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PHILIPPINE SUPREME
COURT
DECISIONS
ON-LINE
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THIRD DIVISION
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MA.
ROSARIO L. BATONGBAKAL,
Petitioner,
-versus-
G.R.
No. 141806
January
17, 2005
SIMEON ZAFRA,
Respondent.
x-------------------------------------x
D
E C I S I O N
CARPIO-MORALES, J.:
Respondent
Simeon Zafra filed a complaint for maintenance of peaceful possession
over a landholding situated in Caingin, Bocaue, Bulacan with the
Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) against petitioner Ma. Rosario L.
Batongbacal and her alleged co-owners thereof, and also against the
Municipality of Bocaue, Bulacan. The complaint, docketed as DAR
Case No. 155-Bul`90, was later amended to include Francisco Santiago,
Jr. as additional defendant.
In his
complaint, respondent claimed to be the rightful tenant of the land in
question in support of which he invoked an order of the Ministry, now
Department, of Agrarian Reform (DAR) dated August 27, 1987 in another
case, Administrative Case No. III-62-87 – a case filed by herein
petitioner for cancellation of certificates of land transfer against
respondent, in which respondent was found to be a tenant of petitioner;
and that he was disturbed by petitioner and her co-defendants by
dumping filling materials on the landholding in the course of the
construction of a public market on an adjacent lot, thereby preventing
him from cultivating the landholding.
By
decision of April 14, 1994, the Provincial Adjudicator found for
respondent, viz:
WHEREFORE,
premises considered, judgment is hereby rendered in favor of the
plaintiff and against defendant (sic) as follows:
1.
Finding the plaintiff to be a bonafide tenant of the landholding in
question;
2.
Ordering defendants, Mun. of Bocaue, Bulacan, Ma. Rosario Batongbacal,
Celso S. Lazaro, Consorcia Santiago, Rodolfo Lazaro and all other
persons acting in their behalves are hereby ordered (sic) to cease and
desist from committing any acts tending to eject, oust or disturb the
plaintiff in his landholding;
3.
Making the Preliminary Injunction issued permanent.
SO
ORDERED.
Petitioner
and her co-defendant Francisco Santiago, Jr. appealed. The
Department of Agrarian Reform and Adjudication Board (DARAB), by
Decision of February 16, 1998, dismissed the appeal, affirmed in toto
the decision of the Provincial Adjudicator, and ordered petitioner and
her co-defendants to vacate the premises and respect respondent’s
peaceful possession and cultivation thereof.
Petitioner
thereafter filed a Motion for Reconsideration and/or New Trial in which
she claimed, inter alia, that the DARAB decision was based on a
falsified case record which contained documents from other cases
surreptitiously inserted therein by the DARAB, namely, (1) the exhibits
in Administrative Case No. III-62-87, (2) the case folder of CA-GR SP
No. 26354 – a petition for certiorari and injunction filed by
petitioner, among others, to restrain the re-opening of Administrative
Case No. III-62-87, and (3) the documentary evidence in Civil Case No.
91-1939 – an ejectment case filed against respondent by Carlos Cruz, et
al. The motion was denied by Resolution of June 4, 1998.
Only
petitioner assailed the DARAB decision via a petition for review filed
with the Court of Appeals. In her petition before the appellate
court, she proffered that she was denied due process as she was not
given the opportunity to present evidence and the DARAB surreptitiously
inserted documents in the record on which it based its decision; and
that she is not the owner of the landholding over which respondent was
claiming to be a tenant– that covered by Certificate of Land Transfer
(CLT) No. 16(M), hence, he could not have been her tenant thereon.
Petitioner
further proffered that the DARAB had no jurisdiction over the case
since the land in question is a “commercial or institutional land”
covered by the comprehensive development plan of the Municipality of
Bocaue, Bulacan.
The
Court of Appeals, by Decision of February 23, 1999, dismissed the
petition. On the issue of whether she was deprived of due
process, the appellate court, noting that petitioner filed her answer
before the Provincial Adjudicator whose decision she appealed to the
DARAB, and that her documentary evidence in Adm. Case No. III-62-87,
the case folder of CA-GR SP No. 26354, and the documentary evidence in
Civil Case No. 91-1939 were part of the records of the case, held in
the negative.
On the
issue of jurisdiction, the appellate court held that in light of the
allegations of respondent in his complaint on dispossession of a tenant
by the landholder of an agricultural land, the DARAB had jurisdiction
over the case.
Petitioner’s
claim that the land is “commercial or institutional” was discredited by
the appellate court as it found that the record did not sufficiently
indicate so, and in any case, its proper classification should be
determined in a separate and proper complaint as it would involve the
validity of the CLT issued to respondent which may not be challenged
collaterally.
