REMIGIO ISIDRO, petitioner,

vs.
THE HON. COURT OF APPEALS (SEVENTH DIVISION) AND NATIVIDAD GUTIERREZ, respondents.

FACTS:

Petitioner Remigio Isidro was allowed to occupy without paying any rental a portion of land owned private respondent
Natividad Gutierrez. The occupancy, however, was subject to the condition that petitioner would vacate the land upon
demand. Thereupon, Petitioner converted the same into a fishpond.

After sometime, private respondent demanded from petitioner the return of the land, but the latter refused to vacate
hence, a complaint for unlawful detainer was filed before the Municipal Trial Court (MTC) of Gapan, Nueva Ecija. Among
his defenses, petitioner claimed that the subject land is a fishpond and therefore is agricultural land hence, the dispute
over it is agrarian which is under the original and exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of agrarian relations as provided in
Sec. 12(a) of Republic Act No. 946 (now embodied in the Revised Rules of Procedure of the Department of Agrarian
Reform Adjudication Board).3

ISSUE:

WHETHER OR NOT THE MUNICIPAL COURT HAS THE JURISDICTION IN THIS CASE.

RULING:

Yes. A case involving an agricultural land does not automatically make such case an agrarian dispute upon which the
DARAB has jurisdiction. The mere fact that the land is agricultural does not ipso facto make the possessor an
agricultural lessee of tenant. The law provides for conditions or requisites before he can qualify as one and the land
being agricultural is only one of
them. 18 The law states that an agrarian dispute must be a controversy relating to a tenurial arrangement over lands
devoted to agriculture. And as previously mentioned, such arrangement may be leasehold, tenancy or stewardship.