SC Favors Naga City in Landmark Case vs Camarines Sur

Jose Rizal can now sleep in peace--at least in Naga City--after the Supreme Court (SC) decided on which between Naga City and Camarines Sur province can rightfully administer and supervise the plaza named after him.

Plaza Rizal, located within the old central business district of Naga City, has been the subject of a heated and long-standing dispute between the city and the province, which has controlled the Plaza even after Naga became an independent component city in 1948 through Republic Act 305.

The city has sought a declaration that the administrative control and management of Plaza Rizal should be given to it because the plaza is situated within its territorial jurisdiction. But the province argued that it was the legal and absolute owner of the plaza and, therefore, had the sole right to maintain, manage, control, and supervise it.

SC ruled out in a decision promulgated September 15 and released this week that Plaza Rizal, being a property for public use within the territorial jurisdiction of [Naga City], should be under the administrative control and supervision of the city and not of the province. The Court also said that the province could not claim Plaza Rizal as its property.

"The basis for the claim of ownership of Camarines Sur, [including] the tax declaration covering Plaza Rizal in the name of the province, hardly convinces this Court. Well-settled is the rule that a tax declaration is not conclusive evidence of ownership or of the right to possess land, when not supported by any other evidence. The same is merely an indicia of a claim of ownership," said the Court.

It also said that the certification issued by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources that states that Plaza Rizal is claimed solely by Camarines Sur is not a categorical proof of ownership.

It further said that the province only had the right to administer and possess Plaza Rizal "prior to the conversion of the then Municipality of Naga into the independent City of Naga."

The said right, according to the Court, was governmental in nature, and "its possession was on behalf of and in representation of the Republic of the Philippines, in the performance of its political functions."

The conversion of Naga to an independent component city from being a municipality of Camarines Sur removed the right of the province to administer the plaza, "which ceased to be part of the territorial jurisdiction of Camarines Sur" when the charter of Naga City was enacted, the Court said.

The Court also said that a public plaza is a public land belonging to, and, subject to the administration and control of, the Republic of the Philippines. "Property for public use can be used by everybody, even by strangers or aliens, in accordance with its nature; but nobody can exercise over it the rights of a private owner."

In the case of Plaza Rizal, Naga City is the proper agent of the Republic of the Philippines that should administer and possess the plaza, according to the Court.

Plaza Rizal, with an area of 4,244 square meters, is located in front of the old provincial capitol building of Camarines Sur in Naga City, which was the capital of the largest Bikol province until 1955. It had served as the front lawn of the old capitol site.