G.R. No. 12253. March 28, 1960
OLIMPIO GUTIERREZ, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLANT, VS. MIGUEL SANTOS, ET AL., DEFENDANTS AND APPELLEES.
BAUTISTA ANGELO, J.:
Court of First Instance of Rizal to annul the decisions of the Director
of Lands and the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources
involving Lot No. 3, Block No. 32, of the Tambobong Estate, with an
area of 426 square meters, situated in Malabon, Rizal.
Defendants Miguel Santos and Ciriaco Lachica filed their answer
denying the material averments of the complaint. Defendants Director of
Lands and Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources, after filing
their answer, were substituted by the Land Tenure Administration which
took over the administration of landed estates under Republic Act No.
1400. Defendant Ciriaco Lachica died on December 15, 1955, and upon
motion of plaintiff, he was substituted by his surviving spouse and
children.
The case having been submitted on a stipulation of facts, the court
on December 28, 1956, rendered judgment holding that the decision of
the Director of Lands, as upheld by the Department of Agriculture and
Natural Resources’ was in accordance with law, and, accordingly,
dismissed the complaint. In due time plaintiff appealed.
Briefly stated, the facts of this case are: The lot in question was
part of the Tambobong estate which was bought by the Government from
the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila on February 23, 1947 for resale
pursuant to the provisions of Commonwealth Act No. 539. On August 8,
1933, before the aforesaid sale, the leasehold right of the lot was
purchased by plaintiff from its original lessee for the sum of P90.00
who paid the rentals thereon to the owner and introduced some
improvements thereon. Defendant Miguel Santos subleased from plaintiff
a portion of the lot on August 8, 1933 at an agreed rental of P8.00 a
year and constructed thereon a house wherein he lived with his family.
Sometime thereafter defendant Ciriaco Lachica also subleased from
plaintiff the remaining portion of the lot at the same annual rental of
P8.00 and on which he also constructed a house where he lived with his
family.
Sometime in February, 1952, plaintiff applied with the Director of
Lands for the purchase of the lot of which he is the registered lessee,
which was opposed by defendants Miguel Santos and Ciriaco Lachica, who
in turn claimed to have priority to buy the portions occupied by them.
Deciding the conflict, the Director of Lands, on May 31, 1955, gave the
right of preference to defendants Santos and Lachica, from whose
decision plaintiff appealed to the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural
Resources. On August 13, 1955, this official affirmed the decision of
the Director of Lands, whereupon plaintiff commenced this action as
stated in the early part of this decision.
The issue involved herein resolves itself into a question of
preference, that is, whether the right to purchase the lot in
controversy should be awarded to appellant, the registered lessee, or
to appellees who are the actual occupants of portions thereof because
they have subleased them from appellant. Appellant claims this right of
preference invoking not only the letter and spirit of Commonwealth Act
No. 539 but the decision of this Court in the case of Santiago vs.
Cruz, 98 Phil., 168, while appellees claim the same preference on the
strength of the decision rendered by the Director of Lands as affirmed
by the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources. In substance,
appellees come before this Court with the plea that we modify or
disregard altogether our decision in the Santiago case if only to do
justice to them who have no piece of land of their own.
We have analyzed the facts of this case and those obtained in the Santiago case (supra)
and have found that they are substantially similar. In the Santiago
case, the lots involved were originally leased by one Mrs. Elisa E.
Cayco but whose leasehold rights were later sold to Realeza Cruz. These
two lots were later subleased to Fernando Santiago and Francisco
Samonte, respectively. Realeza Cruz sought to buy the lots from the
Bureau of Lands whose application was opposed by the two occupants
claiming preferential right to buy them. This Court decided the
conflict in favor of Cruz. In the present case, appellant is the
purchaser of the leasehold rights of the original lessee who later
subleased the lot to appellees Miguel Santos and Ciriaco Lachica. After
the government had acquired the Tambobong estate, appellant sought to
purchase the land from the Bureau of Lands whose application was
likewise opposed by the two occupants claiming the same preferential
right as the one invoked by Santiago and Samonte in the other case. As
may be seen, the facts of the two cases are substantially similar and
obviously the doctrine in one should apply in the other unless reasons
exist for modifying or disregarding the same as we are now urged by
appellees. Are there good reasons for doing so?
