SECOND
DIVISION
AMANDO G. SUMAWANG, G.R. No. 150106
Petitioner,
Present:
PUNO, J.,
Chairman,
AUSTRIA-MARTINEZ,*
- versus - CALLEJO, SR.,
TINGA, and
CHICO-NAZARIO, JJ.
Promulgated:
ENGR. ERIC D. DE GUZMAN,
Respondent. September 8, 2004
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D E C I S I O N
CALLEJO, SR., J.:
On June 8, 1999, Engineer Eric de Guzman, as plaintiff,
filed a complaint in the Municipal Trial Court (MTC) of Guimba, Nueva Ecija,
against Amando G. Sumawang, for unlawful detainer with damages. The case was docketed as Civil Case No.
3778. The plaintiff alleged therein
that the President of the Philippines issued, on August 19, 1988, Emancipation
Patent No. 288843 in his favor, over a parcel of agricultural land, designated
as Lot 33, with an area of 9,970 square meters, located in Macatcatuit, Guimba,
Nueva Ecija; on December 12, 1988, the Register of Deeds issued
Transfer Certificate of Title (TCT) EP No. 31683 over the landholding;
thereafter, he leased a portion of the property to the defendant where the
latter constructed a small hut, and remitted the rentals therefor; in the early
part of 1999, the defendant failed to pay the agreed rentals for the
landholding based on said patent; despite his demand on March 10, 1999, the
defendant failed to vacate the property; and no amicable settlement of the
matter was arrived at by the parties in the Office of the Barangay Captain.
The plaintiff prayed that
judgment be rendered ordering the defendant to vacate the property and to pay
damages and attorney’s fees. In his
answer to the complaint, the defendant alleged that Gloria Zulueta Rominquit
was the owner of a large tract of agricultural land, designated as Lot 1402,
which was placed under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law; he cultivated a
portion of the property and was one of the farmers-beneficiaries of the
landholding, as listed in the Office of the Municipal Agrarian Reform; sometime
in 1965, he swapped the portion of the property he was cultivating with Lot 33
which was cultivated by Antonio Ferrer and, thenceforth, he had been
cultivating the same lot; in 1994, he built a house of strong materials in the
property where he and his family resided; he sought the assistance of his first
cousin, Judge Felix de Guzman, the father of the plaintiff, to secure a patent
and title over the property in his name but the plaintiff, who was the son of
Judge De Guzman and an engineer by profession and a non-resident of Guimba,
secured through fraud an emancipation patent and title over the property in his
name.
The defendant interposed the defense of lack of jurisdiction of the trial court over the action and the subject matter thereof, and prayed that the complaint be dismissed on those grounds; and that he be awarded damages and attorney’s fees.
The plaintiff adduced evidence that per Parcellary Mapping
Survey (PMS) No. 067, the subject property owned by Rominquit was designated
Lot 12011, with an area of 9,100 square meters, covered by Certificate of Land
Title (CLT) No. 0114427 issued to Antonio Ferrer, the farmer-beneficiary thereof;
but per final survey, the property was designated as Lot 33, with an area of
9,970 square meters; he was granted Emancipation Patent No. 288843 over Lot 33
and on the basis of said patent, TCT EP No. 31683 was issued by the Register of
Deeds. He declared the property under
his name under Tax Declaration No. 94-10032-00515, free of any encumbrance,
after paying the amortizations due to the Land Bank of the Philippines; and
that, during the period from 1991 to 1997, he employed the plaintiff as
farmer-worker to whom he remitted sums of money for the expenses for the
cultivation of the property such as soil, fertilizer, seedlings, rentals for a
rotorator, etc. The defendant, for his
part, presented certifications from the former barangay captains that, since 1969, he had been the tenant on the
farmland covered by CLT No. 0114427 under the name of Antonio Ferrer, the
beneficiary of the property; and that, in 1987, he built a house of strong
materials thereon; in 1991, the plaintiff, through his father, Judge Felix de
Guzman, suggested a sharing system between the plaintiff and the defendant,
whereby the plaintiff will provide monetary assistance for the expenses for the
cultivation of the property by the defendant and would share in the produce
thereof and net of expenses.
On June 27, 2000, the trial
court rendered judgment in favor of the plaintiff and against the
defendant. The fallo of the decision reads:
WHEREFORE, foregoing considered, judgment is hereby
rendered in favor of plaintiff and against defendant, ordering the latter to:
1. Vacate
the property and to remove his hut/house erected thereon;
2. Pay
plaintiff reasonable rental for the use of the property at the rate of P500.00
per month from March 12, 1999 until he finally vacates the same;
3. Reimburse
plaintiff P170.00 representing the amount spent for filing fees; and
4. Pay the
costs of suit.[1]
The trial court ruled that the defendant was not the
legitimate tenant-beneficiary over the property, as certified by the Office of
the Municipal Agrarian Reform, but Antonio Ferrer, who transferred the property
to the plaintiff; and that there was no landlord-tenant relationship over the
property between the plaintiff and the defendant; hence, it had jurisdiction
over the action.
