A preliminary injunction is an order granted at any stage of an action 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 is the “strong arm of equity,” an extraordinary peremptory remedy that must be used with extreme caution, affecting as it does the respective rights of the parties. The requirements for the issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction or TRO are enumerated in Section 3, Rule 58 of the Rules of Court, to wit:
Section 3. Grounds for issuance of preliminary injunction. – A preliminary injunction may be granted when it is established:
(a) That the applicant is entitled to the relief demanded, and the whole or part of such relief consists in restraining the commission or continuance of the act or acts complained of, or in requiring the performance of an act or acts, eitherfor a limited period or perpetually;
(b) That the commission, continuance or non-performance of the act or acts complained of during the litigation would probably work injustice to the applicant; or
(c) That a party, court, agency or a person is doing, threatening, or is attempting to do, or is procuring or suffering to be done, some act or acts probably in violation of the rights of the applicant respecting the subject of the action or proceeding, and tending to render the judgment ineffectual.
In City Government of Butuan v. Consolidated Broadcasting System (CBS), Inc., the Court restated the nature and concept of a writ of preliminary injunction, as follows:
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, an 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 is known as a preliminary mandatory injunction. Thus, a prohibitory injunction is one that commands a party to refrain from doing a particular act, while a mandatory injunction commands the performance of some positive act to correct a wrong in the past.
As with all equitable remedies, injunction must be issued only at the instance of a party who possesses sufficient interest in or title to the right or the property sought to be protected. It is proper only when the applicant appears to be entitled to the relief demanded in the complaint, which must aver the existence of the right and the violation of the right, or whose averments must in the minimum constitute a prima facie showing of a right to the final relief sought.
Accordingly, the conditions for the issuance of the injunctive writ are: (a) that the right to be protected exists prima facie; (b) that the act sought to be enjoined is violative of that right; and (c) that there is an urgent and paramount necessity for the writ to prevent serious damage. An injunction will not issue to protect a right not in esse, or a right which is merely contingent and may never arise; or to restrain an act which does not give rise to a cause of action; or to prevent the perpetration of an act prohibited bystatute. Indeed, a right, to be protected by injunction, means a right clearly founded on or granted by law or is enforceable as a matter of law.
Under the circumstances averred in the complaint in Civil Case No. CEB-26468, the issuance of the writ of preliminary injunction upon the application of the respondents was improper. They had admittedly constituted the real estate and chattel mortgages to secure the performance of their loan obligation to the petitioner, and, as such, they were fully aware of the consequences on their rights in the properties given as collaterals should the loan secured be unpaid. The foreclosure of the mortgages would be the remedy provided by law for the mortgagee to exact payment.30 In fact, they did not dispute the petitioner’s allegations that they had not fully paid their obligation, and that Civil Case No. CEB-26468 was precisely brought by them in order to stave off the impending foreclosure of the mortgages based on their claim that they had been compelled to sign pre-printed standard bank loan forms and mortgage agreements.
It is true that the trial courts are given generous latitude to act on applications for the injunctive writ for the reason that conflicting claims in an application for the writ more often than not involve a factual determination that is not the function of the appellate courts; and that the exercise of sound discretion by the issuing courts in injunctive matters ought not to be interfered with exceptwhen there is manifest abuse.
Nonetheless, the exercise of such discretion must be sound, that is, the issuance of the writ, though discretionary, should be upon the grounds and in the manner provided by law. Judges should always bear in mind that the writ of preliminary injunction is issued upon the satisfaction of two requisite conditions, namely: (1) the right to be protected exists prima facie; and (2) the acts sought to be enjoined are violative of that right.
According to Saulog v. Court of Appeals, the applicant must have a sufficient interest or right to be protected, but it is enough that:
x x x for the court to act, there must be an existing basis of facts affording a present right which is directly threatened by an act sought to be enjoined. And while a clear showing of the right claimed is necessary, its existence need not be conclusively established. In fact, the evidence to be submitted to justify preliminary injunction at the hearing thereon need not be conclusive or complete but need only be a “sampling” intended merely to give the court an idea of the justification for the preliminary injunction pending the decision of the case on the merits. This should really be so since our concern here involves only the propriety of the preliminary injunction and not the merits of the case still pending with the trial court.
Thus, to be entitled to the writ of preliminary injunction, the private respondent needs only to show that it has the ostensible right to the final relief prayed for in its complaint x x x.
EBY Traders 