petition for review on certiorari under Rule 45 of the Rules of Court, petitioners seek to set aside and annul

the Decision1cralawdated December 22, 2003 of the Court of Appeals (CA) in CA-G.R. CV No. 61784, which reversed and set aside the Summary Judgment2cralawdated December 22, 1998 of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Las Pias City, Branch 255 February 16, 1995, petitioner spouses Morris and Socorro Carpo (Carpos) filed a Complaint for Quieting of Title4cralaw with the RTC of Makati City against Ayala Corporation, Ayala Property Ventures Corporation (APVC), and the Register of Deeds of Las Pias, the Carpos claimed to be the owners of a 171,209-square meter parcel of land covered by Transfer Certificate of Title (TCT) No. 296463 issued in their names.5cralaw They further alleged that Ayala Corporation was claiming to have titles (specifically, TCT Nos. 125945, T-4366, T-4367 and T-4368) over the property covered by the Carpos TCT No. 296463 and that Ayala Corporation had made such property its equity contribution in APVC to be developed into a residential subdivision TCT No. 296463 issued on August 13, 1970 in the name of the Carpos, covering a parcel of land (Lot 3, plan Psu-56007) located in the Barrio of Almanza, Las Pias with an area of 171,309 square meters; (b) TCT No. 125945 issued on April 6, 1988 in the name of Ayala Corporation, covering a parcel of land (Lot 3, Plan Psu-80886) located in Bo. Tindig na Manga, Las Pias with an area of 171,309 square meters; (c) TCT No. T-4367 issued on May 18, 1988 in the name of Ayala Corporation, covering a parcel of land (Lot 2, plan Psu-47035) located in the Sitio of May Kokak, Bo. of Almanza, Las Pias with an area of 218,523 square meters; and (d) TCT No. T-4368 issued on May 18, 1988 in the name of Ayala Corporation, covering a parcel of land (Lot 3, plan Psu-47035) located in the Sitio of May Kokak, Bo. of Almanza, Las Pias with an area of 155,345 square meters. No copy of TCT No. T-4366 was attached to the complaint. According to the complaint, TCT Nos. 125945, T-4366, T-4367 and T-4368 and their derivatives "appear to have been issued in the name of Ayala and purport to cover and embrace the Carpo's property or portion thereof duly covered registered under the already indefeasible and incontrovertible TCT [No.] 296463 are inherently invalid and enforceable (sic) for not being the duly issued derivatives of the Carpos title RTC - canceling and declaring void TCT Nos. 125945, T-4366, T-4367, T-4368 and all alleged derivatives thereof, issued in the name of Ayala Corporation and/or APVC over the properties or portion thereof embraced in the Carpos TCT No. 296463 and issuing a writ of possession in favor of the Carpos and/or ordering Ayala Corporation and APVC to surrender to the Carpos the properties or portion thereof being occupied by the said corporations under inherently invalid or void titles; (2) declaring TCT No. 296463 issued in their names as valid and the Carpos as the owners of the property described therein "including the parcels of land being claimed and occupied by Ayala [Corporation] and APVC withou[t] valid and enforceable titles"; and (3) ordering Ayala Corporation and APVC to pay jointly and severally the amount of P100,000 as attorney's fees plus costs of suit and litigation expenses