Petitioner’s
Motion for Reconsideration of the appellate court’s decision raising
the same issues having been denied by Resolution of January 31, 2000,
she filed the present petition essentially reiterating her arguments
before said court.
This
Court views as odd for one who denies ownership of a land and yet
contests an injunction obtained against her by a tenant thereon.
For, as in petitioner’s case, if one were not the landowner, then he or
she would have no interest in the land and would even have less
justification for disturbing the tenant’s possession thereof.
At any
rate, if indeed petitioner is not a real party in interest, then the
assailed decision would merely be erroneous insofar as petitioner is
concerned.
The
resolution of the case hinges on four issues, namely, (1) the identity
of the land in question, (2) the alleged tenancy of respondent thereon,
(3) the classification of the land, and (4) the alleged denial of due
process to petitioner.
Identity
of the land in question
Petitioner
summarizes her main argument in this wise:
“This is the crux
of [petitioner’s] defense: not being the owner of the landholding that
[respondent] claims, even assuming that he is a lawful tenant of
[petitioner], he is not entitled to possession of the land owned by
another. Neither can a judgment to place him in possession be
legal against [petitioner], who is not the owner; any such judgment
would be clearly ineffective as in the first place she has no right to
transfer possession of a third party’s land.”
[1]
Petitioner’s
argument is flawed. Although the identity of the land is a
question of fact, this Court has to resolve the same to finally put
this case to rest, as the lack of an explicit resolution thereon
appears to be at the root of this controversy.
[2]
The decisions of
the Court of Appeals, the DARAB, and the DAR Provincial Adjudicator on
the case at bar all refer to the “land in question” and the “subject
land” without, however, explicitly identifying it.
It is
inferred from the record of the case, however, that the subject land is
identical to that involved in DAR Adm. Case No. III-62-87 which, by
petitioner’s own claim, is covered by CLT No. 255927 under the name of
respondent. Thus, in her statement of facts in the present
petition, petitioner alleges:
4. On May
27, 1984, [petitioner] and her five (5) siblings (Celso, Lauro,
Consorcia, Pablito, and Rodolfo) filed a request for cancellation of
Certificates of Land Transfer with the then Minister of Agrarian Reform
Conrado F. Estrella, seeking their exemption from Operation Land
Transfer under Presidential Decree No. 27 on the ground that the land
was already commercial in nature since 1974, and they were entitled to
exercise retention rights over the abovementioned lands. The
letter-request for cancellation of the CLTs was docketed as Adm. Case
No. III-62-87 of the Ministry of Agrarian Reform.
5.
[Respondent] is among those whose Certificates of Land Transfer were
sought to be cancelled, he having been a tenant of [petitioner’s
ascendant] Pedro G. Lazaro over a landholding in Lot 5-E-5-C,
(LRC)Psd-03-024538; his CLT was denominated as CLT No. 0-255927, PMS
No. 006, Lot No. 00013, with an area of 00.7200 hectares.” (Emphasis
and underscoring supplied)
Respondent’s
complaint in the case at bar, on the other hand, which challenged
petitioner’s acts in relation to the same land involved in Adm. Case
No. III-62-87 alleged:
x x x
3.
Plaintiff [herein respondent] is tenanting a parcel of land located at
Caingin, Bocaue, Bulacan previously owned by the late Pedro Lazaro
while defendants [herein petitioner, et al.] are all heirs of the
latter.
4.
Plaintiff has been pronounced as rightful tenant of the land in
question by the Department of Agrarian Reform resolution of DAR ADM.
CASE NO. III-62-87 embodied in the Order dated August 27, 1987.
The Order directed the landowner to, among others, maintain the tenants
in the peaceful possession and cultivation of their respective
farmholdings under leasehold. xxx
5.
Sometime during the first half of February, 1990, Defendants caused the
dumping of filling materials on subject landholding being as it is
adjacent to and abutting the land whereon a public (municipal) market
is being constructed. xxx
[3]
(Emphasis and
underscoring supplied)
Although
the subject land was merely described in the complaint in the present
case by respondent as “located at Caingin, Bocaue, Bulacan” and as
“adjacent to and abutting the land whereon a public (municipal) market
is being constructed,” his reference to Adm. Case No. III-62-87 shows
that that land subject of the latter case is identical with that in the
present case.
Moreover,
the record indicates that the appellate court, the DARAB and the
Provincial Adjudicator, in alluding to the “land in question” or “the
subject land,” referred to the same land involved in Adm. Case No.
III-62-87.
On the
issue of whether respondent is “a bona fide tenant of the landholding
in question,”
[4]
the Provincial
Adjudicator held in the affirmative in this wise:
[T]he
Board is convinced to resolve the same in the affirmative.
