US VS.

TORIBIO
Facts: Respondent Toribio is an owner of
carabao, residing in the town of Carmen in
the province of Bohol. The trial court of
Bohol found that the respondent slaughtered
or caused to be slaughtered a carabao
without a permit from the municipal
treasurer of the municipality wherein it was
slaughtered, in violation of Sections 30 and
33 of Act No. 1147, an Act regulating the
registration, branding, and slaughter of
Large Cattle. The act prohibits the slaughter
of large cattle fit for agricultural work or
other
draft
purposes
for
human
consumption.
The respondent counters by stating that
what the Act is (1) prohibiting is the
slaughter of large cattle in the municipal
slaughter house without a permit given by
the municipal treasurer. Furthermore, he
contends that the municipality of Carmen
has no slaughter house and that he
slaughtered his carabao in his dwelling, (2)
the act constitutes a taking of property for
public use in the exercise of the right of
eminent domain without providing for the
compensation of owners, and it is an undue
and unauthorized exercise of police power of
the state for it deprives them of the
enjoyment of their private property.
Issue: Whether or not Act. No. 1147,
regulating the registration, branding and
slaughter of large cattle, is an undue and
unauthorized exercise of police power.
Held: It is a valid exercise of police power
of the state.
The enactment of the provisions of the
statute under consideration was required by
the interest of the public generally, as
distinguished from those of a particular
class; and the prohibition of the slaughter
of carabaos for human consumption, so long
as these animals are fit for agricultural work
or draft purposes was a reasonably
necessary limitation on private ownership,
to protect the community from the loss of
service of such animals by their slaughter by
improvident owners.
Police power is the inherent power of

the state to legislate laws which may

interfere with personal liberties. To
justify the state in the exercise of its
sovereign police power it must appear
(1) that the interest of the general
public requires it and (2) that the
means are reasonably necessary for the
accomplishment of the purpose, and
not
unduly
oppressive
upon
individuals.
The court is of the opinion that the act
applies generally to the slaughter of large
cattle for human consumption, ANYWHERE,
without a permit duly secured from the
municipal treasurer, For to do otherwise is to
defeat the purpose of the law and the intent
of the law makers. The act primarily seeks to
protect large cattle against theft to make it
easy for the recovery and return to owners,
which encouraged them to regulate the
registration and slaughter of large cattle.
Several years prior to the enactment of the
said law, an epidemic struck the Philippine
islands which threatened the survival of
carabaos in the country. In some provinces
seventy, eighty and even one hundred
percent of their local carabaos perished due
to the said epidemic. This drove the prices of
carabaos up to four or five-fold, as a
consequence carabao theft became rampant
due to the luxurious prices of these work
animals. Moreover, this greatly affected the
food production of the country which
prompted the government to import rice
from its neighboring countries.
As these work animals are vested with public
interest for they are of fundamental use for
the production of crops, the government was
prompted to pass a law that would protect
these work animals. The purpose of the law
is to stabilize the number of carabaos in the
country as well as to redistribute them
throughout the entire archipelago. It was
also the same reason why large cattles fit for
farm work was prohibited to be slaughtered
for human consumption. Most importantly,
the respondents carabao was found to be fit
for farm work.
These reasons satisfy the requisites for the
valid exercise of police power.

Act No. 1147 is not an exercise of the

inherent power of eminent domain. The
said law does not constitute the taking
of carabaos for public purpose; it just
serves as a mere regulation for the
consumption
of
these
private
properties for the protection of general
welfare and public interest. Thus, the
demand for compensation of the owner
must fail. It does not violate Art. III,
Sec. 1.

