ZOSIMO OCTAVIO AND JESUS ALBONA (SUBSTITUTED BY HIS WIFE, VIOLETA ALBONA), PETITIONERS, VS. ENRICO R. PEROVANO, RESPONDENT.

Octavio versus Perovano

The Case

This is Octavio versus Perovano, a petition for review on certiorari brought by Zosimo Octavio and Jesus Albona, the latter substituted by his wife Violeta Albona, against Enrico Perovano. The respondent sued the petitioners for forcible entry before the Municipal Trial Court in Cities of Talisay City, Negros Occidental, after they entered and cultivated a parcel of land registered in his name. The petitioners resist, claiming the land is covered by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program and that they are farmer-beneficiaries, so that the regular courts, in their view, have no jurisdiction. The case matters because it draws the dividing line between an ordinary ejectment suit and an agrarian dispute, and because it tells us how jurisdiction over the subject matter is tested.

Procedural History

Enrico Perovano filed his complaint for forcible entry with damages, with a prayer for a temporary restraining order or writ of preliminary injunction, before the Municipal Trial Court in Cities of Talisay City. That court rendered judgment in his favor, ordering the petitioners to vacate the land, to pay yearly rental, and to pay attorney's fees and costs. The petitioners appealed to the Regional Trial Court of Negros Occidental, Branch 46, sitting in Bacolod City, which affirmed the trial court's decision in its entirety. The petitioners then went up to the Court of Appeals in Cebu City, which denied their petition and affirmed the Regional Trial Court in full. From that adverse judgment, the petitioners filed the present petition for review on certiorari before the Supreme Court.

Facts

Enrico Perovano claimed to be the lawful and registered owner of Lot Number 412 in Talisay City, Negros Occidental, with an area of about forty eight thousand six hundred ninety three square meters, covered by a transfer certificate of title. He alleged that on or before the first week of January 1999, Zosimo Octavio and Jesus Albona, acting in connivance with the Municipal Agrarian Reform Officer, entered the land by threat, intimidation, strategy and stealth, plowed it, and began planting sugarcane despite the efforts of his attorney-in-fact to stop them.

The petitioners answered that the land had been voluntarily offered for sale to the Department of Agrarian Reform by Estefania Perovano, the respondent's mother, in 1992, placing it under the coverage of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law. They alleged that a claim folder was processed, that they were identified and qualified as farmer-beneficiaries, that certificates of land ownership award were generated, and that a memorandum of agreement allowed the beneficiaries to take possession after payment to the landowner. On that basis they argued that only the Provincial Agrarian Reform Adjudication Board had jurisdiction, and that the regular courts had been divested of it.

The record also showed that the Department of Agrarian Reform Adjudication Board, in a decision of June 2005, ruled that Zosimo and Jesus were not recognized farmer-beneficiaries, that they held no certificate of land ownership award, and that their continued possession was through stealth, akin to land grabbing. The trial court likewise found that they did not hold any such award and that they had in fact resided on a different lot for more than twenty years.

Issues

• Whether or not the subject landholding is covered by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, such that the conveyance to the respondent and the subsequent transactions are void.
• Whether or not the case filed by the respondent is tantamount to a case for disqualification of the petitioners as farmer-beneficiaries, and hence agrarian in character.
• Whether or not the Court of Appeals gravely erred in affirming the lower courts, the case being an agrarian matter that divests the regular courts of jurisdiction.

Applicable Provisions

Section 50 of Republic Act Number 6657, the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law, provides:

SEC. 50. Quasi-Judicial Powers of the DAR. - The DAR is hereby vested with primary jurisdiction to determine and adjudicate agrarian reform matters and shall have exclusive original jurisdiction over all matters involving the implementation of agrarian reform, except those falling under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

This is the provision the petitioners invoke to oust the regular courts, and the Court construes it against the backdrop of the complaint's allegations.

Section 3, paragraph d, of the same law, as discussed in the decision, defines an agrarian dispute:

It refers to any controversy relating to, inter alia, tenancy over lands devoted to agriculture.

The Court uses this definition to test whether the controversy truly concerns a tenurial arrangement over agricultural land.

Section 22 of Republic Act Number 6657, on qualified beneficiaries, is also discussed:

SEC. 22. Qualified Beneficiaries. - The lands covered by the CARP shall be distributed as much as possible to landless residents of the same barangay, or in the absence thereof, landless residents of the same municipality in the following order of priority:

This provision bears on the identification of farmer-beneficiaries, which the Court treats as an administrative matter committed to the Department of Agrarian Reform.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court acknowledged that there is no question the land is covered by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, since the Secretary of Agrarian Reform had reversed the earlier order granting exemption. But coverage alone does not decide the case. Whether the petitioners are duly installed farmer-beneficiaries is a question of fact, and in a petition for review on certiorari only questions of law may be raised. The Court held that the identification of farmer-beneficiaries is best left to the discretion of the Secretary of Agrarian Reform, and absent grave abuse of discretion it will not substitute its judgment for that of the agency. The adjudication board had found the petitioners were not recognized beneficiaries.

On the second and third issues, which the Court reduced to a single question, it held that the action is one for ejectment, not an agrarian dispute. Jurisdiction over the subject matter is determined by the material allegations of the complaint and the law at the time the action is commenced, irrespective of the defenses set up in the answer or a motion to dismiss. The complaint alleged ownership and registration in the respondent and entry by threat, intimidation, strategy and stealth, which are the elements of forcible entry. Under the Judiciary Reorganization Act as amended, the municipal trial courts have exclusive original jurisdiction over cases of forcible entry and unlawful detainer. Since the petitioners were not farmer-beneficiaries but mere usurpers of the land, no tenurial arrangement existed to bring the matter within the agrarian jurisdiction. The Court quoted the adjudication board's finding that the agrarian reform law was not enacted to give license to anybody to grab somebody else's land.

Doctrine

First, jurisdiction over the subject matter is determined by the material allegations of the complaint and the law in force at the time the action is commenced, and cannot be made to depend on the defenses raised in the answer or on a motion to dismiss. Second, a suit is an ejectment case, within the exclusive original jurisdiction of the municipal trial courts, when the complaint alleges prior possession and deprivation of it by force, intimidation, strategy or stealth. Third, the Department of Agrarian Reform has primary jurisdiction over agrarian reform matters under Section 50, but that jurisdiction attaches only when the controversy genuinely involves a tenurial arrangement over agricultural land as defined in Section 3, paragraph d. Fourth, the identification of farmer-beneficiaries under Section 22 is an administrative matter committed to the Secretary of Agrarian Reform, and factual findings on that point are accorded great respect. Fifth, only questions of law may be raised in a petition for review on certiorari.

Disposition

The petition was denied and the decision of the Court of Appeals was affirmed, with no pronouncement as to costs, so the respondent prevailed and the petitioners were ordered to vacate the land.

Remember This

Memorize this line: jurisdiction is determined by the allegations of the complaint, not by the defenses in the answer. Examiners use this case to test the boundary between an ejectment suit and an agrarian dispute, and to test whether a defendant can oust the municipal trial court simply by claiming to be a farmer-beneficiary.