Short answer. No. A taking must come from competent authority, be for public use, and always be upon payment of just compensation. Where that requirement is not first complied with, the courts are directed to protect the owner and, in a proper case, to restore him to possession.
What the law says
No person shall be deprived of his property except by competent authority and for public use and always upon payment of just compensation.
Civil Code, Article 435 — Protection Against Deprivation (Expropriation). Read the full provision →
Three requirements, and they are cumulative
The article allows no deprivation of property except by competent authority and for public use and always upon payment of just compensation. All three have to be present. An office acting outside its power fails the first even if the project is worthy; a taking for a private benefit dressed up as a public one fails the second however correct the paperwork; and a project that is unquestionably public, undertaken by the right authority, still fails if the owner is not paid. The word always is there to close the argument that a sufficiently urgent purpose excuses payment.
The order of events matters
Read the phrase should this requirement be not first complied with and the sequence becomes the point. Compensation is not a debt the government settles at leisure after the road is built. It is a condition of the taking, and an owner is not expected to hand over his land against a promise. This is the assumption most owners arrive with and it is the wrong way round: you are not asking for a favour by declining to vacate before the question of payment is resolved, and delay in payment is not merely an administrative inconvenience.
What the courts are told to do
The remedy is spelt out: the courts shall protect and, in a proper case, restore the owner in his possession. Two forms of relief sit in that sentence. Protection is the ordinary case — the court stands between the owner and a taking that has not met the conditions. Restoration goes further and returns possession where that is the proper response to what happened. The qualification in a proper case is doing real work, because once a public project is built on land the practical answer is often compensation rather than the return of the site.
What to do when the notice arrives
Keep every document you are given and note the date each one arrived, because the sequence is what shows whether payment came first. Establish which body is acting and under what authority, what the project is, and precisely which portion of your land is affected — the survey sketch attached to the offer is usually where that is found. Do not sign a conveyance or accept a figure as final before the valuation has been checked; the amount offered at the outset is a valuation, not the legal measure of what is just. Take the papers to a lawyer while the deadlines are still open.
Cases citing this provision
These Supreme Court decisions cite the provision above. We list them so you can read them yourself; the summaries of what each decided are not ours to give.
- National Housing Authority vs. Perico V. Jao etc., et al, G.R. No. 156850, October 24, 2008 — read the decision on LawPhil →