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[ G.R. No. 135876. February 10, 1999]

DANILO MESINA, et al. vs. ANA ALVARAN-CHUA.

FIRST DIVISION

Gentlemen:

Quoted hereunder, for your information, is a resolution of this Court dated FEB 10, 1999.

G.R. No. 135876 (Danilo Mesina and Simeon Mesina, Jr. vs., Ana Alvaran-Chua.)

Petitioners assail the decision of the Court of Appeals reversing that of the regional trial court, thus reinstating the decision of the municipal trial court dismissing the case on the ground that the allegations in the complaint filed were insufficient to sustain a case for unlawful detainer as to vest jurisdiction in the municipal trial court.

The antecedents facts are as follows:

Felicisima M. Melencio, mother of petitioners, sold to private respondents a parcel of land which sale was found to be genuine by the National Bureau of Investigation. Shortly after the sale, a criminal complaint for falsification of public document was filed against Felicisima and private respondents. Thereafter, petitioner Simeon Mesina who had long been the lawyer and legal adviser of the private respondent convinced her to agree to make it appear that the subject lot will be returned to Felicisima in oredr to evade the complaint for falsification, promising to reconvey the subject lot within for months. Simeon failed to comply with said undertaking, prompting private respondents to file an action for reconvey against petitioners.

Two years later, and still during the pendency of the case for reconveyance, petitioners filed an action for unlawful detainer against private respondents which the municipal trial court dismissed, finding that the issues involved private respondents which the municipal trial court dismissed, finding that the issues involved in the subject case to be intimately involved in the reconveyance case which had been filed more than two years earlier: and that if petitioners have a valid cause of action to eject private respondents the same should have been interposed as a counterclaim in their answer filed in an action for reconveyance.

Displeased, petitioners appealed to the regional trial court which reversed.

The Court of Appeals reinstated the municipal trial court's decision on the ground that herein petitioners failed to shoe that the occupancy of the subject property by private respondents is by virtue of a ac ontract of lease which thereafter became unlawful, Thus, the allegations presented by petitioners are insufficient to make a case for unlawful detainer.

Hence the instant petition which is unavailing.

To come within the jurisdiction of the Court, three requisites must be present.

(a) that the tenant is withholding the possession of the property illegally because his right to possess under his contract with the landlord has expired; (b) that the landlord has made a demand upon the tenant to comply with the terms of the contract and to return the possessions of the property, and that the tenant failed to satisfy the demand within the fifteen days, or five days in the case of a building, and (c) the complaint must be filed within one (1) year from the date of the demand. (Vital Aspects and Jurisprudence on Forcible Entry and Unlawful Detainer Actions, 167 SCRA 786 [1988]).

In the case at bar, petitioners failed to satisfy the first requirement.

In unlawful detainer, one unlawfully withholds possessions thereof after the expiration or termination of his right to hold possession under any contract, expresses or implied (Sumulong vs. Court of Appeals, 232 SCRA 372: 382)

It is understood however, that the allegations in the complaint for ejectment should make out a case for forcible entry or unlawful detainer, as the case may be: otherwise, jurisdiction would not vest in the inferior court (citation omitted) (Hilario vs. Court of Appeals, 260 SCRA 420, 428).

The Court notes too that the petition failed to state the date of filing of the assailed decision.

WHEREFORE, petition is hereby denied due course.

Very truly yours,

(Sgd.) VIRGNIA ANCHETA-SORIANO

Clerk of Court

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