The defendant appealed the decision to the Regional Trial
Court (RTC) which rendered judgment on October 9, 2000, reversing the decision
of the MTC. The RTC ruled that, based
on the facts on record, the controversy between the plaintiff and the defendant
was an agrarian dispute within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Department of
Agrarian Reform Adjudicatory Board (DARAB).
The plaintiff, then the petitioner, filed a petition for
review of the decision with the Court of Appeals (CA), which rendered judgment
on September 25, 2001, reversing the decision of the RTC and reinstating the
decision of the MTC. The appellate
court held that it was not prepared, based on the record, to hold that the
petitioner was the agricultural tenant of the respondent therein.
The respondent therein, now the petitioner, filed a
petition for review on certiorari with this Court contending that:
1. The
respondent Honorable Court of Appeals erred in its conclusion, that it is not
prepared to declare petitioner-appellant not (sic) a tenant (p. 128, Records), concluding that petitioner’s
occupation of subject land is by mere tolerance of private respondent and
without any contract between them, petitioner-appellant is necessarily bound by
an implied promise that he will vacate upon demand (p. 129, Records) (italics,
ours);
2. The
respondent Honorable Court of Appeals gravely erred in not taking cognizance of
the doctrine of estoppel, as against the private respondent-appellee (pp. 7-8,
Comments to Petition for Review);
3. The
respondent Honorable Court of Appeals gravely erred in not applying the
provisions of R.A. 6657 (New CARP Law), as applied by the court ad quem, considering that the
petitioner-appellant has met the six (6) requirements that concur to make a
tenancy relationship (pp. 6-8, Comments to Petition for Review).[2]
The petitioner asserts that he had been a
farmer-beneficiary of the land since 1965 and even after the respondent
fraudulently secured title over the property, the latter allowed him to
cultivate the property and supplied him with farm inputs and implements; the
respondent also shared with him the harvests therefrom on a 50-50 basis, net of
costs of production. The petitioner
asserts that, under the factual milieu, he was the agricultural tenant
of the respondent and not merely his farm worker. Hence, the dispute between them is within the exclusive
jurisdiction of the DARAB as held by the RTC, and not the MTC, as ruled by the
CA.
The threshold issue is whether or not the MTC had
jurisdiction over the action of the respondent. The resolution of the issue is anchored on our resolution of the
issue of whether or not the petitioner was the agricultural tenant of the
respondent or merely the latter’s farm worker.
The petition has no merit.
The well-entrenched principle is that the jurisdiction of
the court over the subject matter on the existence of the action is determined
by the material allegations of the complaint and the law, irrespective of
whether or not the plaintiff is entitled to recover all or some of the claims
or reliefs sought therein.[3] In Basco
Integrated Port Services, Inc. v. Cyborg Leasing Corporation,[4]
we had ruled that the jurisdiction of the court over the nature of the action
and the subject matter thereof cannot be made to depend upon the defenses set
up in the court or upon a motion to dismiss for, otherwise, the question of
jurisdiction would depend almost entirely on the defendant.[5] Once jurisdiction is vested, the same is
retained up to the end of the litigation.[6]
The Municipal Trial Court does not lose its jurisdiction over an ejectment case
by the simple expedient of a party raising as a defense therein the alleged
existence of a tenancy relationship between the parties.[7] But it is the duty of the court to receive
evidence to determine the allegations of tenancy.[8] If, after hearing, tenancy had, in fact,
been shown to be the real issue, the court should dismiss the case for lack of
jurisdiction.[9]
In VHJ Construction
and Development Corporation v. Court of Appeals,[10]
we held that:
Indeed, a tenancy relationship cannot be presumed. There must be evidence to prove this
allegation. The principal factor in
determining whether a tenancy relationship exists is intent. Tenancy is not a purely factual relationship
dependent on what the alleged tenant does upon the land. It is also a legal relationship. As we ruled in Chico v. Court of Appeals:
“Each of the elements hereinbefore mentioned is essential
to create a de jure leasehold or
tenancy relationship between the parties.
This de jure relationship, in
turn, is the terra firma for a
security of tenure between the landlord and the tenant. The leasehold relationship is not brought
about by a mere congruence of facts but, being a legal relationship, the mutual
will of the parties to that relationship should be primordial.”
