G.R. No.
149548 – ROXAS & COMPANY, INC., v. DAMBA-NFSW and DEPARTMENT OF AGRARIAN
REFORM
G.R. No.
167505 – DAMAYAN NG MANGGAGAWANG BUKID SA ASYENDA ROXAS-NATIONAL FEDERATION OF
SUGAR WORKERS (DAMBA-NFSW) v. SECRETARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRARIAN REFORM, ROXAS
& COMPANY, INC. and/or ATTY. MARIANO AMPIL
G.R. No.
167540 – KATIPUNAN NG MGA MAGBUBUKID SA HACIENDA ROXAS, INC. (KAMAHARI)
represented by its PRESIDENT CARLITO CAISIP, and DAMAYAN NG MANGGAGAWANG BUKID
SA ASYENDA ROXAS-NATIONAL FEDERATION OF SUGAR WORKERS (DAMBA-NFSW), represented
by LAURO MARTIN v. SECRETARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRARIAN REFORM, ROXAS &
COMPANY, INC.
G.R.
No. 167543 – DEPARMENT
OF LAND REFORM, formerly DEPARMENT OF AGRARIAN REFORM (DAR) v. ROXAS & COMPANY, INC.
G.R.
No. 167845 – ROXAS & COMPANY, INC. v.
DAMAYAN NG MANGGAGAWANG BUKID SA ASYENDA ROXAS-NATIONAL FEDERATION OF SUGAR
WORKERS (DAMBA-NFSW)
G.R.
No. 169163 – DAMAYAN NG MANGGAGAWANG BUKID SA
ASYENDA ROXAS-NATIONAL FEDERATION OF SUGAR WORKERS (DAMBA-NFSW) represented
by LAURO V. MARTIN, President
v. ROXAS & COMPANY, INC.
G.R.
No. 179650 –DAMAYAN NG MANGGAGAWANG BUKID SA
ASYENDA ROXAS-NATIONAL FEDERATION OF SUGAR WORKERS (DAMBA-NFSW) v. ROXAS
& COMPANY, INC.
Promulgated:
December 4, 2009
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PUNO, C.J.:
At test is our
commitment to a centerpiece of the Constitution: social justice. In the past,
we have always struck a blow for agrarian reform and taken the cudgels for
farmers in their struggle for a life with dignity. We cannot abandon that
stance for that is dictated by the fundamental law of the land.
In G.R. Nos. 167540 and 167543, the
issue for resolution is whether Presidential Proclamation No. 1520 excludes the
disputed lots from the coverage of
Republic Act No. 6657 or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law
(CARL), effective on June 15, 1988.
The CARL implements the command for
agrarian reform in Section 4, Article XIII of the Constitution:
SECTION 4. The State shall, by law, undertake an
agrarian reform program founded on the right of farmers and regular
farmworkers, who are landless, to own directly or collectively the lands they
till or, in the case of other farmworkers, to receive a just share of the
fruits thereof. To this end, the State shall encourage and undertake the just
distribution of all agricultural lands, subject to such priorities and reasonable
retention limits as the Congress may prescribe, taking into account ecological,
developmental, or equity considerations, and subject to the payment of just
compensation. In determining retention limits, the State shall respect the
right of small landowners. The State shall further provide incentives for
voluntary land-sharing.
The
CARL, being a general welfare legislation, embodies the Constitution’s priority
and commitment to further social justice.
As
an exercise of both police power as it prescribes retention limits for
landowners, and of eminent domain as it provides for the compulsory acquisition
of private agricultural lands
for redistribution, the CARL remains consistent with this commitment.[1]
Private rights must “yield to the irresistible demands of the public interest
on the time-honored justification… that the welfare of the people is the
supreme law.”[2] We have
underscored the import of fulfilling the objectives of an agrarian reform
program:
The
expropriation before us affects all
private agricultural lands whenever found and of whatever kind as long as they
are in excess of the maximum retention limits allowed their owners. This kind
of expropriation is intended for the benefit not only of a particular community
or of a small segment of the population but of the entire Filipino nation, from
all levels of our society, from the impoverished farmer to the land-glutted
owner. Its purpose does not cover only the whole territory of this country but
goes beyond in time to the foreseeable future, which it hopes to secure and
edify with the vision and the sacrifice of the present generation of Filipinos.
