THIRD DIVISION
[G.R. No. 231971. July 10, 2019.]
PEDRO S. PERUCHO, petitioner, vs.MA. TERESA C. VALENCIA II, IN HER CAPACITY AS PROVINCIAL AGRARIAN REFORM OFFICER, DEPARTMENT OF AGRARIAN REFORM, KALIBO, AKLAN; ATTY. REXINOR JOHN D. DEMOGENA, IN HIS CAPACITY AS CHIEF LEGAL OFFICER, DEPARTMENT OF AGRARIAN REFORM, KALIBO, AKLAN; PAUL ESCALONA, IN HIS CAPACITY AS SHERIFF, DEPARTMENT OF AGRARIAN REFORM, KALIBO, AKLAN; AND SPOUSES DELFIN AQUINO AND LEAH P. AQUINO, respondents.
NOTICE
Sirs/Mesdames :
Please take notice that the Court, Third Division, issued a Resolution datedJuly 10, 2019, which reads as follows:
"G.R. No. 231971 (Pedro S. Perucho v. Ma. Teresa C. Valencia II, in her capacity as Provincial Agrarian Reform Officer, Department of Agrarian Reform, Kalibo, Aklan; Atty. Rexinor John D. Demogena, in his capacity as Chief Legal Officer, Department of Agrarian Reform, Kalibo, Aklan; Paul Escalona, in his capacity as Sheriff, Department of Agrarian Reform, Kalibo, Aklan; and Spouses Delfin Aquino and Leah P. Aquino). — At bench is a petition whose only prayer is the issuance of an ex parte temporary restraining order (TRO) and a writ of preliminary injunction in connection with an agrarian law implementation case pending before the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR).
I.
The land subject of the proceedings a quo is a 416-square-meter parcel of agricultural land (subject land) in Barangay Kabulihan, Malay, Aklan. According to the records of DAR-Aklan Provincial Office (DAR-Aklan), the subject land is originally part of Lot 1138, Cad-704-D-a 1,542,400-square-meter agricultural estate which is owned by the government. 1
Respondent spouses Delfin and Leah Aquino (Aquinos) have been occupying and cultivating the subject land since 1984. 2 Over the years, the Aquinos have planted coconut, fruit trees and other crops, and also constructed their house, on the subject land. 3
In 2007, the Aquinos filed with the DAR-Aklan an application to become farmer-beneficiaries under Republic Act (RA) No. 6657 or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988. 4 They asked for the issuance in their favor of a Certificate of Land Ownership Award (CLOA) title over the subject land.
In 2011, however, while the above application was still pending, petitioner Pedro Perucho filed before the Municipal Circuit Trial Court (MCTC) of Buruanga-Malay an unlawful detainer complaint 5 that sought the eviction of the Aquinos from the subject land. In his complaint, petitioner claimed to be the owner of the subject land — citing a tax declaration 6 that covers the subject land as proof therefor. 7 He further alleged that, sometime in the year 2000, he allowed the Aquinos to temporarily occupy the subject land on the condition that no permanent improvements would be introduced thereon. 8 This condition, however, was supposedly breached by the Aquinos. Petitioner averred that when he learned of such breach, he immediately demanded the Aquinos to vacate the subject land, but the latter refused. 9
On March 29, 2012, the MCTC issued an order 10 granting the unlawful detainer complaint and directing the Aquinos to, among others, vacate and turnover the possession of the subject land to petitioner. This order eventually became final and executory on May 30, 2012. 11 On July 30, 2012, the MCTC issued a corresponding writ of execution. 12
In obedience to the writ of execution, the Aquinos surrendered possession of the subject land to petitioner on October 31, 2012. 13
Meanwhile, on July 31, 2012, the Provincial Agrarian Reform Adjudicator (PARAD) of DAR-Aklan rendered a decision whereby several CLOA applications were approved. Among the approved applications was that of the Aquinos. The decision accordingly directed the issuance of individual CLOA titles to the successful applicants, including one to the Aquinos with respect to the subject land. 14
A CLOA title over the subject land was generated in the name of the Aquinos under Transfer Certificate of Title No. CARP2015000293 15 and registered with the Register of Deeds on March 31, 2015. The Aquinos received their copy of such title on June 17, 2016. 16
On September 7, 2016, the Aquinos filed a complaint before the DAR-Aklan requesting for assistance and support in re-taking possession of the subject land from the petitioner. 17 Finding merit in such complaint, the DAR-Aklan — through respondent Provincial Agrarian Reform Officer Ma. Teresa Valencia II — issued a writ of installation in favor of the Aquinos.
