PACITA A. OLANDAY, MARIA A. ARELLANO AND NATIVIDAD A. CRUZ, PETITIONERS, VS. INTERMEDIATE APPELLATE COURT AND MOISES FARNACIO, RESPONDENTS.

The validity of private respondents claim that he is a tenant of
the petitioners’ fishpond, with security of tenure as such assured under the
law, is the basic question presented in this appeal.

The Regional Trial Court in Dagupan City adjudged him to be such
a tenant. This it did in Civil Civil
Case No. D-7240 — instituted by said private respondent, Moises Farnacio,
against the owners of the fishpond; herein petitioners: Pacita A. Olanday, Maria A. Arellano and
Natividad A. Cruz. The Court’s judgment
was founded on the evidence presented at the trial,^[1] and
contained the following dispositive portion:^[2]

“WHEREFORE, in the light of the foregoing considerations, this
Court hereby renders judgment as follows to wit:

1. Declaring and recognizing Moises Farnacio as
tenant-caretaker over the fishpond in question
located at Lomboy District, Dagupan
City;

2. Ordering the defendants to maintain
plaintiff in the peaceful possession and cultivation of said fishpond with all
the rights accorded and obligations imposed upon him by law.

3.     Ordering the Branch Clerk to withdraw and
deliver to the plaintiff all the amounts deposited with this Court and

4.     All other claims of the parties are hereby
denied for lack of merit”

The fishpond owners appealed to the Court of Appeals. That Court however found no merit in their
appeal. In a Decision promulgated on
May 31, 1985,^[3]
it declared that there is “substantial evidence in the record showing that
Farnacio is indeed a tenant,” the evidence consisting of the testimony of
Farnacio himself, and that of two witnesses, Roberto Santillan and Fidel
Coronel. The Appellate Court analyzed
Farnacio’s proofs in relation to those of the fishpond owners, and concluded
that the evidence satisfactorily established that the fishpond owners, herein
petitioners, leased the fishpond to Cipriano Tandoc during the period February,
1978 to February 1984; that Tandoc “instituted (Farnacio) as
caretaker-tenant of the fishpond in 1978 ** and that the sharing basis between
them was 50-50;”^[4]
that “as such, he (Farnacio) performed all phases of work in the fishpond,
such as the repair of dikes, the construction of a hut and other improvements,
the planting of algae, and the application of fertilizer and chemicals, and
that he took care of the cost of fingerlings, chemicals and fertilizer and,
after deducting the lease rentals wages of the laborers and other expenses, he
and Tandoc divided the proceeds from the sale of fish on a 50-50 basis ** .^[5]
The Court thus declared itself to be “satisfied that the substantiality of
the evidence supports the trial court’s finding that Farnacio is a
tenant.”

The Appellate Court also overruled the contention that Farnacio’s
tenancy was terminated upon the expiration of Tandoc’s lease contract, on the strength of several precedents laid down by that
same court.

It accordingly affirmed the judgment of the Trial Court with the
modification, however, “that the plaintiff (Farnacio) is ordered to pay to the defendants an amount equal to 50% of
P4,594.00 as their share of the proceeds from the sale of fish.”^[6]

Again the fishpond owners have appealed, this time to this
Court. Again, their appeal must fail.

It is obvious that the Appellate Court’s conclusions of fact,
derived from its review and study of the evidence, are by established doctrine
binding on this Court and not a proper subject of review, subject only to a few
specified exceptions, none of which however is found in the case at bar.

The Appellate Court’s legal conclusion, on the other hand, that
Farnacio’s tenancy survived the termination of Tandoc’s lease of the fishpond
is entirely consistent with this Court’s own rulings.

In Ponce v. Guevarra,^[7] for
instance, promulgated on March 31, 1964, this Court, upon substantially
identical facts, held that “regardless of the extinction of the
contractual relations between petitioner (lessor) and Donato (lessee), and
between Donato and respondents herein (as agricultural tenants), the latter
cannot be ejected from petitioner’s land except upon judicial authority and for
one of the causes specified by law, reference being had to Joya v. Pareja
(a 1959 case),^[8]
where the question, “whether the tenant of a lessee retains the right
to work on the land despite the termination of the lease, or said in other
words, whether his being a tenant of the lessee makes him, upon the expiration
of the contract, a tenant of the lessor,” was “answered in the
affirmative, not so much because of Act 4054 relied upon by the Agrarian
Court but pursuant to Section 9 of Republic Act 1199, as amended by Section 3
of Republic Act 2263 **.” The same question was raised in Arevalo v.
Benedicto, a 1974 case,^[9] and
this Court declared that the question had “been definitely resolved in
favor of the tenant in Joya, et al. v. Pareja (106 Phil., 645), wherein ** (it
was) held that since the return by the lessee of the leased property to the
lessor upon the expiration of the lease involves a transfer of legal possession
of the land, the termination, therefore, of the lessor-lessee relationship did
not divest the tenant of the lessee of the right to remain and continue on his
cultivation of the land.* * .”

Sanchez v. Court of Appeals,^[10]
invoked by the petitioners, is quite inapplicable, involving as it does, hired
laborers of a civil law lessee,
not share or leasehold tenants. Neither
is Rosello v. Reyes,^[11] also
cited by petitioners, in point. That
case involved an entirely different situation: a share tenant improperly seeking reinstatement after having abandoned
his landholding and another person had been instituted in his place by the
land-owner.

WHEREFORE, the petition DENIED, and the challenged
judgment of the Intermediate Appellate Court is AFFIRMED, with costs against
petitioners.

Cruz, Gancayco, Griño-Aquino, and
Medialdea, JJ., concur.

^[1]
Judgment was rendered on October
31, 1984

^[2]
Rollo, pp. 26 27

^[3]
Id., pp. 26-29

^[4]
Id., p. 26

^[5]
Id., p. 27

^[6]
Id., p. 29

^[7]
10 SCRA 649

^[8]
106 Phil. 645

^[9]
58 SCRA 186, 191

^[10]
129 SCRA 717, 724 (1984)

^[11]
99 SCRA 1