Case Digest: JESUS PASCO et al. v. PISON-ARCEO AGRICULTURAL AND DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION

JESUS PASCO et al. v. PISON-ARCEO AGRICULTURAL AND

DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION

485 SCRA 514 (2006)

Under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law, ownership of the land is transferred only after the award of the same to the beneficiary by the Department of Agrarian Reform.

Pison-Arceo Agricultural and Development Corporation, is the registered owner of a parcel of land in Negros Occidental. Constructed on the said land are houses occupied by the corporation‘s workers. Jesus Pasco et al. are former workers of the corporation. When their employment contracts were terminated, they were asked to vacate the house but they refused to do so. The corporation thereafter filed a complaint for unlawful detainer before the Metropolitan Trial Court in Cities in Bacolod City. The trial court rendered judgment in favor of Pasco et al. On appeal, the Regional Trial Court affirmed the decision. Pasco et al. appealed the decision contending that the court has no jurisdiction over the case on the ground of a pending agrarian reform dispute between them and the corporation.

The Court of Appeals rendered a decision which affirmed the RTC‘s decision.

ISSUE:

Whether or not one who has been identified by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) as potential agrarian reform beneficiary may be ejected from the land where he is identified as such, by the landowner, who has already been notified by the DAR of the coverage of his land by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program of the government

HELD:

The issuance during the pendency of the case of a Notice of Coverage to Pison-Arceo Agricultural and Developmevnt Corporation does not, however, automatically make the ejectment case an agrarian dispute over which the Department of Agrarian Reform Adjudication Board (DARAB) has jurisdiction. The issuance of a Notice of Coverage is merely a preliminary step for the State‘s acquisition of the land for agrarian reform purposes and it does not automatically vest title or transfer the ownership of the land to the government.

Since during a field investigation the DAR and Land Bank of the Philippines would make a determination as to whether, among other things, “the land will be placed under agrarian reform, the land‘s suitability to agriculture,” a Notice of Coverage does not ipso facto render the land subject thereof a land reform area. The owner retains its right to eject unlawful possessors of his land, as what respondent Pison- Arceo Agricultural and Development Corporation did in the present case.

Nothing in the records of the case shows that the DAR has made an award in favor of Spouses Pasco et al. Hence, no rights over the land they occupy can be considered to have vested in their favor in accordance with Section 24 of the CARL which provides that the rights and responsibilities of the beneficiary shall commence from the time the DAR makes an award of the land to him, which award shall be completed within one hundred eighty (180) days from the time the DAR takes actual possession of the land.