Plaintiff has been found by the DAR Team Office and by the
investigation conducted by Atty. Rufino Antonio, Trial Attorney II
DAR-BALA, Malolos, Bulacan (sic). This finding is supported by
the Affidavit of Mr. Gil Del Rosario, an adjacent (kahangga) landholder
of the plaintiff, certifying plaintiff is indeed a tenant of the
landholding he is claiming since the 1940’s, exhibit ‘A’. The
landowners ledger, EP Form 1 also revealed that plaintiff is a
bona-fide tenant of Pedro Lazaro, Exhibit ‘B’. The tenancy status
of the plaintiff is fortified by receipts, exhibits D. D-1, D-2, D-3
all pointing that the former has been paying his lease rentals.
Although there is no written contract to prove plaintiff’s tenancy
status, his long period of cultivating and performing all the phases of
agriculture in his landholding coupled with his act of sharing his
harvest through the payment of lease rental establishes his status as a
bonafide tenant.
[5]
(Underscoring
supplied)
The
affidavit of Mr. Gil Del Rosario referred to above identifies the land
being tilled by respondent as that covered by CLT No. 255927. The
Landowner’s Ledger in the name of petitioner’s ascendant Pedro Lazaro
includes respondent in the list of farmer-beneficiaries and
acknowledges his possession of CLT No. 255927. When the
Provincial Adjudicator cited then these documents as evidence of a
tenancy relationship between the parties over the land, he must have
referred to the landholding covered by CLT No. 255927, the same land
subject of Adm. Case No. III-62-87.
Petitioner
nonetheless argues that respondent’s submission in the present case of
CLT No. 16(M), which is not the one involved in Adm. Case No.
III-62-87, indicates that the two cases covered different parcels of
land.
The
complaint filed by respondent identified the subject landholding as
that over which he was pronounced as rightful tenant in Adm. Case No.
III-62-87 which, as explained above, was the land covered by CLT No.
255927. Consistent with this identification, respondent submitted
as evidence the affidavit of Gil del Rosario and the Landowner’s Ledger
mentioned above, both of which refer to the land covered by CLT No.
255927. The CLT No. 16(M) submitted by respondent in the present
case may thus be considered merely as irrelevant evidence.
The
tenancy of respondent on the subject land
Based
on petitioner’s own statements in her petition, the landholding subject
of Adm. Case No. III-62-87 forms part of Lot 5-E-5-C,
(LRC)Psd-03-024538 which is owned by her and her siblings.
[6]
In fact, in her
Answer filed with the Provincial Adjudicator, she admitted that she has
a tenancy relationship with respondent on the same land. Thus,
referring to the DAR Order dated August 27, 1987 in Adm. Case No.
III-62-87, petitioner states:
b. Said Order
affects Lot No. 000013, PMS No. 006, containing an area of 7,200 square
meters and which forms part of that piece of land denominated (before)
as Lot 5-E, Psd-26727, Sheet 1, and, (later) as Lot 5-E-5-C,
Psd-03-024538, embrace[d] in, and covered (before) by Transfer
Certificate of Title No. T-13569 and (later) by Transfer Certificate of
Title No. T-95.491(M), of Bulacan, xxx
c.
Answering defendant Ma. Rosario L. Batongbacal did not and does not
have any tenancy relationship with the plaintiff with respect to any
land other than in, and over a portion of what used to be Lot 5-E,
Psd-26727, Sheet 1, formerly covered by Transfer Certificate of Title
No. T-3852 and later T-13569, of Bulacan.”
[7]
(Emphasis and
underscoring supplied)
Given
this admission, not only is the identity of, but also the tenancy
relationship between the parties over the land is established.
There
being a tenancy relationship between the parties, petitioner is bound
to respect the security of tenure which the law vests upon her
tenant-respondent.
xxx This
being so, the herein plaintiffs who happen to be legitimate tenants are
entitled to a security of tenure and be maintained in the peaceful
possession and cultivation of their respective landholdings until and
after their status as a tenant[s] has been proven otherwise.
Furthermore, even if the defendants [now petitioners] were to claim
that they are unaware of the occupancy of the land by the herein
tenants on the assumption that the deceased Faustino Ocampo did not
report the matter to them, the law is clear on the matter that the
successor or the transferee of an agricultural land is bound and
subrogated to the rights and obligations of the transferor.
[8]
(Underscoring supplied)
Classification
of the subject land
On
petitioner’s affirmative defense that, even assuming that she owns “the
land subject of the case” and that respondent was a tenant thereon, the
land is outside the coverage of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law,
it having been included in the institutional and commercial zone
defined by the Comprehensive Development Plan of Bocaue, Bulacan as
early as February 9, 1981: The Court finds that the factual
finding of the DARAB that the subject land is agricultural has not been
overturned by petitioner.
