INES SAPONG CASEÑAS AND AGUSTIN O. CASEÑAS, PLAINTIFFS AND APPELLANTS, VS. RICARDO JANDAYAN, DEFENDANT AND APPELLEE.

Appeal from an order of the Court of First Instance of Agusan, Hon.
Montano A. Ortiz, presiding, dismissing the complaint filed by
plaintiffs upon motion of defendant.

The facts alleged in the complaint may be briefly summarized as
follows: That plaintiff Ines Sapong Caseñas is in actual and material
possession and occupation of a parcel of land known as lot No. 412 of
the cadastral survey of Butuan, her possession thereto having been
peaceful, continuous, open, etc., devoting a portion of the land to the
cultivation of palay; that said plaintiff has declared the land in her
name for taxation purposes and paid taxes thereon; that in July, 1957,
the said plaintiff filed a free patent application with the Bureau of
Lands for the land described above; that while said petition was
pending the defendant through force, threat, intimidation, strategy and
stealth, entered upon a small portion of the land and succeeded in
building a house thereon with a nipa roof; that because of this entry
plaintiffs filed an action of forcible entry against the defendant in
the municipal court of Butuan City, but this case is still pending
before the said court; that in June, 1959, the Director of Lands
ordered the investigation of the free patent application of plaintiff
Ines Sapong Caseñas and so the Lands officer informed said plaintiff
and Pilar Piencanaves Vda. de Jandayan, in representation of Juan
Jandayan, to appear for investigation in Butuan City on July 28, 1959;
that Juan Jandayan had allegedly filed a homestead appllication over
the land since 1951, having possessed the land since 1938 until his
death, and that upon his death his heirs succeeded him thereto; and
that the widow and children of said Jandayan had filed a homestead
application for six months after plaintiff Ines Sapong Caseñas had
filed her free patent application.

The most important allegations of plaintiffs’ complaint are
contained in paragraphs 11 and 14 which are herein-below quoted for
purposes of clarity.

“That in or about the month of June, 1959, before the commencement
of the investigation ordered by the Director of Lands and set for
hearing on July 28, 1959, by the District Land Officer at Butuan City,
the herein defendant, emboldened to be sure by the dismissal of the
forcible entry case against him mentioned in paragraphs VI and VII
above, employing again force, threat, intimidation, stealth and
strategy, entered upon another area of about two (2) hectares of the
land in question, over the protest of plaintiff Ines Sapong Caseñas
through her overseer and tenant, the area newly usurped being rice land
and coconut land located alongside the Buenavista-Butuan Provincial
Road, and by force, threat, intimidation, stealth and strategy, and
over the protest of said plaintiff, caused the said area to be plowed
and planted to palay and had the fruits of the coconut trees gathered,
converted the same to his own exclusive use; and intends and threatens
to gather the harvest of palay on the land also by force, threat and
intimidation, for his own exclusive use, to the great damage and
prejudice of the herein plaintiffs, unless restrained on time by this
Honorable Court.”

* * * * * * *

“That the defendant, taking advantage of the delay
in the termination of the investigation referred to above and relying
on mere brute force and on his being related to a member of the
Philippine Constabulary now stationed at Butuan City, is committing,
threatens or is about to commit a new incursion and usurpation by
entering by force, threat, intimidation, stealth and strategy upon the
remainder of the cleared and cultivated portion of about twelve (12)
hectares of the land in question; and is building, threatens or is
about to build another house thereon, the materials of which can now be
seen piled in the premises, all in flagrant violation of the
plaintiffs’ rights respecting the subject of the action and of the
investigation being conducted by the District Land Officer at Butuan
City, upon order of the Director of Lands, as above alleged, which
investigation has not yet been finished and terminated, and tending to
render the judgment or decision that may be rendered by the Director of
Lands after the conclusion of said investigation, ineffectual and
illusory.”

The prayer of the complaint is for a writ of preliminary injunction
to issue against the defendant to prevent him from building another
house on the land, or from performing any work thereon such as
cultivation, ploughing, or planting or gathering the harvest, during
the pendency of the investigation conducted by the Bureau of Lands, etc.

The defendant having been summoned, he promptly filed a motion to
dismiss alleging that assuming without admitting that plaintiffs had a
valid cause of action the same is barred by the pendency of another
action and that the court has no jurisdiction over the subject matter.
Plaintiffs’ counsel opposed the motion for dismissal. After a hearing
the court dismissed the complaint reasoning as follows:

“The Court believes and so holds that an independent
action of injunction is not the remedy. Since the issue herein is
physical, actual and natural possession from which the plaintiffs were
allegedly deprived by force, threat, intimidation, stealth and
strategy, the plaintiffs should have filed a case of forcible entry in
the inferior court with a petition for preliminary injunction. This
Court could very well disregard the title of the herein complaint by
considering it as forcible entry but this cannot be done because the
acts of illegal occupation were committed on June 19, 1959, within the
period of one year after the unlawful deprivation, and this falls
within the exclusive jurisdiction of the inferior courts.”

It is against the above order of dismissal that this appeal has been prosecuted.

In this Court, counsel for plaintiffs-appellants argues that the
proper action that plaintiffs have is one of preliminary injunction and
not forcible entry and detainer. It is further argued that under
paragraph 14 of plaintiffs’ complaint, defendant is committing a new
incursion and usurpation and is building or threatening to build
another house, while in paragraph 15 it is alleged that plaintiffs are
entitled to the relief prayed for, which consists in restraining the
commission or continuance of the acts complained of; and in paragraph
16 it is alleged that great and irreparable injury would result to the
plaintiffs unless a preliminary injunction is issued ex parte.

The above argument of plaintiffs-appellants’ counsel would be
correct if the above allegations are the only ones made in the
complaint. But paragraph 11 thereof alleges that in June, 1959
defendant employed force, threat, intimidation, stealth and strategy to
enter upon an area of two hectares of the land in question; and in
paragraph 14, it is alleged that the defendant threatens or is about to
commit a new incursion and usurpation by the same means. So that
according to the plaintiffs’ complaint, defendant entered upon the land
in June, 1959, and continues occupying or usurping possession of said
land of the plaintiffs; so that the defendant is committing a
continuing usurpation or occupation and not an isolated act of
usurpation or entry in June, 1959 and another at a later date.

The remedy of the plaintiffs is clearly an action of forcible entry
and detainer under Rule 72. In connection with the continuance of the
acts of usurpation and entry, these need not be the subject of another
action but may be remedied under Section 3 of Rule 72 of the Rules of
Court, which reads as follows:

“Sec. 3. Preliminary injunction.—The Court
may grant preliminary injunction, in accordance with the provisions of
Rule 60 hereof, to prevent the defendant from committing further acts
of dispossession against plaintiff.”

It is, therefore, clear that the remedy of the plaintiffs is an
action of forcible entry and detainer, and in the said action he may
secure the writ of preliminary injunction that he prays for in the
complaint.

There is another reason for dismissing the action, and that is the
fact that there is a pending action for forcible entry and detainer
filed by the plaintiffs against the defendant. In view of the pendency
of this action the plaintiffs should not have been permitted to file
another action in view of the principle against the multiplicity of
suits.

For all the foregoing, the order dismissing the complaint should be, as it hereby is, affirmed, without costs.

Padilla, Bautista Angelo, Concepcion, Reyes, J.B.L., Barrera, Paredes, and Dizon, JJ., concur.