NINTH DIVISION

[CA-G.R. No. SP-06078-CAR.  February 25, 1977.]

EULOGIO PACHECO, plaintiff-appellee, vs. VICTOR DESIDERIO, ET AL., defendants-appellants.

D E C I S I O N

VASQUEZ, J p:

Claiming that defendant Victor Desiderio has been threatening the security of his tenure as an agricultural lessee of a parcel of riceland located in Barrio Perez, Meycauayan, Bulacan, the plaintiff filed this action before the Court of Agrarian Relations at Baliuag, Bulacan primarily for injunction to protect his rights and interest as agricultural lessee. He likewise complains that the lease rental of 35 cavans of palay per year which he was paying to the defendant was grossly excessive and exhorbitant, the same not being based on the harvest for the three agricultural years prior to the time he became an agricultural lessee in 1969. As prayed for in the complaint, the trial court issued a restraining order directed against the defendants to enjoin the latter, his agents and representatives from ejecting the plaintiff from the subject landholding.

The defendant denied in his answer the claim of the plaintiff that he is an agricultural lessee on the subject landholding, the truth of the matter being allegedly that he is the agricultural lessee of the said parcel of land which belongs to the Roman Catholic Bishop of Malolos. He claims that the plaintiff is a mere hired laborer on the land, and that the defendant is not exacting excessive or exhorbitant rental because there is no relationship of agricultural leasehold existing between them. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Malolos was impleaded as an additional defendant but it presented no evidence in its behalf. After due trial, the Court a quo rendered judgment as follows:

"WHEREFORE, judgment is hereby rendered:

(a)     Declaring plaintiff Eulogio Pacheco to be the lawful agricultural lessee on subject landholding situated at Perez, Meycauayan, Bulacan, with an area of 2.5 hectares, belonging to defendant Roman Catholic Bishop of Malolos, Inc.;

(b)     Ordering said defendant Roman Catholic Bishop of Malolos, Inc. to maintain plaintiff in the possession and cultivation of subject land;

(c)     Making permanent the temporary restraining order of August 8, 1973;

(d)    Ordering plaintiff to pay defendant Roman Catholic Bishop of Malolos, Inc. an annual lease rental of 16 cavans of palay, payable immediately after threshing;

(e)     Dismissing the claim and counterclaim for damages for lack of merit and/or substantiation.

SO ORDERED."

Defendant Victor Desiderio took this appeal from the judgment. In his memorandum, he raised the contentions that the trial court erred in finding plaintiff-appellee Eulogio Pacheco as the bona fide tenant of the landholding in question for lack of one of the essential elements in the establishment of tenancy relationship which is "consent"; in finding that the defendant-appellant Victor Desiderio's actuation in allowing a third person to take possession and cultivation of the landholding in question by virtue of a loan obtained by the former from the latter amounted to abandonment; and in hinting that defendant-appellant Victor Desiderio was an overseer of the landowner Roman Catholic Bishop of Malolos, Inc. and/or civil law lessee.

There is no dispute as to the identity of the land involved, and that a portion thereof approximately 2 hectares is planted to rice. It is likewise undisputed that the property is owned by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Malolos. Since before the war, it was tenanted by the father of defendant Victor Desiderio. After his father's death during the Occupation, Victor Desiderio assumed the cultivation of the land. In 1963, he entered into a contract of agricultural leasehold with the Roman Catholic Bishop of Malolos pursuant to which he was to pay to the landowner a yearly rental of 16 cavans of palay (Exhibit 4). In the same year that he became an agricultural lessee, Victor Desiderio entered into a contract with a certain Mauricio Orosco pursuant to which the possession and cultivation of the landholding was delivered by Victor Desiderio to Mauricio Orosco in consideration of a loan of P1,500.00 obtained by the former from the latter (Exhibit 1). In 1969, after said loan was repaid, Mauricio Orosco surrendered the possession of the land to Victor Desiderio. It was in that year that the plaintiff claimed to have been installed as an agricultural lessee on the land. While the defendant admits that the plaintiff worked on the land, it is his contention that he did so only as a hired laborer together with others for a daily wage of P15.00.

