CASE DIGEST: Caballes vs. DAR

YOLANDA CABALLES vs. DEPT. OF AGRARIAN REFORM, HON. HEHERSON T. ALVAREZ and BIENVENIDO ABAJON

G.R. No. L-78214 05 December 1988 Petition for certiorari to review DAR order  J. Sarmiento

Property involved is only 60-sq. m., which is part of a 500-sq. m. land

FACTS: 













ISSUE: HELD:

Macario Alicaba & Millenes family, predecessors-in-interest of petitioner, agreed to lease to private respondent Abajon a portion of subject land to construct the latter’s house & to plant corns & bananas. They agreed to a monthly rental of PHP2.00 & 50-50 share of crops. Petitioner Caballes & her husband acquired, through a deed of sale, the whole land which includes the portion occupied by private respondent. They informed private respondent of their intention to build a poultry close to his house & persuaded him to transfer his dwelling to the opposite or southern portion of the land. On his part, private respondent offered to pay rent on the land occupied by his house, but such offer was not accepted. Later, the spouses asked private respondent to vacate the premises, saying that they needed the property. But he refused. Despite the confrontation before the Brgy. Captain, the parties fai led to reach an agreement. All efforts by the landowners to oust private respondent were in vain as the latter simply refused to budge. Petitioner then filed a criminal case for malicious mischief against private respondent, alleging that the la tter maliciously cut down the banana plants worth P50.00, (note: all banana plants, were planted by Abajon). Pursuant to PD 1038, the trial court ordered the referral of the case to the regional office of Ministry of Agrarian Reform (MAR) to determine the relationship of the parties. A s a result, MAR issued an order declaring the existence of a tenancy relationship between Caballes & Abajon. It also declared the criminal case for malicious mischief filed by petitioner against private respondent as not proper for trial; since such case is filed patently to harass and/or eject the tenant from his farm. On appeal, then DAR Minister Conrado E strella reversed the certification and declared the criminal case as proper for trial, since the land involved is a residential lot consisting only of 60-sq. m. On motion for reconsideration, herein respondent and new Minister of DAR, Heherson Alvarez issued an order finding the criminal case as not proper fo r trial due to the existence of tenancy relations between the parties. o Private respondent invoked Sec. 10 of RA 3844, which p rovided that new owners are bound to respect the tenancy regardless of the size of the la nd being tilled. Whether or not Abajon is a tenant of spouses spouses Caballes. NO.

RATIO : 





The Supreme Court held that Abajon only occupied a miniscule portion of the lot. RA 3844, as amended. The 60-sq. m. cannot be considered as an economic family-size farm protected by the aforementioned law. Planting camote, bananas, & corn on a 60-sq. m. land cannot produce an income sufficient to provide a modest standard of living to meet the farm family’s basic needs. The essential requisites of a tenancy relationship are: 1.

The parties are the landowner and the tenant;

2.

The subject is agricultural land;

3.

There is consent;

4.

The purpose is agricultural production;

5.

There is personal cultivation; and

6.

There is sharing of harvests.

All these requisites must concur in order to create a tenancy relationship between the parties. The absence of one does not make an occupant of a parcel of land, or a cultivator thereof, or a planter thereon, a de jure 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 t he Government under existing tenancy laws. 

Sharing alone is not sufficient to establish a tenancy relationship. Tenancy status arises only if an occupant of a parcel of land has been given its possession for the primary purpose of agricultural production. The circumstances of this ca se indicate that the private respondent’s status is more of a caretaker who was allowed by the owner out of benevolence or compassion to live in the premises and to have a garden of some sort at its southwestern side rather than a tenant of the said portion.

ON the criminal case of malicious mischief: SC dismissed the complaint. The private respondent cannot be held criminally liable for malicious mischief in cutting the  banana trees because, as an authorized occupant or possessor of the land, & as planter of the banana trees, he owns said crops including the fruits thereof. 

The private respondent’s possession of the land is not illegal or in bad faith because he was allowed by the previous owners to enter & occupy the premises. In other words, the private respondent worked the land in dispute with the consent of the previous & present owners.