NICEFORO S. AGATON, PETITIONER-APPELLANT, VS. HON. PATRICIO PEREZ, CARLOS S. MARTINEZ, AND FELIZA B. MARTINEZ, RESPONDENTS-APPELLEES.

On June 15, 1960 respondent Feliza B. Martinez and her husband, co-respondent
Carlos S. Martinez, entered into a contract of lease with petitioner Niceforo S.
Agaton, covering the second floor of respondents’ house at Camp 8, Kennon Road,
Baguio City. The term of the lease was up to June 15, 1961, at a monthly rental
of P100.00. On May 8, 1961 respondents filed a complaint in the municipal court
of Baguio for the collection of (1) rents unpaid since December 18, 1960; (2)
the value of certain city services which petitioner was supposed to pay but did
not, thus compelling respondents to pay them; and (3) another indebtedness in
the sum of P200, together with attorney’s fees of P150.

Petitioner filed a written answer to the complaint, containing denials as
well as a number of allegations under the headings of “first special affirmative
defense and/or counterclaim” and “second special affirmative defense and/or
counterclaim.” The first consists of a long narration of evidentiary facts and
conclusions which, reduced to their essence, merely tend to support petitioner’s
allegation that respondents had misled him into renting their house by making
him believe that there was regular transportation which he could avail of in
going to and from the city proper when actually there was none. The second
affirmative defense and/or counterclaim also consists of a detailed narration of
how respondent Feliza Martinez, on March 14, 1961, went to see petitioner’s
employer, the Superintendent of the Baguio Military Institute where he was
teaching, to inquire whether he was getting his salary on time—an act which,
petitioner alleged, was done maliciously and with the obvious intention to
“embarrass, humiliate, degrade, belittle and vex the defendant and thus
undermine (his) position of dignity and authority.” Compensatory damages (for
taxi fares spent by petitioner) were the subject of the first counterclaim;
moral damages were the subject of the second.

When the case was called for hearing respondents were furnished copy of
petitioner’s answer to the complaint, whereupon they manifested to the court
that they “are denying specifically each and every allegation of all the
counterclaims, the truth being that this claim was filed in good faith.” The
trial then proceeded as to respondents’ case, after which petitioner made a
verbal motion for judgment on the pleadings with respect to his counterclaims,
alleging that respondents’ verbal answer thereto constituted a mere general
denial and therefore tendered no triable issue. The motion was denied, as was
also a subsequent motion for reconsideration. Petitioner thereupon filed a
petition for certiorari with the Court of First Instance of Baguio, alleging
grave abuse of discretion. That court, In its decision of January 10, 1962,
ruled that there was no such abuse and hence dismissed the petition, with
costs.

Petitioner interposed the present appeal and now insists that since
respondents’ answer to his counterclaim was a mere general denial and therefore
tendered no issue, it was mandatory for the court a quo to render
judgment on. the pleadings. There is no merit in the argument. In the first
place, petitioner’s answer, particularly in those portions thereof denominated
by him as special affirmative defenses and/or counterclaims, contains so many
unnecessary allegations of evidentiary matters that a specific denial of each
and every one of them was not only uncalled for but even impractical, especially
considering that the old Rules of Court did not require an answer (in this case
to the counterclaims) in the municipal court to be in writing (Rule 4, Sec. 6).
In the second place, the allegations in both the special affirmative defenses
and in the counterclaims are so inseparable and indeed have been lumped by
petitioner himself under common headings that, following the rule as to new
matters affirmed in the answer (Rule 11, Section 1, old Rules of Court), they
may be deemed controverted even if not specifically challenged by respondents in
a reply. Finally, the basic allegations which make up the counterclaims, namely,
misrepresentation and malice attributed to respondents, were specifically
traversed by them by their allegation of good faith in the verbal answer
interposed by them to the said counterclaims.

Far from committing a grave abuse of discretion, the court a quo
acted correctly and with proper judicial circumspection in denying petitioner’s
motion for judgment on the pleadings. The decision appealed from Is affirmed,
with costs against petitioner-appellant.

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Dizon, Regala, Bengzon, J.P., Zaldivar,
Sanchez and Ruiz Castro, JJ., concur.