[9]
Alleged
denial of due process
That
petitioner filed motions for reconsideration and appeals with the
tribunals below, in which she presented her arguments and through which
she could have proffered her evidence, if any, negate her claim that
she was denied opportunity to be heard.
[10]
The case of
Mutuc v. CA, correctly cited by the appellate court, is instructive:
There is no
question that the “essence of due process is a hearing before
conviction and before an impartial and disinterested tribunal” but due
process as a constitutional precept does not, always and in all
situations, require a trial-type proceeding. The essence of due
process is to be found in the reasonable opportunity to be heard and
submit any evidence one may have in support of one’s defense. “To
be heard” does not only mean verbal arguments in court; one may be
heard also through pleadings. Where opportunity to be heard,
either through oral arguments or pleadings, is accorded, there is no
denial of procedural due process.
[11]
(Underscoring
supplied; citations omitted)
Petitioner
nevertheless argues that a motion for reconsideration is not sufficient
for the purpose of submitting her evidence because she intended to
present “properly authenticated copies of titles to property, technical
plans and surveys, testimony of the real-parties-in-interest,
authenticated copies of government agencies holding such records x x x
court records, and the like, which could not be properly submitted by
means of a mere motion.” Her evidence, however, consisted in the main
of public documents which she could have attached to her motions for
reconsideration and her appeals to merit a disturbance of the assailed
decisions. The testimonial evidence she intended to present could
have been submitted in the form of affidavits, as is usual in
administrative proceedings.
Far
from being deprived of the opportunity to be heard then, it was
petitioner’s choice not to take advantage of such opportunity.
Petitioner
cannot also claim that, despite being able to ventilate her arguments
through pleadings, her right to due process was nonetheless violated
when these arguments were ignored by the tribunals below. On the
contrary, her thesis in her petition and memorandum filed with this
Court consists of attempts to refute the rulings of these tribunals on
the issues which she raised, such as the ownership of the land, its
present classification, the existence of a landlord-tenant
relationship, and due process.
As for
petitioner’s questioning the Court of Appeals not passing on her
allegation that the DARAB, without notifying the parties, intercalated
certain documents into its case folder: Courts are not always
required by law to discuss each and every allegation raised by
litigants. In the wise use of their discretion, courts may sift
the arguments raised by both parties and address only those which are
substantial. As People v. Derpo
[12]
holds:
“One must bear in
mind that the court is not required to state in its decision all the
facts found in the records. It is enough that the court states
the facts and the law on which it is based (Section 1, Rule 36 of the
Revised Rules of Court). Thus, the mere fact that no mention was
made in its decision of the testimony of prosecution witness Augusto
Hara before the former Presiding Judge, Hon. Jorge S. Imperial does not
necessarily mean that said testimony was overlooked by the trial court
in arriving at its decision, as alleged. Moreover, if no
reference was made of said testimony, it is because such is
insignificant.”
While
the DARAB, to show that petitioner was not denied due process, cited
the existence in the record of the questioned documents, such documents
were not the only bases to support its ruling. Petitioner’s
filing of a motion for reconsideration was also mentioned as having a
curative effect on the issue of due process. Hence, even if the
questioned documents were disregarded, there would still be sufficient
legal ground to support DARAB’s ruling.
The
Court of Appeals cannot then be faulted for not passing upon the
alleged intercalation, it having found, like the DARAB, that any defect
in due process was cured by petitioner’s filing of an answer, an
appeal, and a motion for reconsideration.
[13]
WHEREFORE, the Petition is hereby DENIED for lack of merit.
Costs
against petitioner.
SO
ORDERED.
Panganiban,
J., (Chairman),
Sandoval-Gutierrez, Corona, and Garcia, JJ., concur.
[1]
Rollo at 380.
[2] As
ruled by the Court in the case of Latchme Motoomull v. Dela Paz, 187
SCRA 743, 754 (1990): “[T]he Court will always strive to settle the
entire controversy in a single proceeding leaving no root or branch to
bear the seeds of future litigation.”
[3]
DAR Case Record II, 556.
[4]
Rollo at 93.
[5]
Ibid.
[6]
Rollo at 14-15.
[7]
DARAB Case Record I, 39.
[8]
Don Pepe Henson Enterprises v. Pangilinan, 161 SCRA 687, 693 (1988).
[9]
“xxx as to whether the particular land in question is forestry or
any other class of land is a question of fact to be settled by the
proof in each particular case.” (Republic v. Court of Appeals, 168 SCRA
77, 84 [1988]).
[10]
Sampang v. Inciong, 137 SCRA 56, 62 (1985).
[11]
190 SCRA 43, 49 (1990).
[12]
168 SCRA 447, 455 (1988).
[13]
Rollo at 68.
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