YNOT VS. IAC

Facts:
On January 13, 1984, the petitioner
transported six carabaos in a pump boat
from Masbate to Iloilo when the same was
confiscated by the police station commander
of Barotac Nuevo, Iloilo for the violation of
E.O. 626-A, banning the transportation of
carabaos from one place to another. A case
was filed by the petitioner questioning the
constitutionality of executive order and the
recovery of the carabaos. After considering
the merits of the case, the confiscation was
sustained and the court declined to rule on
the constitutionality issue. The petitioner
appealed the decision to the Intermediate
Appellate Court but it also upheld the ruling
of RTC.
Petitioners contention:
The EO is unconstitutional insofar as it
authorizes outright confiscation of the
carabao and cara beef being transported
across provincial boundaries. His claim is
that the penalty is invalid because it is
imposed without according the owner a right
to be heard before a competent and
impartial court as guaranteed by due
process.
Issue:
WON there is violation of Ps right to due
process? Yes.
Is E.O. 626-A unconstitutional? Yes.

Ruling:
The ban on the transportation of carabaos
from one province to another, their
confiscation and disposal without prior
hearing is violative of due process for lack of
reasonable connection between the means
employed and the purpose to be achieved
and for being confiscatory.
The Respondent contends that it is a valid
exercise of police power to justify EO 626-A
amending EO 626 in asic rule prohibiting the
slaughter of carabaos except under certain
conditions. The supreme court said that
The reasonable connection between the
means employed and the purpose
sought
to
be
achieved
by
the
questioned measure is missing the
Supreme Court do not see how the
prohibition
of
the
inter-provincial
transport of carabaos can prevent their
indiscriminate slaughter, considering
that they can be killed anywhere, with
no less difficulty in one province than in
another.
Obviously,
retaining
the
carabaos in one province will not
prevent their slaughter there, any more
than moving them to another province
will make it easier to kill them there.
The minimum requirements of due process
are notice and hearing which, generally
speaking, may not be dispensed with
because they are intended as a safeguard
against official arbitrariness.
The Supreme Court found E.O. 626-A
unconstitutional. The executive act defined
the prohibition, convicted the petitioner and
immediately imposed punishment, which
was carried out forthright. Due process was
not properly observed. In the instant case,
the carabaos were arbitrarily confiscated by
the police station commander, were
returned to the petitioner only after he had
filed a complaint for recovery and given a
supersedeas bond of P12,000.00. The
measure struck at once and pounced upon
the petitioner without giving him a chance to
be heard, thus denying due process.

from city authorites. They claimed this to be

violative of due process for being vague.
The law also classified motels into two
classes and required the maintenance of
certain minimum facilities in first class
motels such as a telephone in each room, a
dining room or, restaurant and laundry. The
petitioners also invoked the lack of due
process on this for being arbitrary.
It was also unlawful for the owner to lease
any room or portion thereof more than twice
every 24 hours. There was also a
prohibition for persons below 18 in the hotel.
The challenged ordinance also caused the
automatic cancellation of the license of the
hotels that violated the ordinance.
The lower court declared the ordinance
unconstitutional.
Hence, this appeal by the city of Manila.
Issue:
Whether Ordinance No. 4760 of the City of
Manila is violative of the due process clause?
Ermita Malate v City of Manila
Facts:
Ermita-Malate Hotel and Motel Operators
Association, and one of its members Hotel
del Mar Inc. petitioned for the prohibition of
Ordinance 4670 on June 14, 1963 to be
applicable in the city of Manila.
They claimed that the ordinance was beyond
the powers of the Manila City Board to
regulate due to the fact that hotels were not
part of its regulatory powers. They also
asserted that Section 1 of the challenged
ordinance was unconstitutional and void for
being unreasonable and violative of due
process insofar because it would impose
P6,000.00 license fee per annum for first
class motels and P4,500.00 for second class
motels; there was also the requirement that
the guests would fill up a form specifying
their personal information.
There was also a provision that the premises
and facilities of such hotels, motels and
lodging houses would be open for inspection

Held: No. Judgment reversed.

