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[ G.R. No. 143280. July 26, 2000]

Quoted hereunder, for your information, is a resolution of this Court dated JUL 26, 2000.

G.R. No. 143280 (Rodolfo Buclasan, et al., vs. The Honorable Court of Appeals, et al.)

The petition posits the following supposed issue - "Does the Regional Trial Court of Malaybalay, Bukidnon, have jurisdiction to hear cases involving the annulment of Certificate of Land Ownership Award ("CLOA") awarded to tenant-farmers under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988?"

In 1995, herein petitioners, tenant-farmers from Sumilao, Bukidnon, were awarded CLOA No. 00240227, later registered Transfer Certificate of Title ("TCT") NO. AT-3536, covering a 144-hectare property owned by respondent Norberto Quisumbing, Sr. Management and Development Corporation ("NQSRMDC"). Application by respondents NQSRMDC and the Bukidnon Agro-Industrial Development Association ("BAIDA") for the conversion of subject property from agricultural to agro-industrial which was earlier denied by the DAR secretary was, upon appeal, finally granted by the Office of the President ("OP") through Executive secretary Ruben Torres. On 29 March 1996, a motion for reconsideration was filed by DAR but the motion was denied for having been filed beyond the 15-day reglementary period, thereby rendering the order of 29 March 1996 of the Executive Secretary final and executory.

In the meantime, NQSRMDC filed a complaint before Bukidnon Regional Trial Court ("RTC"), docketed Civil Case No. 2687-97, for "Annulment and Cancellation of Title, Damages and injunction with Prayer for Preliminary Injunction" against petitioners. Petitioners, in turn, filed a Petition for Certiorari AND Prohibition with Prayer for the issuance of TRO and a Writ of Preliminary Injunction with the Court of Appeals docketed CA-G.R. No. 44905.

Relenting, amidst massive protest on the plight of the Sumilao farmers, then President Fidel Ramos vacated the earlier decision and issued a compromise solution - to segregate the 144-hectare property into 2 parcels. The OP allocated the 100-hectare portion to the farmer beneficiaries and the remaining 44 hectares to the NQSRMDC estate. Respondent BAIDA filed a Petition for Certiorari before the Supreme Court questioning President Ramos' "Win-Win Resolution." On 04 April 1998, the Supreme Court upheld the decision of then Executive Secretary Torres of 29 March 1996 allowing the conversion of a portion of the subject property and rendering null and void the win-win resolution of then President Ramos. In view of this development, the Court of Appeals, in CA-G.R. No 44905 issued the assailed Resolution on 27 December 1999 ruling, among other things that:

Petitioners assert that under Section 50 of Republic Act ("R.A.") No. 6657, the DAR, being a quasi-judicial body, has primary jurisdiction to determine and adjudicate agrarian reform matters and shall have exclusive original jurisdiction over all matters in ordering the implementation of agrarian reform. Under Section I, Rule II, of the DARAB rules of Procedure promulgated by the DAR, the DARAB has jurisdiction over cases involving specifically the issuance, correction and cancellation of CLOAs. Petitioners then argue that the order of the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. No. 44905 should be reversed insofar as it has declared the RTC, Branch IX, of Malaybalay, Bukidnon, to be possessed of jurisdiction over the issue of annulment of petitioners' title.

The petition is not meritorious. The final order of this Court upholding the conversion of the property in question from agricultural to industrial has rendered the matter beyond the coverage of the comprehensive agrarian reform law. It is, in effect, TCT No. At-3536, not CLOA No. 00240227 previously issued to petitioners, that is sought to be annulled, and it places the issue within the ambit of the RTC, not the DARAB, jurisdiction.

WHEREFORE, the instant petition for review is denied.