04/02/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly period. It was only in the case of Oh Cho v. Director of Lands[192] that the court declared that the rule that all lands that were not acquired from the government, either by purchase or grant, belong to the public domain has an exception. This exception would be any land that should have been in the possession of an occupant and of his predecessors-in-interest since time immemorial. It is this kind of possession that would justify the presumption that the land had never been part of the public domain or that it had been private property even before the Spanish conquest.[193] Oh Cho, however, was decided under the provisions of the Public Land Act and Cariño was cited to support the applicant's claim of acquisitive prescription under the said Act. All these years, Cariño had been quoted out of context simply to justify long, continuous, open and adverse possession in the concept of owner of public agricultural land. It is this long, continuous, open and adverse possession in the concept of owner of thirty years both for ordinary citizens[194] and members of the national cultural minorities[195] that converts the land from public into private and entitles the registrant to a torrens certificate of title. (3) The Option of Securing a Torrens Title to the Ancestral Land Indicates that the Land is Private. The private character of ancestral lands and domains as laid down in the IPRA is further strengthened by the option given to individual ICCs/IPs over their individually-owned ancestral lands. For purposes of registration under the Public Land Act and the Land Registration Act, the IPRA expressly converts ancestral land into public agricultural land which may be disposed of by the State. The necessary implication is that ancestral land is private. It, however, has to be first converted to public agricultural land simply for registration purposes. To wit: "Sec. 12. Option to Secure Certificate of Title Under Commonwealth Act 141, as amended, or the Land Registration Act 496-- Individual members of cultural communities, with respect to their individually-owned ancestral lands who, by themselves or through their predecessors-in-interest, have been in continuous possession and occupation of the same in the concept of owner since time immemorial or for a period of not less than thirty (30) years immediately preceding the approval of this Act and uncontested by the members of the same ICCs/IPs shall have the option to secure title to their ancestral lands under the provisions of Commonwealth Act 141, as amended, or the Land Registration Act 496. For this purpose, said individually-owned ancestral lands, which are agricultural in character and actually used for agricultural, residential, pasture, and tree farming purposes, including those with a slope of eighteen percent (18%) or more, are hereby classified as alienable and disposable agricultural lands. elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/36882 39/148