CASE DIGEST – OLIVEROS, EDNA M.

JESUS PASCO, ET AL. V. PISON-ARCEO AGRICULTURAL AND DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION

G.R. No. 165501, March 28, 2006
485 SCRA 514 (2006)

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

FACTS:

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 favour of Pison-Arceo Agricultural Development Corporation.
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:

No.

The issuance during the pendency of the case of a Notice of Coverage to Pison-Arceo
Agricultural and Development Corporation does not, however, automatically make the ejectment case
an agrarian dispute over which the Department of Agrarian Reform Adjudication Board (DARAB) jas
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.
 2

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 favour of Spouses
Pasco, et al. Hence, no rights over the land they occupy can be considered to have vested in their favour
in accordance with Section 24 of the CARL which provides that all 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 eight (180) days from the time the DAR takes actual possession
of the land.