[ G.R. No. 54106. February 16, 1982 ] 197 Phil. 728; 80 OG No. 22, 3168 (May 28, 1984)
SECOND DIVISION
[ G.R. No. 54106. February 16, 1982 ]
LUCRECIO PATRICIO, SEGUNDO DALIGDIG, FRANCISCO DALIGDIG, FLORENCIO ARELLANO AND EPIFANIO DALIGDIG, PETITIONERS, VS. ISABELO BAYOG, CONRADA, PEDRO, EMILIO, ALFONSO, DIONISIO AND ARSENIO, ALL SURNAMED MENDEZ, AND COURT OF APPEALS, RESPONDENTS. D E C I S I O N
AQUINO, J.:
The legal issue in this case is whether the tenants hired by the purchaser of a homestead planted to coconuts and bananas may be ejected by the homesteader’s heirs who were allowed by the Court of Appeals to repurchase the homestead and who desire to personally possess and till the land.
As factual background, it should be stated that in 1934 Policarpio Mendez obtained a patent and Torrens title for a homestead with an area of about twenty-three hectares located at Sitio Badiangon, Barrio Dalipuga, Iligan City. He and his wife, Petra Macaliag, and their nine children lived on the land, cleared it and planted coconuts thereon.
In 1956, Mendez sold the homestead to the spouses Eugenio Lamberang and Ester Fuentes. In 1958, Mendez and his children filed an action to annul the sale. Lamberang countered with an ejectment suit. On March 20, 1961, Mendez and his children filed an action against the Lamberang spouses for the reconveyance of the homestead.
The three cases reached the Court of Appeals which in a decision dated January 3, 1977 ordered Lamberang to reconvey the homestead to the Mendezes “free of all liens and encumbrances” upon their payment to Lamberang of P19, 411.28 as redemption price. That judgment became final and executory.
The Court of Appeals also held that upon the execution of the deed of reconveyance and the delivery of the redemption price to the Lamberang spouses, the Mendezes would be “entitled to the possession and occupancy” of the homestead. (Mendez vs. Lamberang, Lamberang vs. Bayug, and Mendez vs. Fuentes-Lamberang, CA-G.R. Nos. 50879-81-R.)
The Mendezes paid the redemption price and the Lamberang spouses reconveyed the homestead. Pursuant to a writ of possession, a deputy sheriff placed Isabelo Bayog, the representative of the Mendez family, in possession of the homestead after ejecting the tenants of the Lamberang spouses named Lucrecio Patricio, Florencio Arellano, Epifanio Daligdig, Francisco Daligdig and Segundo Daligdig, now the petitioners herein.
However, the tenants reentered the homestead allegedly upon instruction of Bernardino O. Nuñez, a trial attorney of the Bureau of Agrarian Legal Assistance. Hence, the Mendezes filed a motion to declare them and Nuñez in contempt of court.
Before that contempt incident could be resolved, or on April 10, 1979, the tenants, represented by Nuñez, filed in the Court of Agrarian Relations at Iligan City a complaint for damages against the heirs of Policarpio Mendez named Isabelo Bayog and Conrada, Pedro, Emilio, Alfonso, Dionisio and Arsenio, all surnamed Mendez (CAR Case No. 92), now private respondents.
By reason of an agreement between the parties at the hearing on October 22, 1979, the said tenants vacated the land. They are now not in possession of the land (p. 5, Rollo).
The Agrarian Court in its decision of December 12, 1979 held that the plaintiffs were “tenants of the landholding in question” and ordered their reinstatement therein. The lower court directed the Mendezes to pay them their “unrealized shares” in the coconuts.
The Agrarian Court concluded that the plaintiffs became the tenants of the Mendezes because the Lamberangs, with whom they established a tenancy relationship, were not illegal possessors of the land, having acquired it through a sale. The court said that under section 10 of the Code of Agrarian Reform tenants are entitled to security of tenure and that under section 36 of that Code, personal cultivation by the landowner is no longer a ground for terminating tenancy. The Agrarian Court noted that Presidential Decree No. 152 dated March 13, 1973, which prohibits the employment or use of share tenants in complying with the requirements regarding entry, occupation and cultivation of public lands, is not applicable to the case.
The Mendezes appealed to the Court of Appeals which on May 8, 1980 reversed the decision of the Agrarian Court and declared that the Mendezes are “entitled to the homestead without the gravamen of plaintiffs’ tenancies” because the purpose of granting homesteads is “to distribute disposable agricultural lots of the State to land-destitute citizens for their home and cultivation” (Pascua vs. Talens, 80 Phil. 792, 793). That policy would be defeated “if the buyer can install permanent tenants in the homestead who would even have the right of preemption” (Patricio vs. Bayog, CA-G.R. No. 10611-CAR).
The tenants appealed to this Court. They contend (a) that under section 118 of the Public Land Law, share tenancy may be constituted in a homestead after five years from the grant of the patent because section 119 of the same law does not prohibit any encumbrance on the homestead after that period and (b) that they cannot be ejected because they were not parties in any of the cases involving the Mendezes and Lamberang.
This is a case where two competing interests have to be weighed against each other: the tenant’s right to security of tenure as against the right of the homesteader or his heirs to own a piece of land for their residence and livelihood.
We hold that the more paramount and superior policy consideration is to uphold the right of the homesteader and his heirs to own and cultivate personally the land acquired from the State without being encumbered by tenancy relations.[*]
This holding is consistent with the intention of the Code of Agrarian Reform to abolish agricultural share tenancy, “to establish owner-cultivatorship and the economic family-size farm as the basis of Philippine agriculture” and “to achieve a dignified existence for the small farmers free from pernicious institutional restraints and practices” (Sec. 2).
WHEREFORE, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed. No costs.
SO ORDERED.
Barredo, (Chairman), Concepcion, Jr., Abad Santos, De Castro, and Ericta, JJ., concur.
Escolin, J., no part.