CAYETANO AND TIONGSON V CA

FACTS OF THE CASE: Severino Monotok owns a 34-hectare land which was later donated to his
heirs, including the petitioners. Thru verbal agreement, he permitted private respondent Teodoro
Macaya to be the caretaker, utilizing only a three-hectare part but is free to plant and raise animals
therein, with the condition that when the legitimate owners will claim the land, he will vacate the area
or abide with what the former will say. When these legitimate owners decided to give the subject 34-
hectare land to the Monotok Realty, a joint business venture, Macaya would no longer want to leave,
instead, he expanded his tilling land from 3 to 6 hectares and insisted that he is a tenant therein.
Issue: WON private respondent Macaya is a tenant of the petitioners?
According to the Ministry of Labor Relations: Macaya is not and has never been a share or
leasehold tenant of Severino Manotok nor of his successors-in-interest over the property or any
portion or portions thereof but has only been hired as a watchman or guard (bantay) over the same.
On Macaya's appeal from the said decision, the respondent appellate court declared the existence of
an agricultural tenancy relationship and ordered Macaya's reinstatement to his landholding.
TRIAL COURT: The disputed land is not an agricultural land; hence it is not subjected to agrarian
reform. The location is situated within residential areas and the conversion of a small land to
agricultural does not make it one. The ruling of Labor Relations is reversed.
CA: Whether the appellant was instituted as tenant therein or as bantay, as the appellees preferred to
call him, the inevitable fact is that appellant cleared, cultivated and developed the once unproductive
and Idle property for agricultural production. Appellant and Don Severino have agreed and followed a
system of sharing the produce of the land whereby, the former takes care of all expenses for
cultivation and production, and the latter is only entitled to 10 cavans of rice per harvest. This is the
essence of leasehold tenancy.
SC: No. There was no existing tenancy relationship between the parties. The Supreme Court laid
down the requisites of a tenancy relationship such as the parties must be the landowner and
the tenant, the subject land must be agricultural land devoted for agricultural production,
there is consent of the landowner, there is personal cultivation of the tenant, and there is
profit sharing. All these requisites are necessary in order to create tenancy relationship
between the parties and the absence of one or more requisites do not make the alleged tenant
a de facto tenant, as contra-distinguished from a de jure tenant, this is so because unless a
person has established his status as a 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 tenancy
laws. In the case at bar, the consent of Severino Monotok is missing since the subject of the given
consent is for Macaya to be the bantay not to cultivate the land. There is also no profit-sharing
because the share given by the latter is not continuous since his occupancy started and they were
intended for the payment of taxes, not a mere share from the produce of the land. Hence, the petition
of the petitioners is granted.