GR 161798; (October, 2004) (Digest)
G.R. No. 161798; October 20, 2004
PICOP RESOURCES, INC., petitioner, vs. HON. AUGUSTUS L. CALO, Presiding Judge, RTC of Agusan del Norte and Butuan City, Branch 5, et al., respondents.
FACTS
Petitioner PICOP Resources, Inc. (PICOP) holds government licenses to manage a vast forest reserve. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) issued several Memoranda designating PICOP as a depository for apprehended forest products and conveyances within its concession and deputizing its security personnel to aid in enforcement. Pursuant to this, PICOP apprehended private respondents, members of a farmers’ association, for transporting falcata logs without permits, confiscating the logs and vehicles.
Private respondents filed a complaint for damages and injunction before the Regional Trial Court (RTC) against the DENR and PICOP, seeking to declare the DENR Memoranda null and void and to restrain their enforcement. The RTC sustained the validity of the Memoranda but granted a preliminary mandatory injunction. It ordered the DENR to recall one specific Memorandum and commanded PICOP to release the confiscated logs and vehicles to their owners or to the custody of the CENRO or the prosecution office where related cases were pending. The Court of Appeals dismissed PICOP’s subsequent petition.
ISSUE
Whether the RTC committed grave abuse of discretion in granting the writ of preliminary mandatory injunction ordering the release of the confiscated forest products and conveyances.
RULING
No, the RTC did not commit grave abuse of discretion. The Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal of PICOP’s petition. The legal logic rests on PICOP’s lack of a clear legal right to the confiscated items that would be protected by injunction. PICOP acted merely as a depository or custodian by virtue of the DENR Memoranda; it did not claim ownership over the seized conveyances. Its asserted ownership interest in the trees was contingent and not absolute, governed by its agreements with the government and subject to existing forestry laws and procedures.
Crucially, the confiscated items were the subject of pending administrative and criminal cases. The propriety of the confiscation and the eventual disposition of the items are matters to be resolved in those primary proceedings. The RTC’s order for release to the custody of the CENRO or the prosecution office was a conservatory measure that did not determine the merits of the cases nor constitute a final adjudication of ownership. It merely altered the physical custody of the evidence while the main cases were being litigated, a measure within the court’s equitable discretion to prevent irreparable injury pending a final judgment, without granting PICOP any superior right to retain possession.