69. Conditions relieving a go-between of responsibility.—An act of God or the acts of a public enemy relieve a go-between or an agent from responsibility. Thus an agent sent to purchase an animal in baliwan (the stranger country) is under obligation to deliver it alive. But if it be struck by lightning, or if the carabao be taken away from him by enemies, and he has a wound to bear witness that he offered due resistance to them; or, in case he has no wound, if he has witnesses or good proof of the fact that the enemy was so superior in force as to make resistance foolhardy, he cannot be held for payment of the animal.
70. Payment due those who find the body of one dead by violence.—An Ifugao who finds the body of one dead by violence or drowning, and not an inhabitant of the same district as himself, must perform a general welfare feast to remove the liability to misfortune that is likely to result from such an incident. Consequently, he is entitled to a payment, varying from one to ten pesos, according to the rank of the dead person. If there be more than one who encounter the dead body, all are entitled to the same payment. This payment is called halat.
Contracts for the Sale of Property
71. On whom binding.—Contracts for the transfer of property for consideration are binding on the seller only. Rarely, if ever, is there a payment to bind the bargain. The simple promise to sell is sufficient to constitute a contract to sell. The breaking of a contract to sell renders the breaker of the contract liable for damages only in case he took the initiative in making the contract.
Damages paid for the breaking of a contract to sell, are called hogop. In case an agreement to sell a rice field is broken, the damages are usually one large pig (fifteen or twenty pesos). In the case of questions of this sort over minor property, the hogop may be a death blanket, a small pig, or a chicken.
The following examples will serve to illustrate:
A sends B as a go-between to sell a rice field. B first contracts to sell the field to C. Later, knowing the terms of the sale offered by A to be very advantageous, he sells the field to a kinsman D.
In this case B is liable for the hogop to C.
In the above case B, after contracting to sell the field to C, duly reports to A that C has accepted the terms offered, and that he is raising the amount required for the first payment; that he will go again by agreement with C to receive this first payment on such and such a day. A sells the field to somebody else.