March 10, 1995, before defendants could file an answer, petitioners filed an Amended Complaint, impleading respondent Ayala Land, Incorporated (ALI) in lieu of Ayala Corporation after purportedly verifying with the Register of Deeds of Las Pias that the title to the subject property was registered in the name of ALI and not Ayala Corporation ALI filed its Answer with Counterclaims and Opposition to Application for Restraining Order and Writ of Preliminary Injunction ALI alleged that APVC no longer exists having been merged with ALI in 1991. ALI pointed out that the areas covered by TCT Nos. T-4366, T-4367, and T-4368 do not overlap with the Carpos claimed property and the dispute pertained only to the land covered by the Carpos TCT No. 296463 and TCT No. T-5333 in the name of Las Pias Ventures, Inc. (LPVI in the name of Ayala Corporation. It appeared that Ayala Corporation contributed the property to LPVI and LPVI had, in turn, also merged with ALI. Further, ALI alleged that it is the true owner of the property covered by TCT No. T-5333 as it traces back its title to Original Certificate of Title (OCT) No. 242 issued in 1950 while the Carpos title was derived from OCT No. 8575 issued only in 1970. ALI also claimed the Carpos complaint was barred by res judicata in view of the 1941 decision of this Court in Guico v. San Pedro11cralawwhich upheld the ownership of a certain Eduardo Guico over the subject property as Lot 3, of Psu-80886 over the claim of a certain Florentino Baltazar who was asserting ownership of the same under his plan, Psu-56007. March 6, 1996, the Makati RTC ruled that the present case was an action in rem and directed the transfer of the case to the RTC of Las Pias where the disputed property is located. December 17, 1996, ALI filed a Motion for Summary Judgment on the ground that there was allegedly no genuine issue as to any material fact and the only issue for the court to resolve was a purely legal one which of the two (2) titles should be accorded priority. According to ALI, the parties were relying on their respective TCTs, and since ALI admittedly traces its title to OCT No. 242 which was issued more than twenty (20) years earlier than the Carpos predecessor's title (OCT No. 8575), its title is, thus, superior April 7, 1997, the RTC denied ALI's motion for summary judgment. September 25, 1997, the CA granted ALI's petition and ordered the RTC to render a summary judgment RTC rendered a Summary Judgment dated December 22, 1998, finding the Carpos title superior to that of ALI and ruling A reading of the defendant's answer reveals that OCT No. 242 covers the property surveyed under SWO, but the pleadings on file fail to allege that the same was approved by the Director of the Bureau of Lands, thereby justifying this court to be skeptical of the validity of the issuance of OCT No. 242. In original land registration cases, it is mandatory that the application should be accompanied by a survey plan of the property applied for registration, duly approved by the Director of the Bureau of Lands. A survey plan without the approval of the Director of the Bureau of Lands has the character of being of dubious origin and it is not therefore worthy of being accepted as evidence Any title issued emanating from a survey plan without the approval of the Director of the Bureau of Lands is tainted with irregularity and therefore void

The submission of the plan is a statutory requirement of mandatory character and unless the plan and its technical description are duly approved by the Director of Lands, the same are not of much value the SWO survey of the property which defendant ALI claimed to have been originated from OCT No. 242 had not been approved by the Director of the Bureau of Lands, but was apparently prepared and approved by the then Land Registration Commissioner and under the law, the same is void It will also be noted that aside from the admissions made by defendant ALI in its answer, it clearly appears in its title TCT No. T-5333 that the date of survey was on July 28, 1930. Plaintiffs property covered by TCT No. 296463 was surveyed on January 4-6, 1927. This means that plaintiffs predecessorin-interest had claimed ownership of the property ahead of that of defendant ALI's predecessor-ininterest January 5, 1999, ALI filed a notice of appeal but the same was dismissed by the CA in a Resolution On December 22, 2003, the CA rendered the herein challenged decision in favor of ALI The Carpos filed their motion for reconsideration but the same was denied by the CA in its Resolution dated December 16, 2004. Hence, the instant petition for review filed by Socorro Carpo and the heirs of Morris Carpo.21cralaw The Petition contained the following assignment of errors grievous and palpable error on the part of the trial court considering that the property being claimed by the Carpos under their TCT No. 296463 had an area of only 171,309 square meters and the total area of the properties in the titles invalidated by the trial court was 799,262 square meters The parcel of land described in TCT No. 296463, issued in the name of the plaintiffs, completely overlaps the property covered by ALI's TCT No. T-5333. But TCT No. T-296463 traces itself to OCT No. 8575 which was issued on August 12, 1970, This is an admission that the private respondents have a title to the property in question, and that the property described in private respondents TCT No. 296463 completely overlaps the title of petitioner ALI. This fact is further substantiated by an affidavit of Jose Rizal Mercado, a Geodetic Engineer who, after attesting to his qualifications, competence and experience, declared under oath , Affiant resorted to the plotting of the technical descriptions found in the plaintiffs and ALI's respective titles . The orange-shaded portion on the Sketch Plan indicates the area covered by the title of the plaintiffs and it is clearly shown in this plan that plaintiffs claimed property entirely overlaps ALI's property delineated in TCT No. T-41262. Plaintiffs claimed property (Lot 3, PSU-56007) is in fact identical to ALI's lot (Lot 3, PSU-80886). 9.4. The blue, pink and green lines on the Sketch Plan indicate the boundaries of ALI's TCT Nos. 4366, 4367 and 4368, respectively, and it is clearly shown that these do not overlap with plaintiffs claimed property. private respondents never controverted the petitioner's allegation that their (private respondents) title, TCT No. 296463 traces its origin to OCT No. 8575, issued on August 12, 1970, while that of the petitioner has its origin in OCT No. 242, issued on May 9, 1950. Moreover, the private respondents attached no supporting document to its Opposition to the Motion for Summary Judgment

