Legal Provisions on Easements for Public UseBy: Robert T. Laviña

a) “Section 1 (I) That the applicant agrees that a strip of forty meters wide starting from the bank on each side of any river or stream that may be found on the land applied for shall be demarcated and preserved as permanent timberland to be planted exclusively to trees of known economic value, and that he shall not make any clearing thereon or utilize the same for ordinary farming purposes even after patent shall have been executed in his favor.” (R. A. No. 1273)

b) “Section 16. Areas needed for forest purposes x x x

(7) Twenty-meter strips of land along the edge of the normal high waterline of rivers and streams with channels of at least five (5) meters wide;

(8) Strips of mangrove or swamplands at least twenty (20) meters wide, along shorelines facing oceans, lakes and other bodies of water and strips of land at least twenty (20) meters facing lakes; xxx” (PD No. 705)

c) “Article 51. The banks of rivers and streams and shores of the seas, and throughout their entire length and within a zone of three (3) meters in urban areas, twenty (20) meters in agricultural areas and forty (40) meters in forest areas, along their margins, are subject to the easement of public use in the interest of recreation, navigation, floatage, fishing and salvage. NO person shall be allowed to stay in this zone longer than what is necessary for recreation, navigation, floatage, fishing or salvage or to build structures of any kind.” (P. D. No. 1067)

d) Section 111, CA 141, as amended, provides thus:

“All persons receiving title to lands under the provisions of this Act shall hold such lands subject to the provisions hereof and to the same public servitudes as exist upon lands owned by private persons, including those with reference to the littoral of the sea and the banks of navigable rivers or rivers upon which rafting may be done.”.

e) Section 112, of the same Act provides that lands granted by patent,

“shall further be subject to a right-of-way not exceeding sixty (60) meters in width for public highways, railroads, irrigation ditches, aqueducts, telegraph and telephone lines and similar works as the Government or any public or quasi-public service or enterprise, including mining or forest concessionaires, may reasonably require for carrying on their business, with damages for the improvements only”.

f) P.D. 1529 otherwise known as the Property Registration Decree which also provides:

Section 44 states:

“Statutory liens affecting title. - Every registered owner receiving a certificate of title in pursuance of a decree of registration, and every subsequent purchaser of registered land taking a certificate of title for value and in good faith, shall hold the same free from all encumbrances except those noted in said certificate and any of the following encumbrances which may be subsisting, namely:

First. Liens, claims or rights arising or existing under the laws and Constitution of the Philippines which are not by law required to appear of record in the Registry of Deeds in order to be valid against subsequent purchasers or encumbrancers of record.xxxxxxx”.

In Section 46 same Decree further provides:

“General incidents of registered land. - Registered land shall be subject to such burdens and incidents as may arise by operation of law. Nothing contained in this decree shall in any way be construed to relieve registered land or the owners thereof from any rights incident to the relation of husband and wife, landlord and tenant, or from liability to attachment or levy on execution, or from liability to any lien of any description established by law on the land and the buildings thereon, or on the interest of the owner in such land or buildings, or to change the laws of descent, or the rights of partition between co-owners, or the right to take the same by eminent domain, or to relieve such land from liability to be recovered by an assignee in insolvency or trustee in bankcruptcy under the laws relative to preferences, or to change or affect in any way other rights or liabilities created by law and applicable to unregistered land, except as otherwise provided in this Decree.xxxxxxx”.

g) Further, Section 5 of the Implementing Rules and Regulation of Republic Act 89741, states that:

“Section 5. Quit Claim - If the private property or land is acquired under the provisions of Special Laws, particularly Commonwealth Act. 141, known as the Public Land Act, which provides a 20-meter strip land easement by the government for public use with damages on improvements only, P.D. No. 635 which

1 “An Act To Facilitate The Acquisition Of Right-Of-Way, Site Or Location For National Government Infrastructure Projects And For Other Purposes” approved on November 07, 2000.

increased the reserved area to a 60-meter strip, and P.D. 1361 which authorizes government officials charged with the prosecution of projects or their representative to take immediate possession of portion of the property subject of the lien as soon as the need arises and after due notice to the owners, then a quit claim from the owners concerned shall be obtained by the Implementing Agency. No payment by the government shall be made for land acquired under the quit claim.” (underscoring added)