GREGORIO GONZALES, PETITIONER, VS. THE HON. COURT OF APPEALS, MAR EVANGELISTA, LUCIANO AND ROSITA SESE AND ESTRELLA BAUTISTA, RESPONDENTS.

The petition seeks the review
of a judgment rendered by the Court of Appeals,^[1] setting aside the decision rendered by the
former City Court of Caloocan City, now Metropolitan Trial Court, in Civil
Cases Nos. 13501, 13502, and 13503 thereof, all actions for unlawful
detainer. The challenged decision
dismissed the cases for failure of the plaintiff, the petitioner herein, to avail himself of the barangay conciliation
process under Presidential Decree No. 1508, preliminary to judicial recourse.

There is no controversy as to the facts.

The petitioner is the
owner of an apartment located in Caloocan City. Three doors thereof, Nos. 110-D, 110-B, and 110-C, were leased to
the private respondents for less than P200.00 a month in rentals.^[2]

On October 1, 1979, the
petitioner filed three separate complaints for ejectment against the private
respondents in the City Court of Caloocan City. According to him, he is in need of the premises for the use of
his married children who do not allegedly have residences of their
own,^[3] which is a ground for ejectment
under the provisions of Batas Blg. 25. The private respondents duly filed their answers, after which the cases
were consolidated and then heard.

On January 6, 1981, the
said City Court rendered judgment ejecting the private respondents.^[4] They appealed to the then Court of First
Instance of Rizal, Branch XXXII, now Regional Trial Court, which affirmed the
trial court’s decision.^[5] Reconsideration having been denied,^[6] the private respondents commenced proceedings in the respondent Court of Appeals. Among others, the private respondents alleged that the Court of First Instance
erred in sustaining the jurisdiction of the City Court “notwithstanding
the admitted fact that there was no compliance in the cases with the mandatory
requirements of P.D. No. 1508.”^[7]

On October 31, 1981, the
respondent Court of Appeals rendered the assailed decision.^[8] On January 5, 1982, it denied the petitioner’s motion for reconsideration.^[9] As we noted, the respondent Court dismissed the ejectment cases on the ground
of lack of jurisdiction of the City Court for failure of the parties to undergo
a confrontation at the barangay level. Hence, this petition.

The issue to be resolved
here is not one of juris­diction, as erroneously supposed by the respondent
Court of Appeals and by the parties as well. The question, rather, is simply one of procedure.

In Ebol v. Amin,^[10]
we held that the conciliation process
under Presidential Decree No. 1508 is not juris­dictional. Jurisdiction is conferred by Batas Blg. 129
and the Judiciary Act of 1948.^[11]

Presidential Decree No.
1508 does not vest juris­diction in the lupong tagapayapa. Jurisdiction
means the power to try and decide a case.^[12] The lupon does not decide cases. It is vested only with conciliation
functions.^[13] It is not a court of law.

While in Royales
v. Intermediate Appellate Court,^[14] we ruled that “non-compliance with the
condition precedent prescribed by P.D. 1508 could affect the sufficiency of the
plaintiff’s cause of action and make his complaint vulne­rable to dismissal on ground
of lack of cause of action or prematurity,”^[15] we held in the same case that “the same
would not prevent a court of competent jurisdiction from exercising its power
of adjudication over the case before it, where the defendants, as in this case,
failed to object to such exercise of jurisdiction in their answer and even
during the entire proceedings a quo.”^[16]
There is a similar waiver in the cases
at bar. There is no allegation in the
private respondents’ answers^[17] that the petitioner failed to invoke the
authority of the lupon tagapayapa before going to court. Moreover, they took part in the trial, argued their case, and adduced
their evidence. These amount to a
waiver.

Other than these, we find
the decision^[18] of the then City Court of Caloocan, now
Metropolitan Trial Court, as affirmed by the Court of First Instance of Rizal,
Branch XXXII, now Regional Trial Court, in the aforesaid three cases to be in
conformity with the law and evidence.

WHEREFORE, the decision of the Court
of Appeals, and its resolution denying the petitioner’s motion for
reconsideration are hereby SET ASIDE. The decision of the City Court in Civil Cases
Nos. 13501, 13502, and 13503, as sustained by the Court of First Instance, is
REINSTATED. No pronouncement as to
costs.

SO ORDERED.

Yap, (Chairman), Narvasa, Melencio-Herrera, Cruz, Feliciano, and Gancayco, JJ., concur.

^[1]
Gopengco, J.; Victoriano and Sison, JJ., Concurring.

^[2]
Rollo, 24, 26, 29

^[3]
Id., 24, 27, 29.

^[4]
Id., 55-56.

^[5]
Id., 56.

^[6]
Id., 77-86.

^[7]
Id., 58.

^[8]
Id., 47-49.

^[9]
Id., 96.

^[10]
No. L-70237, March 18, 1985, 135 SCRA 438 (1985).

^[11]
Supra.

^[12]
Herrera v. Barretto, 25 Phil. 245 (1913).

^[13]
Pres. Decree No. 1508, sec. 2.

^[14]
No. L-65072, January 31, 1984, 127 SCRA
470 (1984).

^[15]
Supra, at 473; also Peregrina v.
Panis, No. L-56011, October 31, 1984, 133 SCRA 72 (1984).

^[16]
Royales v. Intermediate
Appellate Court, supra, at
473-474.

^[17]
Rollo, id., 31-42.

^[18]
Id., 45-46.