CIPRIANO SEVILLA, PETITIONER, VS. CEFERINO DE LOS SANTOS AND DOMINGO CUENTA, RESPONDENTS.

In an action for illegal detainer filed in the justice of the
peace court of Mangatarem, Pangasinan, a decision was rendered in favor of the
plaintiff (herein respondent Domingo Cuenta) and against the defendant (herein
petitioner Cipriano Sevilla), but no judgment for any rental was awarded. This
decision was appealed by the petitioner to the Court of First Instance of
Pangasinan wherein respondent Domingo Cuenta moved for the issance of a writ of
preliminary injunction prohibiting the petitioner and his agents form
cultivating and planting he parcels of land dexribed in the complaint and form
gathering any crop that may exist thereon. This motion was granted and, upon the
filing of a bond by the respondent Domingo Cuenta, the corresponding writ of
prliminayr injuction was issue but, as alleged by herein petitioner, the
respondent juge explained that said injuction “does not command the petitioner
herein to pull out his house and leave the land.”

In the present petition for certiorari, the petitioenr alleges
that the respondent judge of the Court of First Instance of Pangasinan acted
without or in excess of his jurisdiction and with grave abuse of discretion in
issuing the above-mentioned writ of injunction.

The petition should be granted. Under section 3 of Rule of
Court 72, the court may grant preliminary injuction, in accordance with the
provisions of Rule 60, to prevent the defendant from committing further acts of
dispossession against the plaintiff; and it was held that said preliminary
injunction may be issued only in forcible entry proceedings, but not in an
action of unlawful detainer. (Moran, Comments on the Rules of Court, 2nd
edition, Vol. II, p. 251, citing Piit vs. De Lara and Velez, 58 Phil., 765.)

As the action in the case at bar is one for unlawful detainer
originating from the justice of the peace court and retaining the same nature
during the pendency of the appeal in the Court of First Instance, the respondent
judge had no power to issue the writ of preliminary injunction now complained
of.

The petition for certiorari will therefore be, as the same is
hereby, granted and the order of the respondent judge of July 21, 1947, entered
in civil case No. 9842, as well as the writ of preliminary injunction issued in
the same case on September 12, 1947, are set aside. So ordered, with costs
against the respondent Domingo Cuenta.

Moran, C. J., Ozaeta, Feria, Pablo, Perfecto, Tuason,
Montemayor, and Reyes, JJ., concur.