On May 9, 2017, the provincial sheriff of the PARAD of DAR-Aklan attempted to enforce the writ of installation. However, due to stern resistance from petitioner and his family, the enforcement of the writ was unsuccessful. 18
II.
On May 2, 2017, petitioner filed with the DAR a complaint 19 for the cancellation of the CLOA title of the Aquinos. There, petitioner accused the Aquinos of obtaining the said title through fraud and misrepresentation — dismissing as mere fabrication the Aquinos' claim that they had been tilling and cultivating the subject land since 1984. 20 Echoing the allegations in his previous unlawful detainer suit, petitioner insisted that he was the owner, as well as the original possessor, of the subject land, and that, by his acquiescence, the Aquinos only started to occupy the subject land in the year 2000. 21
To supplement his complaint, petitioner also filed before the DAR an "urgent motion" for the issuance of injunction and TRO (urgent motion) that sought to enjoin the officials of the department from implementing the writ of installation in favor of the Aquinos during the pendency of the complaint. 22
On May 18, 2017, however, petitioner withdrew his urgent motion from the DAR. 23 The following day, he filed before this Court the instant petition which asks for the very same reliefs as those in his urgent motion.
Petitioner hinged his withdrawal of the urgent motion, and his subsequent filing of the instant petition before this Court, on Section 55 of RA No. 6657, as amended by RA No. 9700, to wit:
SEC. 55. No Restraining Order or Preliminary Injunction. — Except for the Supreme Court, no court in the Philippines shall have jurisdiction to issue any restraining order or writ of preliminary injunction against the PARC, the DAR, or any of its duly authorized or designated agencies in any case, dispute or controversy arising from, necessary to, or in connection with the application, implementation, enforcement, or interpretation of this Act and other pertinent laws on agrarian reform.
Apparently, petitioner believes that the foregoing provision justifies the filing to the Supreme Court of an independent petition whose only purpose is to secure the issuance of a TRO or a writ of preliminary injunction as ancillary reliefs in cases pending before the DAR.
OUR RULING
The instant petition is a procedural anomaly. Petitioner's interpretation of Section 55 of RA No. 6657, as amended, is seriously misguided. Hence, we dismiss the instant petition.
Writs of Preliminary Injunction and
In our jurisdiction, writs of preliminary injunction and TROs are considered as provisional injunctive reliefs that are only permitted to be issued in connection with — or as an ancillary to — a main action or proceeding pending in court. 24 It is settled that the office of a writ of preliminary injunction is limited only to the preservation of the status quountil an action or proceeding could be fully decided; 25 whereas a TRO is merely the maintenance of such status until an application for a writ of preliminary injunction can be heard. 26 Evidently, the existence of a main action or proceeding is a condition sine qua non before a writ of preliminary injunction or TRO may lie.
The ancillary character of the writs of preliminary injunction and TROs also finds black letter support in our rules of procedure. Sections 1, 2 and 5, Rule 58 of the Rules of Court — which define and describe the precise circumstances under which a writ of preliminary injunction and TRO may be granted — all assume the prior existence of a main action or proceeding before such writ and order may be granted:
RULE 58
PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION
Section 1. Preliminary injunction defined; classes. — A preliminary injunction is an order granted at any stage of an action or proceeding prior to the judgment or final order, requiring a party or a court, agency or a person to refrain from a particular act or acts. It may also require the performance of a particular act or acts, in which case it shall be known as a preliminary mandatory injunction.
