When may tax declarations, receipts be used to support claim of ownership?

Although tax declarations and receipts are not direct proofs of ownership, yet when accompanied by proof of actual possession for the required period, they become strong evidence to support the claim of ownership thru acquisitive prescription. The possession contemplated as foundation for prescriptive right must be one under claim of title or adverse to or in concept of owner. Possession by tolerance is not the kind of possession that may lead to title by prescription. It is the respondents open, continuous, adverse and uninterrupted possession far beyond the 30-year extraordinary period for acquisitive prescription, coupled with the tax declarations of their predecessors-in-interest, that constitutes a superior weight of evidence that clinched their claim. [G.R. No. 109262. November 21, 1996]