Page 13 - Property Rights in the Philippine A Time and Cost Study_July 2017

Various validation activities follow within CENRO: double-checking the availability of the lot for
titling, checking the technical description, etc. After the application passes through all of these filters, the
Judicial Form (Free Patent) is prepared and endorsed to the PENRO.

Delays:
1. Double-checking on the availability of lot/s for titling, practically repeating the initial research done at
the beginning of Sporadic Adjudication, can take a few days. Part of the reason is that the Allocation
Book and/or Index Cards are sometimes not strictly maintained according to DENR standards.
2. The research on Total Landholdings is intended to implement a limit to ownership of land - no citizen
can own more than 12 hectares nationwide. In CENROs that have not yet computerized its records,
this can be a tedious operation, which could take a couple of days. At the end of the day, it is also a
near-to-useless effort, as it covers only properties within the CENRO’s area. If the lot occupant owns
more lands in other CENRO areas anywhere in the country, those lands will not show up in the search,
which is limited only to a particular CENRO’s records.
3. Geodetic Engineers working with CENRO routinely check the Technical Description of lots applied
for. A significant percentage of Technical Descriptions, when plotted, do not produce closed polygons.
When this happens, the CENRO GE sends the survey records back to the Regional Office for
correction. This can take up to two months.

Costs:
There are no additional expenses during CENRO Processing.

IV. PENRO Processing

When the PENR Officer receives the endorsement from the CENRO, its officers review the
Carpeta—an envelope containing all information about each lot parcel. This is followed by the signing of
the Free Patent by the PENR Officer, and the subsequent endorsement to the local Registrar (local ROD).

There are no significant delays, and there are no additional expenses, within the PENRO, per se.

However, one issue shared by an informant from Cebu ROD is that PENRO has no Standard
Operating Procedure (SOP) for informing applicants that their RFPs have been endorsed to ROD. They
still have to wait for the applicant to show up and comply with the requirements and once they registered
the patent, they have to wait again for the applicant to return and get their titles. This leads to a delay in the
next macro process.

V. ROD Registration and Title Issuance

In the course of this research, during the first quarter of 2017, the Register of Deeds changed its
SOP for registration of Residential Free Patents. While the authors documented both the old and new
processes, only the new process is described here.

The ROD is unable to act immediately on Free Patents that it receives from the PENRO. This is
because the office has to wait for the applicant to comply with four requirements:
• payment of the registration fee (about PhP 50.00);
• payment of an ICT fee (about PhP 1,950.00);
• Tax Declaration for the property in the name of the applicant; and
• Real property tax clearance from the local Treasurer.

Ms. Alice Ares, Records Officer II of the Cebu City Provincial Register of Deeds, said that they
sometimes waive the payment of the ICT Fee and submission of the Real Property Tax Clearance as a
pre-requisite for registration; the only document that they absolutely require is the Tax Declaration in the
name of the applicant.

13