Page 10 - Property Rights in the Philippine A Time and Cost Study_July 2017

THE RESIDENTIAL FREE PATENT TITLING PROCESS

The following is a summary of the documentation of the processes involved in public land titling.
The documentation, in the form of Input-Process-Output Tables (with comments on delays and costs) is in
Annex A.

There are five macro processes in the issuance of the Residential Free Patent:
1. Adjudication, which can be either Sporadic or Systematic;
2. Subdivision Survey;
3. CENRO Processing;
4. PENRO Processing; and
5. ROD Registration and Title Issuance.

I. Adjudication

In the Adjudication stage, a lot occupant applies for a free patent. Availability of the applied lot for
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titling is verified. An employee at the CENRO, deputized as a Public Land Inspector (DPLI) , advises the
applicant on the grounds for his claim. The DPLI also identifies the documents needed to support that claim.

At the end of this stage, the application is formally received by the CENRO. To emphasize this
point, the authors of this report also refer to it as the “Pre-application Stage”.

It is a critical stage because this is where lot occupants, without sufficient motivation, information
or resources, may decide to abandon their applications. At this stage, the only two people who know about
the application are the applicant and the DPLI. Even the DPLI’s superiors are not privy to the status of pre-
applications, so there is no management or supervision of their progress.

There are two modes of Adjudication - Sporadic, which is the default mode; and Systematic, a
method introduced by the Land Administration Management Project (LAMP).

Sporadic Adjudication

In this mode, the lot occupant approaches the DPLI, who asks the CENRO Records Officer to
check if the lot applied for can be titled. The DPLI interviews the applicant and conducts field inspection.
He/she then helps the applicant to understand the basis of his/her claim and identifies the documents that
have to be submitted to support the claim.

The bigger part of the process involves the applicant’s efforts to secure the required documents.

Sporadic adjudication is generally shorter than systematic adjudication. However, it proceeds only
with one free patent, whereas systematic adjudication can produce many free patents.

The activities that involve delay are the following:

1. Verification of the lot’s availability for titling - Preliminary checking of the Allocation Book and/or
Index cards can take some time because in many CENROs, the Allocation Book and Index
Cards are not maintained according to DENR standards.
2. Submission of required supporting documents - depending on the knowledge, interest and
resources of the applicant. Family conflict or family members living abroad, distance from
CENRO, fees for some documents have been cited as factors contributing to delay.

11 Where there is a partnership between DENR and local governments, local government employees may also be deputized by the
DENR Regional Director as Public Land Inspectors.

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