G.R. No. 51216. June 30, 1987
AGATON T. LANDICHO AND LUCENA M. LANDICHO, PETITIONERS, VS. HON. RICARDO P. TENSUAN, JUDGE, CFI OF RIZAL, BR. IV; HON. MINERVA C. GENOVEA, FORMERLY PRESIDING JUDGE, CITY COURT O…
GANCAYCO, J.:
This petition for certiorari, mandamus, prohibition
and preliminary injunction involves an ejectment case that was filed by private
respondent Leonida Aseron against petitioners in the City Court of Quezon City
wherein after trial on the merits a decision was rendered on September 15, 1978, the dispositive
part of which reads:
“WHEREFORE, the cause of action having been sufficiently
established, the Court renders judgment in favor of the plaintiff, and against
the defendants, ordering the latter and all persons claiming right under them:
1) to vacate the building
located at Naranghita Street,
Project 2, Quezon City;
2) to pay the plaintiff
the sum of P400.00 a month for August, 1977 and every month thereafter until
the building is finally vacated and possession thereof is surrendered to the
plaintiff;
3) to pay the sum of
P2,000.00 as attorney’s fees; and
4) to pay the costs.
IT IS SO ORDERED.”[1]
Upon appeal to the Court of First Instance of Quezon City a
decision was rendered thereafter in due course on March 15, 1979 affirming in toto the
appealed judgment.[2]
Within the reglementary period for appeal petitioners filed a notice of appeal
and appeal bond to which an opposition was filed by private respondents alleging
that the proper remedy was a petition for review not an ordinary appeal. In an order of July 2, 1979, the trial court dismissed the appeal on the
ground that it is not the proper remedy.[3]
Since the period for appeal had lapsed, petitioners filed a motion for
execution of judgment which was granted by the trial court on July 24, 1979.[4]
Hence this petition.
In a resolution of August 15, 1979, this Court, without
necessarily giving due course to the petition, issued a temporary restraining
order enjoining respondents, or any person or persons acting in their behalf
from enforcing the said writ of execution.[5]
The allegations of the petition are confusing which private respondents
correctly characterize as “topsy turvy”. All the judges from the inferior court and
the trial court who had anything to do with the case one way or the other were
impleaded as respondents. The judgment
even of the inferior court that had been appealed and affirmed in toto
is being questioned in this proceeding.
While this petition is pending consideration, petitioners voluntarily
vacated the premises in question, so their counsel was asked whether the
petition can now be dismissed. He
insisted the case must proceed. All
these hardly add credit to his track record.
What the Court can gather from the many issues raised in the
petition is that the key question is whether the appeal was correctly dismissed
by the trial court.
Time and again, We are faced with the common error of members of
the Bar on this aspect. Section 45 of
the Judiciary Act as amended by Republic Act No. 6031 does not allow an appeal
by record on appeal and notice of appeal from a decision of the Court of First
Instance in an appealed case falling within the exclusive original jurisdiction
of the Municipal or City Courts. The
correct remedy is a petition for review.[6]
This is reiterated in Section 22 of Batas Pambansa Blg. 129. Thus, respondent Judge Ricardo Tensuan, now
Associate Justice of the Court of Appeals, did not commit any grave abuse in
dismissing the appeal. Other issues
raised by petitioners are factual which this Court cannot consider in this
proceeding. Obviously, petitioners
interposed this extraordinary remedy in lieu of the remedy of appeal which they
have lost. This cannot be allowed.[7]
Moreover, considering the
findings of facts of the court a quo which are conclusive on
petitioners?
“As reviewed by the Court, the following facts are revealed by
the records: The plaintiffs-appellees
bought the property for and in the name of the minor Leonida Aseron from Pilar
Ybay married to Cesar Burla and Nicanor P. Bernarte married to Agripina M.
Bustos — sometime in November, 1977 (Exh. ‘A’).
When the property was sold, the apartment building was under a
contract of lease with spouses Agaton Landicho — for a monthly rental of
P400.00.
One week after the purchase on November 4, 1977, Leonor Aseron went to the premises and
talked to Mrs. Landicho and told her that she is the new owner of the property
and gave notice that they should vacate the premises within three months, so
they could have the place repaired. The
defendants-appellants refused to leave the premises. At the time of the transfer of the property
to the plaintiff-appellee, the defendants-appellants were already in default in
paying the rent, in fact, since August, 1977.
Since the transfer of ownership to the plaintiff-appellee, not a single
monthly rental has been paid to her by the defendants.
In view of the foregoing circumstances, the plaintiff, thru her
mother, Leonor Aseron, demanded from the defendants payment of the accrued
rentals and to vacate the premises.
