Preservative remedies to protect substantive rights, interests

In Australian Professional Realty, Inc. v. Municipality of Padre Garcia, Batangas Province,[1] the Supreme Court held that a writ of preliminary injunction and a TRO are injunctive reliefs and preservative remedies for the protection of substantive rights and interests. Essential to granting the injunctive relief is the existence of an urgent necessity for the writ in order to prevent serious damage. A TRO issues only if the matter is of such extreme urgency that grave injustice and irreparable injury would arise unless it is issued immediately.[2]Also, the Supreme CourCourt, in the case of Pahila-Garrido v. Tortogo,[3]emphasized that -
Injunctive relief is resorted to only when there is a pressing necessity to avoid injurious consequences that cannot be redressed under any standard of compensation. The controlling reason for the existence of the judicial power to issue the writ of injuction i's that the court may thereby prevent a threatened or continuous injury to some of the parties before their claims can be thoroughly investigated and advisedly adjudicated. A writ of preliminary injunction is an extraordinary event and is the strong arm of equity, or a transcendent remedy. It is granted only to protect actual and existing substantial rights. Without actual and existing rights on the part of the applicant, and in the absence of facts bringing the matter within the conditions for its issuance, the ancillary writ must be struck down for being issued in grave abuse of discretion. Thus, injunction will not issue to protect a right not in esse, which is merely contingent, and which may never arise, or to restrain an act which does not give rise to a cause of action.[4]

Worth noting also is the fact that the grant or denial of a writ of preliminary injunction in a pending case rests on the sound discretion of the court taking cognizance of the case, since the assessment and evaluation of evidence towards that end involves findings of fact left to the said court for its conclusive determination. Hence, the exercise of judicial discretion by a court in injunctive matters must not be interfered with, except when there is grave abuse of discretion.[5]


[1] 684 Phil. 283(2012).

[2] Australian Professional Really, Inc. v. Municipality of Padre Garcia, Batangas Province, supra. at 291-292.

[3] 671 Phil. 320(2011)

[4] Pahila-Garrido v. Tortogo, supra, at 342-343.


[5] Australian Professional Realty, Inc. v. Municipality of Padre Garcia, Batangas Province, supra note 1, at 293.