HUBERT NUÑEZ vs. SLTEAS PHOENIX SOLUTIONS, INC.

, through its representative, CESAR

SYLIANTENG
G.R. No. 180542, 12 April 2010, PEREZ, J.

Ejectment cases fall within the original and exclusive jurisdiction of first level court.

Possession can be acquired not only by material occupation, but also by the action of one's will or by
the proper acts and legal formalities established for acquiring such right.

FACTS: The spouses Ong Tiko and Emerenciana Sylianteng executed a deed of assignment over
their parcel of land in favor of SLTEAS Phoenix Solutions, Inc. (SLTEAS) in 1999. SLTEAS left the
parcel of land idle and unguarded for some time due to important business concerns.

In 2003, an ocular inspection conducted by SLTEAS revealed that Nuñez and 21 other individuals
were already occupying the parcel of land and were refusing to vacate despite of verbal demands
made by SLTEAS. SLTEAS filed a complaint for forcible entry against Nuñez, who alleged to have a
subsisting lease agreement over the parcel of land with Maria Sylianteng. He questions the
jurisdiction of the MeTC arguing that SLTEAS never had actual possession of the disputed land. He
also had been occupying the parcel of land since 1999 and thus the right to file an ejectment has
already prescribed when it was filed in 2003.

ISSUES:

1.) What court has jurisdiction over ejectment cases?

2.) What are the requisites of forcible entry so that a court may take cognizance of the case?
3.) Was possession exercised by the respondent?

RULING:
1.) Designed to provide an expeditious means of protecting actual possession or the right to
possession of the property involved, there can be no gainsaying the fact that ejectment cases fall
within the original and exclusive jurisdiction of first level courts by express provision of Section 33
of Batas Pambansa Blg. 129, in relation to Sec. 1, Rule 70 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure.

2.) The following requisites are essential for the MeTC’s acquisition of jurisdiction over the
case, viz.: (a) the plaintiffs must allege their prior physical possession of the property; (b) they must
assert that they were deprived of possession either by force, intimidation, threat, strategy or
stealth; and, (c) the action must be filed within one (1) year from the time the owners or legal
possessors learned of their deprivation of the physical possession of the property. As it is not
essential that the complaint should expressly employ the language of the law, it is considered a
sufficient compliance of the requirement where the facts are set up showing that dispossession
took place under said conditions. The one-year period within which to bring an action for forcible
entry is generally counted from the date of actual entry on the land, except that when the entry is
through stealth, the one-year period is counted from the time the plaintiff learned thereof.

3.) YES. While prior physical possession is, admittedly, an indispensable requirement in forcible
entry cases, the dearth of merit in petitioner’s position is, however, evident from the principle that
possession can be acquired not only by material occupation, but also by the fact that a thing is
subject to the action of one's will or by the proper acts and legal formalities established for
acquiring such right. Because possession can also be acquired by juridical acts to which the law
gives the force of acts of possession, e.g., donations, succession, execution and registration of public
instruments, inscription of possessory information titles and the like, it has been held that one need
not have actual or physical occupation of every square inch of the property at all times to be
considered in possession.

In this case, the subject parcel was acquired by respondent by virtue of the 4 June 1999 Deed of
Assignment executed in its favor by the Spouses Ong Tiko and Emerenciana Sylianteng. Although it
did not immediately put the same to active use, respondent appears to have additionally caused the
property to be registered in its name as of 27 February 2002 and to have paid the real property
taxes due thereon alongside the sundry expenses incidental thereto. Viewed in the light of the
foregoing juridical acts, it consequently did not matter that, by the time respondent conducted its
ocular inspection in October 2003, petitioner had already been occupying the land since 1999.
Ordinarily reckoned from the date of actual entry on the land, the one year period is counted from
the time the plaintiff acquired knowledge of the dispossession when, as here, the same had been
effected by means of stealth.

WHEREFORE, the petition is DENIED for lack of merit. SO ORDERED.