This is a petition  for  certiorari filed  by the petitioners praying this court to review the record of civil case  No. 10140 of the Court  of  First Instance  of Iloilo,  entitled "Teresa Magbanua, in  her own behalf and as judicial  administratrix  of  the  intestate estate of the deceased Alejandro  Balderas, plaintiff, vs.  Ramon Santarromana and Socorro Ledesma, defendants", to declare later that the respondent judge acted without jurisdiction in permitting Sofronio Bastareche,  Maxima  Balderas,  Cirilo  Ledesma, and Custodio Castor, to intervene in the case of third party claimants, and to set aside the order of said judge, dated March 17, 1936, permitting said four persons to intervene as such third party claimants by filing as they in fact filed their respective  complaints in intervention.

The plaintiff and the deceased Alejandro Balderas were husband and wife who, during the greater part of their married life, had been living separately from one another for causes not stated in the complaint and which it is unnecessary to  know.   After the  husband's death and following the appointment of the wife as judicial administratrix of  his  estate, she instituted said  case No. 10140 in the Court of First Instance of Iloilo seeking the annulment of the deeds of sale referred to  in her complaint, alleging that the petitioners, taking advantage of their ascendancy or  influence  over her  husband  while he was with them in fact they lived with him during the last four or five years of  his  life induced  him to execute said deeds, notwithstanding the fact that there  was no consideration; that some of the lands covered by the deeds in question were the exclusive property of her said husband and the others were conjugal partnership property  belonging to both.

The respondents Sofronio Bastareche, Maxima Balderas, Cirilo Ledesma  and  Custodio  Castor, knowing the action brought by Teresa Magbanua  against the petitioners, and considering  themselves all affected more or less directly thereby, because, as they alleged in  their respective complaints in  intervention, some  of the lands referred to  in the deeds  the  annulment of  which was sought by  said Teresa Magbanua, for being fictitious and fraudulent, had been sold to them by Alejandro Balderas long before the transfer alleged to have been made by him in favor of the petitioners; and from the time of the purchase thereof the petitioners  were  occupying  them  uninterruptedly under claim of ownership  for  more than 25 years in the  case of the intervenor Sofronio Bastareche, 20  years in the case of Maxima Balderas and Cirilo  Ledesma, and 50 years in the case of Custodio Castor, they filed, one after another, their respective petitions to be  permitted* to intervene in the case as third party claimants, alleging that they were directly interested therein because it involved a question of ownership of some lands which  they claimed  to belong exclusively to them and also that the alleged transfers made by  the deceased Alejandro Balderas  during his  lifetime in favor of the petitioners are false, fictitious and fraudulent.

By reading the pleadings of the parties  to the  case in question, No. 10140 of the Court of  First Instance of Iloilo, it clearly appears that the interests of the plaintiff, Teresa Magbanua, are openly adverse not only to those of the defendants who are the petitioners herein, but also to those of the four intervenors,  or the respondents Sofronio Bastareche, Maxima Balderas,  Cirilo Ledesma  and Custodio Castor;  that the interests of the petitioners are, in turn, adverse  to those of the intervenors; and that in the last analysis the question to be decided in said case is who among said  parties,  the  plaintiff, the  defendants,  or the intervenors, are the true owners  of  the lands in question.  It is inferred from this that as the  interest of the intervenors is not inferior to that of the petitioners or to that of the plaintiff herself, Teresa  Magbanua,  particularly because they alleged in their complaints in intervention that they are actually and for many years have been in the possession of the lands in question, under claim of ownership, they are unquestionably entitled  to defend  their  title thereto by intervening directly in the case as third  party claimants for said purpose.  Under the provisions of section 121 of Act No. 190, it is discretionary on  the part of the courts to grant or deny permission to intervene  in a case, if applied for, either by joining the plaintiff, by uniting with the defendant, or by filing a complaint against both parties. Therefore, if it is discretionary on the part of the courts to grant or deny permission to intervene in a certain case, it would seem clear that the respondent judge cannot in any way be held to have acted in excess of his jurisdiction, or abused his discretion.  On the contrary, he acted rightly because by his  act he avoided a multiplicity of suits by causing the antagonistic claims of the parties to be sub- mitted in the  same case so that they may be decided once and for all.  The intervenors not only are entitled to question the  claims of the plaintiff  but  also  those  of the defendants  because the former alleged that some of the Jands in question belong to the  conjugal  partnership of her and her deceased  husband, and the latter, in turn, alleged that they had purchased said lands from the deceased in his lifetime, considering themselves, as stated in their respective  complaints,  as  the  sole owners  thereof.   They furthermore have as  much right as the plaintiff to ask for the annulment of the deeds under which the petitioners claim ownership because, if it is true that said deeds exist, their silence or failure to act will in due time redound to their prejudice.

Wherefore,  the petition for certiorari filed by the petitioners is  without merit and  it  is hereby denied,  with costs to the petitioners.  So ordered.

Avanceña, C. J., Villa-Real, Abad Santos, Imperial, and Laurel, JJ., concur.