Philippine Supreme Court Resolutions > Year 2010 > June 2010 Resolutions > [G.R. No. 174119 : June 21, 2010] SPOUSES MARCELO O. CASTILLO AND JENNY DOE CASTILLO V. SPOUSES ANDERSEN L. TUANA AND WILMA TUANA [G.R. NO. 174587] ECUMENE CORPORATION, HEREIN REPRESENTED BY NILO T. PEÑAFLOR V. SPS. ANDERSEN L. TUANA AND WILMA TUANA :

Please take notice that the Court, Second Division, issued a Resolution dated 21 June 2010, which reads as follows:

G.R. No. 174119 (Spouses Marcelo O. Castillo and Jenny Doe Castillo v. Spouses Andersen L. Tuana and Wilma Tuana); and G.R. No. 174587 (Ecumene Corporation, herein represented by Nilo T. Pe�aflor v. Sps. Andersen L. Tuana and Wilma Tuana).-

Petitioner Marcelo O. Castillo won a bidding of scraps belonging to the National Power Corporation (NPC). He later offered his right as winning bider to respondent Ecumene Corp. (Ecumene) represented by Nilo T. Pe�aflor. Since Ecumene lacked funds, Pe�aflor introduced respondent Andersen L. Tuana to Castillo. After a series of negotiations, Castillo, Tuana, and Ecumene entered into a sharing agreement denominated as "Second Deed of Assignment" in which Castillo assigned his right to the scraps to Ecumene and Tuana for P26 million who agreed to pay him P13 million each and divide the scraps based on their prevailing market price.

Subsequently, Ecumene and Tuana ran into disputes regarding the withdrawal of the scraps, forcing NPC to suspend such withdrawal. Tuana filed a complaint for breach of contract and damages with prayer for preliminary injunction against Castillo, Ecumene, and NPC before the Marikina Regional Trial Court (RTC). After hearing, although the RTC enjoined Ecumene from hauling more scraps, it also did not allow Tuana to do so, prompting the latter to seek relief from the Court of Appeals (CA).

On May 8, 2006 the CA nullified the RTC order, allowing Tuana to haul so much scrap from NPC as would enable him to recover his P13 million investment. When the CA denied Ecumene and Castillo's motion for reconsideration, they came to this Court on separate petition for review. The Court consolidated the petitions, gave due course to them, and required the parties to file their respective memoranda.

Meantime, on June 13, 2008 the parties settled their disputes in the main case before the Marikina RTC, prompting Ecumene to come to this Court afterwards with a motion to withdraw his petition in G.R. 174587. Asked to comment, both Castillo and Tuana acknowledged that the  compromise agreement fully settled the parties' claims against each other. Although Tuana said that such agreement did not settle the issue of grave abuse of discretion of the RTC in issuing its injunction order, it is up to the Court to allow the withdrawal of the actions before it.

Since the compromise agreement in this case fully settled all the claims of the parties in the main case, there is no point in resolving the injunction incidents pending before this Court. A writ of preliminary injunction is merely provisional and ancillary and dependent on the result of the main action. Where the main action is dismissed, the writ is deemed lifted and dissolved.^[1] It is no longer relevant to rule on whether the RTC gravely abused its discretion in modifying the writ of injunction it issued in the case.

WHEREFORE, the Court DISMISSES both petitions for having become moot and academic.

SO ORDERED.

Endnotes:

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[1] Buyco v. Baraquia, G.R. No. 177486, December 21, 2009.