MANUEL D. FELICIANO ET AL., PETITIONERS, VS. GUILLERMO-CABRERA ET AL., RESPONDENTS. PETITIONERS. JOSE BELMONTE FOR RESPONDENTS.

HILADO, J.:

On March 5, 1946, petitioners filed with the Municipal Court of Manila a
complaint against respondent Eusebio R. Irabagon seeking the ejectment of the
latter from the “accesoria” numbered 42 of Quiricada Street, Manila.

Upon the case being called for hearing on March 23, 1946, the parties
submitted to the court
a written compromise agreement (Exhibit B of petition)
providing (paragraph 1), among other things, that the plaintiffs grant to the
defendant an extension of his cccupancy until August 31, 1946, the defendant to
pay a monthly rent of P60 payable in advance at the plaintiff’s residence within
the first five days of the month to which the respective rent corresponds,
beginning March, 1946. It was likewise agreed (paragraph 5) that should the
defendant fail to comply with the terms of said agreement execution of the
judgment “be immediately issued upon plaintiff’s petition, without notice to the
defendant.”

The respondent judge, approving the aforesaid agreement, on that same date
rendered judgment in accordance therewith (Exhibit C, petition). In paragraph
(a) of its decision, the municipal court, through respondent Judge Cabrera,
ordered the defendant to vacate the said premises “on or before August 31, 1946,
and to pay the plaintiffs the rentals thereof, at the rate of P60 per month
within the first five (5) days of the month to which each rental corresponds * *
*, beginning March 1, 1946 until the defendant vacates and surrenders to the
plaintiffs the premises in question * * *.”

In paragraph (b) of the same decision the Court ordered both the plaintiffs
and the defendant “to strictly adhere to the other provisions of the
aforementioned agreement, namely: (1) not to appeal from this judgment to any
superior court, and (2) if plaintiff’s premises at Nos. 408 and 410 Quiricada
Street, Manila, now occupied by other tenants, become vacant before August 31,
1946, the plaintiffs shall lease same to the defendant, but after said date the
plaintiffs shall be free to dispose of premises Nos. 408 and 410
above-mentioned, without any compromise of any sort with the defendant.”

‘As respondent Irabagon, defendant in that case, continued occupying the
premises beyond August 31, 1946, petitioners, who were the plaintiffs, on
September 2, 19-16, filed a petition with the municipal court praying for the’
execution of the judgment, which petition was granted on that same date. Said
petition for execution was based not ‘ only upon the judgment rendered in the
case pursuant to the compromise agreement aforesaid extending to August 31,
1946, the tenant’s occupancy, after which peremptory period it had been mutually
agreed upon by the parties and sanctioned and approved by the Court’s judgment
that the tenant was to return and surrender the possession of the premises to
the landlords, but also upon the medical advice of Dr. Jesus V. Celis, physician
of petitioners’ family, that the sickness of petitioner Maria T. de Feliciano
and her state of health were such that she needed a quiet place to live in so as
to enable her to have more rest and repose than she was having at 1322 Magdalena
Street, Trozo, Manila, where she and her family were living and had to continue
living because respondent Irabagon had not vacated the above-mentioned premises
at 412 Quiricada Street, Sta. Cruz, Manila. The medical advice is-supported by
the physician’s affidavit Exhibit D.
Upon the granting of said petition for
execution the writ of execution (Exhibit E) was issued by the municipal court
under date of September 2, 1946.

Under date of September 4, 1946, respondent Irabagon, as defendant in the
detainer case, in a motion filed with the municipal court (Exhibit F) asked for
a stay of execution based upon the following grounds, to wit: (1) that since the
signing of the aforesaid compromise agreement he had made all efforts to find
another house but his efforts “proved in vain due to the present emergency”; (2)
that he was the former owner of the house in question but in the fall of 1944 he
was forced to sell it to petitioners “due to utter hardship sufiered by
everybody during that time”; (3) that petitioners are rich people and “are now
well accommodated in their other properties,” he alleging furthermore in this
third ground that in the said agreement it
was stipulated “that in case an}’,
door of the three-door house in question is vacated, plaintiffs will not enforce
said agreement and decision,” and that the middle door of said house was about
to be vacated as the occupants had promised plaintifTs to vacate it on or before
September, 1946; (4) that respondent has “a quite big family, consisting of his
wife and four children”; and (5) that said respondent “is now constrained to ask
that the six months extension provided for by Act No. 689 be granted in his
favor, and that he will not stop finding another house to where he will transfer
immediately even though the three months prayed for in this motion has not yet
elapsed.” It will be observed that the compromise agreement Exhibit B made on
March 23, 1946, granted defendant five months and eight days extension
of his occupancy, that is, from March 23, 1946, to August 31, 1946, but in his
motion to stay execution of September 4, 1946, he asked for another three months
extension, invoking Commonwealth Act No. 689. Said motion to stay execution was
granted by the municipal court by order dated September 10, 1946, wherein he was
given an extension until November 30, 19-16, within which to vacate the premises
in question (Exhibit G).

The pertinent provisions of Commonwealth Act No. 689 are as follows:

“SEC. 4. When a final and executory * * * judgment in a suit for the recovery
of rentals or for ejection from a building or part thereof used as dwelling
establishes the fact that the lessee has retained the possession of the building
leased to him after the expiration of the contract, the court that issued * * *
judgment may, at its discretion, on the petition of the lessee and subject
to the conditions prescribed in this Act, suspend the execution of said * *
* judgment for a period which it considers convenient but not exceeding
three months. (Italics supplied.)