Generations yet to come are as involved in this program as we are today,
although hopefully only as beneficiaries of a richer and more fulfilling life we
will guarantee to them tomorrow through our thoughtfulness today. And, finally,
let it not be forgotten that it is no less than the Constitution itself that
has ordained this revolution in the farms, calling for ‘a just distribution’
among the farmers of lands that have heretofore been the prison of their dreams
but can now become the key at least to their deliverance.[3]
The
effective implementation of the CARL, and ultimately the constitutional mandate
for social justice, relies on a balance brought forth by “a more equitable
distribution and ownership of land, with due regard to the rights of landowners
to just compensation and to the ecological needs of the nation,” to achieve the
objective of providing “farmers and farmworkers with the opportunity to enhance
their dignity and improve the quality of their lives through greater
productivity of agricultural lands.”[4]
Section
4 of R.A. No. 6657
provides that the CARL shall “cover, regardless of tenurial arrangement and
commodity produced, all public and private agricultural lands.” The CARL
defines agricultural land as “land devoted to agricultural activity as defined
in [the] Act and not classified as mineral, forest, residential, commercial or
industrial land.”[5] The
deliberations of the Constitutional Commission confirm the CARL’s limitation of
the meaning of the word “agricultural”:
The intention of
the Committee is to limit the application of the word ‘agriculture.’
Commissioner Jamir proposed to insert the word ‘ARABLE’ to distinguish this
kind of agricultural land from such lands as commercial and industrial lands
and residential properties because all of them fall under the general
classification of the word ‘agricultural.’ This proposal, however, was not
considered because the Committee contemplated that agricultural lands are
limited to arable and suitable agricultural lands and therefore, do not include
commercial, industrial and residential lands.[6]
The
CARL’s coverage is further subject to Section 10 of the same, which enumerates
the exemptions from the coverage of the Act.[7]
In
the cases at bar, it must be emphasized that there is no question of whether
the disputed land is among the exemptions under Section 10 of R.A. No. 6657.
The issue is whether the land in dispute is devoted
to non-agricultural activity. In Natalia Realty, Inc. v. Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR),
we held that “lands previously converted to
non-agricultural uses prior to the effectivity of CARL by other government
agencies other than… DAR”
are lands not devoted to agricultural activity and therefore outside the
coverage of CARL.[8] Its
import rests on the premise that “the
CARL prohibits…
the conversion of agricultural lands for
non-agricultural purposes after the
effectivity of the CARL.”[9]
Although the ruling in Natalia was reiterated in a number of
cases, prudence dictates that its application must not be stretched with
unbridled discretion. The constitutional mandate to promote social justice
through an agrarian reform program, such as that embodied in the CARL, remains
the prevailing benchmark by which we measure whether there is, primarily, any
merit in Natalia’s application to the cases at bar. Thus, citing Natalia, we upheld the exclusion of land
from the coverage of the CARL on the basis of a specific set of circumstances. These
include the following: (1) municipal and/or city council zoning ordinances issued prior to the CARL’s effectivity that
prescribe the uses for the disputed land as non-agricultural, later approved by government agencies other than the DAR; and (2) Presidential Proclamations enacted prior to the CARL’s effectivity
that provide the uses of the disputed land for housing.
