May 28, 1996
DAR OPINION NO. 21-96
Mr. Toribio F . Navarro, Sr.
Bal-lay, Bauang, La Union
Dear Mr. Navarro:
Anent your query on whether a farmworker can be considered a "tenant" within the context of the Agrarian Reform Law if the landholding is only 3 hectares, please be informed that the same is indeed legally feasible. In a long line of decisions, the Supreme Court had occasion to explain that a tenant, as defined under Section 5(a) of R.A. No. 1199, is a person who himself, and with the aid available from within his immediate farm household, cultivates the landholding belonging to or possessed by another with the latter's consent for the purpose of production, sharing the produce with the landholder under the share tenancy system, or paying to the landholder a price certain or ascertainable in produce or in money, or both under the leasehold tenancy system.
For tenancy relations to exist, the following requisites must be present:
1. The parties are the landowner and the tenant;
2. There is consent by the landowner for the tenant to work on the land — either conveyed verbally or in writing, expressly or impliedly;
3. The subject land is agricultural in nature;
4. The purpose is agricultural production;
5. There is personal cultivation on the part of the tenant, when he does it in person and/or with the aid of labor within his immediate farm household; and
6. There is sharing of harvests or there is a consideration for the lease of the land in an amount certain in money or in produced or both.
(Rafael Gelos vs. The Honorable Court of Appeals and Ernesto Alzona G.R. No. 861860, May 8, 1992; Yolanda Caballes vs. DAR, et al. G.R. NO. 78214, December 5, 1988, 168 SCRA 247).
Cultivation is not limited to the plowing and harrowing of the land, but also the husbanding of the ground to forward the products of the earth by general industry, the taking care of the land and fruits growing thereon, fencing of certain areas, and the clearing thereof by gathering dried leaves and cutting of grasses. In coconut lands, cultivation includes the clearing of the landholding, the gathering of the coconuts, their piling, husking and handling as well as the processing thereof into copra, although at times with the aid of hired laborers.
(Coconut Cooperative Marketing Association, Inc., (COCOMA) vs. Court of Appeals, Nos. L-46281-83, August 19, 1988, 164 SCRA 568; Wenceslao Hernandez vs. Hon. Intermediate Appellate Court, et al., G. R. No. 74323, September 21, 1990, 189 SCRA 758).
Since there is no minimum area specified for a farmlot to be covered by tenancy, it follows that even a 3-hectare property can be the subject of tenancy relations, provided the above requisites are all present.
We wish to add, however that the foregoing opinion is based merely on the information supplied to us and does not constitute a decision in any case that may be pending or filed involving the same issue.
Very truly yours,
(SGD.) LORENZO R. REYES
OIC-Undersecretary
LAFMA
Copy furnished:
Atty. Elvi John S. Asuncion
Director
Office of the Ombudsman
Arroceros Street
1099 Manila