We will begin by restating what we have said on the interpretation
to be placed on the provisions of Section 1 of Commonwealth Act No. 539
as to the preference to be given in the allocation of the lots to be
sold among the different conflicting claimants. We said:
“The next question to be determined refers to the
preference that should be observed in the allocation of the lots in
dispute among their different claimants which constitutes the root
cause of the present controversy. In approaching this problem the first
thing to be considered is the meaning and scope of the law which
governs the administration and disposition of the Tambobong Estate in
favor of those whom the law contemplates to extend its beneficient
provisions. This law is Commonwealth Act No. 539. Section 1 of this Act
provides that the home lots into which the lands acquired thereunder
are to be subdivided to promote its objective shall be resold at
reasonable prices and under such terms and conditions as may be fixed
‘to their bona fide tenants or occupants or private
individuals who will work the lands themselves and who are qualified to
acquire and own lands in the Philippines.’ An analysis of this
provision would at once reveal that the intendment of the law is to
award the lots to those who may apply in the order mentioned. This
enumeration denotes the preferential rights the law wishes to accord to
them. Thus, the first choice is given to the bona fide
‘tenants’, the second to the ‘occupants’ and the last to ‘private
individuals’. And this enumeration undoubtedly has been adopted
considering the existing social problem and the different situations in
which the claimants may be found. This is the order of preference
followed by the Director of Lands in awarding the lots to appellant
whose status as a bona fide tenant is not disputed, and since
this action is in accordance with the intendment and purpose of the
law, we see no plausible reason for disturbing it as we are now urged
by appellees.The foregoing interpretation is further
justified by a comparison of the provisions of Commonwealth Act No.
539, under which the Tambobong Estate was acquired, with those of
Commonwealth Act No. 20, which provided for the resale of homesites
acquired thereunder at the time of the approval of the former Act. Note
that while under Commonwealth Act No. 20 the home lots are to be resold
only to bona fide occupants, the Act that had superseded it,
Commonwealth Act No. 539, modified this provision by providing three
groups of persons who may purchase the lots in, the order of preference
accorded to them. This change is indicative of the clear intent of
Congress with regard to the preferential rights to be accorded to
tenants, occupants and private individuals.” (Santiago vs. Cruz, supra).
The main claim of the Land Tenure Administration and his co-appellee
which they now invoke as one reason for the reversal of our ruling in
the Santiago case is that the term bona-fide tenant referred
to in the law cannot apply to a registered lessee because the latter
does not have the actual, physical or material possession of the lot of
which he is the lessee. In other words, appellees maintain that only
tenants who have the physical possession of the lot can be considered bona-fide tenant within the meaning of the law and not an absentee lessee even if he has a registered contract of lease with the owner.
Of course there are some common law or American authorities that may
be cited in support of the claim that a tenant is one who leases the
land and at the same time enters into its possession, but the
authorities are not unanimous for there is ample authority to the
effect that the terms tenant and lessee are
synonymous or used interchangibly. Thus, it was held that “usually, * *
* the word ‘landlord’, as employed in legal parlance, as well as in
ordinary usage, means same as ‘lessor’ and the word ‘tenant’ the same
as ‘lessee’ (32 Am. Jur., p. 28); or “He who grants a lease is called
the ‘owner’ or ‘lessor’. He to whom a lease is made is called the
‘lessee’ or ‘tenant’. Viterbo vs. Friedlander, 120 US 707, 30 L ed 776, 7 S Ct. 962.” (32 Am. Jur., p. 28).
Moreover, the very definitions quoted by appellees of the word “tenant” convey the meaning that a tenant need not actually
possess the land under lease. Thus one of the definitions given is that
“A tenant is * * * one who holds or possesses the land or tenements by
any kind of title, either in fee, for life, for years, at will or upon
sufferance.” (Powers vs. Ingraham, N.Y., 3 Bard, 576, 579;
Words and Phrases, Vol. 41, pp. 299 and 300), which indicates that all
that is required to be a tenant is that he must hold or possess the land; it is not necessary that he be in actual physical possession thereof.
This is also in accord with the nature of possession as considered in
this jurisdiction. Thus, under Article 531 of the New Civil Code,
possession may be acquired in any of the following ways: (1) by the
material occupation of the thing; (2) by the exercise of a right; (3)
by the fact that it is subject to the action of our will and (4) by the
proper acts and legal formalities established for acquiring such right;
from which we may infer that the actual physical possession is only one
of the several modes by which possession may be acquired. And so we may
say that a person who holds the leasehold right over a property may
also be called a tenant even if the material possession thereof is held
by another.