the requisites for the grant of summary judgment appear to have been satisfied If at all, the sole issue is a legal one, to wit: whose title (as to the conflicting ones) is superior and must be upheld CA decision became final and executory after the separate petitions for review filed with this Court by the parties were denied with finality There was simply no basis for the trial court to invalidate all the ALI titles mentioned in the complaint The incorrectness of this sweeping invalidation of ALI titles in the Summary Judgment is even more evident in the case of TCT No. T-4367 (Lot 2, plan Psu-47035) and TCT No. T-4368 (Lot 3, plan Psu47035). Petitioners claims with respect to these properties are already barred by res judicata On December 29, 1977, Morris Carpo filed a complaint with the Court of First Instance of Rizal, Branch XXIII, presided over by Judge Rizalina Bonifacio Vera (hereafter referred to as Vera Court), for "declaration of nullity of Decree No. N-63394 and TCT No. 20408." Named defendants were Realty Sales Enterprise, Inc., Macondray Farms, Inc. and the Commissioner of Land Registration it appears that it was Estanislao Mayuga, father of Dominador Mayuga, predecessor-in-interest of Realty, who originally filed on June 24, 1927 a registration proceeding docketed as LRC Case No. 657, GLRO Record No. N-29882 in the Court of First Instance of Rizal to confirm his title over parcels of land described as Lots 1, 2 and 3, Plan Psu-47035. (Lots 2 and 3 are the subject of the instant litigation among Carpo, Realty and QCDFC.) Carpo bought the disputed property from the Baltazars, the original registered owners, by virtue of a deed executed before Iluminada Figueroa, Notary Public of Manila dated October 9, 1970 The Baltazars, predecessors-in-interest of Carpo are heirs of Florentino Baltazar, an oppositor in the original application filed by Estanislao Mayuga in 1927. As stated earlier, the CFI-Rizal confirmed the title of Estanislao ." As such successors of Florentino, they could not pretend ignorance of the land registration proceedings over the disputed parcels of land earlier initiated by Eduardo Guico, Florentino Baltazar and Estanislao Mayuga, as when as the decisions rendered therein. it is not disputed that the title in the name of Dominador Mayuga, from whom Realty derived its title, was issued in 1958, or twelve years before the issuance of the title in the name of the Baltazars in 1970. "(t)he general rule is that in the case of two certificates of title, purporting to include the same land, the earlier in date prevails x x x. In successive registrations, where more than one certificate is issued in respect of a particular estate or interest in land, the person claiming under the prior certificate is entitled to the estate or interest; and that person is deemed to hold under the prior certificate who is the holder of, or whose claim is derived directly or indirectly from the person who was the holder of theearliestcertificate issued in respect thereof a perusal of the defendant's answer or amended answer would show that, contrary to the trial court's allusions thereto, there is no admission on the part of ALI that OCT No. 242 was issued without a survey plan that was duly approved by the Director of the Bureau of Lands. There is likewise no evidence on record to support the trial court's finding that the survey plan submitted to support the issuance of OCT

No. 242 in the 1950 land registration proceedings was approved only by the Land Registration Commissioner and not by the Director of the Bureau of Lands . It is admitted that a survey plan is one of the requirements for the issuance of decrees of registration, but upon the issuance of such decree, it can most certainly be assumed that said requirement was complied with by ALI's original predecessor-in-interest at the time the latter sought original registration of the subject property. Moreover, the land registration court must be assumed to have carefully ascertained the propriety of issuing a decree in favor of ALI's predecessor-in-interest, under the presumption of regularity in the performance of official functions by public officers. The court upon which the law has conferred jurisdiction, is deemed to have all the necessary powers to exercise such jurisdiction, and to have exercised it effectively The Court need not emphasize that it is not for ALI to allege in its pleadings, much less prove, that its predecessor-in-interest complied with the requirements for the original registration of the subject property. A party dealing with a registered land need not go beyond the Certificate of Title to determine the true owner thereof so as to guard or protect his or her interest. This is the fundamental nature of the Torrens System of land registration, to give the public the right to rely upon the face of a Torrens certificate of title and to dispense with the need of inquiring further We cannot accept petitioners proposition that they did not have the burden of proof of showing the irregularity of ALI's title since the burden of proof purportedly did not shift to them since no full-blown trial was conducted by the RTC However, a scrutiny of the complaint would show that petitioners never alleged the purported lack of an approved survey plan as a defect of ALI's title. All that the complaint alleged is that ALI's titles should be declared void for not being derivatives of the Carpos title contend that it is error on the part of the CA to rule that their cause of action has been barred by prescription and laches. the conclusion of the trial court that OCT No. 242 is void was not sufficiently borne out by the evidence on record. the Summary Judgment did not expressly state that ALI admitted the validity of Carpos title with its admission of the said title's existence, that is the unmistakable import of the trial court's statements that ALI's admission of the existence of Carpo's title "are conclusive upon it" and bars ALI from taking a "position contrary to or inconsistent with its answer It appears that Lots 2 and 3 were adjudicated to Guico on the basis of Psu-80886 (Lot 3 is the subject matter of the instant case), Lot 10 in favor of Baltazar on the basis of Psu 56007, under which plaintiffsappellees title was based, and the rest to the heirs of Narciso Mayuga. While Baltazar claimed Lot 3 on the basis of his Psu-56007, his claim was rejected and the Lot was adjudicated to Guico on the basis of his Psu-80886. It is clear, therefore, that whatever claim plaintiffs-appellees have on the subject property on the basis of Lot 3 Psu-56007, through their predecessor-in-interest, Florentino Baltazar, the same had been clearly and finally denied by the Supreme Court in Guico vs. San Pedro.