Thus, the intent of the
parties, the understanding when the farmer is installed, and their written
agreements, provided these are complied with and are not contrary to law, are
even more important.
The requisites of a tenancy relationship are as follows:
(1) the parties are the landowner and the tenant; (2) the subject is
agricultural land; (3) there is consent by the landowner; (4) the purpose is
agricultural production; (5) there is personal cultivation; and (6) there is
sharing of the harvests. All these
requisites are necessary to create tenancy relationship, and the absence of one
or more requisites will not make the alleged tenant a de facto tenant. This is so
because unless a person has established his status as a de jure tenant, he is not entitled to security of tenure nor is he
covered by the Land Reform Program of the Government under existing tenancy
laws. The security of tenure guaranteed
by our tenancy laws may be invoked only by tenants de jure, not by those who are not true and lawful tenants.[11]
In this case, the petitioner failed to prove his claim that
he had been installed by the respondent as agricultural tenant on the
landholding. He relied solely on his
bare claim that he and the respondent, through the latter’s father, Judge Felix
de Guzman, had agreed for the petitioner to be the agricultural tenant of the
respondent, sharing the produce therefrom on a 50-50 basis, net of costs of
production. There is no evidence on
record that, indeed, the respondent had authorized his father to enter into
such an agreement with the petitioner.
In Valencia v. Court of Appeals,[12]
we held that the right to hire a tenant is basically a personal right of a
landowner. For Judge de Guzman to be
able to install the petitioner as agricultural tenant, he must be specifically
authorized by the respondent. The
petitioner failed to adduce a morsel of evidence that he received a share of
the produce of the property from the respondent.
The petitioner’s reliance on the lists of expenses,
incurred by the respondent for the cultivation of the property, is
misplaced. In VHJ Construction and Development Corporation v. Court of Appeals,[13]
citing Berenguer, Jr. v. Court of Appeals,[14]
we emphasized that:
… The
respondents’ self-serving statements regarding tenancy relations could not
establish the claimed relationship. The
fact alone of working on another’s landholding does not raise a presumption of
the existence of agricultural tenancy.
There must be substantial evidence on record adequate enough to prove
the element of sharing. Thus:
“Nor is there any basis for petitioner’s claim that he is
an agricultural tenant. One of the
essential requisites for the existence of a tenancy relationship is sharing, by
the landowner and tenant, of the produce and no proof of this fact has been
shown in this case. As we have held:
‘All these requisites are necessary in order to create tenancy
relationship between the parties and the absence of one or more requisites does
not make the alleged tenant a de jure
tenant as contra-distinguished from a de
facto tenant.’”
To prove such sharing of harvests, a receipt or any other
evidence must be presented.
Self-serving statements are deemed inadequate; competent proof must be
adduced.[15]
IN LIGHT OF ALL THE
FOREGOING, the petition is DENIED for
lack of merit. No costs.
SO ORDERED.
ROMEO J. CALLEJO, SR.
Associate Justice
WE
CONCUR:
Associate Justice
Chairman
On official leave
MA. ALICIA AUSTRIA-MARTINEZ DANTE O. TINGA
Associate Justice
Associate Justice
Associate Justice
I
attest that the conclusions in the above Decision were reached in consultation
before the case was assigned to the writer of the opinion of the Court’s
Division.
REYNATO
S. PUNO
Associate Justice
Chairman, Second
Division
Pursuant to Section 13,
Article VIII of the Constitution and the Division Chairman’s Attestation, it is
hereby certified that the conclusions in the above decision were reached in
consultation before the case was assigned to the writer of the opinion of the
Court’s Division.
HILARIO G. DAVIDE, JR.
Chief Justice
[1] Records, p. 133.
[2] Rollo, p. 8.
[3] Cruz v. Torres, 316 SCRA 193 (1999).
[4] 317 SCRA 327 (1999).
[5] Boleyley v. Villanueva, 314 SCRA 364 (1999).
[6] Cervantes v. Court of Appeals, 263 SCRA 323 (1996).
[7] Onquit v. Binamira-Parcia, 297 SCRA 354 (1998).
[8] Id. at 362.
[9] Cervantes v. Court of Appeals, supra; citing Isidro v. Court of Appeals, 228 SCRA 503 (1993).
[10] G.R. No. 128534, August 13, 2004.
[11] Id. at 7-8.
[12] 406 Phil. 666 (2003).
[13] Supra.
[14] 164 SCRA 431 (1988).
[15] VHJ Construction and Development Corporation v. Court of Appeals, supra, p. 9.