April 4, 1997
DAR OPINION NO. 37-97
Ms. Rosita G. Coronel
54 Dr. Alejos St.
Sta. Mesa Heights
Quezon City
Dear Ms. Coronel:
This has reference to your letter requesting for an opinion on the following: 1) whether or not you are obliged to compensate a tenant who is not paying rent to his landowner? and 2) how can you sell the land if the tenant does not want to leave?
You state that you and your co-owners own a piece of land with an area of 4.8 hectares, more or less; that the subject landholding is tenanted; that the tenant agreed to pay 35 cavans of rice per year as his rent, but said tenant, failed to pay the rent for the last ten years; that said tenant has already died and his son took. over the cultivation of said landholding; that, like his father, said tenant refuses to pay his rent for the last three (3) years, and that said tenant refuses to leave the land and is asking one (1) hectare as his share upon learning that you will sell the land.
Anent your first query, the Supreme Court in a long line of decisions held that to establish a tenancy relationship, the following essential requisites must be present, to wit:
1) the parties are the landowner and the tenant;
2) the subject is agricultural land;
3) the purpose is agricultural production;
4) there is consideration and that consideration consists of the sharing of harvests;
5) there is consent to the tenant to work on the land; and
6) there is personal cultivation by him (tenant)
All these requisites must concur in order to create a tenancy relationship between the parties. The absence of one does not make an occupant of a parcel of land, or a cultivator thereof, or a planter thereon a de jure tenant. Unless a person has established his status as de jure tenant, he is not entitled to security of tenure nor is he covered by the Land Reform Program of the government under existing laws (Caballes vs. DAR, et al., G.R. No. 78214, December 5, 1988).
On the assumption of the veracity of the foregoing facts as alleged, your relation with your tenant does not possess all the essential requisites of tenancy relationship above cited (i.e., there is no consideration since he is not paying his rent), thus, he is not a de jure tenant. Such being the case, you are not obliged to compensate your alleged tenant. Moreover, even assuming that there is an existing agricultural tenancy or leasehold relation, the same shall not be extinguished by the sale, alienation or transfer of legal ownership of the land from one landowner to another. Section 10 of R.A. No. 3844, as amended provides that the purchaser or transferee shall be subrogated to the rights and substituted to the obligations of the agricultural lessor. In other words, the lessee does not stand to lose anything by the said sale or transfer of ownership since he shall still remain a lessee of the new owner or transferee. However, he is under the law entitled to his rights of pre-emption and redemption.
As regards your last query, you can sell your landholding provided that your agricultural lessee (alleged tenant ) must be allowed to exercise his right of pre-emption (i.e., tenant's/lessee's preferential right to buy the landholding) over the said landholding. This right of pre-emption may be exercise within one hundred eighty (180) days from notice in writing which shall be served by the landowner to all the lessees affected and the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) pursuant to Section 11 of R.A. No. 3844, as amended by R.A. No. 6389. Section 12 of the Republic Act further provides that: "In case the landholding is sold to a third person without the knowledge of the agricultural lessee, the latter shall have the right to redeem the same at a reasonable price and consideration one hundred eighty (180) days from notice in writing which shall be served by the vendee on all lessees affected and the DAR.
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