

Further, the Court Held that, The title, if any of Aleutian natives to St. Paul’s Island, or other islands involved in this proceeding, was no more than aboriginal in nature and did not have the attributes of fee simple title, at the time of the Treaty of Cession. No recognition of such title by our government, then or later, is shown, and therefore no acts or our Government can be construed as taking such title. Since it is related to aboriginal title claims, it follows that appellants have not shown reversible error as to just compensation portion of their petitions.

These decisions failed to appreciate the significance of Cariño. Both decisions were written with the understanding that the recognition of title in Cariño was based upon prescription against the crown. As pointed out, however, it was more in consonance with the idea of fairness that the Supreme Court ruled in Cariño favor.

Cariño was decided in favor of the claimant not only because of the explicit provision in the Philippine Bill of 1902 directing the United States government to administer the Philippines for the benefit of its inhabitants. The underlying theme in the entire decision is the inherent fairness in recognizing the title of indigenous peoples against the claims of a succeeding sovereign. Justice Holmes rejected the position that both Spain and the United States had title to all lands in their territories as they had in the American continents simply by asserting sovereignty, and without actual occupation of these lands.

Unfortunately, neither the Supreme Courts of the Philippines and the United States properly appreciate the doctrines of the case. With few exceptions, subsequent cases in both countries have misapplied the case as authority for a prescriptive right against the government.

At the very least, Cariño has not been overruled in either country. It would be inconceivable to do so in the Philippines where the recognition of native title was held to be protected by the due process clause. The Bill of Rights that was initially introduced through the Philippine Bill of 1902 has remained intact in all the Constitutions of the Republic of the Philippines. A reversal of the Cariño doctrine can only be done as an express repudiation of the equal status of indigenous peoples. (Reprinted from Philippine Natural Resources Law Journal, Volume 7 Number 2)

Cariño vs Insular Government, 41 Phil 935Posted by Pius Morados on November 21, 2011

(Land Titles and Deeds – Native Title)

Facts: An Igorot applied for the registration of a certain land. He and his ancestors had held the land as owners for more than 50 years, which he inherited under Igorot customs. There was no document of title issued for the land when he applied for registration. The government contends that the land in question belonged to the state. Under the Spanish Law, all lands belonged to the Spanish Crown except those with permit private titles. Moreover, there is no prescription against the Crown.

Issue: WON the land in question belonged to the Spanish Crown under the Regalian Doctrine.

Held: No. Law and justice require that the applicant should be granted title to his land.

The United States Supreme Court, through Justice Holmes declared:

MATEO CARINO, Plff. in Err., v. INSULAR GOVERNMENT OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.

212 U.S. 449 (29 S.Ct. 334, 53 L.Ed. 594)

MATEO CARINO, Plff. in Err., v. INSULAR GOVERNMENT OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.

No. 72.

Argued: January 13, 1909.

Decided: February 23, 1909.

opinion, Holmes [HTML]

Messrs. Frederic R. Coudert, Howard Thayer Kingsbury, Charles C. Cohn, D. R. Williams, and Paul Fuller for plaintiff in error.

Argument of Counsel from pages 450-452 intentionally omitted

Solicitor General Hoyt and Paul Charlton for defendant in error.

Argument of Counsel from pages 453-455 intentionally omitted

TOP

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 Philippine, 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 Paris, April 11, 1899 30 Stat. at L. 1754, 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.

Registration Ct. Judges, 175 Mass. 71, 51 L.R.A. 433, 55 N. E. 812. 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, 65, 33 L. ed. 805, 812, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 478; Campbell v. Porter, 162 U. S. 478, 40 L. ed. 1044, 16 Sup. Ct. Rep. 871; Metropolitan R. Co. v. District of Columbia (Metropolitan R. Co. v. Macfarland) 195 U. S. 322, 49 L. ed. 219, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 28.

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 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, chap. 1369, § 12, 32 Stat. at L. 691, all the property and rights acquired there by the 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 16 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, 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 Philippine, 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 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 Philippine, 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 every one 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 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 arts. 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. 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.