SPOUSES MARIO MARTIN AND FRANCISCA S. MARTIN, MELISSA MARTIN, ARIOLA AND MELANIE MARTIN PALAD, PETITIONERS, VS. MARIO PUNZAL, RESPONDENT.

Martin versus Punzal

The Case

This is a petition for review filed with the Supreme Court by the spouses Mario Martin and Francisca Martin, together with Melissa Martin, Ariola and Melanie Martin Palad, against Mario Punzal. The petitioners seek to nullify and set aside the decision of the Department of Agrarian Reform Adjudication Board, which had affirmed in full the ruling of the Provincial Adjudicator declaring Mario Punzal a bona fide tenant over certain agricultural landholdings in Norzagaray, Bulacan, and directing the parties to execute an agricultural leasehold contract. The case matters because it gathers into one decision the six essential requisites of an agricultural tenancy relationship, the doctrine that an implied tenancy may arise from the landowner's tolerance of another's cultivation, and the rule that a question of tenancy status is factual and therefore not a proper subject of a petition for review.

Procedural History

Mario Punzal filed a complaint dated 29 September 1999 before the Department of Agrarian Reform Adjudication Board, docketed as DARAB Case No. 10795. After the parties submitted their answer and position papers, Provincial Adjudicator Toribio E. Ilao, Jr. of Region III rendered a decision on 27 July 2000 in favor of Mario Punzal, declaring him a bona fide tenant, ordering the respondents to respect his security of tenure and peaceful possession and cultivation, and directing the registered owners, with the assistance of the Municipal Agrarian Reform Officer of Norzagaray, Bulacan, to execute an agricultural leasehold contract. The spouses Martin appealed. On 5 May 2004 the Department of Agrarian Reform Adjudication Board, through its National Office in Quezon City, dismissed the appeal for lack of merit and affirmed the assailed decision. The petitioners' motion for reconsideration was denied, and they elevated the matter to the Supreme Court through the present petition for review.

Facts

The dispute involves parcels of agricultural land at Poblacion Norzagaray, Bulacan, covered by Original Certificates of Title registered in the names of Melissa Martin and Marlyn Martin. The landholdings had previously been cultivated by a certain Romy Algoso as a manggagawa, a worker, who stopped working on the land and refused to stay on the property.

In 1987 the spouses Mario and Francisca Martin approached Mario Punzal and asked him to cultivate the land. He began cultivating it and defrayed the expenses for all phases of the agricultural work. After every harvest he delivered the agreed lease rental of fifteen cavans, which the spouses accepted without issuing any receipt. He remained in possession from 1987 and introduced improvements. When the National Power Corporation constructed high-tension electrical towers along the properties and destroyed plants, Mario Punzal demanded the corresponding value, claiming that he alone had spent for the cultivation, but the spouses refused to give him the amount. The spouses later refused to recognize him as tenant, demanded that he vacate, and allegedly entered the premises, destroyed the pilapils and palay seedlings, and planted banana trees that made cultivation impossible. Mario Punzal brought the matter to the Barangay Agrarian Reform Committee for conciliation, but no settlement was reached.

For their part, the spouses denied that the landholdings were co-owned by the persons named in the complaint, insisted that Mario Punzal had never been their tenant, and argued that he had resided on and occupied the land without their consent, that they received neither a share of the harvest nor any payment for its residential and agricultural use, and that he had merely interpreted their tolerance and generosity as an implied tenancy agreement.

Issues

• Whether or not Mario Punzal is a bona fide tenant of the subject landholdings, such that a tenancy relationship exists between him and the petitioners.
• Whether or not Mario Punzal should be maintained in peaceful possession and cultivation of the landholding in dispute.

Applicable Provisions

The decision does not quote a statutory text; it applies the settled requisites of agricultural tenancy, which the Court states as follows:

The essential requisites of an agricultural 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 harvest or payment of rental.

These six requisites are the test the Court applies to determine whether a tenancy relationship exists, and all of them must concur.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the petition is without merit because all six essential requisites of an agricultural tenancy relationship are present. The parties are the landowner and the tenant; the subject is agricultural land; there is consent; the purpose is agricultural production; there is personal cultivation; and there is sharing of harvest or payment of rental. The Court relied on the findings below that Mario Punzal had been in possession of the landholdings since 1987, had been tilling them since then, and had been paying rentals, and that the spouses allowed him to cultivate and possess the land in 1987 and confirmed the relationship when they received lease rentals of fifteen cavans of palay per harvest. On the doctrine of implied tenancy, the Court adopted the ruling below:

As has been held, tenancy relationship may be considered where the landowner knew of the cultivation of the land by the farmer and he tolerated the same.

The Court also held that the tenancy continued even after the certificates of title were issued to Melissa Martin and Marlyn Martin in 1990, because, in the words of the ruling affirmed, once a tenant always a tenant, and the tenant goes with the land, so that a change of ownership does not extinguish the tenancy relationship and the obligations of the previous owner pass to the succeeding owner. The Court further noted that the possession and cultivation had continued for about ten succeeding years after the landholdings were titled in favor of the present owners, and that it was only then that they questioned the tenancy rights.

On the second issue, the Court deemed it discussed by reason of the first, since the established tenancy status carries with it the right to security of tenure, peaceful possession, and cultivation. The Court added that, the tenancy status being clear, a petition for review is not even the proper remedy, because the question regarding tenancy status is factual in nature and is not proper in a petition for review.

Doctrine

An agricultural tenancy relationship exists only when all six essential requisites concur: the parties are the landowner and the tenant; the subject is agricultural land; there is consent; the purpose is agricultural production; there is personal cultivation; and there is sharing of harvest or payment of rental. Consent may be implied, and a tenancy relationship may be considered where the landowner knew of the cultivation of the land by the farmer and tolerated the same. Once a tenancy relationship is established, it is not extinguished by a subsequent change of ownership, for the tenant goes with the land and the obligations of the previous owner pass to the succeeding owner. Finally, the question of tenancy status is factual in nature and is not a proper subject of a petition for review.

Disposition

The Supreme Court denied and dismissed the petition for review for lack of merit, thereby affirming the declaration that Mario Punzal is a bona fide tenant entitled to security of tenure and peaceful possession and cultivation of the landholdings.

Remember This

Memorize the six requisites of agricultural tenancy and the twin doctrines that consent may be implied from the landowner's tolerance of cultivation and that once a tenant always a tenant, for the tenant goes with the land. Examiners use this case to test the requisites of tenancy, implied tenancy, the effect of a change of ownership on an existing tenancy, and the rule that tenancy status is a factual question outside a petition for review.