G.R. No. 147444 - VIRGILIO A. SINDICO WITH HIS WIFE VIRGINIA TORCUATOR SINDICO, VS. HON. GERARDO D. DIAZ, PRESIDING JUDGE, BRANCH 68, RTC, DUMANGAS, ILOILO; SPOUSES FELIPE AND ERLINDA SOMBREA.D E C I S I O N - Supreme Court E-Library

Ruling

Accordingly, the trial court dismissed the complaint. As their Motion for Reconsideration [6] was denied by the trial court, [7] the plaintiffs, herein petitioners, lodged the present Petition for Review on Certiorari [8] proffering as the only issue whether it is the RTC or the DARAB which has exclusive original jurisdiction of the case. Petitioners posit that it is the RTC which has. The Court finds for petitioners. Jurisdiction over the subject matter is determined by the allegations of the complaint. It is not affected by the pleas set up by the defendant in his answer or in a motion to dismiss, otherwise, jurisdiction would be dependent on his whims. The allegations in petitioners complaint show that the action is one for recovery of possession, not one which involves an agrarian dispute. Section 3(d) of RA 6657 or the CARP Law defines agrarian dispute over which the DARAB has exclusive original jurisdiction as: (d) . . . refer[ing] to any controversy relating to tenurial arrangements, whether leasehold, tenancy, stewardship or otherwise, over lands devoted to agriculture, including disputes concerning farmworkers associations or representation of persons in negotiating, fixing, maintaining, changing or seeking to arrange terms or conditions of such tenurial arrangements including any controversy relating to compensation of lands acquired under this Act and other terms and conditions of transfer of ownership from landowners to farmworkers, tenants and other agrarian reform beneficiaries, whether the disputants stand in the proximate relation of farm operator and beneficiary, landowner and tenant, or lessor and lessee. Since petitioners action is one for recovery of possession and does not involve an agrarian dispute, the RTC has jurisdiction over it. [9] That respondents only basis in assailing the jurisdiction of the trial court is that the subject matter of the case is an agricultural land and that they do not deny at all the allegation of the complaint of petitioners that there is no tenancy or leasehold agreement between them unmistakably show that there is no agrarian dispute to speak of over which the DARAB has exclusive original jurisdiction. WHEREFORE, the petition is hereby GRANTED . The assailed Order of Branch 68 of the RTC of Iloilo City granting private respondents Motion to Dismiss Civil Case No. 00-168 is hereby SET ASIDE. Let the record of the case be returned to Branch 68 of the RTC of Iloilo City which is hereby directed to reinstate Civil Case No. 00-168 to its docket and to take appropriate action thereon with dispatch. SO ORDERED.