Petitioner contends that it is not a common carrier but a private carrier. Allegedly, it has no fixed and publicly known route, maintains no terminals, and issues no tickets. It points out that it is not obliged to carry indiscriminately for any person. It is not bound to carry goods unless it consents. In short, it does not hold out its services to the general public.
We disagree.
In De Guzman vs. Court of Appeals, we held that the definition of common carriers in Article 1732 of the Civil Code makes no distinction between one whose principal business activity is the carrying of persons or goods or both, and one who does such carrying only as an ancillary activity. We also did not distinguish between a person or enterprise offering transportation service on a regular or scheduled basis and one offering such service on an occasional, episodic or unscheduled basis. Further, we ruled that Article 1732 does not distinguish between a carrier offering its services to the general public, and one who offers services or solicits business only from a narrow segment of the general population.
In the case at bar, the principal business of the petitioner is that of lighterage and drayage and it offers its barges to the public for carrying or transporting goods by water for compensation. Petitioner is clearly a common carrier. In De Guzman, supra, we considered private respondent Ernesto Cendaña to be a common carrier even if his principal occupation was not the carriage of goods for others, but that of buying used bottles and scrap metal in Pangasinan and selling these items in Manila.
We therefore hold that petitioner is a common carrier whether its carrying of goods is done on an irregular rather than scheduled manner, and with an only limited clientele. A common carrier need not have fixed and publicly known routes. Neither does it have to maintain terminals or issue tickets.
To be sure, petitioner fits the test of a common carrier as laid down in Bascos vs. Court of Appeals. The test to determine a common carrier is "whether the given undertaking is a part of the business engaged in by the carrier which he has held out to the general public as his occupation rather than the quantity or extent of the business transacted." In the case at bar, the petitioner admitted that it is engaged in the business of shipping and lighterage, offering its barges to the public, despite its limited clientele for carrying or transporting goods by water for compensation. (Asia Lighterage v. CA, GR No. 147246, Aug 19, 2003)
Barge operators are considered common carriers even if they have limited clientele
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