MARGARITO SARONA, ET AL., PLAINTIFFS-APPELLANTS, VS. FELIPE VILLEGAS AND RAMONA CARILLO, DEFENDANTS-APPELLEES.

The key question thrust upon us is whether the present is a case
of forcible entry or one of unlawful detainer.

The problem arose because on January 28, 1963, plaintiffs lodged with the Municipal
Court of Padada, Davao, against defendants a
complaint styled “Unlawful Detainer.”^[1]
They there aver that they are the absolute owners and in possession of a parcel
of land in Paligue, Padada.  Their complaint then proceeds to recite:

“3. That on April 1, 1958, defendants entered upon
said land Lot ‘F’ constructed their residential house thereon and up to date
remain in possession thereof, unlawfully withholding the possession of the same
from the plaintiffs;

4.  That the reasonable rental for said Lot
is P20.00 per month;

5.
That on December 28, 1962, plaintiffs demanded of defendants to vacate the
premises and to pay the rentals in arrears but then defendants failed to do so;
that defendants’ possession thus became clearly unlawful after said demand;

x                     x                    x.”

They asked that they be restored into
possession, and that defendants be made to pay rents, attorneys’ fees, expenses
of litigation, and costs.

Defendants met the complaint with a motion to dismiss on the sole
ground of lack of jurisdiction of the municipal court.  They say that the case is one of forcible
entry, and the reglementary one-year period had elapsed
before suit was started.

The municipal court overturned the motion to dismiss.

On May 15, 1963,
defendants registered their answer.  They
reiterated the court’s lack of jurisdiction, and by way of affirmative
defenses, stated that plaintiffs have no cause of action, and that “the
present residential house of the defendants was transferred to the present site
after plaintiffs sold to defendants a portion of their land, which includes the
site of the present house and from and after said sale, defendants have
occupied the said portion legally and with the knowledge and consent of
plaintiffs.”  They counterclaimed
for damages.

The municipal court’s judgment directed defendants to vacate the
premises, to pay plaintiffs a monthly rental of P10.00 from April 1, 1958 until possession is
restored, and P200.00 as attorneys’ fees, and costs.

Defendants, on appeal to the Court of First Instance of Davao,^[2]
renewed their bid to throw out of court plaintiffs’ complaint for want of
jurisdiction.  Plaintiffs’ opposition and
defendants’ reply thereto were also submitted.

On December 26, 1963,
the Court of First Instance of Davao dismissed the
case. The court reasoned out that the suit was one of forcible entry and was
started beyond the reglementary one-year period.

Plaintiffs appealed to this Court.

Plaintiffs’ position is that the municipal court had original
juris­diction; that consequently the Court of First Instance had appellate
jurisdiction.  Their theory is that suit
was well within the one-year period. 
They say that the parting date is December 28, 1962, when plaintiffs demanded of defendants
to vacate the premises and pay rentals in arrears; and that the complaint was
registered in court on January 28,
1963.

Solution of the problem turns on this question:  Is the complaint one of forcible entry or
unlawful detainer?

1.  Section 1, Rule 70
(formerly Section 10, Rule 72) of the Revised Rules of Court, states that a
person deprived of possession of land “by force, intimidation, threat,
strategy, or stealth,” or a person against whom the possession of any land
“is unlawfully withheld after the expiration or termination of the right
to hold possession, by virtue of any contract, express or implied,” may at
any time “within one (1) year after such unlawful deprivation or withholding
of possession, bring an action in the proper inferior court against the person
or persons unlaw­fully withholding or depriving of possession.” The next
legal precept, Section 2 of the same Rule, provides that the landlord may not
sue his tenant for ejectment “for failure to pay
rent due or to comply with the conditions of his lease, unless the tenant shall
have failed to pay such rent or comply with such conditions for a period of
fifteen (15) days, or five (5) days in the case of building, after demand therefor, x x x.”

It is plain that the foregoing rules define two entirely distinct
causes of action, to wit:  (a) action to
recover possession founded on illegal occupation from the beginning – forcible
entry; and (b) action founded on unlawful detention by a person who originally
acquired possession lawfully – unlawful detainer.^[3]

The law and jurisprudence leave no doubt in our mind that what
determines the cause of action is the nature of defendants’ entry into the
land.  If entry is illegal, then the
cause of action which may be filed against the intruder within one year therefrom is forcible entry.  If, on the other and, entry is legal but
thereafter possession became illegal, the case is one of illegal detainer which must be filed within one year from the date
of the last demand.

2.  We observe a lack of
precision-tooling in the complaint. 
Defendants’ alleged entry into the land is not characterized – whether
legal or illegal.  It does not say how
defendants entered the land and constructed their residential house
thereon.  It is silent, too, whether
possession became legal before plaintiffs made the demand to vacate and to pay
rentals.

