04/02/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly issuance of the writ when the main action is for injunction. The power to issue temporary restraining orders or writs of injunction allows parties to a dispute over which the NCIP has jurisdiction to seek relief against any action which may cause them grave or irreparable damage or injury. In this case, the Regional Hearing Officer issued the injunctive writ because its jurisdiction was called upon to protect and preserve the rights of private respondents who are undoubtedly members of ICCs/IPs. Parenthetically, in order to reinforce the powers of the NCIP, the IPRA even provides that no restraining order or preliminary injunction may be issued by any inferior court against the NCIP in any case, dispute or controversy arising from or necessary to the interpretation of the IPRA and other laws relating to ICCs/IPs and ancestral domains.[17] Petitioners argue that Baguio City is exempt from the provisions of the IPRA, and necessarily the jurisdiction of the NCIP, by virtue of Sec. 78 thereof, which states: SEC. 78. Special Provision.--The City of Baguio shall remain to be governed by its Charter and all lands proclaimed as part of its townsite reservation shall remain as such until otherwise reclassified by appropriate legislation: Provided, That prior land rights and titles recognized and/or acquired through any judicial, administrative or other processes before the effectivity of this Act shall remain valid: Provided, further, That this provision shall not apply to any territory which becomes part of the City of Baguio after the effectivity of this Act. [Emphasis supplied] The foregoing provision indeed states that Baguio City is governed by its own charter. Its exemption from the IPRA, however, cannot ipso facto be deduced because the law concedes the validity of prior land rights recognized or acquired through any process before its effectivity. The IPRA demands that the city's charter respect the validity of these recognized land rights and titles. The crucial question to be asked then is whether private respondents' ancestral land claim was indeed recognized by Proclamation No. 15, in which case, their right thereto may be protected by an injunctive writ. After all, before a writ of preliminary injunction may be issued, petitioners must show that there exists a right to be protected and that the acts against which injunction is directed are violative of said right.[18] Proclamation No. 15, however, does not appear to be a definitive recognition of private respondents' ancestral land claim. The proclamation merely identifies the Molintas and Gumangan families, the predecessors-in-interest of private respondents, as claimants of a portion of the Busol Forest Reservation but does not acknowledge vested rights over the same. In fact, Proclamation No. 15 explicitly withdraws the Busol Forest Reservation from sale or settlement. It provides: Pursuant to the provisions of section eighteen hundred and twenty-six of Act Numbered Twenty-seven Hundred and eleven[,] I hereby establish the Busol Forest Reservation to be administered by the Bureau of Forestry for the purpose of conserving and protecting water and timber, the protection of the water supply being of primary importance and all elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/48710 6/8