ARSENIO V. CALUYA ET AL., PETITIONERS, VS. SIMEON RAMOS, JUDGE OF FIRST INSTANCE OF ILOCOS NORTE, AND MARIANO ASIS, RESPONDENTS.

In Civil Case No. 4634 of the Court of First Instance of Ilocos Norte,
Domingo Caluya et al. vs. Mariano Asis et al., said court, presided over
by Judge Francisco E. Jose, issued an order dated July 24, 1941, directing the
issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction prohibiting the defendants and
their agents or representatives from entering the parcels of land involved in
the first and second causes of action of plaintiffs’ complaint, or interfering
with the latter’s possession. Said order was issued after a hearing in which
both parties adduced their respective evidence. Under date of May 15, 1946, the
defendants, through their counsel, filed an unverified motion for the
dissolution of the writ of preliminary injunction, to which motion the attorneys
for the plaintiffs in due time interposed an opposition. At the hearing of this
motion the attorneys for opposing parties orally argued their respective sides
without, however, presenting any evidence. In an order dated September 4, 1946,
the Court of First Instance of Ilocos Norte, then presided over by Judge Simeon
Ramos, directed the dissolution of the writ of preliminary injunction upon the
filing by the defendants of a bond in the sum of P5,000. Upon motion for
reconsideration filed by the attorneys for the plaintiffs, Judge Ramos issued
another order dated October 9, 1946, providing that said injunction should be
maintained as regards the six parcels involved in plaintiffs’ second cause of
action, upon the filing by said plaintiffs of a bond in the sum of P6,000, and
that said injunction should be dissolved as regards the three parcels involved
in plaintiffs’ first cause of action, upon the filing by the defendants of a
bond in the sum of P3,000. The bonds required in the orders of September 4,
1946, and October 9, 1946, had been filed by the defendants and approved by
Judge Ramos, although they were previously subscribed before and approved by the
justice of the peace of the capital. It appears that meanwhile the attorneys for
the plaintiffs had complained, by proper motions for contempt, before the Court
of First Instance of Ilocos Norte of alleged violations by the defendants of the
writ of preliminary injunction prior to the orders dissolving the same, which
motions have so far remained pending.

In the instant special civil action for certiorari instituted by the
petitioners (plaintiffs in Civil Case No. 4634) the simple question raised in
the rather voluminous pleadings is whether Judge Simeon Ramos, now one of the
respondents, acted without or in excess of jurisdiction, or with grave abuse of
discretion, in ordering the dissolution of the writ of preliminary injunction as
regards the parcels involved in plaintiffs’ (petitioners’) first cause of action
in civil case No. 4634.

The first contention of the petitioners is that, as said injunction was
issued after a hearing, the same cannot be dissolved, specially on the strength
of an unverified motion for dissolution and in the absence of proper evidence to
support it. Reliance is placed on section 6 of Rule 60 of the Rules of Court
which provides that “the injunction may be reduced, or, if granted ex
parte, may be dissolved,” thereby arguing that if an injunction is not
issued ex parte the same cannot be dissolved. The contention is clearly
erroneous. Although said section prescribes the grounds for objecting to, or for
moving the dissolution of, a preliminary injunction prior to its issuance or
after its granting ex parte, it does not thereby outlaw a dissolution if
the injunction has been issued after a hearing. This is to be so, because a writ
of preliminary injunction is an interlocutory order which is always under the
control of the court before final judgment. (Manila Electric Company vs.
Artiaga and Green, 50 Phil., 144, 147.) And it is at no moment whether the judge
dissolving an injunction is different. from that who issued it, since a judge of
first instance is not legally prevented from revoking the interlocutory order of
another judge in the very litigation subsequently assigned to him for judicial
action, and the former is not required to hear the parties, if and when a
reading of the record convinces him that the order should be revoked because
improperly granted or that it should be disapproved. (Ong Su Han vs.
Gutierrez David, 76 Phil., 546.)

Petitioners’ criticism that the motion to dissolve filed by the defendants in
Civil Case No. 4634 was not verified, is also groundless inasmuch as even an
indirect verbal application for the dissolution of an ex parte order of
preliminary injunction has been held to be a sufficient compliance with the
provisions of section 6 of Rule 60 (Moran, Comments on the Rules of Court,
Second Edition, Vol. II, p. 65, citing the case of Sy Yam Bio vs.
Barrios, 63 Phil., 206), the obvious reason being that said rule does not
prescribe the form by which an application for the dissolution or modification
of an order of preliminary injunction should be presented. (Id.) The fact
that the defendants in civil case No. 4634 did not submit any evidence in
support of their motion for dissolution, does not also help petitioners’ side,
for the reason that said motion relied on the evidence already on record. And
the respondent judge appears to have done the same in granting the motion. At
any rate, as already stated, the respondent judge was not even required to hear
the parties, if the record convinced him that the writ of preliminary injunction
should be dissolved. (Ong Su Han vs. Gutierrez David, supra.)
Specifically, it has been held that, in dissolving an injunction already issued,
the court cannot be considered as having acted without jurisdiction or with
excess of jurisdiction, even if the dissolution has been made without previous
notice to the adverse party, and without a hearing. (Moran, Comments on the
Rules of Court, Second Edition, Vol. II, p. 66.)

The petitioners also allege that the bonds filed by the defendants in Civil
Case No. 4634 for the dissolution of the injunction were approved only by the
justice of the peace of the capital. The allegation may be admitted, but the
defect, if any, is cured by the subsequent approval of said bonds by the
respondent judge himself. Neither is the failure of said defendants to furnish
the petitioners with copies of the bonds prior to their approval sufficient to
invalidate the orders now complained of. In the first place, the attorneys for
the petitioners were notified of the filing of the first bond. In the second
place, they ultimately received copies of the bonds, after which they had all
the chances to except to their sufficiency or to the solvency of the sureties,
this being the only apparent purpose of section 8 of Rule 60 requiring that “the
party filing a bond * * * shall forthwith serve a copy of such bond on the other
party.” In the third place, the petitioners do not here contend that the
aforesaid bonds are insufficient or that the sureties are not solvent.

The further circumstance that the petitioners’ motions for contempt were
still pending at the time the preliminary injunction was dissolved, does not
make the orders of the respondent judge improper, since the contempt incident
may be looked into even after the dissolution of the injunction, as the
contemptuous acts are alleged to have been previously committed.

Wherefore, the petition is denied with costs against the petitioners. So
ordered.

Perfecto, Hilado, Briones, and Tuason, JJ.,
concur.