The cases at bar must be set apart from
the first category of cases that reiterated
Natalia, or those that upheld the
exclusion of land from CARL due to zoning ordinances that prescribed the uses for the disputed land as non-agricultural and subsequently approved by
government agencies other than the DAR. Pasong Bayabas Farmers Association, Inc. v. Court of Appeals held
that pursuant to Section 3 of R.A. No. 2264, amending the Local Government
Code, municipal and/or city councils have the power to “adopt zoning and subdivision
ordinances or regulations in consultation with the National Planning
Commission.”[10] While
the Court defined a zoning ordinance as one that “prescribes, defines, and
apportions a given political subdivision into specific land uses as present and
future projection of needs,” the Court specified that a local government has
the power to convert or reclassify
lands to residential lands.[11]
For this reason, the approval by
the Municipal Council of Carmona, Cavite, of Kapasiyahang Blg. 30 on May 30, 1976 “reclassified and converted
[the land] from agricultural to non-agricultural or residential.”[12]
However, it is worthy to stress that in confirming the reclassification and
conversion of the land, the Court not only considered the municipal council’s
zoning ordinance, but also its approval by the Human Settlements Regulatory Commission (HSRC).[13]
Similarly, Junio v. Garilao upheld the exemption of the disputed land from
CARL, because the City Council of Bacolod reclassified the land as residential prior to the CARL’s effectivity,
which was subsequently affirmed by the HSRC.[14]
Agrarian
Reform Beneficiaries Association v.
Nicolas used the
same reasoning in exempting
the disputed land from CARL coverage, holding that a city ordinance
reclassified the land within an urban zone, likewise
prior to the CARL’s effectivity, which reclassification was later approved
by the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board
(HLURB).[15]
The Court concluded that the disputed land was “considered ‘non-agricultural’
[which] may be utilized for residential, commercial, and industrial purposes.”[16]
Considering that the cases
at bar do not involve zoning ordinances that reclassified the disputed land to
non-agricultural uses,
a discussion of the second category of cases that uphold the exclusion of the disputed land from the coverage of
CARL is
in order.
A
review of the provisions of Presidential Proclamation No. 1520 reveals the
absence of a specified technical description of the land subject to its
coverage. This glaring omission should, at the very least,
subject the issue of whether Natalia applies
to the cases at bar to further scrutiny. In Natalia, the Court excluded the disputed land
from the coverage of CARL on the basis of Presidential Proclamation No. 1637,
which “converted for residential use what were erstwhile agricultural lands.”[17] A
subsequent case, National Housing Authority v. Allarde reiterated
the ruling in Natalia,
and
excluded the disputed land from the coverage of CARL on the basis of
Presidential Proclamation No. 843, which “categorized [the disputed land] as
not being devoted to the agricultural activity contemplated by Section 3(c) of
R.A. No. 6657.”[18] It is
worthy to note that the Presidential Proclamations cited in both cases provide
specified technical descriptions of the lands that were “converted” to
residential or “categorized” as non-agricultural, hence, there were no doubts
as to their coverage.
It is respectfully submitted that our ruling in DAR v. Franco gives the guidelines for the proper interpretation of
Presidential Proclamation No. 1520.[19]
The said case required a review of Presidential Proclamation No. 2052,[20]
which, except for the municipalities identified, mirrors the provisions of
Presidential Proclamation No. 1520.[21]
Thus, we held:
…the DAR Regional Office VII, in coordination with
the Philippine Tourism Authority, has to determine precisely which areas are
for tourism development and excluded from the Operation Land Transfer and the
Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program. And suffice it to state here that the
Court has repeatedly ruled that lands already classified as non-agricultural
before the enactment of RA 6657 on 15 June 1988 do not need any conversion
clearance.[22]
In
other words, without a technical description of the areas comprising a tourist
zone, the Philippine Tourism
Authority’s (PTA’s) identification of these areas is necessary for exclusion
from coverage of the CARL.
Franco’s
application to the cases at bar
cannot be dismissed for the reason that the Court’s
abovementioned pronouncement only took note of the contents of the DAR
Secretary’s order. A conclusion
that the only issue in the
appeal concerned the handwritten note of a Department of Agrarian Reform
Adjudication Board (DARAB) member thereby making any pronouncement
unrelated thereto obiter dictum, is unwarranted.