Leonor Aseron sought legal advice and her lawyer sent a letter which was served personally on March 11, 1978, on Lucena Landicho,
who refused to acknowledge receipt thereof (Exh. ‘B’). In this letter, final demand was made for the
defendants to vacate the premises within seven days from receipt of the letter,
otherwise ejectment proceedings and collection of unpaid rentals, among others,
would be commenced. The letters were
ignored, hence, this complaint for unlawful detainer was duly instituted.
It appears that the arrangement between Mrs. Surla (the previous
owner) is that Landicho will collect the rentals for the entire building. Landicho agreed on condition that he would
not be driven out of the apartment. Mrs.
Surla’s arrangement with Landicho was that the collector would come every 16th
and end of the month because he would be paying one-half of the rent every
fifteen days since only two occupants pay in full while he would pay one-half
rent every fifteen days. Since July,
1977, however, the collector failed to come.
In August, 1977, since the collector still did not appear, Landicho
went to one Manuel Icasiano, Technical Assistant and Chief, Public Information
Unit, of the Office of the Presidential Assistant Ronaldo Zamora, who advised
him to wait a little while and, if the owner still fails to come to collect
from him, then for him (Landicho) to report the same to him (Icasiano). The owner did not come so he sought Icasiano
anew bringing with him a letter dated September 5, 1977 (Exhibit ’68’) and the
rental amounting to P500.00 for
July and August for his and Mangubat’s share of P140.00 and P120.00, respectively. This time he was advised by Icasiano, to deposit
the money in Court. Landicho insisted,
however, that Icasiano keep the money, and the latter obliged him.
Thus, all the rentals from July 1977 to March 1978, appeared to
have been received by Icasiano from Landicho and Mangubat (Exhs. 69 to 69-G).
On April 19, 1978,
the amounts deposited were withdrawn by Landicho’s counsel, Atty. Jose C.
Castro, and later deposited with the City Court on May 17, 1978.
Landicho’s story goes further to show that during the entire period
of the lease with Dr. Surla, he never came to know the place of residence of
Dr. Surla, and therefore, he was never able to locate her to tender payment of
the rental.
The issue to be resolved here boils down to — whether the
defendants-appellants were really delinquent or not in paying their monthly
rental. The records clearly shows that from the time the plaintiff-appellee
bought the premises, the herein defendants-appellants refused and still refuse
to the present time to recognize the plaintiff-appellee as the owner of the
premises, despite the fact that Mrs. Aseron had already introduced herself as
the new owner of the property. The
defendants-appellants, for reasons of their own, refuse to acknowledge the
plaintiff-appellee as the new owner thus they never made any attempt to pay to
the plaintiff-appellee even when the latter already made a demand from the
former.
Delinquency in the payment of the rentals due to the
plaintiff-appellee is therefore clear and undisputed.
Furthermore, the defendants-appellants did not make a valid
consignation when they deposited the back rentals in the Office of the
Presidential Assistant.”[8]
There is no doubt that due to non-payment
of rentals their ejectment is a necessary consequence.
Their protestation that they deposited the rentals due though
belatedly in the Office of then Presidential Assistant Ronaldo Zamora does not
help their cause at all. The law
prescribes that such consignation or deposit of rentals should be made with the
Court and/or under Batas Pambansa Blg. 25 in the bank and not elsewhere.[9]
Finally, since the judgment has become final and executory the
issuance of the writ of execution was inevitable.
WHEREFORE, the petition is DISMISSED for lack of merit and
the restraining order that the Court issued on August 15, 1979 is hereby dissolved, with costs against
petitioners. This decision is
immediately executory.
SO ORDERED.
Yap, (Chairman), Narvasa,
Melencio-Herrera, Cruz, Feliciano, and
Sarmiento, JJ., concur.
[1]
Page 34, Rollo.
[2]
Annex B, Petition; pp. 35-37, Rollo.
[3]
Annex C, Petition; page 42, Rollo.
[4]
Annex 3, Petition; p. 78, Rollo.
[5]
Page 39, Rollo.
[6]
Gutierrez vs. Magat, 67 SCRA 263, 265; Government Service Insurance
System vs. Court of Appeals, 120 SCRA 935, 936-937, citing Gutierrez and
Buenbrazo vs. Marave, 101 SCRA 849.
[7]
Mabuhay Insurance vs. Court of Appeals, L-28700, March 30, 1970, 32 SCRA 245.
[8]
Pp. 35-37, Rollo.
[9]
Art. 1258, Civil Code.