Authority to File Certain Claims of Title to Parcels of Land Declared Public Land

February 10, 1933

ACT NO. 4043

AN ACT TO AUTHORIZE THE FILING IN THE PROPER COURT, UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS, OF CERTAIN CLAIMS OF TITLE TO PARCELS OF LAND THAT HAVE BEEN DECLARED PUBLIC LAND, BY VIRTUE OF JUDICIAL DECISIONS RENDERED WITHIN THE TEN YEARS NEXT PRECEDING THE APPROVAL OF THIS ACT

SECTION 1. All persons claiming title to parcels of land that have been the object of cadastral proceedings, who at the time of the survey were in actual possession of the same, but for some justifiable reason had been unable to file their claim in the proper court during the time limit established by law, in case such parcels of land, on account of their failure to file such claim, have been, or are about to be, declared land of the public domain, by virtue of judicial proceedings instituted within the ten years next preceding the approval of this Act, are hereby granted the right to petition for a reopening of the judicial proceedings under the provisions of Act Numbered Twenty-two hundred and fifty-nine, as amended, only with respect to such of said parcels of land as have not been alienated, reserved, leased, granted or otherwise provisionally or permanently disposed of by the Government, within one year after the date on which this Act shall take effect, and the competent Court of First Instance, upon receiving such petition, shall notify the Government, through the Attorney-General, and if after hearing the parties, said court shall find that all conditions herein established have been complied with, and that all taxes, interest and penalties thereof have been paid from the time when land tax should have been collected until the day when the motion is prescribed, it shall order said judicial proceedings reopened as if no action has been taken on such parcels. EaDATc

SECTION 2. This Act shall take effect on the date when the Governor-General shall, by means of a proclamation issued for said purpose, announce that this Act has been expressly or tacitly approved by the President of the United States, as provided in the Act of Congress approved on August twenty-ninth, nineteen hundred and sixteen, entitled "An Act to declare the purpose of the people of the United States as to the future political status of the people of the Philippine Islands, and to provide a more autonomous government for those Islands. ¹

Approved, February 10, 1933.

Footnotes

1. Declared in force by Proclamation No. 549 (1933).