HERMINIGILDO GUEVARA, PETITIONER, VS. HON. JUDGE JOSE M. SANTOS OF THE COURT OF AGRARIAN RELATIONS AND GUILLERMO PONCE, RESPONDENTS.

Guevara versus Santos

The Case

This is a petition directed against Judge Jose M. Santos of the Court of Agrarian Relations and against the landholder Guillermo Ponce, arising from an ejectment suit that the landholder brought against his tenant-lessee. The case matters because it fixes the statutory measure of a tenant's duty over the land and the improvements on it, and it tells us which provision of the Agricultural Tenancy Act supplies the ground for dispossession when that duty is broken. The Court teaches that the tenant's obligation is not limited to the crops he was contracted to raise, but extends to the improvements already standing on the holding.

Procedural History

In 1958 Guillermo Ponce filed twenty-four cases of ejectment against twenty-four defendants in the Court of Agrarian Relations for the Fifth Regional District, sitting at Santa Cruz, Laguna. After hearing, all the cases were dismissed except two: the case against Herminigildo Guevara and the case against Apolonio Javinia. In those two cases the trial court ordered both defendants to vacate their respective landholdings and to surrender possession to the plaintiff. From that joint decision Guevara and Javinia interposed the present appeal, which reached the Supreme Court for review of the agrarian court's ruling.

Facts

Guevara and Javinia were tenant-lessees of portions of Ponce's land. The trial court found that they caused the death of twenty-eight and six coconut trees, respectively, in their holdings. In Guevara's case, twenty-eight trees were destroyed when hay was heaped at the base of the coconut trees and burned. Guevara denied that he himself burned the hay, and admitted that at the time it burned he was away from his holding. The court held that even if he had no hand in the burning, he was accountable for depositing hay at the base of the trees, an act no reasonably careful father of a family would do, since hay is highly and unpredictably inflammable.

In Javinia's case, knowing that young coconut trees were growing in his holding, he plowed too closely to the six trees and caused their death. As a farmer of long standing he should have known that plowing too close to the base of the trees would inevitably cut their roots. The trial court concluded that both, as lessee-tenants, were obliged to exercise the diligence of a good father of a family to preserve the improvements existing in their holdings.

At the trial both appellants admitted that from the time the coconut trees were planted on their respective landholdings they had been the ones taking care of them, and that after the trees were destroyed they made no attempt whatsoever to replace them.

Issues

• Whether or not the ground for ejectment was properly Section 50(b) of the Agricultural Tenancy Act, in relation to Section 43, rather than Section 50(f) on negligence that permits serious injury to the land.
• Whether or not the tenant-lessees were obliged to preserve the coconut trees, given that the trees were not the subject of the tenancy contract.

Applicable Provisions

Section 43 of the Agricultural Tenancy Act defines the rights and obligations of the tenant-lessee:

SEC. 43. - Rights and Obligations of Tenant-Lessee. With the creation of the tenancy relationship arising out of the contract between the landholder-lessor and tenant-lessee, the latter shall have the right to enter the premises of the land, and to the adequate and peaceful enjoyment thereof. He shall have the right to work the land according to his best judgment, provided the manner and method of cultivation and harvest are in accordance with proven farm practices. Upon termination of the relationship, he shall be entitled to one-half of the value of the improvements made by him, provided they are reasonable and adequate to the purposes of the lease. The tenant-lessee shall pay the consideration stipulated in the lease contract provided it shall not exceed the limit fixed In Section forty-six. In the absence of stipulation, the consideration shall be that established in said Section forty-six. He shall make proper use of the land and the improvements thereon and shall be under obligation to cultivate it as a good father of a family, by doing all the work considered reasonable and necessary in accordance with proven farm practices. He is likewise obliged to take reasonable care of the work animals and farm implements that may be delivered to him by the landholder, in case it is agreed between the parties that the landholder-lessor shall furnish any or all of them.

This is the duty whose breach the Court treats as the statutory ground for dispossession.

Section 50(b) of the same Act supplies that ground:

SEC. 50. Causes for the Dispossession of Tenant. - Any of the following, and no other, shall be sufficient cause for the dispossession of a tenant from his holdings: x x x x (b) When the tenant violates or fails to comply with any of the terms and conditions of the contract or any of the provisions of this Act: Provided, however, That this subsection shall not apply when the tenant has substantially complied with the contract or with the provisions of this Act.

The Court anchors the ejectment on this subsection because the tenants violated Section 43.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court rejected the appellants' argument that the ground relied upon was Section 50(f), which speaks of a case where the tenant through negligence permits serious injury to the land which will impair its productive capacity. The Court found the reasoning more sophistic than practical, and noted that nothing in the decision appealed from indicated that the lower court based its conclusion on that specific section. What was clear was that the tenants failed to exercise the diligence of a good father of a family to preserve the improvements existing in their holdings, and were therefore guilty of a violation of Section 43, which is a statutory ground for dispossession under Section 50(b).

On the second issue, the Court held that the fact the coconut trees were not the subject of the tenancy contract did not excuse the tenants. Section 43 enjoins the tenant-lessee to make proper use of the land and the improvements thereon, and to observe proven farm practices in his work of cultivation. Their own testimony showed they had cared for the trees from the time they were planted, and that after the trees were destroyed they made no attempt to replace them. Such utter indifference was contrary to standard farm practices on the part of tenants.

Doctrine

A tenant-lessee is bound, under Section 43 of the Agricultural Tenancy Act, to make proper use of the land and the improvements thereon and to cultivate it as a good father of a family, in accordance with proven farm practices. That duty covers improvements already standing on the holding even if they were not the subject of the tenancy contract, especially where the tenant has in fact been caring for them. A breach of Section 43 is a violation of a provision of the Act, and therefore a ground for dispossession under Section 50(b), which operates unless the tenant has substantially complied with the contract or with the Act. The ground is not confined to Section 50(f), which requires serious injury to the land itself that impairs its productive capacity.

Disposition

The Supreme Court found no error in the decision appealed from and affirmed it, with costs, so the landholder Ponce prevailed and the tenants were ordered to vacate and surrender their holdings.

Remember This

Memorize the line that the tenant-lessee must make proper use of the land and the improvements thereon and cultivate it as a good father of a family, and that breaching this duty is dispossession under Section 50(b). Examiners use this case to test whether a candidate can distinguish the Section 50(b) ground of violation of the Act from the Section 50(f) ground of serious injury to the land, and to test the tenant's duty over improvements not covered by the contract.