VILLEGAS VS. HIU CHIONG [86 SCRA 270; NO.

L-29646; 10 NOV 1978]

Facts: The controverted Ordinance no. 6537 was passed by the Municipal Board of Manila on February 22,
1968 and signed by Mayor Villegas. It is an ordinance making it unlawful for any person not a citizen of the
Philippines to be employed in any place of employment or to be engaged in any kind of trade business or
occupation within the city of Manila without securing an employment permit from the Mayor of Manila and for
other purposes.

Hiu Chiong Tsai Pao Ho, who was employed in Manila filed a petition praying for the writ of preliminary
injunction and restraining order to stop the enforcement of said ordinance.

Issue: Whether or Not Ordinance no.6537 violates the due process and equal protection clauses of the
Constitution.

Held: It is a revenue measure. The city ordinance which imposes a fee of 50.00 pesos to enable aliens
generally to be employed in the city of Manila is not only for the purpose of regulation.

While it is true that the first part which requires the alien to secure an employment permit from the Mayor
involves the exercise of discretion and judgment in processing and approval or disapproval of application is
regulatory in character, the second part which requires the payment of a sum of 50.00 pesos is not a regulatory
but a revenue measure.

Ordinance no. 6537 is void and unconstitutional. This is tantamount to denial of the basic human right of the
people in the Philippines to engage in a means of livelihood. While it is true that the Philippines as a state is
not obliged to admit aliens within its territory, once an alien is admitted he cannot be deprived of life without
due process of law. This guarantee includes the means of livelihood. Also it does not lay down any standard to
guide the City Mayor in the issuance or denial of an alien employment permit fee.
Ermita Malate v City of Manila (20 SCRA 849 (1967))

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 forinspection 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?

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 resumption
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 that the challenged ordinance was precisely enacted to minimize certain practices
hurtful to publicmorals, 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 constitutionalguaranties, 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 ordinance’s 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 state’s 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 well-being.

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."
RUBI v. PROVINCIAL BOARD OF MINDORO (39 PHIL 660)

FACTS:

Rubi and various other Manguianes (Mangyans) in the province of Mindoro were ordered by the provincial
governor of Mindoro to remove their residence from their native habitat and to established themselves on a
reservation in Tigbao, still in the province of Mindoro, and to remain there, or be punished by imprisonment if
they escaped. Manguianes had been ordered to live in a reservation made to that end and for purposes of
cultivation under certain plans. The Manguianes are a Non-Christian tribe who were considered to be of “very
low culture”.

One of the Manguianes, a certain Dabalos, escaped from the reservation but was later caught and was placed
in prison at Calapan, solely because he escaped from the reservation. An application for habeas corpus was
made on behalf by Rubi and other Manguianes of the province, alleging that by virtue of the resolution of the
provincial board of Mindoro creating the reservation, they had been illegally deprived of their liberty. In this
case, the validity of Section 2145 of the Administrative Code, which provides:

With the prior approval of the Department Head, the provincial governor of any province in
which non-Christian inhabitants are found is authorized, when such a course is deemed necessary in
the interest of law and order, to direct such inhabitants to take up their habitation on sites on
unoccupied public lands to be selected by him and approved by the provincial board.

was challenged.

ISSUE: Whether or not Section 2145 of the Administrative Code constitutes undue delegation. Whether or not
the Manguianes are being deprived of their liberty.

HELD:

I. No. By a vote of five to four, the Supreme Court sustained the constitutionality of this section of the
Administrative Code. Under the doctrine of necessity, who else was in a better position to determine whether
or not to execute the law but the provincial governor. It is optional for the provincial governor to execute the law
as circumstances may arise. It is necessary to give discretion to the provincial governor. The Legislature may
make decisions of executive departments of subordinate official thereof, to whom it has committed the
execution of certain acts, final on questions of fact.

II. No. Among other things, the term “non-Christian” should not be given a literal meaning or a religious
signification, but that it was intended to relate to degrees of civilization. The term “non-Christian” it was said,
refers not to religious belief, but in a way to geographical area, and more directly to natives of the Philippine
Islands of a low grade of civilization. In this case, the Manguianes were being reconcentrated in the reservation
to promote peace and to arrest their seminomadic lifestyle. This will ultimately settle them down where they
can adapt to the changing times.

The Supreme Court held that the resolution of the provincial board of Mindoro was neither discriminatory nor
class legislation, and stated among other things: “. . . one cannot hold that the liberty of the citizen is unduly
interfered with when the degree of civilization of the Manguianes is considered. They are restrained for their
own good and the general good of the Philippines. Nor can one say that due process of law has not been
followed. To go back to our definition of due process of law and equal protection of the laws, there exists a law;
the law seems to be reasonable; it is enforced according to the regular methods of procedure prescribed; and it
applies alike to all of a class.”
G.R. No. 86899-903 May 15, 1989

173 SCRA 409 - Deloso vs Sandiganbayan

This petition seeks to annul and set aside the resolution of the Sandiganbayan which preventively
suspended petitioner Amor D. Deloso (accused in the criminal cases) from his position as provincial
governor of Zambales and from any office that he may be holding.

Deloso was the duly elected mayor of Botolan, Zambales in the local elections of November 1971. While
he occupied the position of mayor, a certain Juan Villanueva filed a complaint with the Tanodbayan
accusing him of having committed acts in violation of the Anti-Graft Law (Republic Act 3019) for issuing
to certain Daniel Ferrer a tractor purchased by the Municipality of Botolan thru a loan financed by the
Land Bank of the Philippines for lease to local farmers at reasonable cost, without any agreement as to
the payment of rentals for the use of tractor by the latter, thereby, causing undue injury to the
Municipality of Botolan.

Deloso was, then, elected governor of the Province of Zambales in the January 18, 1988 local elections.

ISSUE

Whether or not the petitioner be suspended indefinitely.

HELD

It would be most unfair to the people of Zambales who elected the petitioner to the highest provincial
office in their command if they are deprived of his services for an indefinite period with the termination
of his case possibly extending beyond his entire term.

The Court rules that a preventive suspension of an elective public officer under Section 13 of Republic
Act 3019 should be limited to the ninety (90) days under Section 42 of Presidential Decree No. 807, the
Civil Service Decree, which period also appears reasonable and appropriate under the circumstances of
this case.

The petitioner may still be suspended but for specifically expressed reasons and not from an automatic
application of Section 13 of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.

WHEREFORE, the instant petition is GRANTED. The preventive suspension limited to only ninety (90)
days after which Deloso will assume once again the functions of governor of Zambales.