On the issue of whether the plaintiff is an agricultural lessee or merely a paid laborer on the landholding in question, the Court a quo made the following findings:

"Coming now to the matters over which the contending parties are at loggerheads, the Court finds that for the period from 1934 up to the date of the institution of plaintiff's complaint on August 8, 1973, the evidence on record is quite clear as to who were the actual tillers of subject landholding. They were defendant Desiderio from 1934 to 1961; plaintiff Eulogio Pacheco and Mauricio Orozco in 1962; Mauricio Orozco from 1963 to 1968; and plaintiff Eulogio Pacheco from 1969 up to the date of the commencement of the instant suit and also up to the present.

Orozco happened to work subject holding because defendant Desiderio borrowed from him the sum of P1,500.00 and in return, the possession and cultivation of the land was delivered to the former by the latter.

In 1969 defendant Desiderio asked plaintiff to cultivate the landholding in dispute for a yearly lease rental of 35 cavans of palay. Plaintiff agreed and since then up to 1972 he had been paying every year the agreed rental to defendant Desiderio who himself went to the landholding during harvest time bringing with him sacks which were filled with palay and then hauled in the jeep of Felix Santiago. Plaintiff was the one who paid for the hauling expenses. The palay was brought to the residence of defendant Desiderio who himself decided where to deliver the same thereafter.

Diego del Rosario, whose landholding which he has been working for twenty (20) years as of the date he took the witness stand is separated by a creek about 10 to 12 meters wide from subject holding, corroborated the fact of cultivation by Mauricio Orozco of the landholding in dispute from 1963 to 1968 and by plaintiff Eulogio Pacheco thereafter.

Said witness also testified that during plaintiff's period of cultivation of subject holding, the said plaintiff was the one who plowed and harrowed the land, prepared the seedbed, broadcasted the seeds, took care of the growing crop, caused the reaping and threshing of the harvest with the aid of his wife and sons, and with the help of his said spouse was the one who caused the transplanting of the seedlings. It was also testified to by this witness that he practiced "suyuan" with plaintiff yearly.

Plaintiff's payment of lease rentals to defendant Desiderio was also established by the testimony of Felix Santiago. This witness knows both plaintiff and defendant Desiderio. As of the date he took the witness stand on August 23, 1973, he had been delivering plaintiff's yearly lease rental of 35 cavans to defendant Desiderio for four (4) times already. He used his jeep in bringing the rentals to the house of Desiderio who instructed him to bring the same to the ricemill of Luis Villarica situated at Mamhacan, Meycauayan, Bulacan. Defendant Desiderio then went to the ricemill and got the receipts. Plaintiff's testimony that he was the one paying the hauling expenses was confirmed by this witness.

From the foregoing admitted, undisputed and established facts, this Court finds that plaintiff indeed is the agricultural lessee on the landholding subject of litigation." (Original Record, pp. 315-317).

Defendant-appellant does not seriously question the above findings of fact. In this appeal, he maintains that no tenancy relationship could have been created between the plaintiff and the landowner due to the lack of consent on the part of the latter to consider the plaintiff as a tenant or agricultural lessee on the subject landholding.

It is true that the plaintiff never dealt directly with the landowner, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Malolos, his dealings being only limited to defendant-appellant who is the one leasing the land from the landowner. This fact, however, does not prevent the creation of the status of the plaintiff as an agricultural lessee of the land. The consent for the creation of a tenancy relationship does not have to be given by the landowner expressly, it being sufficient if such consent could be implied (Sec. 5, Republic Act No. 3844, as amended). The relationship may be considered established where the landowner knew of the cultivation of the land by the farm worker through an agent and he tolerated the same (Santos vs. Vda. de Serdenola, 5 SCRA 823), or where the tenant was appointed by an agent of the landholder (Delgado vs. Piruvano, CA-G.R. No. 37897-37933). We agree with the trial court that the landowner could not have been ignorant of the fact that defendant-appellant had ceased to cultivate the land since the time he gave the possession thereof to Mauricio Orosco in 1963 up to 1969. In the latter year, after Mauricio Orosco surrendered the possession of the land to the defendant-appellant, the latter did not cultivate it himself but entrusted such work to the plaintiff. By such act, the status of the defendant-appellant with respect to the landholding is no longer that of agricultural lessee but as a civil law lessee. We concur in this pronouncement of the trial court:

