March 20, 1997

DAR OPINION NO. 28-97

MARO Valentin C. Tambis

DAR Municipal Office

Sta. Cruz, Placer

Surigao del Norte

Dear MARO Tambis:

This refers to your request for DAR policies, guidelines or any jurisprudence relative to certain issues that will aid your Office in rendering legal information or conducting mediation/counseling to the farmer-beneficiaries in your province. Specifically, you wish to be clarified on the following issues, to wit:

1.         Disturbance compensation on ejectment cases involving lands which are planted to coconuts and other fruit trees.

2.         Rights of the tenants to claim for expenses incurred or services rendered in cases involving the sharing of offsprings of female carabao or cattle for fattening.

3.         Are the tenants entitled to claim for damages from the expected share on coco trees cut by landowners and sold to buyers for lumber purposes? How much should the tenants claim?

4.         Does a mining firm have the absolute right to buy an agricultural titled property located within their mining claim for operation even within the residential barangay? If so, how much should the tenants and the landowner receive for their property and improvements?

Anent the first issue, in conversion cases resulting to ejectment of tenants from their landholdings, Section 7 of R.A. No. 3844 (otherwise known as the Code of Agrarian Reform of the Philippines) provides that the agricultural lessee shall be entitled to disturbance compensation equivalent to five times the average of the gross harvests on his landholding during the last five preceeding calendar years. In case, however, of other farmworkers, they are entitled to receive a just share of the fruits thereof. (Sec. 2, R.A. No. 6657 and Sec. 4, Article XIII of the 1987 Philippine Constitution).

As regards the second issue, the DAR is not vested with authority to determine the sharing of offsprings of female carabao or cattle for fattening because the same falls within the Jurisdiction of the Bureau of Animal Industry. Accordingly, any request for guidelines or information relative thereto shall brought before the said Office.

Anent the third issue, it can be inferred that tenants are by law entitled to claim for damages from the sale of lumber by the landowner. Under DAR Administrative Order No. 5, Series of 1993, the cutting of coconut trees shall be with the consent of the tenants which clearly implies that it affects the right and interests of the latter over the subject landholding, including the preservation of the land according to the use for which it has been intended. Likewise, under DAR Administrative Order No. 16, Series of 1989 the indiscriminate cutting of coconut trees by the landowner is under regulation since this may lead to the unlawful ejectment or dispossession of the tenant-tillers and/or farmworkers. As to how much should the tenants claim, sound judgment dictates that the DAR Officer concerned should determine the same such as would be just and equitable under the circumstances with due regard to the tenants.

Anent the last issue, it is submitted that if the agricultural land has been found to be no longer suitable or economically feasible and sound for agricultural purposes as determined by the Department of Agriculture, it can already be sold to a third party who may have interest over the same. However, in this case, conversion of the land shall first be required applying thereof the DAR rules on conversion.

We hope to have clarified matters with you.

Very truly yours,

(SGD.) ARTEMIO A. ADASA, JR.

Undersecretary for Legal Affairs, and Policy and Planning