April 23, 1998

DAR OPINION NO. 53-98

PULCIANO RIANO

4856 Int. 7, Old Sta. Mesa

Manila

Dear Mr. Riano:

This refers to your letter of 18 March 1998 regarding your claim of tenancy over a coconut plantation. As stated in your letter, you had been an overseer of the said coconut plantation for forty seven years (47) now. As such, you have under your supervision, three families who live within the said area as farmworkers. As alleged, you never raised the issue of tenancy since then. However, you now wish to be clarified on some matters.

Specifically, your queries are summarized as follows:

1.         Whether or not the landowner may designate the farmworkers recruited by the overseer as tenants;

2.         Whether or not the farmworkers are more eligible or more qualified to become tenants than the overseer who manages the coconut land; and

3.         Whether or not the designation of the farmworkers as tenants is prejudicial to the interests or rights of the overseer.

The essential requisites of a tenancy relationship are: 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 (Graza vs. Court of Appeals, 163 SCRA 41). These requisites must all be present to support, the claim of tenancy.

As regards your first query, for the establishment of tenancy relationship, the landowner through express or implied contract or agreement may designate anyone as his tenant over a parcel of agricultural land as long as all the requisites of tenancy are present. 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.

As regards your second query, Section 5(A) of R.A. No. 1199, as amended, defines a tenant as one who by himself and with the aid available from his immediate farm household, cultivates the land belonging to or possessed by another, with the latter's consent for purposes of production, sharing the produce with the landholder, or paying to the landholder a price certain ascertainable in produce or in money or both. The Court of Appeals in Viernes vs. Reyes, CA-G.R. No. SP-05989, February 24, 1977, has ruled that a person who does not work or till the land is not a tenant. Therefore, a farmworker can qualify as tenant of the landholding on account, of his personal cultivation, coupled with his possession of the landholding for a period of years, and presence of all the other requisites constitutive of a tenancy relationship. Hence, the answer to your second query is in the affirmative provided all the conditions therein are satisfied.

As regards your third query, please be informed that there are clear-cut distinctions between the rights, duties and obligations of a tenant and that of an overseer /administrator. The concept of a tenant is discussed above. It is undisputed that the duty of the overseer is to manage and administer the landholding of the landowner. In Nipolo vs. Jancian, CA-G.R. No. 04605-R, September 22, 1976, the Court of Appeals had an occasion to rule that the overseer is an extension of the personality and authority of the owner. Therefore, as such, there will be no prejudice to the overseer in the event that the farmworker becomes a tenant of the land he tills since the contract of an overseer is different from the contract of a tenant. This rule is without prejudice, 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 foregoing premises and requisites as declared by competent authority.

Thank you for communicating with us and we hope to have clarified the matters with you.

Very truly yours,

(SGD.) ARTEMIO A. ADASA, JR.

Undersecretary for Legal Affairs, and Policy and Planning