GR 76415; (August, 1990) (Digest)
G.R. No. 76415 August 30, 1990
JULIO BARANDA and ROBERTO BARANDA, petitioners, vs. HON. ALFONSO BAGUIO, THE PROVINCIAL SHERIFF OF BACOLOD, RURAL BANK OF HINIGARAN, INC., respondents.
FACTS
Lumen Baranda obtained a loan from respondent Rural Bank of Hinigaran, secured by a real estate mortgage over two parcels of land. She executed an affidavit stating the lands were not tenanted. Upon her default, the bank foreclosed, purchased the properties at auction, and, after the redemption period, consolidated ownership. The bank later agreed to resell the lands to Lumen, but she failed to raise the funds. Consequently, the bank filed a petition for a writ of possession in the Regional Trial Court (RTC) in January 1982. Lumen opposed this petition.
Subsequently, in September 1982, Lumen and her sons, petitioners Julio and Roberto Baranda, filed a separate complaint in the Court of Agrarian Relations (CAR), alleging they were tenants on the land and seeking protection under agrarian laws. The CAR court issued a restraining order against the bank after a sheriff’s report indicated the petitioners had been cultivating the land since 1972. However, the RTC proceeded with the bank’s petition. The petitioners challenged the RTC’s jurisdiction via certiorari in the Court of Appeals, which was dismissed. The RTC eventually granted the bank’s petition for a writ of possession.
ISSUE
Whether the Regional Trial Court committed grave abuse of discretion in granting the writ of possession despite the petitioners’ claim of tenancy and the pending agrarian case.
RULING
The Supreme Court dismissed the petition, upholding the RTC’s order. The legal logic is anchored on the ministerial duty to issue a writ of possession and the insufficiency of the tenancy claim. First, the issuance of a writ of possession to a purchaser in a foreclosure sale after consolidation of title is a ministerial act upon proper application; the court does not exercise discretion. Second, the claim of tenancy was correctly deemed an afterthought. The bank’s petition for the writ was filed in January 1982, eight months before the agrarian case was instituted in September 1982. Crucially, Lumen Baranda’s own affidavit explicitly stated the land was not tenanted, directly contradicting the later claim.
The Court emphasized that for a tenancy relationship to exist, all legal requisites—including consent of the landowner—must concur. The relationship here was solely that of mortgagor and mortgagee. Even if petitioners were cultivators, they did so as owners (through their mother) and not as tenants of the bank. Furthermore, the petitioners failed to perfect an ordinary appeal from the RTC’s order within the reglementary period. The extraordinary writ of certiorari cannot substitute for a lost appeal absent a clear showing of grave abuse of discretion, which was not present as the RTC’s action was procedurally correct and substantively justified by the evidence.