G.R. No. 36213 Case Digest

G.R. No. 36213, June 29, 1989

Felix Gonzales and Carmen Gonzales

vs CA, deceased spouses Andres Agcaoile and Leonora Agcaoile, substituted by Lucia Sison

Ponente: Grino-Aquino

Facts:

October 1988, Lucia Sison filed a motion to be substituted in lieu of Andres and Leonora as she inherited the unsold lots of the deceased spouses. The court granted her motion.

Spouses are owners of parcels of land in Bulacan At the time of the purchased of the spouses, Maximo Cruz was th tenant who was planting palay thereon. Maximo continued as tenant until he died and was succeeded by his son Fidel Cruz. After 4 years as tennat, Fidel was succeeded by Pascual Gonzales, father of Felix Gonzales. In 1954, Pascual ceased to be a tenant because the land was proposed to be converted into residential subdivision.

Since 1956, spouses offered to pay rental and acted as agents for the sale of the subdivision lots. While they are renting, the spouses requsted that they may be allowed to plant palay on the lots that have not yet been sold. No specific agreement was concluded with regards of harvest, but spouses delivered part of the yield to Federico Mateo, defendants overseer.

When spouses defaulted in paying the rentals, the owner demanded for payment of rental or to vacate. Spouses then filed to elect the leasehold system and pray for a reliquidation of past harvest embracing the agricultural years. Before summons were served, owners initiated an action against the spouses for recovery of possession. CFI-Bulacan, favored Gonzales, the owner.

CA upheld the decision of the court saying that the property ceased to be an agricultural or farmland, having been converted as residential subdivision.

Issue: Whether an agricultural tenancy relationship can be created over land embraced in an approved residential subdivision.

Ruling:

There is no merit.  An agricultural leasehold cannot be established on land which has ceased to be devoted to cultivation or farming because of its conversion into a residential subdivision.

Petitioners may not invoke Section 36(l) of Republic Act No. 3844 which provides that "when the lessor-owner fails to substantially carry out the conversion of his agricultural land into a subdivision within one year after the dispossession of the lessee, the lessee shall be entitled to reinstatement and damages," for the petitioners were not agricultural lessees or tenants of the land before its conversion into a residential subdivision in 1955. Not having been dispossessed by the conversion of the land into a residential subdivision, they may not claim a right to reinstatement.

Furthermore, their admission that: (1) they leased from the respondents a lot (No. 1285-M) in the subdivision on which they built their house; (2) that as commission agents for the respondents, they were able to sell a subdivision lot to Clemente Bernabe, and received a P 300-commission on the sale; and (3) that "a number of other lots were sold by respondents to different buyers," (p. 51, Rollo) refutes the petitioners' contention that the development of the subdivision was a mere "scheme" to dispossess the previous tenant.

On the other hand, the petitioners' tactic of entering the subdivision as lessee of a homelot and thereafter cultivating some unsold lots ostensibly for temporary use as a home garden, but covertly for the purpose of later claiming the land as "tenanted" farm lots, recalls the fable of the camel that sought shelter inside its master's tent during a storm, and once inside, kicked its master out of the tent. Here, the private respondents' tolerance of the petitioners' supposedly temporary use of some vacant lots in the subdivision was seized by the latter as a weapon to deprive the respondents of their land.