FIDEL SAHAGUN ET AL., PETITIONERS, VS. EMILIO PEÑA, JUDGE OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE OF MANILA, THE SHERIFF OF CITY OF MANILA, AND F.L. PIMENTEL, RESPONDENTS.

This is an special action of certiorari against the respondent Judge Emilio
Peña’s order of execution of the judgment of the Municipal Court of Manila in
favor of the other respondent F. L. Pimentel and against the petitioners in an
action of illegal detainer.

Petitioners Fidel Sahagun, Alejandro Ragajo, and Valeriano Lontoc had each
entered into a separate written contract of lease of lots of land situated at
Azcarraga Street, Manila, with the predecessor in interest of the respondent F.
L. Pimentel, at a monthly rental of P80 and the conditions stipulated in each
one of the contract of lease is that it shall terminate on July 31, 1946, and
should, upon the expiration of the contract of lease, the lessor need the
premises and the lessees refuse to surrender the same, the lessees shall pay a
monthly rental of P200 from and after the expiration of the lease until they
surrender the premises.

The terms of the written contract of lease of a lot at the same Azcarraga
Street entered into by the petitioner Severino Tortona with the same lessor are
similar to that of the above mentioned petitioners, with the only difference
that the monthly rental before July 31, 1946, is P110, and the rent the lessee
shall pay should he refuse to surrender the premises to the lessor upon the
expiration of the contract is P250 a month.

Petitioner Emiliano Custodio had also entered with the same predecessor in
interest of the respondent F. L. Pimentel a contract of lease of three (3) lots
also at the Azcarraga Street, at a monthly rental of P330 to terminate on July
31, 1946, in which it is stipulated that if the lessee refuses to surrender the
lot leased upon the termination or expiration of the contract, he should pay the
lessor a monthly rental of P750 from and after that expiration until he
surrenders that premises leased. The contract of lease of one lot together with
a concrete warehouse at the same street having an aggregate area of 800 square
meters more or less, entered into by the petitioner Ngo Gioc alias Tan
Dian with the same lessor contains the same stipulations with the only
difference that the monthly rentals stipulated before and until the end of July,
1946 is P430, and the rent the lessee should pay the lessor should he refuse to
surrender the property upon the termination of lease on July 31, 1946, is
P900.

Upon failure of the petitioners to vacate the premises on July 31, 1946,
notwithstanding notice to vacate served upon the petitioners by the respondent
F.L. Pimentel, said respondent filed a complaint against each and every one of
the petitioners with the Municipal Court of Manila requiring them to vacate the
premises and pay the plaintiff the monthly rentals stipulated in the above
quoted contracts should they refuse to surrender the premises leased at the
expiration of July 31, 1946, that is, Fidel Sahagun, Alejandro Rogajo, and
Valeriano Lontoc to pay a monthly rental of P200 each, Severino Tortono P250 a
month, Emiliano Custodio P750, and Ngo Gioc alias Tan Dian P900 monthly
rent, from and after the expiration of the contract until they surrender the
premises. And after trial of the six cases, the justice of the peace rendered
several judgments ordering each one of the defendants-petitioners to vacate the
premises and to pay the plaintiff-respondent F. L. Pimentel the rents demanded
in the complaints until they vacate the premises.

The petitioners appealed from the judgments of the municipal court to the
Court of First Instance of Manila. During the pendency of the appeal the
defendants appellants then, now petitioners, did not file a supersedeas bond nor
pay to the plaintiff or to the court the monthly rentals as found or determined
by the judgments of the municipal court. In view thereof plaintiff-appellee
moved the Court of First Instance to issue orders of execution of the judgments
of the inferior court, and the respondent judge issued the corresponding orders
of execution.

The petitioners now files jointly this petition for certiorari and
prohibition against the respondents on the ground that the respondent judge
acted in excess of jurisdiction or with grave abuse of discretion in issuing the
said orders of execution. The grounds or causes of action alleged in the present
petition are: (1) that the municipal court has no jurisdiction to entertain the
action of illegal detainer filed by the respondent F. L. Pimentel against the
petitioners, for there was no previous demand to vacate the premises; and (2)
that the petitioners had each deposited every month, not the amount of monthly
rentals adjudicated by the municipal court in favor of the said respondent and
against the petitioners, but the monthly rentals which according to the
contracts the lessees had to pay the lessor before the expiration of the
contract of lease on July 31, 1946 as claimed by the petitioners; because the
rent due under the contract as found by the municipal court is onerous and “in
violation of the Administrative Order No. 12 which prohibits the collection of
rents of more than 25 per cent of the rental preceding as of the last semester
of the year 1941.”

Neither the first nor the second ground or cause of action is well taken.

(1) As to the alleged lack of jurisdiction of the Municipal Court of Manila,
it is plain that after judgment has been rendered by said court, and appeal
taken by the petitioners to the Court of First Instance of Manila, certiorari
does not lie because the appeal which was resorted to by the petitioners is the
proper remedy. Specially because, according to uncontradicted allegation in the
answer, the complaints were amended by leave of the municipal court by alleging
therein that notice to vacate was served on time upon the petitioners; and any
error which may have been committed by the municipal court in finding that there
was sufficient evidence to support that allegation, is for the appellate court
to decide on appeal, and not for this Court, in a certiorari proceeding.

