Source: http://lawlibrary.chanrobles.com/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=82517:56400&amp;catid=1576&amp;Itemid=566
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 09:10:23+00:00

Document:
G.R. No. 183923, November 27, 2013 - GENEROSO ENESIO, Petitioners, v. LILIA TULOP, SUBSTITUTED BY HER HEIRS, NAMELY: MILAGROS T. ASIA, MATTHEW N. TULOP AND RESTITUTO N. TULOP, JR., Respondent.
GENEROSO ENESIO, Petitioners, v. LILIA TULOP, SUBSTITUTED BY HER HEIRS, NAMELY: MILAGROS T. ASIA, MATTHEW N. TULOP AND RESTITUTO N. TULOP, JR., Respondent.
Petitioner Generoso Enesio seeks – through this petition for review on certiorari1 filed under Rule 45 of the Rules of Court – the reversal of the decision2 dated October 25, 2006 and the resolution3 dated May 29, 2008 of the Court of Appeals (CA) in CA-G.R. CEB-SP No. 01662.
On August 4, 2003, Lilia Tulop (substituted by her heirs, namely: Milagros T. Asia, Matthew N. Tulop, and Restituto N. Tulop, Jr., on appeal before the Court) sued petitioner Generoso Enesio for “Ejectment, Damages, and Other Relief” before the Municipal Trial Court (MTC) of San Fernando, Cebu.
Lilia alleged that she was the owner of the lot in possession of the petitioner whose possession was by her (the respondent’s) mere tolerance. When Lilia notified the petitioner that she needed the property for the construction of a store, the petitioner ignored her demands. As a result, on June 18, 2003, Lilia, through her lawyer, formally sent the petitioner a letter demanding that the petitioner vacate the premises. A case arose before the MTC because of the petitioner’s continued refusal to vacate the premises.
The petitioner filed his Answer before the MTC and claimed that he had been an agricultural tenant of the land; that the case was an agrarian dispute cognizable by the Department of Agrarian Reform Adjudication Board; and hence, the MTC must dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction.
At the preliminary conference, the parties agreed on the following stipulation of facts: 1) the petitioner was not registered as a tenant as shown by the certification from the Municipal Agrarian Reform Officer of San Fernando, Cebu; 2) the petitioner was occupying a portion of the lot subject matter of the case; 3) the petitioner recently planted bananas in a small portion of the lot but he had been occupying the lot as a tenant and planted crops thereon with the consent of the previous owner; 4) the petitioner had not given any share of the harvest to Lilia but had been sharing his harvest with the original owner, Gregorio Navarro (father of Lilia), then to Margarita Navarro, the caretaker, and eventually to Emilio Navarro; and 5) the title of the subject lot was issued in December 1994.
The petitioner appealed the RTC’s ruling to the CA.
In its October 25, 2006 decision,6 the CA affirmed the RTC’s ruling. The CA ruled that the MTC does not lose jurisdiction over ejectment cases simply because tenancy relationship has been raised as a defense. It is only upon determination, after hearing, that tenancy relationship exists that the MTC must dismiss the case for want of jurisdiction.
The MTC concluded, after hearing, that tenancy did not exist between the parties. In fact, the petitioner himself admitted that he had never shared any of his harvests with Lilia. Thus, sharing of harvest, an important element of tenancy relationship, was missing.
On May 29, 2008, the CA denied the petitioner’s motion for reconsideration.
On August 18, 2009, the petitioner died. No substitution has been made up to this date.
The petitioner also claimed that the lower tribunals misappreciated the established facts clearly brought out and recorded during the pre-trial conference, to wit: 1) the petitioner had shared harvests with the previous owners of the land; and 2) there had been tenancy relationship between the previous owners of the land and the petitioner. These facts point to the conclusion that Lilia must respect the tenancy relationship between the previous landowner, the respondent’s predecessor, and the petitioner, as provided for in Section 108 of Republic Act No. 3844.
In her comment to the petition,9 Lilia reiterated that the petitioner himself admitted that he never shared harvests with her. While the petitioner shared the produce with the relatives and with the caretaker of Lilia, such sharing was not with Lilia in the absence of proof to that effect. In the absence of sharing of harvests between Lilia and the petitioner, tenancy cannot exist.
We resolve to deny the petition for lack of merit.
As the CA correctly held, the petitioner’s reference to Bayog is misplaced as the factual situation in that case does not obtain in the present case.
Therefore, the petitioner’s assertion that the MTC did not receive testimonial or documentary evidence in resolving the case is not correct. In fact, it is from the evidence furnished by the parties that the MTC concluded that the petitioner never shared his produce with Lilia. Expectedly, the MTC ruled that the petitioner was not Lilia’s tenant and in this light, it had jurisdiction over the case.
The issue of sharing of harvests between the petitioner and Lilia is a factual issue the Court should not bother in a Rule 45 petition. Nevertheless, if only to lay this issue to rest, the Court confirms that there was never any harvest sharing between the parties to make the petitioner the tenant of Lilia; this has been the consistent factual finding in the courts below and this finding binds this Court in the absence of any compelling reason showing that it is tainted with infirmity. The Court has repeatedly emphasized that sharing of produce must exist between the tenant and the landowner for tenancy relationship to exist.12 In the absence of this factual basis, the lower tribunals were correct in upholding the jurisdiction of the MTC over the ejectment case.
Carpio, (Chairperson), Del Castillo, Abad,* and Perez, JJ., concur.
* Designated as Acting Member in lieu of Associate Justice Estela M. Perlas-Bernabe, per Special Order No. 1619 dated November 22, 2013.
2 Id. at 19-26; penned by Associate Justice Agustin S. Dizon, and concurred in by Associate Justices Pampio A. Abarintos and Priscilla Baltazar-Padilla.
4 Penned by Judge Glenda C. Go, MTC of San Fernando, Cebu; id. at 151-157.
7 327 Phil. 1019 (1996).
8 Section 10. Agricultural Leasehold Relation Not Extinguished by Expiration of Period, etc. - The agricultural leasehold relation under this Code shall not be extinguished by mere expiration of the term or period in a leasehold contract nor by the sale, alienation or transfer of the legal possession of the landholding. In case the agricultural lessor sells, alienates or transfers the legal possession of the landholding, the purchaser or transferee thereof shall be subrogated to the rights and substituted to the obligations of the agricultural lessor.
10 Supra note 7, at 1037.
11Odsigue v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 111179, July 4, 1994, 233 SCRA 626, 630.
12 See Gelos v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 86186, May 8, 1992, 208 SCRA 608, 614; and De la Cruz v. Bautista, G.R. No. 39695, June 14, 1990, 186 SCRA 517, 527.
13Mark Anthony Esteban, etc. v. Spouses Rodrigo C. Marcelo and Carmen T. Marcelo, G.R. No. 197725, July 31, 2013, citing Nunez v. SLTEAS Phoenix Solutions, Inc., G.R. No. 180542, April 12, 2010, 618 SCRA 134, 145; italics ours.

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