04/02/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly and successors-in-interest, only to be thwarted anew by the injunctive orders and writs issued by respondent. Despite the Court’s pronouncement in G.R. No. 180206 that no such clear legal right exists in favor of those occupants or claimants to restrain the enforcement of the demolition orders issued by petitioner, and hence there remains no legal impediment to bar their implementation, respondent still issued the temporary restraining orders and writs of preliminary injunction. Worse, respondent would require petitioner to simply appeal his ruling, a move that will only result in multiple suits and endless litigation. In the recent case of The Baguio Regreening Movement, Inc. v. Masweng[31] respondent issued similar temporary restraining orders and writs of preliminary injunction in favor of claimants which include Magdalena Gumangan and Alexander Ampaguey, Sr. who sought to enjoin the Baguio District Engineer’s Office, the Office of the City Architect and Parks Superintendent, the Baguio Regreening Movement, Inc. and the Busol Task Force from fencing the Busol Watershed Reservation. The CA affirmed respondent’s orders and dismissed the petition for certiorari filed by the aforesaid offices. Applying the principle of stare decisis, the Court ruled: On February 4, 2009, this Court promulgated its Decision in G.R. No. 180206, a suit which involved several of the parties in the case at bar. In G.R. No. 180206, the City Mayor of Baguio City issued three Demolition Orders with respect to allegedly illegal structures constructed by private respondents therein on a portion of the Busol Forest Reservation. Private respondents filed a Petition for Injunction with the NCIP. Atty. Masweng issued two temporary restraining orders directing the City Government of Baguio to refrain from enforcing said Demolition Orders and subsequently granted private respondents’ application for a preliminary injunction. The Court of Appeals, acting on petitioners’ Petition for Certiorari, affirmed the temporary restraining orders and the writ of preliminary injunction. This Court then upheld the jurisdiction of the NCIP on the basis of the allegations in private respondents’ Petition for Injunction. It was similarly claimed in said Petition for Injunction that private respondents were descendants of Molintas and Gumangan whose claims over the portions of the Busol Watershed Reservation had been recognized by Proclamation No. 15. This Court thus ruled in G.R. No. 180206 that the nature of the action clearly qualify it as a dispute or controversy over ancestral lands/domains of the ICCs/IPs. On the basis of Section 69(d) of the IPRA and Section 82, Rule XV of NCIP Administrative Circular No. 1-03, the NCIP may issue temporary restraining orders and writs of injunction without any prohibition against the issuance of the writ when the main action is for injunction. On petitioners’ argument that the City of Baguio is exempt from the provisions of the IPRA and, consequently, the jurisdiction of the NCIP, this Court ruled in G.R. No. 180206 that said exemption cannot ipso facto be deduced from Section 78 of the IPRA because the law concedes the validity of prior land rights recognized or acquired through any process before its effectivity. Lastly, however, this Court ruled that although the NCIP has the authority to issue temporary restraining orders and writs of injunction, it was not elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/56526 7/11