Yolanda Caballes v.

DAR, Heherson Alvarez and Bienvenido Abajon

Facts:
 Lease portion of land to build house & plant corn and bananas
 Sold land
 Pursuaded to transfer, offered to pay rent but denied
 Asked to vacate
 Criminal case for Malicious Mischief
 Trial Court to MAR to determine relationship
 MAR issued a certificate that Abajon is a tenant
 On appeal, DAR reversed saying that land involved is a residential lot consisting only of 60-sq. m
 On motion for reconsideration, new Minister of DAR recognized the existence of tenancy
relations between the parties.

Sec. 10 of RA 3844, which provided that new owners are bound to respect the tenancy
regardless of the size of the land being tilled.

Issue:
Whether or not Abajon is a tenant of spouses Caballes

Ruling:
 NO.
 Abajon only occupied a miniscule portion of the lot.

 RA 3844, as amended, defines an economic family-size farm as "an area of farm land that
permits efficient use of labor and capital resources of the farm family and will produce an
income sufficient to provide a modest standard of living to meet a farm family's needs for food,
clothing, shelter, and education with possible allowance for payment of yearly installments on
the land, and reasonable reserves to absorb yearly fluctuations in income."

 The essential requisites of a tenancy relationship are:

1. The parties are the landowner and the tenant;
2. The subject is agricultural land;
3. There is consent;
4. The purpose is agricultural production;
5. There is personal cultivation; and
6. There is sharing of harvests.
 Sharing alone is not sufficient to establish a tenancy relationship
 Agricultural production as the primary purpose being absent in the arrangement
 Abajon was never a tenant

 The private respondent can not be held criminally liable for malicious mischief

 Order is SET ASIDE and criminal case is DISMISSED.

 YOLANDA CABALLES vs. DEPT. OF AGRARIAN REFORM, HON. HEHERSON T. ALVAREZ and
BIENVENIDO ABAJON
G.R. No. L-78214
05 December 1988

FACTS:
 Macario Alicaba & Millenes family, predecessors-in-interest of petitioner, agreed to lease to
private respondent Abajon a portion of subject land to construct the latter’s house & to plant
corns & bananas. They agreed to a monthly rental of PHP2.00 & 50-50 share of crops.

 Petitioner Caballes & her husband acquired, through a deed of sale, the whole land which
includes the portion occupied by private respondent. They informed private respondent of
their intention to build a poultry close to his house & persuaded him to transfer his dwelling
to the opposite or southern portion of the land. On his part, private respondent offered to
pay rent on the land occupied by his house, but such offer was not accepted.

 Later, the spouses asked private respondent to vacate the premises, saying that they needed
the property. But he refused. Despite the confrontation before the Brgy. Captain, the parties
failed to reach an agreement. All efforts by the landowners to oust private respondent were
in vain as the latter simply refused to budge.

 Petitioner then filed a criminal case for malicious mischief against private respondent,
alleging that the latter maliciously cut down the banana plants worth P50.00, (note: all
banana plants, were planted by Abajon).

 Pursuant to PD 1038, the trial court ordered the referral of the case to the regional office of
Ministry of Agrarian Reform (MAR) to determine the relationship of the parties. As a result,
MAR issued an order declaring the existence of a tenancy relationship between Caballes &
Abajon. It also declared the criminal case for malicious mischief filed by petitioner against
private respondent as not proper for trial; since such case is filed patently to harass and/or
eject the tenant from his farm.

 On appeal, then DAR Minister Conrado Estrella reversed the certification and declared the
criminal case as proper for trial, since the land involved is a residential lot consisting only of
60-sq. m.

 On motion for reconsideration, herein respondent and new Minister of DAR, Heherson
Alvarez issued an order finding the criminal case as not proper for trial due to the existence
of tenancy relations between the parties.
o Private respondent invoked Sec. 10 of RA 3844, which provided that new owners
are bound to respect the tenancy regardless of the size of the land being tilled.

ISSUE: Whether or not Abajon is a tenant of spouses Caballes.

HELD: NO.

