This is an appeal filed by the Attorney-General  on behalf of the Government.

Rafael and Ana Romero  y Llamas filed  an application in the Court of Land  Registration on  January  25, 1906, for the  registration under the new Registry  Act of estates of which they are the absolute owners, situate in  the territory of  the  pueblos of Talavera,  Santo Domingo,  San Jose Munoz,  and  San Juan de Guimba, Province of Nueva Ecija. These estates, called El Valle and  Calipajan, are bounded on the north and  east by Government  land; on  the  west by the estero calle Burao, the lake of Bubu, lands of Pedro Ysconben Pablo, and Government land; and on  the south by lands of Melchor Salamanca, the barrio  of  Catanbuan of the pueblo of Santo Domingo, the Talavera River and a branch thereof called  Macandule, and by Government land. Said  estates have an area of 4,711 hectares, 10 ares, and  56.62 centares, and were appraised at P55,003 in the last  tax assessment.  According to the  best of the applicants' knowledge and  belief  there is no kind of  lien upon the same, nor any one who has any right to participation therein, they having acquired said estates partly by  purchase and partly by inheritance  and with final judgment. Nevertheless, they stated that they had accepted the benefits of subsection 6, section 54,  of Act No. 926; as  they had possessed and cultivated the estates described for a much greater period than required by said Act,  without thereby intending to admit that they acknowledged by implication that the said estates should be considered public land.

In response to the summonses issued,  the Attorney-General appeared in  the  case on behalf of  the  Director  of Lands,  stating that legal identification was  necessary for the estates named in  the title deeds exhibited, with those described in the application and plan, and  that if the identity of  such estates was not proven, the Government was opposed to the registration sought.

In another communication the  Attorney-General  represented: That the  tracts of land, registration whereof  is sought, not included within the metes and bounds set forth in the said title deeds,  belong to the Government  of the United States under the control of the Insular Government, and in  virtue thereof  he opposed registration of the said tracts not included within the metes and bounds set forth in said title deeds, and requested that the application  be denied,  with costs.

After hearing the case and the  evidence adduced  by the applicants and the opponent, and  finding that the affirmations of the applicant's witnesses were openly and directly contrary to those  of the Government's witnesses with reference to the boundaries of said estates, some setting very different  boundaries from those fixed  by others, for the purpose of clearing up doubts, on December 19,  1906, the judge directed that a survey of the said estates of El Valle and Calipajan be made by a surveyor of the Court of Land Registration, in  order to determine the boundaries set forth by the Government's witnesses and those fixed by the witnesses for the applicants, after notice to the latter  and  to the other opponents who appeared,  ordering that the surveyor render a  report regarding the boundaries stated  in the resolution; and that after a plan had  been made with the details mentioned,  due decision would be rendered, the hearing of the case being meanwhile suspended.

In the  brief submitted  after completion of the  survey by  the  surveyor of the Court of Land Registration, the following summary appears:  (1)  That the boundaries indicated by the Government's witnesses, Simplicio Reyes and Agapito del Mundo, are not shown  on the  land by means of plain and permanent marks whereby the property can be identified, for  they are  merely the windings  of paths, which can never be regarded  as permanent points  because they generally disappear the following  season; (2) that the boundaries indicated by the  applicants' witnesses are shown on the land by natural marks, permanent and well-defined, as stated in detail on this sheet; (3) that according to the surveyor Tecson, who approved the plan, nearly all the land was under cultivation years ago, and to this he was able to add what he saw  personally when he was  on  the  estates, because all the portions along the southern part of the road to Pangasinan,  especially those indicated by red  ink, are under cultivation  and sown in rice,  corn, sugar cane, bananas, thick bamboo, and different kinds of vegetables; that along the whole extent to right and left of the road toward the estate house from the place called Hinucay to the interior, where the barrio of Valle was located,  he  had seen in the fields he crossed unmistakable signs of their having been cultivated  at  some time,  signs consisting  of irrigation ditches, dikes, clusters of banana plants,  and fruit trees; that when  he crossed  the land  in the stiios of Maniquis, Panagparadajan, Tagaytay, Bayabas,  Bulag, Tabaco, Mabolo, and Calavinan to reach the outer boundary of the estate he had to cross dikes and ditches and at the same time observed in  different places great tracts of ground  that had been plowed over, which he ascribed to abandoned cultivation; (4) that the names of the different  sitios included within the boundaries indicated by  the witnesses of the applicants and of the Government are shown in  the plan; (5) that the parcels claimed by  various private parties are those entered on the plan in red ink with  the name of the claimant and the area according to scale; (6) that all the tracts designated on the plan by the word "forest" to a greater or less extent contain  large  trees,  some  of which  are doubtless timber-trees.

