REMEDIOS SACLOLO AND ERNESTO PASCUAL, PETITIONER, VS. COURT OF AGRARIAN RELATIONS AND SANTIAGO MADLANGSAKAY, RESPONDENTS.

This is a petition for certiorari brought before us to review a
decision of the Court of Agrarian Relations, Hon. Guillermo S. Santos,
presiding, dismissing a suit filed by petitioners herein to eject
respondent Santiago Madlangsakay from a four-hectare land belonging to
petitioner Remedios Saclolo, in order that the same may be cultivated
by her husband, Ernesto Pascual. The facts are stated by the respondent
judge below as follows:

“Remedios Saclolo is the owner of a landholding of
four (4) hectares, more or less, located at Barrio Matungao, Bulacan,
Bulacan. The said holding is tenanted by respondent Santiago
Madlangsakay. Ernesto Pascual is the husband of Remedios, and the
landholding is Remedios’ paraphernal property brought into their
marriage The notice to the respondent required under Sec. 50(a), of
Republic Act No. 1199, dated April 9, 1956, was prepared by counsel for
petitioner, Atty. Ernesto M. Tomaneng, to the effect that Ernesto
Pascual desires to farm the land (Exhibit “B”) which was served upon
respondent on April 9, 1956, and a notice to the Court of said
notification was forwarded on the same date. Ernesto Pascual, who is at
present not gainfully employed, and who has some experience in farm
work, will work the land to support petitioners’ family.”

The ground upon which the judge dismissed the petition is stated by him as follows:

“We may, and, in fact, do, believe with petitioners
that, in cases, such as the present, and others cited in his memorandum
(p. 2; case of widow and son) it may be a wise policy to allow the
tenant’s ejectment from the landholding, to enable the owner to
cultivate the same thru or with the help of her husband (in this
instant case) or a son, in the other. But the wisdom of the law is not
the sphere of this Court. ‘We cannot * * * step outside the settled and
ordinary meaning of the law and by judicial legislation give to the law
a meaning not intended. If * * * redress is proper * * * the
complainants must look to the legislature and not to the courts.’ (per
Justice Malcolm in Molina vs. Rafferty, 37 Phil, at page 557.)”

The reason given by the court below for denying the petition of the
landowner and her husband to cultivate the landholding is Section 50
(a) of Republic Act No. 1199, which provides that an owner may eject a
tenant in order that he may cultivate it, only when he will personally
cultivate his land. The judge below admits that it may be a wise policy
to permit a tenant to be ejected from a landholding to enable the owner
to cultivate the same through or with the help of her husband. But he
says that to authorize the ejectment of the tenant, because the
wife-owner desires the property to be cultivated by her husband, is
expressly prohibited by the law which requires personal cultivation by the owner, and this prohibition cannot by construction be made inapplicable to the husband of an owner-wife.

We cannot subscribe to the opinion of the judge of the court below
that to authorize the ejectment under the above circumstances would be
a judicial construction of the law beyond the intent thereof. The
provisions of the Agricultural Tenancy Act (Republic Act No. 1199)
should be construed in the light of the law, and the legal principles
obtaining’ in this jurisdiction, especially those that regulate the
relation between husband and wife. Under legal principles, by the
contract of marriage, a man and a woman enter a joint life, acting,
living and working as one. Whether under the common law or under the
civil law, upon marriage the husband and the wife become one single
moral, spiritual and social being, not only for purposes of procreation
but also for the purpose of mutual help and protection, physically,
morally and materially. There is between them a full and complete
community of existence.

“Entre las del tercer grupo o de tipo finalistas las hay que atienden a la finalidad estrictamente sexual del matrimonio, y otras, mas aceptables, que atienden a la finalidad espiritual o integral.
En este ultimo sentido, ya las definiciones de los juristas romanos
señalaron la constitucion de una plena comunidad de la vida como
finalidad juridicamente reconocida del matrimonio. * * * Modernamente
se inspira en la misma idea Ahrens al considerar el matrimonio como la
union formada entre dos personas de sexo diferente con el proposito de
una comunidad perfecta de toda su vida moral, espiritual fisica, y de
todas las relaciones que son su consecuencia, y Kipp y Wolff, al
definirlo como ‘la union de un hombre y de una mujer dirigida al
establecimiento de una plena ccmmunidad de vida. Todas estas
definiciones recogen la idea moral del matrimonio, propria de la
civilizacion cristiana y moderna, y que inspira las legislaciones
positivas.

“No faltan, por lo demas, definiciones mixtas. En
realidad, las tres notas aludidas de la legalidad, permanencia y
plenitud son otros tantos aspectos parciales de la idea del matrimonio.
Reuniendolos podriamos definir este como la union legal de un hombre y
una mujer para la plena y perpetua comunidad de existencia. Y si
quisieramos definirlo en su acepcion de acto, podriamos decir que el
matrimonio es el acto solemne por medio del cual el hombre y la mujer
constituyen entre si una union legal para la plena y perpetua comunidad
de existencia. (Castan, Derecho Civil, Tomo 3, 6.a ed., paginas
445-446.)

If there is unity and community of existence between husband and
wife, then the husband may not be considered as a being distinct and
different from the wife, and the cultivation of the wife’s land should
be considered as a joint effort of both. In fact, even if the difficult
manual work like plowing and harrowing is usually done by men, women
take part in the planting: of the seedlings, in the cleaning of the
growing crop, in the harvesting, in the winnowing—all of which
constitute integral parts of the raising of the crop.

Moreover, the law allows a tenant to cultivate a piece of
agricultural land, held under a contract of tenancy, either personally
or with the aid of labor available from members of this immediate farm
household. (Republic Act No. 1199, Section 4, par. 3, as amended by
Republic Act No. 2263.) Note that he is not even-required to have said
cultivation undertaken by immediate members of his family, but only by
his immediate farm household, who may or may not belong to the
immediate members of his family. Surely no reason exists why this same
right should be denied to the landowner herself. The law as it were
seeks to extend its protecting arm not only to the tenant but to the
landlord as well.

“SEC. 2. Purpose.—It is the purpose of this
Act to establish agricultural tenancy relations between landholders and
tenants upon the principle of social justice; to afford adequate
protection to the rights of both tenants and landholders; * * *.” (R.
A. No. 1199.)

There is also an express provision of the law which may be construed
to give the husband the right to cultivate a landholding belonging to
the wife as paraphernal property. This is Article 137 of the Civil Code
of the Philippines, which says:

“ART. 137. The wife shall have the administration of
the paraphernal property, unless she delivers the same to the husband
by means of a public instrument empowering him to administer it. * * *.”

The administration of a rice land, for example, is not
alone the giving thereof to another and the receiving of the owner’s
share in the harvest. It may well include cultivation, or the raising
of a crop thereon, should the administrator deem it better for the
spouses to have the cultivation done by the husband principally.

For the foregoing considerations, the order of dismissal sought to
be reviewed is hereby set aside and the petition to eject the
respondent from the landholding of Remedios Saclolo is hereby granted.
Without costs.

Paras, C. J., Bengzon, Padilla, Montemayor, Bautista Angelo, Concepcion, Endencia, Barrera and Gutierrez David, JJ., concur.