In
Franco, the petitioners expressly
raised the issue of whether Presidential Proclamation No. 2052 “has taken
outside the coverage of agrarian reform all agricultural lands included within
[it] or only those that are acquired and developed by the PTA for tourism
purposes” before the Court.[23]
It is well established that an adjudication on any point within the issues
presented by the case is not obiter dictum:
Accordingly, a
point expressly decided does not lose its value as a precedent because the
disposition of the case is, or might have been, made on some other ground, or
even though, by reason of other points in the case, the result reached might
have been the same if the court had held, on the particular point, otherwise
than it did. A decision which the case could have turned on is not regarded as obiter dictum merely because… an
additional reason in a decision, brought forward after the case has been
disposed of on one ground, be regarded as dicta.[24]
Although
the Court resolved the issue of whether the DARAB member’s handwritten note was
the proper subject of an appeal, the Court decided the important issue of the
validity of the DAR Secretary’s order, which declared that the 808 hectares of
land delineated by the PTA as needed for tourism development was excluded from
CARL.[25]
This ruling in Franco is an
authoritative precedent in resolving the cases at bar.
But assuming for the sake of argument that Franco is not applicable to the cases at
bar, the proper statutory construction of Presidential
Proclamation No. 1520 in light of the
CARL will still yield a similar outcome.
Basic is the
rule that only statutes with an ambiguous or doubtful meaning may be the
subject of statutory construction.[26]
The irreconcilable interpretations offered by the contending parties, however,
prove that the proclamation suffers from ambiguity: first,
the blanket classification of the subject municipalities, as claimed by the Roxas & Co., and second, the
piecemeal classification of areas for tourism within the subject municipalities, as contended by Katipunan ng mga Magbubukid sa
Hacienda Roxas, Inc. (KAMAHARI) and Damayan ng Manggagawang Bukid sa Asyenda
Roxas-National Federation of Sugar Workers (DAMBA-NFSW). Too, the Whereas clauses of the proclamation incite
doubt as to the role of the PTA in the delineation of tourist zone boundaries
as they speak of “certain areas in the sector comprising the Municipalities of
Maragondon and Ternate in Cavite Province and Nasugbu in Batangas” and of the
necessity to “segregate specific geographic areas for concentrated efforts.”
Finally, the area declared as a tourist zone in the proclamation was not
defined by metes and bounds, putting into question the scope of the
proclamation. Hence, the apparent need for construction.
I do not
subscribe to the view that the very terms expressed in the proclamation as well
as by its title declared as a single tourist zone the area comprising the
municipalities of Nasugbu, Ternate, and Maragondon. It is well to remember that
statutes
in pari materia should be construed together to attain the purpose of an
expressed national policy.[27]
Likewise, in interpretating a statute, the Court should start with the assumption
that the legislature intended to enact an effective law; it cannot be presumed
to have done a vain thing.[28] An
interpretation should be avoided under which a statute or provision being
construed is defeated, or as otherwise expressed, nullified, destroyed,
emasculated, repealed, explained away, or rendered insignificant, meaningless,
inoperative or nugatory.[29]
The overly broad interpretation of
Presidential Proclamation No. 1520 with regard to the declaration of a tourist
zone will open the gates to attempts to defeat the spirit of the CARL, and more
importantly, the Constitution. The march of our farmers towards social justice
has been in slow motion for ages now.
I concur.
REYNATO S. PUNO
Chief
Justice
[1] Association of Small Landowners in the Philippines, Inc. v. Secretary
of Agrarian Reform, G.R. No. 78742, July 14, 1989, 175 SCRA 343, 373-374.
[2] Id. at 376.
[3] Id. at 386.
[4] Republic Act No. 6657 (1988),
Sec. 2.
[5] Sec. 3(c).
[6] Luz Farms v. Secretary of Department of Agrarian Reform, G.R. No.
86889, December 4, 1990, 192 SCRA 51, 57 citing
III Record, Constitutional
Commission 30 (August 7, 1986); See
also Natalia Realty Inc. v. Department of Agrarian Reform, G.R. No. 103302,
August 12, 1993, 225 SCRA 278, 283.