That a registered lessee may be considered a bona-fide tenant
can also be gleaned from the amendment introduced by Congress in
Commonwealth Act No. 20. It should be noted that the original provision
of this act authorized the disposition of the land only to bona-fide occupants,
but because of the injustice that such provision may cause to lessees
or tenants, Congress sought to amend the law by providing that the lots
be sold “to their bona-fide tenants or occupants or private
individuals.” (Commonwealth Act No. 539). The amendment clearly implies
that bona-fide tenants need not be the actual occupants, as
otherwise the purpose of the amendment would be meaningless. This is an
added reason why we interpreted the law as amended in the sense that
Congress intended to sell the lots according to the following
preference: First, to bona-fide tenants, second, to occupants, and third, to private individuals, circumstances being equal.
This ruling is further fortified if we take judicial notice of
Senate Bill 644, which was approved by Congress in 1957, as an
amendment to Republic Act 1400, which created the Land Tenure
Administration, section 6 of which provides:
“(6) For the purpose of deciding conflicting claims,
the Administration shall recognize the first preferential right of a bona-fide tenant or lessee of the subdivision lot or lots to purchase the same thru a private sale, in the absence of a bona-fide tenant or lessee,
or upon his failure or refusal to purchase within three (3) months from
notice by the Administration, the next preferential right shall he
vested upon the bona-fide occupant of the lot or lots who had been in
actual and continuous possession of the same for at least five (5)
years immediately prior to the acquisition of the estate by the
government and who had introduced improvements thereon for which he had
paid taxes to the government. In the absence of a bona-fide tenant or lessee
and a bona-fide occupant, or in case they fail or refuse to purchase
within three (3) months from notice by the Administration, the lot or
lots shall be declared vacant and shall be sold at public auction to
private individuals qualified to acquire and own lands in the
Philippines.”
In the explanatory note of said Senate Bill No. 644, it is stated
that its main purpose is “to minimize and simplify conflict of claims
for the right of preference in the purchase of lot or lots in estates
acquired by the Government; the lack of a clear statement of preference
in the purchase of lots from Government acquired lots had Jed to many a
litigation which in most cases delayed the implementation of the Land
Reform Act.” Undoubtedly, Congress sought to amend the law in view of
our interpretation given in the Santiago case decided on December 29,
1955. Unfortunately, the bill was vetoed by the Chief Executive,
apparently upon the advice of the Land Tenure Administration because of
its disagreement with our interpretation, but the bill has a persuasive
effect because it reflects the opinion of Congress when it approved
Commonwealth Act No. 539.
Now, we say that the above order of preference should be observed if
the parties affected stand on an equal footing or under equal
circumstances, for only in that way can the provision of the law be
implemented with equity, justice and fairness to all and in keeping
with the spirit of giving land to the landless so that he may have a
land of his own. But the order need not be rigidly followed when a
party, say a bona-fide tenant, has already in his name other
lots more than what he needs for his family, for certainly to give him
the preference would work injustice to the occupants. Here, as found in
the official record of the Land Tenure Administration, appellant has
already an agreement to sell in his favor executed on September 10,
1948, by the Government covering lots Nos. 21, 22, and 4 of Block Nos.
32, 32 & 35, containing 522 square meters, 1,870 square meters, and
167 square meters, respectively, or a total of 2,559 square meters. It
also appears that lots 21 and 22 are fishponds, while lot No. 4 is
residential. In addition, the record also shows that appellant has
purchased lot 13 of Block 32, containing an area of 720 square meters,
which he later transferred to his four children on October 7, 1952. All
in all, appellant has four lots which he can call his own, against none
of appellees except the controverted lot of 426 square meters which if
equally divided between them will give to each an area of 213 square
meters. On these small lots appellees built their house and had been
living there since 1933. In the circumstances, it is our considered
opinion that the Government, through its proper officials, observed
properly the spirit of the law when it gave preference to purchase the
lots in question to the appellees.[1]
Wherefore, the decision appealed from is affirmed, without pronouncement as to costs.
Bengzon, Montemayor, and Gutierrez David, JJ., concur.
Paras, C. J., concurs in the result and for the same reason stated by Justice Bautista’s opinion in Santiago vs. Cruz, 98 Phil., 168.
Labrador, J., concurs in the result for the reasons expressed in the case of Santiago vs. Cruz.
Reyes, J.B.L., J.,
concurs in the result.
Barrera, J., in the result.
Concepcion, J., reserves his vote.
[1] This case may be differentiated from Santiago case supra.
Here appellant Cruz had seven children, some of them married and since
besides the lots in dispute she only had one more lot, the Court
decided to affirm the award made in her favor by the Director of Lands.
Moreover, occupants waived their right.