Grounds for Dispossession of Agricultural Tenant

The rule is settled that failure to pay the lease rentals must be willful and deliberate in order to be considered as ground for dispossession of an agricultural tenant. While the “term ‘deliberate’ is characterized by or results from slow, careful, thorough calculation and consideration of effects and consequences,” the term "willful" has been “defined as one governed by will without yielding to reason or without regard to reason.”

The foregoing disquisition notwithstanding, we find that Antonio’s dispossession is, however, still warranted by his repeated violations of the terms of the Leasehold Agreement which prohibited, among other matters, the cultivation of other plants on Manahan’s properties, the expansion of the tenant’s dwelling as well as the non-synchronized plantings and harvests thereon. Granted that paragraph III (G) of DAR Administrative Order No. 5, Series of 1993 allows the tenant to plant secondary crop on the land provided he shoulders the expenses thereof, Antonio’s planting of kangkong directly flies in the face of the categorical prohibition in the Leasehold Agreement against the planting of other plants on the land and Manahan’s objections/complaints against the same as early as 24 November 1994.^[41] Antonio’s claim that that kangkong grew naturally on the property is belied by the pictures submitted by Manahan and the PARAD’s finding that a 3,000 square meter portion of the property was devoted to said plant. To our mind, the legitimacy of Manahan’s complaint is borne out by the 7 October 1998 certification issued by the Bureau of Soils and Water Management (BSWM) that kangkong deprives rice plants of essential plant foods, overcrowds them and generally reduces the yield.

In addition, it was likewise established that Antonio planted other vegetable crops like string beans, tomatoes, squash and eggplant, built three pigpens and another residential structure on the land and resorted to rice planting in three phases, in violation of the express prohibitions in the Leasehold Agreement (Rene Antonio Vs. Gregorio Manahan, G.R. No. 176091. August 24, 2011).