VICENTE SINGSON ENCARNACION, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. JACINTA BALDOMAR ET AL., DEFENDANTS AND APPELLANTS.

HILADO, J.:

Vicente Singson Encarnacion, owner of the house numbered 589 Legarda Street,
Manila, some six years ago leased said house to Jacinta Baldomar and her son,
Lefrado Fernando, upon a month-to-month basis for the monthly rental of P35.
After Manila was liberated in the last war, specifically on March l6, 1945 and
on April 7, of the same year, plaintiff Singson Encarnacion notified defendants,
the said mother and son, to vacate the house above-mentioned on or before April
15, 1945, because plaintiff needed it for his offices as a result of the
destruction of the building where said plaintiff had said offices before.
Despite this demand, defendants insisted on continuing their occupancy. When the
original action was lodged with the municipal court of Manila on April 20, 19455
defendants were in arrears in the payment of the rental corresponding to said
month, the agreed rental being payable within tha first five days of each month.
That rental was paid prior to the hearing of the case in the municipal court, as
a consequence of which said court entered judgment for restitution and payment
of rentals at the rate of P35 a month from May 1, 1945, until defendants
completely vacate the premises. Although plaintiff included in said original
complaint a claim for P500 damages per month, that clam was waived by him before
the hearing in the municipal court, on account of which nothing was said
regarding said damages in the municipal court’s decision.

When the case reached the Court of First Instance of Manila upon appeal,
defendants filed therein a motion to dismiss (which was similar to a motion to
dismiss filed them in the municipal court; based upon the ground that the
municipal court had no jurisdiction over the subject matter due to the aforesaid
claim for damages and that, therefore, the Court of First Instance had no
appellate jurisdiction over the subject matter of the action. That motion to
dismiss was denied by His Honor, Judge Mamerto Roxas, by order dated July 21,
1945, on the ground that in the municipal court plaintiff had waived said claim
for damages and that, therefore, the same waiver was understood also to have
been made in the Court of First Instance.

In the Court of First Instance the gravamen of the defense interposed by
defendants, as it was expressed by defendant Lefrado Fernando during the trial,
was that the contract which they had celebrated with plaintiff since the
beginning authorized them to continue occupying the house indefinitely and while
they should faithfully fulfill their obligation as respects the payment of the
rentals, and that this agreement had been ratified when another ejectment case
between the parties filed during the Japanese regime concerning the same house
was allegedly compounded in the municipal court. The Court of First Instance
gave more credit to plaintiff’s witness, Vicente Singson Encarnacion, Jr., who
testified that the lease had always said since the beginning been upon a
month-to-month basis. The Court added in its decision that this defense which
was put up by defendant ado Fernando during the trial had not been alleged in
defendant’s answer, for which reason the Court considered it as indicative of an
eleventh-hour theory. We think that the Court of First Instance was right in so
declaring. Furthermore, carried to its logical conclusion, the defense thus set
up by defendant Lefrado Fernando would leave to the sole and exclusive will of
one of the contracting parties (defendants in this case) the validity and
fulfillment of the contract of lease, within the meaning of article 1256 of the
Civil Code, since the continuance and fulfillment of the contract would then
depend solely and exclusively upon their free and uncontrolled choice between
continuing paying the rentals or not, completely depriving the owner of all say
in the matter. If this defense were to be allowed, so long as defendants elected
to continue the lease by continuing the payment of the rentals, the owner would
never be able to discontinue it; conversely, although the owner should desire
the lease to continue, the lessees could effectively thwart his purpose if they
should prefer to terminate the contract by the simple expedient of stopping
payment of the rentals. This, of course, is prohibited by the aforesaid article
of the Civil Code. (8 Manresa, 3d ed., pp. 626, 627; Cuyugan vs. Santos, 34
Phil. 100).

During the pendency of the appeal in the Court of First Instance and before
the judgment appealed from was rendered on October 31, 1945, the rentals in
arrears were those pertaining to the month of August, 1945, to the date of said
Judgment at the rate of P35 a month. During the pendency of the appeal in that
court, certain deposits wers made by defendants on account of rentals with the
Clerk of said Court, and in said judgment it is disposed that the amounts thus
depositad should be delivered to plaintiff.

Upon the whole, we are clearly of opinion that the judgment appealed from
should be, as it is hereby, affirmed, with the costs of the three instances to
appellants. So ordered.

Paras, Pablo, Perfecto, and Padilla, JJ., concur.