*          *          *          *          *          *          *

“SEC. 6. The order of suspension shall be granted and will continue in force
only on condition that the person against whom judgment has been
rendered deposits the total amount of rents due during the
period of suspension or such portions of said amount as the Court may order
from time to time, at the same rate of rental that he was ‘charged for the month
immediately preceding the expiration of the lease * * *.” (Italics
supplied.)

From the above-quoted portions of section 4 of Commonwealth Act No. 689 it
appears that the court can not grant an extension exceeding three months. This
necessarily implies that the provision refers to a case where an extension, for
not less than the maximum of three months contemplated in the act, has not been
mutually and voluntarily agreed upon by the parties in the exercise of their
freedom of contract in so far as it has not been restricted by the same act.
Where, as in this case the parties by a compromise agreement agreed upon an
extension not only of three months but of five months and eight days (from March
23 to August 31, 1946), it would seem that the aim of the law was more than
fully fulfilled; and this conclusion acquires stronger confirmation when we
consider that the parties not only made the compromise agreement, but submitted
it to the municipal court to be the basis of its judgment in the litigation that
they had thus amicably settled.

In the compromise agreement (paragraph 4), the parties solemnly bound
themselves to abide by the decision to be rendered by the court to which said
agreement was being submitted, and not only this, but they further bound
themselves not to appeal from such decision to any superior court. In paragraph
5 it was mutually stipulated that should the tenant fail to comply with the
terms of said agreement, execution of the judgment “be immediately issued upon
plaintiffs’ petition, without notice to the defendant.” It would be hard to
employ a language more expressive of a deliberate. intention on the part of both
parties to consider that compromise as a final settlement of the
controversy, including, of course, the period of extension of the tenant’s
occupancy. The question arises whether or not under said compromise agreement
the tenant waived all other extension, including that permitted by Commonwealth
Act No. 689. If he had a mental reservation of the purpose to still
invoke the extension allowed by said Act (which could not have exceeded three
months) when he so solemnly agreed to the extension of five months and eight
days which his landlords granted him under the compromise agreement, it could
truthfully be said that said tenant entered into the agreement with a fraudulent
purpose. He can only be said to have honestly entered into it if we should
consider that he thereby waived the right to still ask for the extension
provided for in said act. On the other hand, everybody can rest assured that had
the tenant frankly announced to his landlords that after August 31, 194G, he
would still ask for another three months extension under the act, said landlords
would never have entered into the compromise agreement. And considering that the
lease had really expired, as appears from the fact that the parties had to
extend the same, had it not been for the compromise agreement, there is
no question that judgment of ejection would have been entered by the municipal
court on that very day, JIarch 23, 194G, when the case was called for
hearing.

But at any rate, from the above-quoted provision of section G of Commonwealth
Act No. 689, it is very clear that the suspension of execution provided for in
the act is allowed to be decreed and to continue in force only on
condition that the tenant or the person against whom judgment has been
rendered deposits the total amount of rents due during the period
of suspension, or such portions of said amount as the court may order from
time to time at the same rate of rental that he was charged for the month
immediately preceding the expiration of the lease. Evidently, this condition
sine Qua non has been imposed to afford the landlord a
protection from prejudice through possible non-payment of rents, calculated to
equitably compensate the special benefit conferred on the tenant by the
extension of his occupancy regardless of the landlord’s choice. In the
present case, it is not pretended that the tenant made any such deposit of the
total amount of the rents corresponding: to the extension that he sought in his
motion to stay execution of September 4, 1946, either before, simultaneously
with, or after, the filing of said motion. It is not even hinted that he,
before, upon, or after, the filing of the same motion, asked, the municipal
court to determine the portions of said rentals that he would be required to
deposit from time to time. Indeed, the fact that the order of respondent Judge
Cabrera of September 10, 1946, granting said motion for stay, does not make
mention of any such deposit, would logically show that no such deposit nor such
petition was ever made. In respondent Irabagon’s answer to the petition herein
it 13 neither alleged nor insinuated that in connection with his aforesaid
motion to stay execution he ever made the deposit of the total amount of rents,
nor that he ever requested the municipal court to fix from time to time the
portions of such rents as said court would deem fit to determine as contemplated
in section G of Commonwealth Act No. 689.

With particular reference to the allegations of paragraphs 8 and 9 of the
answer, it is to be noted that the promise of the landlords not to lease to any
other person, but only to respondent Irabagon, any of the two doors contiguous
to the “accesoria” in question which might become vacant, was limited to the
period “before August ol, 1946” (paragraph 6, Exhibit B). And, therefore, even
if it were true, as alleged in paragraph 9 of said answer, that the landlords
had obtained a final and executory judgment against the occupant of one
of said doors to eject him on September 30, “1945” (1946), the latter date was
exactly one month after the expiration (August 31, 1946) of the period during
which the aforesaid obligation of said landlords under paragraph 6 of Exhibit B
was in force.

For the foregoing considerations, the court is of opinion that the respondent
judge gravely abused the discretion conferred upon him by section 4, in relation
to section 6, of Commonwealth Act No. 689, when he issued his order Exhibit G
granting the stay of execution prayed for by respondent Irabagon in his motion
Exhibit F.

And finally, it appears that in the order of the respondent judge of
September 10, 1946 (Exhibit G) the extension granted to respondent Irabagon was
to expire, as it expired, on November 30, 1946.

Wherefore, the writ of certiorari prayed for is hereby granted, said order of
the respondent judge (Exhibit G) dated September 10, 1946, is hereby annulled,
and said respondent judge is hereby instructed to forthwith issue a writ of
execution of the judgment of the Municipal Court of Manila dated March 23, 1946,
in civil case No. 1588 of the same court. No costs. So ordered.

Moran, C. J., Feria, Pablo, Perfecto, Bengzon, Briones, Padilla, and
Tuason, JJ., concur.
Paras, J., concurs in the result.