RATIO:
 The Supreme Court held that Abajon only occupied a miniscule portion of the lot. RA 3844, as
amended. The 60-sq. m. cannot be considered as an economic family-size farm protected by
the aforementioned law. Planting camote, bananas, & corn on a 60-sq. m. land cannot
produce an income sufficient to provide a modest standard of living to meet the farm
family’s basic needs.

 The essential requisites of a tenancy relationship are:

1. The parties are the landowner and the tenant;
2. The subject is agricultural land;
3. There is consent;
 4. The purpose is agricultural production;
5. There is personal cultivation; and
6. There is sharing of harvests.

 All these requisites must concur in order to create a tenancy relationship between the
parties. The absence of one does not make an occupant of a parcel of land, or a cultivator
thereof, or a planter thereon, a de jure tenant. This is so because unless a person has
established his status as a de jure tenant, he is not entitled to security of tenure nor is he
covered by the Land Reform Program of the Government under existing tenancy laws.

 Sharing alone is not sufficient to establish a tenancy relationship. Tenancy status arises only if
an occupant of a parcel of land has been given its possession for the primary purpose of
agricultural production. The circumstances of this case indicate that the private respondent’s
status is more of a caretaker who was allowed by the owner out of benevolence or
compassion to live in the premises and to have a garden of some sort at its southwestern
side rather than a tenant of the said portion.

ON the criminal case of malicious mischief:

 SC dismissed the complaint. The private respondent cannot be held criminally liable for
malicious mischief in cutting the banana trees because, as an authorized occupant or
possessor of the land, & as planter of the banana trees, he owns said crops including the
fruits thereof.

 The private respondent’s possession of the land is not illegal or in bad faith because he was
allowed by the previous owners to enter & occupy the premises. In other words, the private
respondent worked the land in dispute with the consent of the previous & present owners.

MIGUEL B. CARAG v. COURT OF APPEALS, LEOCADIO IBAY, 

G.R. No. L-48140 June 18, 1987

Facts:
 Miguel Carag owns a land with an area of 25 hectares
 In 1955, the father of Miguel entered into a verbal contract of lease with Leocadio
 In 1961, there was yet another verbal contract of lease between
 Defendant failed to pay rent
 Carag filed complaint for unlawful detainer with damages before the municipal court
 Trial court ruled in favor of Carag, no agricultural leasehold relationship
 Ibay filed before the Court of First Instance of Cagayan an action to annul the decision with
preliminary injunction
 CFI held the municipal court had no jurisdiction to hear the case, the same being within the
original and exclusive jurisdiction of the Court of Agrarian Relations.

Issue:
Whether or not a tenancy relationship exists between the parties.

Ruling:
NO.
 The Agricultural Tenancy Act which is the law applicable to the alleged tenancy relations of the
landholding in question defines "agricultural tenancy" as —

... the physical possession by a person of land devoted to agriculture, belonging to or legally
possessed by another for the purpose of production through the labor of the former and of the
members of his immediate farm household in consideration of which the former agrees to share
the harvest with the latter or to pay a price certain or ascertainable, either in produce or in
money, or in both. (Sec. 3, R.A. No. 1199; 50 O.G. 4655-56).

 The essential requisites of a tenancy relationship are: (1) the parties are the landholder and the
tenant; (2) the subject is agricultural land; (3) there is consent; (4) the purpose is agricultural
production; (5) there is personal cultivation; and (6) there is sharing of harvests.

 The respondent admitted hiring laborers to work in the land in question when he testified.

 Absent the important factor of cultivation, no tenancy relationship had ever existed between the
parties.

MIGUEL B. CARAG v. COURT OF APPEALS, LEOCADIO IBAY,

G.R. No. L-48140 June 18, 1987

Facts:
This is a petition for review on certiorari of the decision of the Court of Appeals which affirmed in
toto the decision of the trial court declaring the existence of a landholder-tenant relationship and
nullifying the judgment rendered by the municipal court in favor of herein petitioner for lack of
jurisdiction.

Plaintiff, Miguel Carag, is the registered owner of a certain parcel of land situated at Finulu-Cabaritan
Solana, Cagayan Identified as Lot 8137-C of the Solana Cadastre with an area of 25 hectares, more or
less, covered by Transfer Certificate of Title No. T-5727.

