APOLONIO GARCIA, IN SUBSTITUTION OF HIS DECEASED MOTHER, MODESTA GARCIA, AND CRISTINA SALAMAT, PETITIONERS, VS. DOMINGA ROBLES VDA. DE CAPARAS, RESPONDENT.

Garcia versus Caparas

The Case

This is a petition for review on certiorari brought by Apolonio Garcia, substituting for his deceased mother Modesta Garcia, and by Cristina Salamat, against Dominga Robles Vda. de Caparas. The petitioners are the sisters of the late Pedro Caparas, and they claim to be co-lessees of a farmholding in Malolos, Bulacan. They ask the Supreme Court to reverse the Court of Appeals, which had affirmed the rulings of the agrarian adjudicators recognizing Dominga, Pedro's widow, as the lawful successor-tenant. The case matters because it is the Supreme Court's clean statement of two rules every agrarian law practitioner must carry: the Dead Man's Statute bars the use of a deceased party's alleged admission against his successor, and Section 9 of the Agricultural Code fixes a one-month window for the landowner to choose the successor lessee. It also teaches that a change of theory on appeal will not be entertained.

Procedural History

The petitioners filed a complaint for nullification of leasehold and restoration of rights as agricultural lessees before the Provincial Agrarian Reform Adjudicator of Bulacan. The Provincial Adjudicator dismissed the complaint, declared Dominga the lawful successor-tenant, ordered the petitioners to maintain her in peaceful possession and cultivation, and directed the Municipal Agrarian Reform Officer to execute a new leasehold contract between the landowner and Dominga. The petitioners appealed to the Department of Agrarian Reform Adjudication Board, which consolidated the appeal with a related case and, in June 2005, affirmed the Provincial Adjudicator in all respects. The petitioners then went to the Court of Appeals on a petition for certiorari, raising for the first time the cancellation of the survey returns and plans covering the land. The Court of Appeals denied the petition and affirmed the Board in toto in August 2007, and later denied the petitioners' motion for reconsideration. The case reached the Supreme Court through a petition for review on certiorari under Rule 45.

Facts

Flora Makapugay owned a two and a half hectare farm in Barangay Lugam, Malolos, Bulacan, covered by a transfer certificate of title. The land was tilled by Eugenio Caparas as agricultural lessee under a leasehold agreement. Makapugay died and was succeeded by her nephews and niece, Amanda, Justo, and Augusto, all surnamed dela Paz. Eugenio's children were Modesta Garcia, Cristina Salamat, and Pedro Caparas. Before Makapugay died, she appointed Amanda as her attorney-in-fact.

After Eugenio died, in 1974, Amanda and Pedro entered into an agreement entitled Kasunduan sa Buwisan, followed by an Agricultural Leasehold Contract in April 1979. In both agreements, Pedro was installed and recognized as the lone agricultural lessee and cultivator of the land. Pedro died in 1984, and his wife Dominga took over as agricultural lessee, remitting lease rentals to the landowners since 1985.

In July 1996, the landowners and the petitioners executed a Kasunduan sa Buwisan ng Lupa acknowledging the petitioners as Pedro's co-lessees. In October 1996, the petitioners sued Pedro's heirs, represented by Dominga, claiming that they and Pedro had agreed to farm the land alternately on a per-season basis, and that Pedro had deceived Amanda into installing him as sole lessee. Their only proof of the arrangement was an affidavit of Amanda recounting Pedro's alleged verbal admission that he and his sisters had an understanding and that he did not intend to deprive them of their cultivatory rights. The petitioners never showed that they cultivated the land even for one cropping, nor any receipt of payment to the landowners.

Issues

• Whether or not the alleged admission of the deceased Pedro Caparas, recounted in Amanda's affidavit, may be used as evidence against his widow Dominga.
• Whether or not the petitioners may be recognized as co-lessees of the landholding.
• Whether or not the petitioners' cause of action is barred by prescription and laches.
• Whether or not the reclassification or conversion of the land into residential use may be considered in favor of the petitioners.

Applicable Provisions

Section 23, Rule 130 of the Rules of Court, the Dead Man's Statute, provides:

Section 23. Disqualification by reason of death or insanity of adverse party. Parties or assignors of parties to a case, or persons in whose behalf a case is prosecuted, against an executor or administrator or other representative of a deceased person, or against a person of unsound mind, upon a claim or demand against the estate of such deceased person or against such person of unsound mind, cannot testify as to any matter of fact occurring before the death of such deceased person or before such person became of unsound mind.

This is the rule that excludes Amanda's account of Pedro's alleged admission, since Dominga, as his successor, cannot contradict a transaction sealed by his death.

