04/02/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly "The main action for injunction is distinct from the provisional or ancillary remedy of preliminary injunction."[22] A preliminary injunction does not determine the merits of a case or decide controverted facts.[23] Since it is a mere preventive remedy, it only seeks to prevent threatened wrong, further injury and irreparable harm or injustice until the rights of the parties are settled.[24] "It is usually granted when it is made to appear that there is a substantial controversy between the parties and one of them is committing an act or threatening the immediate commission of an act that will cause irreparable injury or destroy the status quo of the controversy before a full hearing can be had on the merits of the case."[25] A preliminary injunction is granted at any stage of an action or proceeding prior to judgment or final order.[26] For its issuance, the applicant is required to show, at least tentatively, that he has a right which is not vitiated by any substantial challenge or contradiction.[27] Simply stated, the applicant needs only to show that he has the ostensible right to the final relief prayed for in his complaint.[28] On the other hand, the main action for injunction seeks a judgment that embodies a final injunction.[29] A final injunction is one which perpetually restrains the party or person enjoined from the commission or continuance of an act, or in case of mandatory injunctive writ, one which confirms the preliminary mandatory injuction.[30] It is issued when the court, after trial on the merits, is convinced that the applicant is entitled to have the act or acts complained of permanently enjoined.[31] Otherwise stated, it is only after the court has come up with a definite pronouncement respecting an applicant's right and of the act violative of such right, based on its appreciation of the evidence presented, that a final injunction is issued. To be a basis for a final and permanant injunction, the right and the act violative thereof must be established by the applicant with absolute certainty.[32] What was before the trial court at the time of the issuance of its July 3, 2007 Decision is whether a final injunction should issue. While the RTC seemed to realize this as it in fact made the injunction permanent, the Court, however, finds the same to be wanting in basis. Indeed, the RTC endeavored to provide a narrow distinction between a preliminary injunction and a final injunction. Despite this, the RTC apparently confused itself. For one, what it cited in its Decision were jurisprudence relating to preliminary injunction and/or mandatory injunction as an ancillary writ and not as a final injunction. At that point, the duty of the RTC was to determine, based on the evidence presented during trial, if Rev. Cortez has conclusively established his claimed right (as opposed to preliminary injunction where an applicant only needs to at least tentatively show that he has a right) over the subject area. This is considering that the existence of such right plays an important part in determining whether the preliminary writ of mandatory injunction should be confirmed. Surprisingly, however, the said Decision is bereft of the trial court's factual findings on the matter as well as of its analysis of the same vis-a-vis applicable jurisprudence. As it is, the said Decision merely contains a restatement of the parties' respective allegations in the Complaint and the Answer, followed by a narration of the ensuing proceedings, an enumeration of the evidence submitted by Rev. Cortez, a recitation of jurisprudence relating to preliminary injunction and/or specifically, to mandatory injunction as an ancillary writ, a short reference to the IPRA which the Court finds to be irrelevant and finally, a conclusion that a final and permanent injunction should issue. No discussion whatsoever was made with respect to whether Rev. Cortez was able to establish elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/61257 7/13