"It is true that originally, the owner of the land had recognized defendant Victor Desiderio as the leasehold tenant thereon. This is supported by the document, Exh. 4-Desiderio, and the testimony of said defendant, plaintiff and his witness Diego del Rosario. However, commencing from the year 1963, Desiderio lost his status as such when he delivered the possession and cultivation of subject land to Mauricio Orozco in consideration of the sum of P1,500.00 borrowed by the former from the latter. If, as disclosed by the evidence on record, Desiderio continued to pay lease rentals to the owner of the land, he did so no longer as leasehold tenant but already as civil law lessee. This is so, because even if a person is designated as "tenant" in a contract, if he does not cultivate the land he cannot be so considered, . . .."

xxx                    xxx                    xxx

"What led plaintiff to believe that defendant Desiderio was a civil law lessee in fact, although a leasehold tenant in name beginning 1963, was the transfer of possession and cultivation of the landholding in dispute to Mauricio Orozco. If it is true that Desiderio was in name and in fact a leasehold tenant, he would not have the temerity to deliver the possession and cultivation of subject land to Orozco, for by doing so he would cease to be tenant by authority of the pronouncement of the Supreme Court that a person who does not work the land or till the farm is not a tenant. Consequently, it is the finding of this Court that there was a valid institution of plaintiff as agricultural lessee on the land in dispute by defendant Desiderio who from the established facts on record was and should be considered as a civil law lessee from 1963 and thereafter.

But even if we do not consider Desiderio as a civil law lessee when he took in plaintiff to cultivate subject holding, it was nevertheless established by the evidence on record that defendant Desiderio had taken in plaintiff to cultivate the landholding in question with the implied knowledge and consent of the owner such that a new tenancy relationship between said plaintiff and said landowner had been as in fact it was so created. While the rule is that 'tenure rights created and conferred upon a tenant may not be the subject of sale, conveyance, transfer or alienation by the tenant to a third person, yet if the transfer or alienation is with the consent of the landholder, it would in effect be a voluntary surrender accepted by the landholder and the establishment of a new tenancy relationship between the latter and the transferee." (Original Record, pp. 317-319).

Defendant-appellant imputes to the trial court the error of "hinting" that he is an overseer, or a civil law lessee of the parcel of land involved. He claims that he could not be an overseer because he is paying rental to the landowner, and he may not be deemed to be a civil law lessee because there is no evidence to support such finding. The trial court did not say that defendant-appellant is an overseer of the landowner. The finding that he became a civil law lessee is based on evidence already set forth above. His reliance on the contract of agricultural leasehold that he entered into with the landowner in 1963 (Exhibit 4) may not prevail over the admitted fact that he was not the one cultivating the land in question since 1963. A noted authority on agrarian reform paraphrases the decided cases on this point as follows:

"3.     The tenant-lessor must actually and personally till and/or cultivate the land, solely or with the aid of labor from his immediate farm household.

If the farm hand does not cultivate the land personally, he cannot be considered a lessee even if he is so designated in the written agreement of the parties. On the other hand, if the relationship of the parties satisfies all the elements of agricultural leasehold, a leasehold relationship will be deemed established notwithstanding a stipulation to the contrary in the contract. The title, label or rubric given to a contract cannot be used to camouflage the real import of an agreement as evinced by its main provisions. Moreover, it is basic that a contract is what the law defines it to be, and not what it is called by the contracting parties." (Santos, Code of Agrarian Reforms Annotated, 1973 edition, pp. 31-32).

WHEREFORE, the judgment appealed from is hereby affirmed, with costs against the defendant-appellant.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Batacan and Jimenez, JJ ., concur.