Section 2. Who may grant preliminary injunction. — A preliminary injunction may be granted by the court where the action or proceeding is pending. If the action or proceeding is pending in the Court of Appeals or in the Supreme Court, it may be issued by said court or any member thereof.
xxx xxx xxx
Section 5. Preliminary injunction not granted without notice; exception. — No preliminary injunction shall be granted without hearing and prior notice to the party or person sought to be enjoined. If it shall appear from facts shown by affidavits or by the verified application that great or irreparable injury would result to the applicant before the matter can be heard on notice, the court to which the application for preliminary injunction was made, may issue ex parte a temporary restraining order to be effective only for a period of twenty (20) days from service on the party or person sought to be enjoined, except as herein provided. Within the said twenty-day period, the court must order said party or person to show cause, at a specified time and place, why the injunction should not be granted, determine within the same period whether or not the preliminary injunction shall be granted, and accordingly issue the corresponding order.
However, and subject to the provisions of the preceding sections, if the matter is of extreme urgency and the applicant will suffer grave injustice and irreparable injury, the executive judge of a multiple-sala court or the presiding judge of a single-sala court may issue ex parte a temporary restraining order effective for only seventy-two (72) hours from issuance but he shall immediately comply with the provisions of the next preceding section as to service of summons and the documents to be served therewith. Thereafter, within the aforesaid seventy-two (72) hours, the judge before whom the case is pending shall conduct a summary hearing to determine whether the temporary restraining order shall be extended until the application for preliminary injunction can be heard. In no case shall the total period of effectivity of the temporary restraining order exceed twenty (20) days, including the original seventy-two hours provided herein. (Emphases supplied.)
The ancillary nature of a writ of preliminary injunction and a TRO means that an independent action for the sole purpose of obtaining such writ and order is not sanctioned and, thus, cannot prosper. 27 In the classic case of Panay Municipal Cadastre v. Garduño and Soncuya, 28 we explained the rationale of this rule:
The preliminary injunction is a purely subsidiary remedy, available in aid of the right which is to be vindicated in the action wherein the preliminary injunction is issued. An independent action will not lie merely to obtain a preliminary injunction. There must be some substantive right to be enforced in the action in which the preliminary injunction is sought and which right is intended to be conserved by the injunction. This rule is fundamental; and a contrary practice cannot be tolerated, since it would tend to a multiplicity of actions and lead to unnecessary expense in litigation. 29 (Emphases supplied.)
Following such premise, Section 2, Rule 58, cited above, explicitly clarified that a writ of preliminary injunction may be granted only "by the court or [a justice of the court] where the action or proceeding is [itself] pending." Accordingly, an application for the issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction and TRO 30 must perforce be made in the very action or proceeding to which they relate and not in a separate case filed before another court.
By the foregoing, it is easy to see why the instant petition must fail.
It is not disputed that the instant petition was filed only for the sole purpose of applying for the ancillary reliefs of a writ of preliminary injunction and TRO, which merely aim to enjoin the officials of the DAR from implementing a writ of installation in favor of the Aquinos during the pendency of petitioner's complaint with the DAR. 31 The application is in itself fatally defective as the provisional writ and order are sought not in connection with any main action or proceeding filed before this Court, but in relation to a case that is pending before the DAR. Clearly, on this account alone, the instant petition deserves to be dismissed.
Section 55 of RA No. 6657 Does Not
Petitioner, however, proffers the position that the instant petition may be justified by Section 55 of RA No. 6657, as amended by RA No. 9700. We do not agree.
Petitioner's interpretation of Section 55 of RA No. 6657 is not supported by the text of the provision. In fact, the law, if anything, actually contradicts the position proffered. A reading of Section 55 of RA No. 6657 discloses that the provision simply prohibits all courts — save this Court — from issuing writs of preliminary injunction and restraining orders against the DAR "in any case, dispute or controversy arising from, necessary to, or in connection with the application, implementation, enforcement, or interpretation of [RA No. 6657] and other pertinent laws on agrarian reform." Hence, the provision, on its face, contemplates an actual agrarian reform case reaching this Court first — either by an appeal in due course or otherwise — before it could be allowed to issue a restraining order against the DAR. Properly construed, therefore, Section 55 of RA No. 6657 only means that when a "case, dispute or controversy arising from, necessary to, or in connection with the application, implementation, enforcement, or interpretation of [RA No. 6657] and other pertinent laws on agrarian reform" has been duly elevated before it, 32 this Court, unlike other courts, may issue a restraining order against the DAR.