Sometime in 1955, Tomas Carag, the father of Plaintiff herein and at the same time his overseer on
the above-described land, entered into a verbal contract of lease whereby he leased to the
defendant-lessee, Leocadio Ibay the western portion of said land covering 11 hectares with the
condition that there would be no rental on the land for the first 3 years of the lease and that after the
third year, the rental would be at 70-30 share basis.

In 1961 there was yet another verbal contract of lease between the same parties with the following
conditions: (1) Lessee, the herein defendant, would pay the rental to the lessor 15 cavans of palay per
hectare for the main crop and (2) 10 cavans of palay per hectare for the second crop on the 11
hectares of land leased.

All rentals on the land leased were fully paid except the rentals corresponding to the crop year 1970-
71 which was paid in part, the plaintiff having received 130 cavans of palay from defendant, leaving a
balance of 35 cavans unpaid rentals from the main crop.

Defendant has actually planted the land to second crop of palay during the month of May, 1971 and
has not paid the plaintiff the rental due thereon at 10 cavans per hectare or 110 cavans for the 11
hectares

Respondent Ibay refused to surrender possession of the land leased to petitioner Carag despite
repeated demands from the latter. Hence, on April 2, 1971, the petitioner as plaintiff filed a complaint
for unlawful detainer with damages before the municipal court.

The defendant denied the amount of rentals and set up as defense that he would not vacate the
land unless reimbursed for P20,000.00 worth of improvements he had introduced. In his counter-
claim Ibay claimed reimbursement for the P20,000.00. There was absolutely no mention of the fact
that he was supposed to be a mere tenant.

The trial court ruled that there was no agricultural leasehold relationship between the plaintiff and
defendant in order to determine the applicable law. Hence, it ruled that the provisions of the Civil
Code on civil lease applied in the case at bar. It then proceeded to rule against respondent Ibay
ordering him, inter alia, to vacate the land in question.

On March 21, 1972, before the decision could be executed, respondent Ibay filed before the then
Court of First Instance of Cagayan an action to annul the decision with preliminary injunction on the
ground that due to the existence of an agricultural leasehold relationship between the parties, the
municipal court had no jurisdiction to hear the case, the same being within the original and exclusive
jurisdiction of the Court of Agrarian Relations.

The court of first instance ruled in favor of respondent Ibay, declaring the decision rendered by the
municipal court as null and void for lack of jurisdiction. On appeal, the respondent appellate court
affirmed in toto the lower court's decision. Hence, the present petition

Issue: Whether or not a tenancy relationship exists between the parties.

Ruling:
NO.

The Agricultural Tenancy Act which is the law applicable to the alleged tenancy relations of the
landholding in question defines "agricultural tenancy" as —

... the physical possession by a person of land devoted to agriculture, belonging to or legally
possessed by another for the purpose of production through the labor of the former and of the
members of his immediate farm household in consideration of which the former agrees to share the
harvest with the latter or to pay a price certain or ascertainable, either in produce or in money, or in
both. (Sec. 3, R.A. No. 1199; 50 O.G. 4655-56).

It can be gathered from the above definitions that the essential requisites of a tenancy relationship
are: (1) the parties are the landholder and the tenant; (2) the subject is agricultural land; (3) there is
consent; (4) the purpose is agricultural production; (5) there is personal cultivation; and (6) there is
sharing of harvests.

The petitioner raises as a main issue that the fifth requisite namely personal cultivation, is lacking in
their disputed relationship,

The respondent admitted hiring laborers to work in the land in question when he testified.

From the definition of a tenant and the admission made by respondent, it is clear that absent the
important factor of cultivation, no tenancy relationship had ever existed between the parties.

There may have been sharing of harvests but such is not a positive indication of the existence of
tenancy relations per se as it must be taken together with other factors characteristic of tenancy.

The total area leased to Mr. Ibay in 1955 by the petitioner and one Florencio Cuntapay and Angel
Carag was 40 hectares. The area alone is indicative of a civil lease. There are other circumstances of
this case showing that there is no agricultural landlord-tenant relationship between the parties but
the above are sufficient.