Ratio:
"The presumption is towards the validity of a
law. However, the Judiciary should not
lightly set aside legislative action when
there is not a clear invasion of personal or
property rights under the guise of police
regulation.
O'Gorman & Young v. Hartford Fire Insurance
Co- Case was in the scope of police power.
As underlying questions of fact may
condition the constitutionality of legislation
of this character, the presumption of
constitutionality must prevail in the absence
of some factual foundation of record for
overthrowing the statute." No such factual
foundation being laid in the present case,
the lower court deciding the matter on the
pleadings and the stipulation of facts, the
presumption of validity must prevail and the
judgment against the ordinance set aside.
There is no question but
challenged ordinance was

that the
precisely

enacted to minimize certain practices

hurtful to public morals, particularly
fornication and prostitution. Moreover,
the increase in the licensed fees was
intended to discourage "establishments
of the kind from operating for purpose
other than legal" and at the same time,
to increase "the income of the city
government."
Police power is the power to prescribe
regulations to promote the health, morals,
peace, good order, safety and general
welfare of the people. In view of the
requirements
of
due
process,
equal
protection
and
other
applicable
constitutional guaranties, however, the
power must not be unreasonable or violative
of due process.
There is no controlling and precise definition
of due process. It has a standard to which
the governmental action should conform in
order that deprivation of life, liberty or
property, in each appropriate case, be valid.
What then is the standard of due process
which must exist both as a procedural and a
substantive requisite to free the challenged
ordinance from legal infirmity? It is
responsiveness to the supremacy of
reason, obedience to the dictates of
justice. Negatively put, arbitrariness is
ruled out and unfairness avoided.
Due process is not a narrow or "technical
conception with fixed content unrelated to
time, place and circumstances," decisions
based on such a clause requiring a "close
and perceptive inquiry into fundamental
principles of our society." Questions of due
process are not to be treated narrowly or
pedantically in slavery to form or phrase.
Nothing in the petition is sufficient to prove
the ordinances nullity for an alleged failure
to meet the due process requirement.
Cu Unjieng case: Licenses for non-useful
occupations are also incidental to the police
power and the right to exact a fee may be
implied from the power to license and
regulate, but in fixing amount of the license
fees the municipal corporations are allowed
a much wider discretion in this class of cases
than in the former, and aside from applying

the well-known legal principle that municipal

ordinances must not be unreasonable,
oppressive, or tyrannical, courts have, as a
general rule, declined to interfere with such
discretion. Eg. Sale of liquors.
Lutz v. Araneta- Taxation may be made to
supplement the states police power.
In one case- much discretion is given to
municipal corporations in determining the
amount," here the license fee of the
operator of a massage clinic, even if it were
viewed purely as a police power measure.
On the impairment of freedom to
contract by limiting duration of use to
twice every 24 hours- It was not
violative of due process. 'Liberty' as
understood in democracies, is not
license; it is 'liberty regulated by law.'
Implied in the term is restraint by law
for the good of the individual and for
the greater good of the peace and
order of society and the general wellbeing.
REASONABLENESS
OF
ORDINANCE
REGULATING HOTELS: the provision in
Ordinance no. 4760 of the city of
Manila, making it unlawful for the
owner,
manager,
keeper
or
duly
authorized representative of any hotel,
motel etc. more than twice every 24
hours, with a proviso that in all cases
full payment shall be charged, cannot
be viewed as a transgression against
the command of due process. The
prohibition is neither arbitrary, because
there
appears
a
correspondence
between undeniable existence of an
undesirable
situatuin
and
the
legislative attempt at correction. Every
regulation of conduct amounts to
curtailment of liberty, which cannot be
absolute.
Laurel- The citizen should achieve the
required balance of liberty and authority in
his mind through education and personal
discipline, so that there may be established
the resultant equilibrium, which means
peace and order and happiness for all.

The freedom to contract no longer "retains

its virtuality as a living principle, unlike in
the sole case of People v Pomar. The policy
of laissez faire has to some extent given way
to the assumption by the government of the
right of intervention even in contractual
relations affected with public interest.
What may be stressed sufficiently is that if
the liberty involved were freedom of the
mind or the person, the standard for the
validity of governmental acts is much more
rigorous and exacting, but where the liberty
curtailed affects at the most rights of

property, the permissible scope of regulatory

measure is wider.
On the law being vague on the issue of
personal information, the maintenance of
establishments, and the full rate of
payment- Holmes- We agree to all the
generalities about not supplying criminal
laws with what they omit but there is no
canon against using common sense in
construing laws as saying what they
obviously mean."