This case has been cited 2 times or more.
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2014-04-02 |
PERLAS-BERNABE, J. |
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| Respondents' failure to pay leasehold rentals to the landowner also appears to have been willful and deliberate. They, in fact, do not deny and therefore admit[32] the landowner's assertion that their rental arrearages have accumulated over a considerable length of time, i.e., from 1985 to 2005 but rely on the fortuitous event defense, which as above-mentioned, cannot herein be sustained. In the case of Antonio v. Manahan[33] (Antonio), the Court, notwithstanding the tenants' failure to prove their own fortuitous event theory, pronounced that their failure to pay the leasehold rentals was not willful and deliberate. The records in said case showed that the landowner actually rejected the rentals, which amounted only to 2 years-worth of arrearages, i.e., 1993 and 2001, tendered by the tenants therein due to their supposed poor quality. This circumstance was taken by the Court together with the fact that said tenants even exerted efforts to make up for the rejected rentals through the payments made for the other years. In another case, i.e., Roxas v. Cabatuando[34] (Roxas), the Court similarly held that the tenants therein did not willfully and deliberately fail to pay their leasehold rentals since they had serious doubts as to the legality of their contract with respect to their non-sharing in the coconut produce, which thus prompted them to withhold their remittances in good faith. In contrast to Antonio and Roxas, the landowner in this case never rejected any rental payment duly tendered by respondents or their predecessors-in-interest. Neither was the legality of their agricultural leasehold contract with the landowner ever put into issue so as to intimate that they merely withheld their remittances in good faith. Thus, with the fortuitous event defense taken out of the equation, and considering the examples in Antonio and Roxas whereby the elements of willfulness and deliberateness were not found to have been established, the Court is impelled to agree with the DARAB that respondents herein willfully and deliberately chose not to pay their leasehold rentals to the landowner when they fell due. The term "willful" means "voluntary and intentional, but not necessarily malicious,"[35] while the term "deliberate" means that the act or omission is "intentional," "premeditated" or "fully considered."[36] These qualities the landowner herein had successfully established in relation to respondents' default in this case. Accordingly, their dispossession from the subject land is warranted under the law. | |||||
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2012-09-05 |
VILLARAMA, JR., J. |
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| Once the tenancy relationship is established, the tenant is entitled to security of tenure and cannot be ejected by the landlord unless ordered by the court for causes provided by law.[14] However, none of the afore-stated requisites was proven in this case as respondents admitted they were allowed to stay on the land by a certain Dr.Carillo before Mariano Antioquia, Sr. bought it, not for the purpose of agricultural production, but allegedly to help clear the land. | |||||