Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. L-243 April 30, 1947
BASILIO BAUTISTA, GERTRUDES IGNACIO and SIMON IGNACIO, plaintiffs-appellees,
vs.
ARISTIDES GONZALES, defendant-appellant.
Aristides Gonzales in his own behalf.
Fortunato de Leon for appellees.
PARAS, J.:
On August 27, 1945, the plaintiffs filed in the municipal court of Manila an action for ejectment against the defendant. Sentenced to vacate the premises in question (Nos. 1457-1459 Quezon Boulevard) and to pay the monthly rental of P30 from July 1, 1945, and the costs, said defendant appealed to the Court of First Instance of Manila wherein he interposed an answer assailing, in the main, the validity of the sale under which the plaintiffs acquired the ownership of the property. In a motion alleging that the answer did not raise any real controversy worthy of a formal trial, the plaintiffs moved for a summary judgment against the defendant. This filed an opposition, after which the Court of First Instance rendered a decision in favor of the plaintiffs.
It appearing that the defendant — appellant herein — admits in his very opposition and the affidavit in support thereof that he had been paying rents to the plaintiffs from July, 1944, to April, 1945, and that he thereafter desisted, pending determination by the Government of the effect of sales paid in Japanese military notes, it would be a futility for the lower court to proceed with a formal trial. The legal relation between the plaintiffs and the defendant as landlords and tenant once established, the other important point that properly arose is whether the defendant's right to continue in possession of the leased premises had ceased. Needless to say, defendant's admitted default in the payment of rents is certainly a justification for dispossessing him. Question of ownership thereby became unessential and foreign to the ejectment case; and the same may be raised by the defendant in an appropriate action. Indeed, the appealed decision in no wise binds the title or affects the ownership of the property in dispute. (Rule of Court No. 72, section 7.)
Defendant's four assignments of error and the elaborate discussions thereof, tending to demonstrate his ownership notwithstanding the sale to the plaintiffs, are therefore out of place. Plaintiff's motion for summary judgment and its concession by the lower court are fully warranted. The procedure is authorized by Rule of Court No. 36 as as means for promptly disposing of civil actions in which there exists no genuine controversy. (Moran, Comments on the Rules of Court, Vol. I, p. 325.)
The appealed decision is affirmed with cost against the defendant. So ordered.
Pablo, Perfecto, Bengzon, Padilla and Tuason, JJ., concur.
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