BASILIO BAUTISTA, GERTRUDES IGNACIO AND SIMON IGNACIO, PLAINTIFFS AND APPELLEES, VS. ARISTIDES GONZALES, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

On August 27, 1945, the plaintiffs filed in the Municipal Court of Manila an
action for ejectment against the defendant. Sentenced to vacate the premises in
question (Nos. 1457-1459 Quezon Boulevard) and to pay the monthly rental of P30
from July 1, 1945, and the costs, said defendant appealed to the Court of First
Instance of Manila, wherein he interposed an answer assailing, in the main, the
validity of the sale under which the plaintiffs acquired the ownership of the
property. In a motion alleging that the answer did not raise any real
controversy worthy of a formal trial, the plaintiffs moved for a summary
judgment against the defendant. This filed an opposition, after which the Court
of First Instance rendered a decision in favor of the plaintiffs.

It appearing that the defendant—appellant herein—admits in his very
opposition and the affidavit in support thereof that he had been paying rents to
the plaintiffs from July, 1944, to April, 1945, and that he thereafter desisted,
pending determination by the Government of the effect of sales paid in Japanese
military notes, it would be a futility for the lower court to proceed with a
formal trial. The legal relation between the plaintiffs and the defendant as
landlords and tenant once established, the other important point that properly
arose is whether the defendant’s right to continue in possession of the leased
premises had ceased. Needless to say, defendant’s admitted default in the
payment of rents is certainly a justification for dispossessing him. Question of
ownership thereby became unessential and foreign to the ejectment case; and the
same may be raised by the defendant in an appropriate action. Indeed, the
appealed decision in no wise binds the title or affects the ownership of the
property in dispute. (Rule of Court No. 72, section 7.)

Defendant’s four assignments of error and the elaborate discussions thereof,
tending to demonstrate his ownership notwithstanding the sale to the plaintiffs,
are therefore out of place. Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment and its
concession by the lower court are fully warranted. The procedure is authorized
by Rule of Court No. 36 as a means for promptly disposing of civil actions in
which there exists no genuine controversy. (Moran, Comments on the Rules of
Court, Vol. I, p. 325.)

The appealed decision is affirmed with costs against the defendant. So
ordered.

Pablo, Perfecto, Bengzon, Padilla, and Tuason, JJ.,
concur.