(2) With respect to the second ground, it is clear that the respondent judge
did not act in excess of jurisdiction or with grave abuse of discretion.
According to section 8, Rule 72, if the defendant appeals from the judgment of
the inferior court and wants to stay the execution of the judgment during the
pendency of the appeal, he must, not only file a supersedeas bond to pay the
rents, damages and costs awarded by the court, but, “during the pendency of the
appeal, pay to the plaintiff or to the Court of First Instance the amount of
rent due from time to time under the contract if any as found by the
judgment of the justice of the peace or municipal court to exist, or in the
absence of a contract the reasonable value of the use and occupation of the
premises for the preceding month at the rate determined by the judgment.”
And the amount of the monthly rents due under the contract as found by
the municipal court, and not as claimed by the petitioners, is what the
petitioners must have deposited with the court in order to stay the execution of
the judgment. Whether or not the respondent judge of the municipal court erred
in. his findings as to the monthly rents the defendants now petitioners must pay
under the above quoted contracts, or in not applying the Administrative Order
quoted by the petitioners, is a question to be decided by the Court of First
Instance of Manila to which the cases were appealed, and not by this Court in a
certiorari proceeding.

In view of all the foregoing, the petition is denied with costs against the
petitioners.

Moran, C.J., Bengzon, Briones, Padilla, and Tuason, JJ.,
concur.

MORAN, C.J.:

I certify that Mr. Justice Pablo voted to
grant the petition.

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HILADO, J.:

I concur with the sole qualification, to avoid misunderstanding, that this
concurrence is without prejudice to my dissent in Mitschiener vs. Barrios
(76 Phil., 55).

With reference to that part of the dissenting opinion wherein
it is asserted that the elevation of the rents after July 31, 1946, is
unreasonable or even immoral, I think if petitioners believed the increased
rents to be unreasonable or immoral, since the original leases had admittedly
expired as of July 31, 1946, their remedy was to sever all relations with their
former landlord and quit his property. But if they wished to continue enjoying
the use of said property after July 31, 1946, it seems only legal and just that
they should accept the terms demanded by the owner, there being no showing that
those terms, particularly the increased rents, violate any provision of law, the
more so because in the respective original contracts of lease there was an
express provision that if after July 31, 1946, date of the termination of the
leases, the lessor should need the premises and the lessees should refuse to
surrender the same, the latter shall pay the stipulated increased rents until
they surrender the premises. This express stipulation was accepted and
subscribed to by the respective lessees in the respective contracts of
lease.

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PARAS, J.:

Petitioners’ several contracts of lease provided for monthly rents of various
rates, namely, P80, P110, P330, and P430. Said contracts further provided that
they were to expire on July 31, 1946, and that, after this date, if the lessor
should need the premises and the lessees (petitioners) should refuse to vacate
the leased premises, the petitioners would pay the corresponding increased
rentals of P200, P250, P750 and P900. Without even intimating that the rented
lots would be needed by him, the respondent F. L. Pimentel (successor in
interest of the original lessor) gave notice to the petitioners requiring the
latter to vacate, in view of their failure to do so on July 31, 1946. As this
notice was not needed, ejectment cases were filed against the petitioners in the
Municipal Court of Manila which rendered judgment ordering petitioners’ ouster
and the payment by the latter of the increased rentals, above specified, from
July 31, 1946 until the leased premises shall have been vacated. The petitioners
appealed to the Court of First Instance and, to stay execution, they deposited
therein the monthly rentals at the initial rates of P80, P110, P330 and P430.
Notwithstanding such deposits, upon motion of the respondent F. L. Pimentel, the
Court of First Instance issued orders of execution, obviously on the theory that
what the petitioners should have deposited are the increased rentals of P200,
P250, P750 and P900.

The majority, in denying the present petition for certiorari, hold that “the
amount of the monthly rents due under the contract as found by the municipal
court, and not as claimed by the petitioners, is what the petitioners must have
deposited with the court in order to stay the execution of the judgment.” Under
section 8 of Rule 72, to stay execution pending appeal in the Court of First
Instance, the defendant, in addition to the supersedeas bond, must pay to the
plaintiff or to the Court of First Instance the amount of rent due from time to
time under the contract, if any, as found by the judgment of the inferior court
to exist. I am of the opinion that, in the case at bar, the rents under the
contracts in question, which are contemplated by section 8, are the rents paid
during the lifetime of the leases, that is, before July 31, 1946. As said rents
have been so deposited by the petitioners, the orders of execution issued by the
respondent judge are improper. The amounts required by the contracts to be paid
after July 31, 1946, though denominated rents, are in fact in the nature of
damages which the lessor is claiming as a result of petitioners’ illegal
detention which may be considered as having commenced after the expiration of
petitioners’ leases. The petitioners, I think, may perhaps be bound to deposit
the increased amounts, only if in their appeal they do not question the legal
propriety of said amounts.

Moreover, even admitting the technical correctness of the majority’s
position, I cannot, in the interest of justice, acquiesce in a procedure that
permits the virtual frustration of a tenant’s right to appeal by his landlord
under such circumstances as are revealed in this case. It is significant that
the herein petitioners are old tenants of premises (which consisted of buildings
and lots), for which the rents were originally as low as P20. The lessor was not
satisfied in raising such rents to abominable heights, the lowest being P80. The
contracts of lease further obligate the tenants to pay still higher rates, the
lowest being P200, if they should fail to surrender the rented premises after
July 31, 1946, The unreasonableness, nay immorality, of said condition becomes
palpable when it is borne in mind that the premises now held in lease by the
petitioners consist only of vacant lots. Of course, it is intimated by the
majority that the legality of the increased rents may be decided in the appeal;
but what advantages will the petitioners thereby derive, if in the meantime they
are not only out in the streets but also deprived of the use of the buildings
they have constructed on the rented lots? And what is worse, the lessor cannot
certainly need the several lots for his use.

PERFECTO, J.:

We concur in this dissenting opinion.