Short answer. Immediately, though the ten days people quote is not what they think. The Code's ten-day clock runs from the filing of the complaint, not from the day you were dispossessed — it is the window for asking the court to put you back while the case is still being heard.
What the law says
A possessor deprived of his possession through forcible entry may within ten days from the filing of the complaint present a motion to secure from the competent court, in the action for forcible entry, a writ of preliminary mandatory injunction to restore him in his possession.
Civil Code, Article 539 — Protection of Possession. Read the full provision →
Read the ten days carefully
The words are within ten days from the filing of the complaint — not ten days from the entry, and not ten days from when you found out. The clock is internal to a case that has already been started. Miss it and you have not lost your action for forcible entry; you have lost the early motion inside it. This is worth spelling out because the figure travels around as though it were a deadline to sue, and people who hear it on day eleven conclude, wrongly, that nothing can be done.
What the motion actually gets you
It is a motion for a writ of preliminary mandatory injunction to restore him in his possession: an order putting you back on the property before the case is decided rather than after. That is an unusual remedy, because it gives the plaintiff the substance of what he is suing for at the start. The Code balances it with speed on the court's side — the motion is to be decided within thirty days of filing. The practical consequence is that the value of the remedy collapses if you delay in bringing the case at all.
The right the article is protecting
Underneath the timing sits a plain proposition: every possessor has a right to be respected in his possession, and one disturbed in it is to be protected or restored by the means the laws and the Rules of Court establish. A forcible entry case asks who was in possession and who was ousted — not who owns the land. That is why it can be resolved quickly, and why the person with the better title still loses it if he was the one who took the property by force.
What this article does not tell you
It does not state how long you have to file the case in the first place. That period lives in the Rules of Court rather than in the Code, it is short, and it is measured from the dispossession, so treat the day you were pushed out as the day everything starts running. Fix that date while it is still fresh: photographs, a blotter entry, messages, anyone who saw it. A lawyer taking the case will ask for the date of entry before anything else, because the choice of remedy turns on it.
Cases citing this provision
These Supreme Court decisions cite the provision above. We list them so you can read them yourself; the summaries of what each decided are not ours to give.
- HGL Development Corporation represented by its President, Henry G. Lim vs. Hon. Rafael O. Penuela and Semirara Coal Corporation, G.R. No. 181353, June 6, 2016 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Sps. Castro vs. Sps. Se and Dela Cruz, et al, G.R. No. 190122, January 10, 2011 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Leonardo David vs. Nelson and Danny Cordova, G.R. No. 152992, July 27, 2005 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Joel G. Nolasco vs. Purence Realty Corporation, G.R. No. 252715, October 12, 2022 — read the decision on LawPhil →