Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. L-16391 April 30, 1964
HECTOR MORENO, petitioner,
vs.
MACARIO TANGONAN, ET AL., respondents.
Pedro T. Davila, Jr. and Job E. Rubio for petitioner.
Nostratis and Allado for respondent Court of Industrial Relations.
Nicanor Serrano for other respondents.
DIZON, J.:
Petition filed by Hector Moreno for a review of the decision of the Court of Agrarian Relations in CAR Case No 119-Gba.-59 entitled Hector Moreno vs. Macario Tangonan and Eugenio Tagatac, of the following tenor:
WHEREFORE, this case is hereby dismissed, and the petitioner is hereby ordered to maintain the respondents herein in the peaceful possession and cultivation of their respective landholdings, as share tenants, with all the rights and obligations prescribed by law.
Respondents Macario Tangonan and Eugenio Tagatac are tenants of petitioner in his hacienda at Barrio Recuerdo, Nampicuan, Nueva Ecija, under written contracts of tenancy executed on February 1, 1956, and duly registered with the office of the municipal treasurer of Nampicuan on June 26 of the same year. The period stipulated was from June 1, 1956, to May 31, 1957, and from year to year thereafter, unless notice was given by either party to the other before the expiration of the initial period agreed upon or any year subsequent thereto. The sharing ratio stipulated was 55-45, in favor of respondents, with both parties equally bearing the expenses for final harrowing and transplanting. The net harvests for the agricultural year 1956-1957 were divided accordingly.
At the start of the following agricultural year 1957-1958, however, respondents refused to renew their contracts aforementioned and proceeded, instead, with the final harrowing and the transplanting on their respective landholdings without asking for petitioner's share of said expenses in spite of the virtual offer thereof to them by the latter's overseer. In September, 1957, after said phases of cultivation had been completed, respondents manifested their desire to change the sharing ratio for that year (1957-1958) to 70-30 in their favor, as they had shouldered all the expenses of cultivation. As petitioner did not accede to their demand, respondent filed a petition with the Court of Agrarian Relations (Case No. 870-NE-58) for the determination of the proper sharing ratio for the year aforesaid. After proper proceeding as therein, said Court rendered judgment to the effect that the harvests for the agricultural year 1957-1958 should be divided on the same sharing ratio of 55-45 in favor of respondents, as in 1956-1957.
Subsequently, petitioner filed a petition with the Court of Agrarian Relations seeking respondents' ejectment from their respective landholdings on the ground that they had violated and failed to substantially comply with the terms and conditions of their tenancy contracts by refusing to receive petitioner's share of the expenses for final harrowing and transplanting in the agricultural year 1957-1958 — allegedly a sufficient legal ground for their ejectment under Section 50, paragraph (b), of Republic Act No. 1199. After trial, the Court rendered the decision appealed from.1äwphï1.ñët
It cannot be denied that respondent had the right change the crop-sharing ratio agreed upon (45-55) to 70-30, in their favor, at the expiration of their contracts of tenancy on May 31, 1957. As the Court of Agrarian Relations held, however, they attempted to exercise this right late in — September, 1957. It is to be noted, nevertheless that the same Court held that they acted in good faith. We agree entirely with this conclusion, supported as it is the circumstance — fully established by the evidence — that, right from the start of the agricultural year 1957-1958, respondents had refused to renew their contracts and proceeded, instead, with the final harrowing and the transplanting operations on their respective landholdings without asking for petitioner's share in the expenses. This, in our opinion, was sufficient notice to the latter of their desire to have the original contracts modified, particularly with respect to the sharing ratio agreed upon. That it was only in September, 1957, that they actually asked petitioner to have such change effected was, perhaps, a mistake while sufficient in the opinion of the Court of Agrarian Relations to deprive them of the right to change the sharing ratio for the agricultural year 1957-1958 (Annex C attached to the petition for certiorari), was not, however, sufficient to constitute such violation of their contracts of tenancy as would justify their ejectment as tenants pursuant to the provisions of Section 50, paragraph (b), of Republic Act 1199.
PREMISES CONSIDERED, the decision under review affirmed with costs.
Bengzon, C.J., Padilla, Bautista Angelo, Concepcion, Reyes, J.B.L., Barrera, Paredes and Makalintal, JJ., concur.
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