Thus, contrary to petitioner's position, Section 55 of RA No. 6657 does not really contemplate the institution before the Court of an independent action solely for the issuance of writs of preliminary injunction and TROs against the DAR. What the provision only does is to vest in this Court the authority to issue provisional injunctive reliefs against the DAR whenever an agrarian reform case reaches the former, generally, through a valid appeal in due course.
WHEREFORE, the instant petition is DISMISSED.
SO ORDERED."
Very truly yours,
(SGD.) WILFREDO V. LAPITANDivision Clerk of Court
Footnotes
1.Rollo, p. 71. The land covered by Cad-704-D was classified as an agricultural land by Presidential Proclamation No. 2282, series of 1983.
2.Id.
3.Id.
4.Id.
5. Id. at 19-24.
6.Id. at 18.
7.Id. at 19-20.
8.Id. at 20.
9.Id. at 21.
10.Id. at 26-29.
11.Id. at 30.
12.Id. at 31.
13.Id. at 32-33.
14.Id. at 72.
15.Id. at 34-37.
16.Id. at 72.
17.Id.
18.Id. at 59-60.
19.Id. at 40-45.
20.Id. at 42.
21.Id. at 41.
22.See Motion to Withdraw the Urgent Motion for Issuance of Injunction and Temporary Restraining Order; id. at 46-47.
23.Id.
24. Feria, Jose Y. and Noche, Maria Concepcion S., CIVIL PROCEDURE ANNOTATED (2013), p. 450.
25.First Global Realty and Dev't. Corp. v. San Agustin, 427 Phil. 593, 600 (2002).
26. Feria, Jose Y. and Noche, Maria Concepcion S., CIVIL PROCEDURE ANNOTATED (2013), p. 554. In the Supreme Court, however, the issuance of a TRO has no distinction with the issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction. A TRO issued by the Supreme Court has no definite expiration and subsists until "further orders" by the Court (see Section 5, Rule 58 of the Rules of Court).
27.Panay Municipal Cadastre v. Garduño and Soncuya, 55 Phil. 574 (1931).
28.Id.
29.Id. at 578.
30.See, however, Section 5, Rule 58 of the Rules of Court. The provision allows the executive judge of a multiple-sala court, in cases of extreme urgency, to issue an ex parte TRO valid for 72 hours in connection with a case not yet raffled to a particular branch.
31.Rollo, p. 8.
32. Generally, cases that relate to agrarian reform matters can only reach the Supreme Court by way of an appeal under Rule 45 of the Rules of Court from a decision of the Court of Appeals (CA).
Section 50 of RA No. 6657 vests the DAR with "primary jurisdiction to determine and adjudicate agrarian reform matters and shall have exclusive original jurisdiction over all matters involving the implementation of agrarian reform[.]" As operationalized in DAR issuances, there are typically two (2) types of agrarian reform cases that are cognizable by the department, to wit: (1) Agrarian Disputes, which are cognizable by the PARAD or Regional Agrarian Reform Adjudicator (RARAD) (see 2009 Department of Agrarian Reform Adjudication Board [DARAB] Rules of Procedure); and (2) Agrarian Law Implementation (ALI) Cases, which are cognizable by the DAR Regional Director (RD) (see 2017 Rules on ALI Cases).
Decisions of the PARAD/RARAD in agrarian disputes are appealable to the DARAB whose decisions, in turn, are appealable to the CA via Rule 43 of the Rules of Court. On the other hand, decisions of the DAR RD in ALI cases are appealable to the DAR Secretary whose decisions, in turn, are appealable to the Office of the President (OP). The decision of the OP is then appealable to the CA via Rule 43 of the Rules of Court.
In either situations, the decision of the CA is appealable to this Court under Rule 45.