G.R. No. 71217




Republic of the Philippines SUPREME COURT Manila FIRST DIVISION G.R. No. 71217 August 30, 1990 PACITA A. OLANDAY, MARIA A. ARELLANO and NATIVIDAD A. CRUZ, petitioners, vs. INTERMEDIATE APPELLATE COURT and MOISES FARNACIO, respondents. Elmo Catapat for petitioners. Florencia B. Vinluan for private respondent. NARVASA, J.: The validity of private respondent's claim that he is a tenant of the petitioners' fishpond, with security of tenure as such assured under the law, is the basic question presented in this appeal. The Regional Trial Court in Dagupan City adjudged him to be such a tenant. This it did in Civil Case No. D-7240-instituted by said private respondent, Moises Farnacio, against the owners of the fishpond, herein petitioners: Pacita A. Olanday, Maria A. Arellano and Natividad A. Cruz. The Court's judgment was founded on the evidence presented at the trial, 1 and contained the following dispositive portion: 2 WHEREFORE, in the light of the foregoing considerations, this Court hereby renders judgment as follows, to wit: 1. Declaring and recognizing Moises Farnacio as tenant-caretaker over the fishpond in question located at Lomboy District, Dagupan City. 2. Ordering the defendants to maintain plaintiff in the peaceful possession and cultivation of said fishpond with all the rights accorded and obligations imposed upon him by law. 3. Ordering the Branch Clerk to withdraw and deliver to the plaintiff all the amounts deposited with this Court and 4. All other claims of the parties are hereby denied for lack of merit. The fishpond owners appealed to the Court of Appeals. That Court however found no merit in their appeal. In a Decision promulgated on May 31, 1985, 3 it declared that there is "substantial evidence in the record showing that Farnacio is indeed a tenant," the evidence consisting of the testimony of Farnacio himself, and that of two witnesses, Roberto Santillan and Fidel Coronel. The Appellate Court analyzed Farnacio's proofs in relation to those of the fishpond owners, and concluded that the evidence satisfactorily established that the fishpond owners, herein petitioners, leased the fishpond to Cipriano Tandoc during the period February, 1978 to February 1984; that Tandoc "instituted (Farnacio) as caretaker-tenant of the fishpond in 1978 . . . and that the sharing basis between them was 50-50;" 4 that "as such, he (Farnacio) performed all phases of work in the fishpond, such as the repair of dikes, the construction of a hut and other improvements, the planting of algae and the application of fertilizer and chemicals, and that he took care of the cost of fingerlings, chemicals and fertilizer and, after deducting the lease rentals, wages of the laborers and other expenses, he and Tandoc divided the proceeds from the sale of fish on a 50-50 basis . . ." 5 The Court thus declared itself to be "satisfied that the substantiality of the evidence supports the trial court's finding that Farnacio is a tenant." The Appellate Court also overruled the contention that Farnacio's tenancy was terminated upon the expiration of Tandoc's lease contract, on the strength of several precedents laid down by that same court. It accordingly affirmed the judgment of the Trial Court with the modification, however, "that the plaintiff (Farnacio) is ordered to pay to the defendants an amount equal to 50% of P4,594.00 as their share of the proceeds from the sale of fish." 6 Again the fishpond owners have appealed, this time to this Court. Again, their appeal must fail. It is obvious that the Appellate Court's conclusions of fact, derived from its review and study of the evidence, are by established doctrine binding on this Court and not a proper subject of review, subject only to a few specified exceptions, none of which however is found in the case at bar. The Appellate Court's legal conclusion, on the other hand, that Farnacio's tenancy survived the termination of Tandoc's lease of the fishpond is entirely consistent with this Court's own rulings. In Ponce v. Guevarra, 7 for instance, promulgated on March 31, 1964, this Court, upon substantially identical facts, held that "regardless of the extinction of the contractual relations between petitioner (lessor) and Donato (lessee), and between Donato and respondents herein (as agricultural tenants), the latter cannot be ejected from petitioner's land except upon judicial authority and for one of the causes specified by law, reference being had to Joya v. Pareja (a 1959 case), 8 where the question, "whether the tenant of a lessee retains the right to work on the land despite the termination of the lease, or said in other words, whether his being a tenant of the lessee makes him, upon the expiration of the contract, a tenant of the lessor, " was "answered in the affirmative, not so much because of Act 4054 relied upon by the Agrarian Court but pursuant to Section 9 of Republic Act 1199, as amended by Section 3 of Republic Act 2263 . . ." The same question was raised in Arevalo v. Benedicto, a 1974 case, 9 and this Court declared that the question had "been definitely resolved in favor of the tenant in Joya, et al, v. Pareja (106 Phil., 645), wherein . . . (it was) held that since the return by the lessee of the leased property to the lessor upon the expiration of the lease involves a transfer of legal possession of the land, the termination, therefore, of the lessor-lessee relationship did not divest the tenant of the lessee of the right to remain and continue on his cultivation of the land, . . ." Sanchez v. Court of Appeals, 10 invoked by the petitioners, is quite inapplicable, involving as it does, hired laborers of a civil law lessee, not share or leasehold tenants. Neither is Rosello v. Reyes, 11 also cited by petitioners, in point. That case involved an entirely different situation: a share tenant improperly seeking reinstatement after having abandoned his landholding and another person had been instituted in his place by the landowner. WHEREFORE, the petition is DENIED, and the challenged judgment of the Intermediate Appellate Court is AFFIRMED, with costs against petitioners. Cruz, Gancayco, Griño-Aquino and Medialdea, JJ., concur. Footnotes 1 Judgment was rendered on October 31, 1984. 2 Rollo, pp. 26-27. 3 Id., pp. 26-29. 4 Id., p. 26. 5 Id., p. 27. 6 Id., p. 29. 7 10 SCRA 649. 8 106 Phil. 645. 9 58 SCRA 186, 191. 10 129 SCRA 717, 724 (1984). 11 99 SCRA 1. The Lawphil Project - Arellano Law Foundation