Nor does the complaint as much as intimate that defendants are
plaintiffs’ tenants.  So
that the case would not come within the coverage of Section 2 of Rule 70
(summary action by landlord against tenant).

Failure to specifically aver in the complaint facts which
definitely show that plaintiffs’ action is for forcible entry or unlawful detainer,
is not to be lightly treated. 
Jurisdiction here – challenged in a motion to dismiss – depends upon
factual averments.  The jurisdictional
facts must appear on the face of the complaint. 
Where, as here, the only definite ultimate facts averred are that on
April 1, 1958, defendants entered upon the land and constructed their
residential house thereon, remained in possession thereof, and that demand to
vacate and pay rentals only was made on December 28, 1962, well beyond the
one-year period, the municipal court of Padada did
not have jurisdiction.

The want of jurisdiction is the more accentuated when we consider
the facts that surfaced during the trial as found by the municipal court, viz:

“In the course of the hearing of this case it is clear that,
according to the plaintiff, Margarito Sarona, the defendants transferred their house on April 1, 1958 to the litigated area
which is designated as Lot F, (Ex­hibit ‘C-1’) without their consent and
permission.  At that time he was just
living 200 meters away from the lot.  He
requested the defendants not to place the said house in the litigated area but
the defendants refused.  He did nothing
and only on December 28, 1962,
when the formal letter of demand to vacate and to pay rental was made by the
plain­tiff through their lawyer, Atty. Palabrica, and
addressed the said letter to the defendants but the defendants refused to
vacate the area and to pay a rental of P20.00. 
x x x.”

It is then too plain for argument that defendants entered the
land on April 1, 1958 without
plaintiffs’ consent and permission; that plain­tiff Margarito
Sarona “requested the defendants not to place
the said house in the litigated area but the defendants refused.”

The findings of the municipal court itself may not be downgraded
in the present case.  And
this, for the reason that the complaint did not specifically state the manner
of entry of defendants into the land – legal or illegal.  Since the parties went to trial on the
merits, and it came to light that defendants’ entry was illegal at the
inception, the municipal court should have dismissed the case.  That court cannot close its eyes to the truth
revealed by plaintiffs’ own evidence before it. 
A court of limited jurisdiction, said municipal court should not have
proceeded to render an on-the-merits judgment thereon.^[4]

Clearly, plaintiffs’ case fits in the jurisprudential precept of
forcible entry.  Because
the entry is forcible. 
Long had it been made evident that in forcible entry cases, no force is
really necessary –

“In order to constitute the use of ‘force,’ as contemplated in
this provision, the trespasser does not have to
institute a state of war.  Nor is it even
necessary that he should use violence against the person of the party in
possession.  The act of going on the
property and ex­cluding the lawful possessor therefrom
necessarily implies the exertion of force over the property, and this is all
that is necessary. Under the statute entering upon the premises by strategy or
stealth is equally as obnoxious as entering by force.  The foundation of the action is really the
forcible exclusion of the original possessor by a person who has entered
without right. The words ‘by force, intimidation, threat, strategy or stealth’
include every situation or con­dition under which one
person can wrongfully enter upon real property and exclude another, who has had
prior possession, therefrom.  If a trespasser enters upon land in open
daylight, under the very eyes of the person already clothed with lawful
possession, but without the consent of the latter, and there plants himself and
excludes such prior possessor from the property, the action of forcible entry
and detainer can unquestionably be maintained, even
though no force is used by the trespasser other than such as is necessarily
implied from the mere acts of planting himself on the ground and excluding the
other party.”^[5]

3.  But plaintiffs would want
to make out a case of illegal detainer upon their
belated claim that they tolerated defendants’ possession.  To be observed on this point is that there
has been no allegation in the complaint, and no
showing during the trial in the municipal court, that possession of defendants
ever changed from illegal to legal any time from their illegal entry to the
demand to vacate.  No averment there is
in the complaint which recites – as a fact – any overt act on plaintiffs’ part
indicative of permission to occupy the land. 
Without resorting to mind-reading, we are hard put to conclude that
there was such a change from illegal to legal possession of defendants until
the demand to vacate was made.

But even where possession preceding the suit is by tolerance of
the owner, still, distinction should be made.

If right at the incipiency defendants’ possession was with plain­tiffs’
tolerance, we do not doubt that the latter may require him to vacate the
premises and sue before the inferior court under Section 1 of Rule 70, within
one year from the date of the demand to vacate. 
Because, from the date of demand, possession became
unlawful.  And the case is illegal
detainer.^[6]

But will this rule as to tolerance hold true in a case where
there was forcible entry at the start,
but the lawful possessor did not attempt to oust the intruder for over one
year, and only thereafter filed forcible entry suit following demand to vacate?

