ISIDRO V CA FACTS: Private respondent Natividad Gutierrez is the owner of a parcel of land with an area of 4.

5 hectares in Barrio Sta. Cruz, Nueva Ecija. In 1985, Aniceta Garcia, sister of private respondent and also the overseer of the latter, allowed petitioner Remigio Isidro to occupy the swampy portion of the abovementioned land, consisting of one (1) hectare, in order to augment his (petitioner's) income to meet his family's needs. The occupancy of a portion of said land was subject to the condition that petitioner would vacate the land upon demand. Petitioner occupied the land without paying any rental and converted the same into a fishpond. In 1990, private respondent through the overseer demanded from petitioner the return of the land, but the latter refused to vacate and return possession of said land, claiming that he had spent effort and invested capital in converting the same into a fishpond. A complaint for unlawful detainer was filed by private respondent against petitioner before the MTC that the complaint was triggered by his refusal to increase his lease rental; the subject land is a fishpond and therefore is agricultural land; and that lack of formal demand to vacate exposes the complaint to dismissal for insufficiency of cause of action. 1 Based on an ocular inspection of the subject land, the trial court found that the land in question is a fishpond 2and, thus dismissed the complaint, ruling that the land is agricultural and therefore the dispute over it is agrarian which is under the original and exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of agrarian relations as provided in Sec. 12(a) of Republic Act No. 946 ISSUE: WHETHER OR NOT THE MUNICIPAL COURT HAS THE JURISDICTION IN THIS CASE AND WHETHER THE PUBLIC RESPONDENT COULD LEGALLY EJECT THE PETITIONER CONSIDERING THE FOLLOWING: 1. THAT THE SUBJECT IS A FISHPOND AND UNDER THE LAW AND JURISPRUDENCE FISHPONDS ARE CLASSIFIED AS AGRICULTURAL LANDS; 2. THAT BEING AN AGRICULTURAL LAND THE SAME IS GOVERNED BY OUR TENANCY LAWS WHERE RULE 70 OF THE RULES OF COURT CANNOT BE SIMPLY APPLIED; AND 3. THAT UNDER THE RULES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRARIAN REFORM ADJUDICATION BOARD, THE DETERMINATION OF WHETHER A PERSON WORKING ON A FISHPOND IS A TENANT OR NOT IS CLEARLY WITHIN THE EXCLUSIVE JURISDICTION OF THE DARAB. HELD: No. In the case at bar, There was no contract or agreement entered into by the petitioner with the private respondent nor with the overseer of the private respondent, for petitioner to cultivate the land for a price certain or to share

his harvests. Petitioner has failed to substantiate his claim that he was paying rent for the use of the land. The law states that an agrarian dispute must be a controversy relating to a tenurial arrangement over lands devoted to agriculture. And as previously mentioned, such arrangement may be leasehold, tenancy or stewardship. The essential requisites of a tenancy relationship are: (1) the parties are the landowner and the tenant; (2) the subject matter is agricultural land; (3) there is consent; (4) the purpose is agricultural production; (5) there is personal cultivation by the tenant; (6) there is a sharing of harvests between the parties. All these requisites must concur in order to create a tenancy relationship between the parties. The absence of one does not make an occupant of a parcel of land, or a cultivator thereof, or a planter thereon, a de jure tenant. Unless a person establishes his status as a de jure tenant, he is not entitled to security of tenure nor is he covered by the Land Reform Program of the government under existing tenancy laws The fact remains that the existence of all the requisites of a tenancy relationship was not proven by the petitioner. And in the absence of a tenancy relationship, the complaint for unlawful detainer is properly within the jurisdiction of the Municipal Trial Court, as provided in Sec. 33 of Batas Pambansa Blg. 129. Having established that the occupancy and possession by petitioner of the land in question is by mere tolerance, private respondent had the legal right to demand upon petitioner to vacate the land. And as correctly ruled by the respondent appellate court.