Short answer. Yes, if the soil really did arrive gradually from the current of the river. Article 457 gives that accretion to the owner of the land adjoining the bank. What it does not do is bring the new strip inside your certificate of title, and until that is done the strip is exposed.
What the law says
To the owners of lands adjoining the banks of rivers belong the accretion which they gradually receive from the effects of the current of the waters.
Civil Code, Article 457 — Alluvion. Read the full provision →
Three conditions packed into one line
Article 457 gives to the owners of lands adjoining the banks of rivers the accretion which they gradually receive from the effects of the current of the waters. Each phrase is a requirement. The land must actually adjoin the bank, so a lot one row back gains nothing. The deposit must be gradual — imperceptible while it is happening, visible only over years. And it must come from the current itself. The reasoning behind the grant is that the riparian owner also bears the opposite risk: the same current that builds his land up one decade can eat it away the next, and nobody indemnifies him for that.
What is not accretion
Soil that appears because someone built a dike, diverted a channel, dumped fill or reclaimed a foreshore is not the work of the current, and the article does not apply to it however natural it comes to look. Land exposed when a river changes course or when its bed dries up is governed by other rules, not by this one, and the same is true of ground that emerges from a pond or a lagoon. The distinction matters because parcels of this kind are often sold on the strength of a story about the river. The formation history, not the shape of the ground today, is what decides ownership.
Owning it and having it on your title are two things
This is where riparian owners lose land they were legally entitled to. Your certificate covers the area in its technical description, and accretion does not add itself to that description. The strip stays unregistered until you take the steps to bring it in, and unregistered land can be possessed by somebody else and eventually claimed. Owners often discover this only when they try to fence or sell. Note as well that a strip along a riverbank is reserved by law for public use, so not every metre the river gives you is ground you may build on.
What to put together
Start with a relocation survey comparing your title's technical description against where the bank sits today; the gap is the area in question. Then assemble whatever shows the change was slow and natural — older survey plans, tax maps, aerial or satellite images from different years, photographs, and the recollection of neighbours who farmed the same stretch. Those are the materials a lawyer will need in order to have the accretion titled in your name. Doing it while the evidence of gradual formation still exists is considerably cheaper than proving it after somebody else has moved onto the strip.
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.
- Republic of the Philippines vs. Arcadio Ivan A. Santos III, et al, G.R. No. 160453, November 12, 2012 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Emiliano Navarro vs. Intermediate Appellate Court, et al, G.R. No. 68166, February 12, 1997 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Republic of the Philippines vs. Ramon G. Asuncion, et al, G.R. No. 200772, February 17, 2021 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Office of the City Mayor of Parañaque City, et al. vs. Mario D. Ebio and His Children/Heirs namely, Arturo V. Ebio, Eduardo, et al, G.R. No. 178411, June 23, 2010 — read the decision on LawPhil →