NOLITO D. SOLMAYOR, VICENTE LASTIMA, JUANITO B. SUAREZ, GERVACIO BATAUSA (DEC.) REPRESENTED BY ANTONIO BATAUSA, VICTORIANO CANDIA, PRIMITIVO BORRES (DEC.) REPRESENTED BY ROGELIO…

Solmayor versus Arroyo

The Case

This is a petition for review on certiorari brought by a group of farmer occupants led by Nolito Solmayor against the landowner Antonio Arroyo. The farmers ask the Supreme Court to reverse the Court of Appeals, which had affirmed the Office of the President in declaring a 9.8 hectare parcel of land in Matina, Davao City outside the coverage of Operation Land Transfer under Presidential Decree No. 27, and in ordering the cancellation of the Certificates of Land Transfer and Emancipation Patents issued to them. The case matters because it fixes the two indispensable requisites for coverage under Presidential Decree No. 27 — that the land be private agricultural land devoted to rice or corn, and that a genuine tenancy relationship exist — and because it holds that a Certificate of Land Transfer or an Emancipation Patent confers no vested right where the land is later found to be outside the program.

Procedural History

Arroyo filed with the Regional Director of the Department of Agrarian Reform, Region Eleven, a petition for the cancellation of the Certificates of Land Transfer issued to the farmers. The Regional Director dismissed the petition on the ground that Arroyo's Voluntary Offer to Sell had rendered the issue moot. Arroyo appealed to the Office of the Secretary of Agrarian Reform, which dismissed the appeal and affirmed the validity of the Emancipation Patents. Arroyo then elevated the matter to the Office of the President, which reversed the Department and declared the land outside the coverage of Presidential Decree No. 27. The farmers went up to the Court of Appeals, which denied their petition and affirmed the Office of the President. After their motion for reconsideration was denied, the farmers filed the present petition for review on certiorari before the Supreme Court.

Facts

On 23 November 1978, Arroyo received a letter from the legal officer of the then Ministry of Agrarian Reform informing him that his land, with an aggregate area of 9.8038 hectares in Matina, Davao City, was the subject of Operation Land Transfer under Presidential Decree No. 27, which took effect on 21 October 1972, and advising him that he could apply for conversion of the land to residential or other urban purposes. A later letter from the Team Leader of the Ministry notified him that the property was covered by the program because its area, tenanted at the time, exceeded seven hectares.

The City Zoning and Development Officer certified that the property was partly zoned as Residential Class A and B, Commercial and Open Space under the existing Zoning Ordinance of Davao City. On 24 July 1979, Arroyo applied for conversion of the land to a residential subdivision, attaching documents from the Human Settlements Regulatory Commission, the Bureau of Soils, and the City of Davao showing the land had been classified as residential. Conferences were held between Arroyo and the occupants to settle their relocation, homelots, and disturbance compensation, but no final agreement was reached. Without first resolving the application for conversion, the Ministry of Agrarian Reform issued the questioned Certificates of Land Transfer in favor of the farmers in November 1984.

Arroyo then filed a petition for cancellation of the Certificates of Land Transfer, insisting the land was residential and beyond the coverage of Presidential Decree No. 27, and denying any tenancy relationship. On 8 August 1988, he made a Voluntary Offer to Sell his entire landholding to the government under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law. In 1990, the Department of Agrarian Reform issued Emancipation Patents to the farmers as identified beneficiaries. The Department upheld the patents, finding the land agricultural as of 21 October 1972 and a tenancy relationship established through Arroyo's overseer. The Office of the President and the Court of Appeals both disagreed, and the farmers came to the Supreme Court.

Issues

• Whether or not the petition should be dismissed for the failure of eight of the twelve petitioners to sign the certification against forum shopping.
• Whether or not the Court may review the factual findings of the lower tribunals in a petition for review under Rule 45.
• Whether or not the subject land was private agricultural land devoted to rice or corn, and thus within the coverage of Presidential Decree No. 27.
• Whether or not a tenancy relationship existed between Arroyo and the farmer occupants.
• Whether or not the Emancipation Patents issued to the farmers should be cancelled.

Applicable Provisions

Paragraph 5 of Presidential Decree No. 27, as quoted by the Court of Appeals, provides:

This shall apply to tenant farmers of private agricultural lands primarily devoted to rice and corn under a system of share-crop or lease tenancy, whether classified as landed or not.

This is the very provision that fixes the two conditions of coverage — private agricultural land devoted to rice or corn, and a share-crop or lease tenancy — both of which the Court finds absent.

Section 7 of Republic Act No. 1199, as amended, cited by the Secretary of Agrarian Reform, provides:

Tenancy relationship may be established either verbally or in writing, expressly or impliedly.

This provision governs how a tenancy may arise, but it cannot supply the missing requisites of an agricultural land and an agricultural purpose.

Ruling

On the procedural issue, the Court acknowledged that the absence of the signatures of eight petitioners made the certification against forum shopping defective and a valid cause for dismissal, but it declined to dismiss. The rules on forum shopping, it held, should not be interpreted with absolute literalness as to subvert their objective; the execution of the certificate by four petitioners on behalf of their co-petitioners constituted substantial compliance, since all petitioners filed as a collective group raising the same arguments.

On the factual issue, the Court held that it may review the facts where the findings of the tribunals below are conflicting, as they were here, and where the petition hinges on the rights of litigants under an important piece of social legislation.

On coverage, the Court sustained the finding that the land was not private agricultural land. It had been classified as commercial and residential even before Presidential Decree No. 27 took effect, as shown by the Official Zoning Map of Davao City, Arroyo's tax declarations filed as early as 1968, and certifications from the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board, the Office of the Zoning Administrator, the Bureau of Soils, and the City Planning and Development Coordinator. The Court held that the planting of rice or corn on land situated in the middle of a fast growing residential and business area could not convert it into agricultural land.

On tenancy, the Court held that the essential requisites of a tenancy relationship must all concur, and that the absence of one does not make a cultivator a tenant. Since the land was not agricultural and was never intended for agricultural production, two requisites were absent, and the farmers were not tenants entitled to security of tenure.

On the patents, the Court held that recipients of a Certificate of Land Transfer or an Emancipation Patent do not necessarily acquire vested rights, and that such titles may be cancelled where the land is found to be outside the coverage of Presidential Decree No. 27.

Doctrine

Coverage under Presidential Decree No. 27 requires the concurrence of two conditions: the land must be private agricultural land primarily devoted to rice or corn, and there must be a system of share-crop or lease tenancy. If either is absent, the land is outside Operation Land Transfer.

A tenancy relationship requires the concurrence of all its essential requisites — that the parties are landowner and tenant, that the subject is agricultural land, that there is consent, that the purpose is agricultural production, that there is personal cultivation, and that there is sharing of harvests. The absence of one does not make an occupant or cultivator a tenant, and without the status of a tenant one is not entitled to security of tenure nor covered by the land reform program.

Land already classified as residential or commercial before Presidential Decree No. 27 took effect is not agricultural land, and the planting of rice or corn on it does not convert it into agricultural land. A Certificate of Land Transfer or an Emancipation Patent issued over land outside the program confers no vested right and may be cancelled.

Disposition

The Supreme Court denied the petition and affirmed the decision of the Court of Appeals, so the landowner Arroyo prevailed and the Emancipation Patents issued to the farmers were cancelled.

Remember This

Memorize the two conditions of Presidential Decree No. 27 coverage and the six requisites of tenancy, all of which must concur. Examiners use this case to test whether a Certificate of Land Transfer or Emancipation Patent creates a vested right, and whether land classified as residential before the decree can be brought within agrarian reform.