In the hearing of the case held on February 18, 1910, in San Isidro, Nueva Ecija, an agreement was entered into between counsel for the applicants and for the opponents, excluding from the application a tract of land lying south of a line drawn on the last plan, which appears on the third sheet,  indicated by the  letters A and B,  extending from point B in a southerly  direction  following  the course  of the Talavera River on one side, and starting from point A in a southerly direction, then extending around the whole perimeter  of  the plan until it reaches the said Talavera River, in which  agreement  were  included  parcels 45, 48 and 49, which were also the subject of opposition by certain private  parties.   Counsel for  the  Insular  Government reserved the  right of the Government to intervene with reference to the parcels of land excluded by this agreement from the application, in case the opponents had any claim to make on said  parcels.

On March  10, 1910, the  associate judge of the Court of Land Registration rendered a decision in the case, ordering, after a declaration of general default, adjudication and registration in the name of the applicants Rafael and Ana Romero y Llamas of all the parcels of land described in the plan prepared by the surveyor of the court, appearing at the end of sheet 3 of this record, with the exception of a tract of  land in the southern part of  said hacienda included between the lines indicated by pencil and by the letters A and B, the Talavera River, and the perimeter of the estate extending  from point A in  a southerly direction until it reaches said river, and the further exception of the parcels designated by the numbers 45, 48,  and 49 in red ink.   The court ordered the surveyor of the court to prepare a new technical description  of  the  hacienda after excluding the foregoing parcels, and to determine the area of the part remaining, so that the decree duly to be issued would agree with  such  technical   description  and  area.   No  special award of costs was  made,  except those  incurred  by the survey, which were charged to the  Insular  Government. The Attorney-General excepted to this decision, especially to the judgment regarding the  payment of costs incurred by the survey, and asked for a new hearing on this ground. This petition was denied by order of March 31, and excepted to by the appellant, who duly submitted the proper bill of exceptions.

In  the judgment appealed from,  as  well as in the  Attorney-General's  brief, the applicants' ownership and possession of the rural estates or haciendas called El Valle and Calipajan are acknowledged in such terms that the Government's counsel  does not question said applicants' rights to these estates, as he clearly demonstrates  in his brief; so the question on appeal is  confined to fixing the boundaries and area with relation to their title deeds and  the plan of the estates prepared under judicial  order  by the surveyor of the Court of Land  Registration.  This court therefore accepts the  statement  of  facts in said  decision  and holds that the same in the main  is in accordance with law and the merits of the case,  as will hereinafter be shown.

On the hypothesis that  the applicants' right  to the land in question is incontrovertible and that only its true area, with  boundaries  in accordance  with their title  deeds, remains to be determined, for the proper and equitable settlement of this controversy it must be remembered  that in the 491 quinones, 12 balitas, 10  brazas and 10 cuartas, the total area of the two tracts of land ceded  and  awarded to Manuel Lopez y  Oz, according to Exhibit C, there is  not included the area of the tract located in Calipajan ceded to Estanislao Cervigon, who later  conveyed his right to this tract to the same Lopez y  Oz, since the deed of conveyance, Exhibit D, does  not show  the area of  this latter  estate.

Before going  further,  it becomes necessary  to  fix  the extent of the measure called quinon, whereby is determined the area of the two parcels of land ceded in February, 1853, by the Junta Superior Directiva de Hacienda  to the said Lopez  y Oz.  This  is an important detail, as  the only question to be decided  herein is the area of the  two rural estates belonging to the applicants.

After careful study of the question  of the  extent of a quinon, we are of the opinion that the quinon, mentioned in sheets 1 and 2 of Exhibit C is that formerly well-known in this country as the quinon realengo, equivalent to 5 hectares, 77 ares, and  55 centares, and not the modern quinon of smaller extent, very little known and employed, unless so stipulated between the  contracting parties, for commonly and ordinarily when no statement was made in the conveyances and  other transactions the Jand measurement presumed to be adopted between the contracting: parties was the quinon  realengo, with its subdivisions of  balitas and bmzas.   Such was the custom followed in this country until by superior decree of the General Government of May 8, 1861, the use of  linear measurements, among them  the quinon realengo, was prohibited as a result of the introduction into the Islands of the  metric system, as may be seen in the note on page 365, volume 5, of the Coleccion Legislativa Ultramarina of Rodriguez San Pedro.

