Short answer. No. Article 519 removes mining claims and mineral lands from the Civil Code's ownership rules and hands them to special laws instead, chiefly the Philippine Mining Act and its implementing regulations. Who may hold a mining claim, how it is perfected, and what rights attach to mineral land are all answered there, not in the Civil Code's property provisions.
What the law says
Mining claims and rights and other matters concerning minerals and mineral lands are governed by special laws.
Civil Code, Article 519 — Mining Governed By Special Laws. Read the full provision →
A carve-out, not a cross-reference
Most of Book II of the Civil Code sets out how ownership of land, water, and other property works, article by article. Article 519 marks a sharp exception: it does not merely supplement the mining field with Civil Code rules on top of a special law, it removes minerals and mineral lands from that ownership framework altogether and leaves the entire subject to special laws instead.
What counts as a mining matter
The article covers mining claims and mining rights, along with 'other matters concerning minerals and mineral lands,' a broad phrase that sweeps in everything from how a claim is staked and registered to what rights a claim holder can assert against the owner of the land's surface. None of that is worked out anywhere in the Civil Code's articles on property ownership.
Where to look instead
Since the Civil Code took effect, mining has been governed by its own statutes, currently the Philippine Mining Act of 1995 and the regulations issued under it, which set out exploration permits, mineral agreements, and the rights and obligations of claim holders. A landowner or claimant needs to consult that framework, not the Civil Code, to answer most mining questions, including disputes over who has priority to explore or extract from a given parcel.
Why the Code stays out of it
Mining involves government permitting, environmental regulation, and revenue-sharing arrangements that go well beyond the private-law relationships the Civil Code is built to handle between individual owners. Leaving the subject to special laws lets mining regulation evolve on its own timetable, through Congress and specialized agencies, without ever requiring an amendment to the Civil Code itself, and without dragging environmental and fiscal policy into a code meant for private ownership questions.
Related deferrals in the same Title
Article 518, just one number earlier, applies the identical approach to water rights not expressly settled by the Code's own chapter on waters, and Article 648, in the chapter on easements, does the same for water servitudes specifically. All three provisions show the Code deliberately stepping back from resource-specific regulation that Congress considered better handled through dedicated statutes. Together they form a consistent pattern rather than an isolated exception, one a reader can expect to recur wherever the Code touches a natural resource that Congress has chosen to regulate through its own dedicated statute instead.
Related provisions
- Civil Code, Article 519 — Mining Governed By Special Laws
- Civil Code, Article 518 — Suppletory Law On Waters
- Civil Code, Article 648 — Special Laws Govern Water Servitudes