[7] This section provides:
SECTION 10. Exemptions and Exclusions. — Lands
actually, directly and exclusively used and found to be necessary for parks,
wildlife, forest reserves, reforestation, fish sanctuaries and breeding
grounds, watersheds, and mangroves, national defense, school sites and campuses
including experimental farm stations operated by public or private schools for
educational purposes, seeds and seedlings research and pilot production
centers, church sites and convents appurtenant thereto, mosque sites and
Islamic centers appurtenant thereto, communal burial grounds and cemeteries,
penal colonies and penal farms actually worked by the inmates, government and
private research and quarantine centers and all lands with eighteen percent
(18%) slope and over, except those already developed shall be exempt from the
coverage of the Act.
[8] Natalia Realty, Inc. v. Department of Agrarian Reform, supra note
6.
[9] Department of Agrarian Reform v. Sutton, G.R. No. 162070, October
19, 2005, 473 SCRA 392, 401.
[10] G.R. No. 142359, May 25, 2004,
429 SCRA 109, 135.
[11] Id.
[12] Id. at 132.
[13] Id. at 133.
[14] G.R. No. 147146, July 29, 2005,
465 SCRA 173, 186.
[15] G.R. No. 168394, October 6,
2008, 567 SCRA 540, 553-554.
[16] Id.
[17] Natalia Realty, Inc. v. Department of Agrarian Reform, supra note
6, at 282.
[18] G.R. No. 106593, November 16,
1999, 318 SCRA 22, 29.
[19] G.R. No. 147479, September 26,
2005, 471 SCRA 74.
[20] The pertinent portion of
Proclamation No. 2052 (January 30, 1981) is quoted below:
NOW, THEREFORE, I, FERDINAND E.
MARCOS, President of the Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested in me by
the Constitution, do hereby declare the
areas comprising the Barangays of Sibugay, Malubog, Babag and Sirao including
the proposed Lusaran Dam in the City of Cebu and the municipalities of Argao
and Dalaguete in the Province of Cebu as tourist zones under the administration
and control of the Philippine Tourism Authority pursuant to Section 5 (d) of
Presidential Decree 564.
The
PTA shall identify well-defined geographic areas within the zones with
potential tourism value,
wherein optimum use of natural assets and attractions, as well as existing
facilities and concentration of efforts and limited resources of both
government and private sector may be affected and realized in order to generate
foreign exchange as well as other tourist receipts.
Any duly established military
reservations existing within the zones shall be excluded from this
proclamation. (Emphasis supplied)
[21] The pertinent portion of
Proclamation No. 1520 (November 28, 1975) is quoted below:
NOW, THEREFORE,
I, FERDINAND E. MARCOS, President of the Philippines, by virtue of the powers
vested in me by the Constitution, do hereby declare the area comprising
the Municipalities of Maragondon and
Ternate in Cavite Province and Nasugbu in Batangas Province as a tourist
zone under the administration and control of the Philippine Tourism Authority
(PTA) pursuant to Section 5 (D) of P.D. 564.
The PTA shall
identify well-defined geographic areas within the zone with potential tourism
value,
wherein optimum use of natural assets and attractions, as well as existing
facilities and concentration of efforts and limited resources of both
government and private sector may be affected and realized in order to generate
foreign exchange as well as other tourist receipts.
Any duly
established military reservation existing within the zone shall be excluded
from this proclamation. (Emphasis supplied)
[22] Department of Agrarian Reform v. Franco, supra note 19, at 92.
[23] Id. at 85.
[24] Villanueva, Jr. v. Court of
Appeals, G.R. No. 142947, March 19, 2002, 379 SCRA 463, 469-470.
[25] Department of Agrarian Reform v. Franco, supra note 19.
[26] Daong v. Municipal Judge, No. L-34568, March 28, 1988, 159 SCRA
369.
[27] C & C Commercial
Corporation v. National Waterworks and Sewerage Authority, G.R. No. L-27275, November 18, 1967, 21
SCRA 984, 992.
[28] Asturias Sugar Central, Inc. v.
Commissioner of Customs, No. L-19337, September 30, 1969, 29 SCRA 617, 627.
[29] Id. at 628.