Professor Arturo M. Tolentino states
that acts merely tolerated are “those which by reason of neighborliness or
familiarity, the owner of property allows his neighbor or another person
to do on the property; they are generally those particular services or benefits
which one’s property can give to another without material injury or prejudice
to the owner, who permits them out of friendship or courtesy.”^[7]
He adds that:  “[t]hey are acts of
little disturbances which a person, in the interest of neighborliness or
friendly relations, permits others to do on his property, such as
passing over the land, tying a horse therein, or getting some water from a
well.” And, Tolentino continues, even though
“this is continued for a long time, no right will be acquired by
prescription.”^[8]
Further expounding on the concept, Tolentino
writes:  “There is tacit consent of
the possessor to the acts which are merely tolerated.  Thus, not every case of
knowledge and silence on the part of the possessor can
be considered mere tolerance.  By virtue of tolerance that is considered as
an authorization, permission or license, acts of possession are realized or
performed. The question reduces itself to the existence or non-existence of the
permission.”^[9]

A close assessment of the law and the concept of the word
“toler­ance” confirms our view heretofore
expressed that such tolerance must be present right from the start of
possession sought to be re­covered, to categorize a cause of action as one of
unlawful detainer – not of forcible entry.  Indeed, to hold otherwise would espouse a
dangerous doctrine.  And for two
reasons:  First.  Forcible entry into the land is an open
challenge to the right of the possessor. 
Violation of that right authorizes the speedy redress – in the inferior
court – provided for in the rules.  If
one year from the forcible entry is allowed to lapse before suit is filed, then
the remedy ceases to be speedy; and the possessor is deemed to have waived his
right to seek relief in the inferior court. 
Second.  If a forcible
entry action in the inferior court is allowed after
the lapse of a number of years, then the result may well be that no action of
forcible entry can really prescribe.  No
matter how long such defendant is in physical possession, plaintiff will merely
make a demand, bring suit in the inferior court – upon a plea of tolerance to
prevent prescription to set in – and summarily throw him out of the land.  Such a conclusion is unreasonable.  Especially if we bear in mind the postulates
that proceedings of forcible entry and unlawful detainer
are summary in nature, and that the one year time-bar to the suit is but in
pursuance of the summary nature of the action.^[10]

It is well to remember that after the lapse of the one year
period, suit must be started in the Court of First Instance in an accion publiciana.

Jurisdiction in the case before us is with the Court of First
Instance.

For the reasons given, the order of the Court of First Instance
of Davao of December
26, 1963 dismissing the case for want of jurisdiction in the
Municipal Court of Padada, is hereby affirmed.

Costs against plaintiffs-appellants.

SO ORDERED.

Reyes, Acting C.J., Dizon, Makalintal, Bengzon, Zaldivar, Angeles, and Fernando,
JJ., concur.

Castro, J., did not take part.

Concepcion, C.J., on leave.

^[1]
Civil Case 164, Municipal Court of Padada, Davao, entitled “Margarito Sarona, Antero Sarona, Ireneo Sarona, Lucila Sarona, Francisco Sarona, Felisa Sarona, and Montana Sarona, Plaintiffs,
vs. Felipe Villegas and Ramona Carillo,
Defendants.

^[2] Civil Case 4184, Court of First Instance of Davao
– Sarona, et al., plaintiffs, versus Villegas,
et al., defendants.

^[3] Medel vs.
Militante, 41 Phil. 526, 530; Dy
Sun vs. Brillantes, 93 Phil. 175, 177.

^[4] Cf. Iñigo vs. Estate of
Adriana Maloto, G.R. No. L-24384,
September 28,
1967, citing cases.

^[5] Mediran vs. Villanueva, 37 Phil. 752, 756-757, quoted
with approval in Santos vs.
Santiago, 38 Phil. 575, 577-578.

^[6] 3 Moran, Comments on the Rules of Court, 1963 ed., p. 287, citing
Minute Resolution in Amis vs. Aragon,
G.R. Nos. L-4735-4736-4684, April
28, 1951.

^[7]
II Tolentino, Civil Code of the Philippines, 1963
ed., p. 227, citing 1 Ruggiero 843; emphasis supplied

^[8] Id.,
citing 2-11 Colin & Capitant
911; emphasis supplied.

^[9] Ibid;
emphasis supplied.

^[10] Monteblanco vs. Hinigaran
Sugar Plantation, 63 Phil. 797,
802-803.