04/02/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly ruled against the plaintiffs on the ground that they had lost all rights to the land by not objecting to the administrative sale. Plaintiffs appealed the judgment, asserting that their 30-year adverse possession, as an extraordinary period of prescription in the Partidas and the Civil Code, had given them title to the land as against everyone, including the State; and that the State, not owning the land, could not validly transmit it. The Court, speaking through Justice Willard, decided the case on the basis of "those special laws which from earliest time have regulated the disposition of the public lands in the colonies."[10] The question posed by the Court was: "Did these special laws recognize any right of prescription as against the State as to these lands; and if so, to what extent was it recognized?" Prior to 1880, the Court said, there were no laws specifically providing for the disposition of land in the Philippines. However, it was understood that in the absence of any special law to govern a specific colony, the Laws of the Indies would be followed. Indeed, in the Royal Order of July 5, 1862, it was decreed that until regulations on the subject could be prepared, the authorities of the Philippine Islands should follow strictly the Laws of the Indies, the Ordenanza of the Intendentes of 1786, and the Royal Cedula of 1754.[11] Quoting the preamble of Law 14, Title 12, Book 4 of the Recopilacion de Leyes de las Indias, the court interpreted it as follows: "In the preamble of this law there is, as is seen, a distinct statement that all those lands belong to the Crown which have not been granted by Philip, or in his name, or by the kings who preceded him. This statement excludes the idea that there might be lands not so granted, that did not belong to the king. It excludes the idea that the king was not still the owner of all ungranted lands, because some private person had been in the adverse occupation of them. By the mandatory part of the law all the occupants of the public lands are required to produce before the authorities named, and within a time to be fixed by them, their title papers. And those who had good title or showed prescription were to be protected in their holdings. It is apparent that it was not the intention of the law that mere possession for a length of time should make the possessors the owners of the land possessed by them without any action on the part of the authorities."[12] The preamble stated that all those lands which had not been granted by Philip, or in his name, or by the kings who preceded him, belonged to the Crown.[13] For those lands granted by the king, the decree provided for a system of assignment of such lands. It also ordered that all possessors of agricultural land should exhibit their title deed, otherwise, the land would be restored to the Crown.[14] The Royal Cedula of October 15, 1754 reinforced the Recopilacion when it ordered the Crown's principal subdelegate to issue a general order directing the publication of the Crown's instructions: elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/36882 10/148