In the archives of the old Audiencia Territorial de Manila, which continue at  the present time as the archives  of this court, will be found records containing old documents and land deeds, whose measures of  surface  are in quinones realengos, a measure used in these Islands for many years before the  year 1853.  As  Fray S. Martin states in his book entitled Toblas de Reduccion, the  quinon realengo as a land measure was used in the Philippines without interruption for a period of over two hundred years, with the approval of the Real Audiencia de Manila in its decrees and judgments.  It is to be noted here that in the said  Tablas de Reduccion there are cited in support of its statements the book of Eduardo Sanchez Pita entitled El Consultor del sistema metrico decimal; and the opinion  of an old sailor, Don Jose Antonio Vico, who is said to have been for many years superintendent  of the Manila Nautical School, in so far as it asserts that for the measurement of arable lands the inhabitants of  Manila take as unit the braza de ciudad or braza realenga.

On pages 143 and 144 of the first sheet appears a certificate issued by a licensed surveyor  at the request of a predecessor  of the  applicants  on  September  23,  1881, wherein, after giving the area of the estate in question and its equivalent, it is stated that it should be noted that the quinones  mentioned in the said  title  deeds, if calculated according to the old measurement wherein the brazas used were realengas, and if they were  of 23 octavo? or of three complete  Burgos  varas, according to  the custom of each province,  an increase of extent almost double would result in favor of said haciendas, which is probable, especially as the official rate of 40,000 varas to the quinon dates only from the year 1862.   The licensed surveyor's statement in said certificate is not cited as an authoritative opinion in the case but only to show the measure customarily used among the inhabitants of this country up to the year 1861.

If then the  area of the rural estate called Calipajan  is not fixed in its old title deed, nor is included in the total of the area of the rural  estate called El  Valle,  amounting to 492 quinones, which must according to  the references given be in our opinion  realengos, with 2 balitas, 10 brazas, and 10  cuartas over, equivalent, at the rate of  5 hectares, 77 ares, and 65 centares, to an extent of 2,840 hectares, it will be immediately understood how in the application for registration  the area  of the two estates  together  appears to amount to 4,711 hectares, 10 ares, and  56.62 centares, with a difference of over 1,871 hectares and  a fraction,  which must be the area of the Calipajan  estate that the applicants have likewise continued to hold with good title.

In the plan  prepared by the surveyor of the  Court of Land Registration by  judicial order  it likewise  appears that the area  of  the  whole tract, or  of the two  estates together, amounts  to 5,676 hectares and 98 ares, much more than the 4,711 hectares and a fraction stated in the application for registration; but this great difference is explained as resulting from the agreement entered into by the parties on  February  18,  1910,  before the decision in the  case, whereby the applicants excluded from their application for registration the tract of land situated to the south of the estate and fixed in the articles of agreement, with reference to the  said plan, and therefore counsel for the private opponents withdrew the objection they had made, thus leaving counsel for  the Insular Government the only opponent in the case.

From  the foregoing  it appears  that the  case  presents no question  of  right to be settled and that the controversy between  the parties is reduced solely to the question as to whether the area indicated in the application is that which the estates called El Valle and Calipajan really ought to have, according to the boundaries fixed in the plan prepared by the court surveyor, with the exception of the large tract of land excluded in the agreement entered  into  between the applicants and the private opponents.

After weighing the  evidence adduced  in  the  case  and considering the report of the surveyor of the court explaining the reasons and motives  which, after examining the land, enabled him to fix the boundaries of the two estates, indicated in  the plan prepared for that purpose, the judge held to be proved by the applicants the boundaries, extent and identity of their two estates as they are indicated in the plan prepared by said surveyor, accepting therefor the testimony of the witnesses presented by said  applicants, to the effect that the boundaries indicated by them, which were admitted  by said  surveyor,  consist of  permanent marks,  being for the most part very old trees.  It is to be noted that, as asserted  in  the  appellee's  brief,  when  the surveyor  proceeded to examine the land  and to survey it he was accompanied by an employee of the Government and  still it does not appear in the record that counsel  for the Government or the Bureau of Lands has entered any statement or protest against the surveyor's action nor has it duly questioned the report made by him, or the accuracy of the plan.   Therefore there appears no satisfactory reason to prevent the acceptance of the judgment formed by the court in this case.

For the rest of this case, the possession seems to be plainly justified  whereby the applicants enjoy by lawful title the ownership of the two rural estates in question'; and not only is the ownership  they exercise thereto proven, but said estates are also identified in due form and in accordance with the Land Registration Act.

For these reasons and in the absence of v legal obligation on the part of the Insular Government to pay all the  costs incurred  by the survey of the lands and preparation of the new plan by the court surveyor, it is proper in our opinion to affirm the judgment appealed from, without special award of costs in the case, each  party assuming half of those incurred by the examination,  survey and preparation of the new plan made by the court surveyor, to which extent the last point of said judgment is modified.   So ordered.

Mapa, Johnson, Carson, and Moreland, JJ., concur.