the Court of Appeals committed no reversible error in setting aside the patently erroneous Summary Judgment of the trial court. Director of lands case The Court of Appeals ruled that it was merely procedural and that the failure to cause such publication did not deprive the trial court of its authority to grant the application. On December 8, 1986, Private Respondent Teodoro Abistado filed a petition for original registration of his title over 648 square meters of land under Presidential Decree (PD) No. 1529.[5]The application was docketed as Land Registration Case (LRC) No. 86 and assigned to Branch 44 of the Regional Trial Court of Mamburao, Occidental Mindoro.[6] However, during the pendency of his petition, applicant died. Hence, his heirs -- Margarita, Marissa, Maribel, Arnold and Mary Ann, all surnamed Abistado -represented by their aunt Josefa Abistado, who was appointed their guardian ad litem, were substituted as applicants. The land registration court in its decision dated June 13, 1989 dismissed the petition for want of jurisdiction. However, it found that the applicants through their predecessors-in-interest had been in open, continuous, exclusive and peaceful possession of the subject land since 1938. noted that applicants failed to comply with the provisions of Section 23 (1) of PD 1529, requiring the Applicants to publish the notice of Initial Hearing (Exh. `E') in a newspaper of general circulation in the Philippines. Exhibit `E' was only published in the Official Gazette (Exhibits `F' and `G'). Consequently, the Court is of the well considered view that it has not legally acquired jurisdiction over the instant application for want of compliance with the mandatory provision requiring publication of the notice of initial hearing in a newspaper of general circulation. ; the first, which is mentioned in the provision of the aforequoted provision refers to publication in the Official Gazette, and is jurisdictional; while the second, which is mentioned in the opening clause of the same paragraph, refers to publication not only in the Official Gazette but also in a newspaper of general circulation, and is procedural. Neither one nor the other is dispensable. As to the second, publication of the notice of initial hearing also in a newspaper of general circulation is indispensably necessary as a requirement of procedural due process; otherwise, any decision that the court may promulgate in the case would be legally infirm. Petitioner alleges that Respondent Court of Appeals committed grave abuse of discretion Private respondents, on the other hand, contend that failure to comply with the requirement of publication in a newspaper of general circulation is a mere procedural defect. They add that publication in the Official Gazette is sufficient to confer jurisdiction Respondent Court found that the oppositors were afforded the opportunity to explain matters fully and present their side. Thus, it justified its disposition in this wise This answer is impelled by the demands of statutory construction and the due process rationale behind the publication requirement. The law used the term shall in prescribing the work to be done by the Commissioner of Land Registration upon the latters receipt of the court order setting the time for initial hearing

If the intention of the law were otherwise, said section would not have stressed in detail the requirements of mailing of notices to all persons named in the petition who, per Section 15 of the Decree, include owners of adjoining properties, and occupants of the land. Indeed, if mailing of notices is essential, then by parity of reasoning, publication in a newspaper of general circulation is likewise imperative since the law included such requirement in its detailed provision Being in rem, such proceeding requires constructive seizure of the land as against all persons, including the state, who have rights to or interests in the property. An in rem proceeding is validated essentially through publication. persons who may be interested or whose rights may be adversely affected would be barred from contesting an application which they had no knowledge of . The reason is due process and the reality that the Official Gazette is not as widely read and circulated as newspapers and is oftentimes delayed in its circulation, such that the notices published therein may not reach the interested parties on time, if at all . In sum, the all-encompassing in rem nature of land registration cases, the consequences of default orders issued against the whole world and the objective of disseminating the notice in as wide a manner as possible demand a mandatory construction of the requirements for publication, mailing and posting. GRANTED