Section 9 of Republic Act Number 3844, the Agricultural Code, provides:

Section 9. Agricultural Leasehold Relation Not Extinguished by Death or Incapacity of the Parties. In case of death or permanent incapacity of the agricultural lessee to work his landholding, the leasehold shall continue between the agricultural lessor and the person who can cultivate the landholding personally, chosen by the agricultural lessor within one month from such death or permanent incapacity, from among the following: (a) the surviving spouse; (b) the eldest direct descendant by consanguinity; or (c) the next eldest descendant or descendants in the order of their age: Provided, That in case the death or permanent incapacity of the agricultural lessee occurs during the agricultural year, such choice shall be exercised at the end of that agricultural year: Provided, further, That in the event the agricultural lessor fails to exercise his choice within the periods herein provided, the priority shall be in accordance with the order herein established. In case of death or permanent incapacity of the agricultural lessor, the leasehold shall bind his legal heirs.

This provision governs who succeeds Eugenio, and it is the measure against which Amanda's choice of Pedro, and the petitioners' seventeen-year silence, are judged.

Section 7 of Republic Act Number 3844 provides:

Section 7. Tenure of Agricultural Leasehold Relation. The agricultural leasehold relation once established shall confer upon the agricultural lessee the right to continue working on the landholding until such leasehold relation is extinguished. The agricultural lessee shall be entitled to security of tenure on his landholding and cannot be ejected therefrom unless authorized by the Court for causes herein provided.

This secures Dominga's tenure against the 1996 agreement executed without her consent.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that Amanda's declaration in her affidavit, covering Pedro's alleged admission and recognition of the alternate farming scheme, is inadmissible for violating the Dead Man's Statute. Since Pedro is deceased, and the declaration affects the 1996 Kasunduan sa Buwisan ng Lupa which Amanda as assignor entered into with the petitioners, the declaration cannot be used against Dominga, who is placed in an unfair situation by being unable to contradict or disprove it. The Court put the rule this way:

If one party to the alleged transaction is precluded from testifying by death, insanity, or other mental disabilities, the other party is not entitled to the undue advantage of giving his own uncontradicted and unexplained account of the transaction.

On the second issue, the Court held that the petitioners may not be recognized as co-lessees. They had no evidence other than the verbal declaration, no written memorandum of the agreement, no proof of cultivation even for one cropping, and no receipt of payment to the landowners. Amanda, as the landowner's representative, was duty-bound to inquire who survived Eugenio and to choose the successor within one month under Section 9. When she executed the 1979 contract with Pedro, she is deemed to have chosen him, and is presumed to have performed her duties diligently. The petitioners, if they truly had an arrangement with Pedro, were obliged to inform Makapugay or Amanda so they would not be left out, and they did not.

On the third issue, the Court held that the petitioners slept on their rights. They came forward only in 1996, seventeen years after Pedro was installed in 1979 and long after his death in 1984, and are thus precluded from questioning the 1979 leasehold contract. The 1996 Kasunduan, grounded on inadmissible evidence and executed without Dominga's consent, unduly infringed her rights as Pedro's successor-in-interest and operated to dispossess her against her will.

On the fourth issue, the Court refused to delve into reclassification or conversion, holding that it changes nothing as between the landowners and Dominga in regard to their agreement, rights, and obligations. Conversion can only harm the petitioners, for only the duly designated lessee is entitled to disturbance compensation, and a valid reclassification would render the petitioners illegal occupants and sowers in bad faith.

Doctrine

First, under the Dead Man's Statute, if one party to an alleged transaction is precluded from testifying by death, insanity, or other mental disability, the other party is not entitled to the undue advantage of giving his own uncontradicted and unexplained account of the transaction. A deceased lessee's alleged verbal admission, recounted by another, cannot be used against his surviving spouse and successor.

Second, under Section 9 of Republic Act Number 3844, upon the death of the agricultural lessee, the leasehold continues with the person chosen by the agricultural lessor within one month from death, from among the surviving spouse, the eldest direct descendant, or the next eldest descendants. The landowner is charged with knowing the lessee's circumstances and making the choice; ignorance of the law excuses no one.

Third, under Section 7, the agricultural lessee enjoys security of tenure and cannot be ejected except as authorized by the Court, and under Section 16 any modification of the lease must have the consent of both parties. A later agreement with third persons that disregards a subsisting leasehold is void as against the lawful lessee.

Fourth, a party may not change the theory of the case on appeal, and questions of fact are not proper in a petition for review under Rule 45.

Disposition

The petition was denied, and the Court of Appeals decision and resolution were affirmed; Dominga Robles Vda. de Caparas was upheld as the lawful successor-tenant entitled to peaceful possession and cultivation of the landholding.

Remember This

Memorize the line: when death seals one side of a transaction, the other side may not give his own uncontradicted and unexplained account of it. Examiners use this case to test the Dead Man's Statute in agrarian settings and the one-month choice of successor lessee under Section 9 of the Agricultural Code.