March 25, 1999
DAR OPINION NO. 30-99
MR. PULCIANO RIANO
4856 Interior 7, Old Sta. Mesa
Metro Manila
Dear Mr. Riano:
This refers to your letter of 13 November 1998 requesting opinion on the following queries:
1. Whether or not a farmworker who is allowed to stay in a coconut plantation may be considered a tenant;
2. Whether or not an overseer of a coconut plantation who cultivates the land may be considered a tenant and may assert his right as such; and
3. Whether or not it is the landowner alone who has the right to assign a tenant of his landholding.
The Department of Agrarian Reform on several occasions, had opined that to support a claim of tenancy, all the essential requisites of tenancy relationship must be present. To repeat, the essential requisites of a tenancy relationship are as follows: 1) the parties are the landholder and the tenant; 2) the subject is agricultural land; 3) there is consent, given either orally or in writing, expressly or impliedly; 4) the purpose is agricultural production; 5) there is personal cultivation; and 6) there is compensation, either in terms of share in the harvest or payment of a fixed amount in money and/or produce (DAR Opinion Nos. 25, S. 1994; 53, S. 1998, citing Graza vs. Court of Appeals, 163 SCRA 41). The above-cited DAR Opinion No. 53, S. 1998 further states in part, quote:
" . . . In the absence of any of said requisites, an occupant of a parcel of land, or a cultivator thereof or a planter thereon, cannot claim tenancy relations over the landholding."
Applying the foregoing to your first query, it is clear that a farmworker may be considered a tenant if the above requisites are present.
As regards your second query, well-settled is the rule that the duty of an overseer is to manage and administer the landholding of the landowner. In the case of Nipolo vs. Janician, CA-G.R. No. 04605-R, 22 September 1976, the Court of Appeals had ruled that an overseer is an extension of the personality and authority of the owner. However, if it could be duly established that aside from being an overseer, he himself is a tenant in his own right based on the requisites of tenancy relationship as enumerated above, then he may assert his right as a tenant.
As regards your third query, the landowner or his duly authorized representative has the right to assign a tenant of his landholding subject to prior rights of an incumbent de jure tenant and subject, further, to existing agrarian laws, rules and regulations.
We hope to have finally clarified the matters with you through this DAR Opinion and DAR Opinions No. 25, S. 1994 and No. 53, S. 1998 which tackled the same subject matters on questions raised in your previous letters, which are of the same tenor albeit worded differently.
Please be informed and guided accordingly.
Very truly yours,
(SGD.) DANILO T. LARA
Undersecretary for Legal Affairs, and Policy and Planning