JOSE,

vs.
ROBERTO ALFUERTO

Ground that the petitioner’s cause of action was not for unlawful detainer but for recovery of
possession.
That the term of this lease shall be FIVE (5) years and renewable for the same period upon
mutual agreement of the parties to commence upon the total eviction of any occupant or
occupants. The LESSOR hereby transfers all its rights and prerogative to evict said
occupants in favor of the LESSEE which shall be responsible for all expenses that may be
incurred without reimbursement from the LESSOR. It is understood however that the
LESSOR is hereby waiving, in favor of the LESSEE any and all damages that may be
recovered from the occupants.

On April 28, 1999, soon after Chua Sing and the petitioner signed the lease contract, the
petitioner demanded in writing that the respondents vacate the property within 30 days and
that they pay a monthly rental of P1,000.00 until they fully vacate the property.6

The respondents refused to vacate and to pay rent.

Unlawful detainer is not the proper

remedy for the present case.

Unlawful detainer is a summary action for the recovery of possession of real property. This
action may be filed by a lessor, vendor, vendee, or other person against whom the possession
of any land or building is unlawfully withheld after the expiration or termination of the right to
hold possession by virtue of any contract, express or implied. In unlawful detainer, the
possession of the defendant was originally legal, as his possession was permitted by the
plaintiff on account of an express or implied contract between them. However, the defendant’s
possession became illegal when the plaintiff demanded that the defendant vacate the subject property
due to the expiration or termination of the right to possess under the contract, and the defendant
refused to heed such demand. A case for unlawful detainer must be instituted one year from the
unlawful withholding of possession.25

The Court has consistently adopted this position: tolerance or permission must have been
present at the beginning of possession; if the possession was unlawful from the start, an action
for unlawful detainer would not be the proper remedy and should be dismissed.29

It is not the first time that this Court adjudged contradictory statements in a complaint for unlawful
detainer as a basis for dismissal. In Unida v. Heirs of Urban,30 the claim that the defendant’s
possession was merely tolerated was contradicted by the complainant’s allegation that the
entry to the subject property was unlawful from the very beginning. The Court then ruled that
the unlawful detainer action should fail.

The Court cannot treat an ejectment

The Court cannot simply take the evidence presented before the MeTC in an ejectment case
and decide it as an accion publiciana or accion reivindicatoria. These cases are not
interchangeable and their differences constitute far more than mere technicalities.

In Regis, Jr. v. Court of Appeals,46 we ruled that an action for forcible entry cannot be treated as an
accion publiciana and summarized the reasons therefor. We find these same reasons also applicable
to an unlawful detainer case which bears the same relevant characteristics:

On the issue of whether or not an action for forcible entry can be treated as accion publiciana,
we rule in the negative. Forcible entry is distinct from accion publiciana. First, forcible entry should
be filed within one year from the unlawful dispossession of the real property, while accion publiciana
is filed a year after the unlawful dispossession of the real property. Second, forcible entry is concerned
with the issue of the right to the physical possession of the real property; in accion publiciana, what is
subject of litigation is the better right to possession over the real property. Third, an action for forcible
entry is filed in the municipal trial court and is a summary action, while accion publiciana is a plenary
action in the RTC. [italics supplied]

The cause of action in ejectment is different from that in an accion publiciana or accion reivindicatoria.
An ejectment suit is brought before the proper inferior court to recover physical possession only or
possession de facto, not possession de jure. Unlawful detainer and forcible entry cases are not
processes to determine actual title to property. Any ruling by the MeTC on the issue of ownership is
made only to resolve the issue of possession, and is therefore inconclusive.47 Because they only
resolve issues of possession de facto, ejectment actions are summary in nature, while accion
publiciana (for the recovery of possession) and accion reivindicatoria (for the recovery of ownership)
are plenary actions.48 The purpose of allowing actions for forcible entry and unlawful detainer to be
decided in summary proceedings is to provide for a peaceful, speedy and expeditious means of
preventing an alleged illegal possessor of property from unjustly taking and continuing his possession
during the long period it would take to properly resolve the issue of possession de jure or ownership,
thereby ensuring the maintenance of peace and order in the community; otherwise, the party illegally
deprived of possession might take the law in his hands and seize the property by force and
violence.49 An ejectment case cannot be a substitute for a full-blown trial for the purpose of determining
rights of possession or ownership. Citing Mediran v. Villanueva,50 the Court in Gonzaga v. Court of
Appeals51 describes in detail how these two remedies should be used:

In giving recognition to the action of forcible entry and detainer the purpose of the law is to protect the
person who in fact has actual possession; and in case of controverted right, it requires the parties to
preserve the status quo until one or the other of them sees fit to invoke the decision of a court of
competent jurisdiction upon the question of ownership. It is obviously just that the person who has first
acquired possession should remain in possession pending the decision; and the parties cannot be
permitted meanwhile to engage in a petty warfare over the possession of the property which is the
subject of dispute. To permit this would be highly dangerous to individual security and disturbing to
social order. Therefore, where a person supposes himself to be the owner of a piece of property and
1âwphi1

desires to vindicate his ownership against the party actually in possession, it is incumbent upon him
to institute an action to this end in a court of competent jurisdiction; and he cannot be permitted, by
invading the property and excluding the actual possessor, to place upon the latter the burden of
instituting an action to try the property right. [italics supplied]
Thus, if we allow parties to file ejectment cases and later consider them as an accion publiciana
or accion reivindicatoria, we would encourage parties to simply file ejectment cases instead of
plenary actions. Courts would then decide in summary proceedings cases which the rules
intend to be resolved through full-blown trials. Because these "summary" proceedings will
have to tackle complicated issues requiring extensive proof, they would no longer be
expeditious and would no longer serve the purpose for which they were created. Indeed, we
cannot see how the resulting congestion of cases, the hastily and incorrectly decided cases,
and the utter lack of system would assist the courts in protecting and preserving property
rights.