Short answer. No. A creditor holding your pledged property cannot use it without your authority. If he does, or mishandles it in any other way, you may ask that the thing be placed in neutral custody. The one exception is use that is necessary to preserve the item itself.
What the law says
The creditor cannot use the thing pledged, without the authority of the owner, and if he should do so, or should misuse the thing in any other way, the owner may ask that it be judicially or extrajudicially deposited.
Civil Code, Article 2104 — No Use Without Authority. Read the full provision →
Security, not a loan of the item
It is worth being clear about what the creditor received. He was given custody of your property so that he has something to sell if you do not pay. He was not given the use of it, and he did not become its owner. So a lender who drives the pledged motorcycle to work, wears the pledged jewellery, or puts pledged equipment to work in his own business is taking a benefit that was never part of the deal — and doing it with an item he is supposed to be preserving. Your consent can change that, but it has to be your consent, given as owner, and not merely assumed from your silence.
The remedy the article gives you
If he uses the thing without authority, or misuses it in any other way, you may ask that it be deposited — judicially or extrajudicially. In plain terms, the item is taken out of his hands and placed with a neutral holder, by court order or by an arrangement outside court, while the debt itself continues. That is a targeted remedy and worth understanding for what it is. It protects the property without cancelling the obligation, and it does not require you to prove that the item has already been damaged. The wrongful use is the trigger. Waiting for actual harm before objecting only makes the loss harder to repair.
The exception: use to keep the thing alive
Some things deteriorate if left alone. An engine that is never started, a machine that seizes, an animal that needs handling — these have to be used to survive. For that situation the article does not merely permit use; it directs it. Where the preservation of the thing requires its use, the creditor must use it, but only for that purpose. He cannot stretch a duty to run a generator monthly into a licence to hire it out. The test is whether the activity is what preservation requires, not whether it is convenient, and any benefit he takes beyond that falls back under the prohibition.
Acting on it
Object in writing as soon as you learn of the use, and describe what you saw, when, and who told you. Photographs, mileage readings, delivery records and messages carry far more weight than a recollection offered months later. Ask at the same time for the item's present location and condition. Keep the two matters apart in your own mind: your complaint about how the property is being handled does not suspend the debt, and stopping payments in protest usually just hands the creditor the ground he needs to foreclose. Deal with the misuse on its own terms, and keep the loan account clean while you do.