THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS and HONGKONG & SHANGHAI BANKING

CORPORATION, petitioners, vs. JOSE O. VERA, Judge . of the Court of First Instance of Manila, and
MARIANO CU UNJIENG
1937-11-16 | G.R. No. L-45685
LAUREL, J.:

Petitioners and HSBC, are respectively the plaintiff and the offended party, and respondent Mariano Cu Unjieng is one
of the defendants, in the criminal case against Cu Unjieng, et al. Respondent, Hon. Jose O. Vera, is the Judge ad interim,
who heard the application of the defendant Mariano Cu Unjieng for probation in the aforesaid criminal case, after a
judgment of conviction with an indeterminate penalty ranging from four years and two months to eight years, to pay the
costs and with reservation of civil action to HSBC. Upon appeal, the court modified the sentence from five years and six
months to seven years, six months and twenty-seven days. Respondent Cu Unjieng filed

Fiscal of the City of Manila filed an opposition followed by the private prosecution who alleged the unconstitutionality on
Act No. 4221, as an undue delegation of legislative power to the provincial boards of several provinces (sec. 1, Art. VI,
Constitution). The City Fiscal concurred in the opposition of the private prosecution except with respect to the questions
raised concerning the constitutionality of Act No. 4221.

Respondent Judge Vera denied the latter's petition for probation. An alternative motion for reconsideration or new trial
was filed. The Judge of the Manila CFI directed the appeal to the Insular Probation Office. The IPO denied the application.
However, Judge Vera upon another request by petitioner allowed the petition to be set for hearing. The City Prosecutor
countered alleging that Vera has no power to place Cu Unjieng under probation because it is in violation of Sec. 11 Act
No. 4221 which provides that the act of Legislature granting provincial boards the power to provide a system of probation
to convicted person. Nowhere in the law is stated that the law is applicable to a city like Manila because it is only indicated
therein that only provinces are covered. And even if Manila is covered by the law it is unconstitutional because Sec 1 Art
3 of the Constitution provides equal protection of laws. The said law provides absolute discretion to provincial boards
and this also constitutes undue delegation of power. Further, the said probation law may be an encroachment of the
power of the executive to provide pardon because providing probation, in effect, is granting freedom, as in pardon.

ISSUE: WON Act 4221 (Probation Act) is an undue delegation of legislative power

RULING: YES!

The constitutionality of Act No. 4221 is challenged on three principal grounds: (1) That said Act encroaches upon the
pardoning power of the Executive; (2) that its constitutes an undue delegation of legislative power and (3) that it denies
the equal protection of the laws.

But while the Probation Law does not encroach upon the pardoning power of the executive and is not for that reason
void, does section 11 thereof constitute, as contended, an undue delegation of legislative power?

Under the constitutional system, the powers of government are distributed among three coordinate and substantially
independent organs: the legislative, the executive and the judicial. Each of these departments of the government derives
its authority from the Constitution which, in turn, is the highest expression of popular will. Each has exclusive cognizance
of the matters within its jurisdiction, and is supreme within its own sphere.

The power to make laws "the legislative power” is vested in a bicameral Legislature by the Jones Law (sec. 12) and in a
unicamiral National Assembly by the Constitution (Act. VI, sec. 1, Constitution of the Philippines). The Philippine
Legislature or the National Assembly may not escape its duties and responsibilities by delegating that power to any other
body or authority. Any attempt to abdicate the power is unconstitutional and void, on the principle that potestas
delegata non delegare potest. This principle is said to have originated with the glossators, was introduced into English
law through a misreading of Bracton, there developed as a principle of agency, was established by Lord Coke in the
English public law in decisions forbidding the delegation of judicial power, and found its way into America as an
enlightened principle of free government. It has since become an accepted corollary of the principle of separation of
powers. (5 Encyc. of the Social Sciences, p. 66.) The classic statement of the rule is that of Locke, namely: "The
legislative neither must nor can transfer the power of making laws to anybody else, or place it anywhere but where the
people have." (Locke on Civil Government, sec. 142.) Judge Cooley enunciates the doctrine in the following oft-quoted
language: "One of the settled maxims in constitutional law is, that the power conferred upon the legislature to make laws
cannot be delegated by that department to any other body or authority. Where the sovereign power of the state has
located the authority, there it must remain; and by the constitutional agency alone the laws must be made until the
Constitution itself is charged. The power to whose judgment, wisdom, and patriotism this high prerogative has been
intrusted cannot relieve itself of the responsibilities by choosing other agencies upon which the power shall be devolved,
nor can it substitute the judgment, wisdom, and patriotism of any other body for those to which alone the people have
seen fit to confide this sovereign trust." (Cooley on Constitutional Limitations, 8th ed., Vol. I, p. 224. Quoted with approval
in U. S. vs. Barrias [1908], 11 Phil., 327.) This court posits the doctrine "on the ethical principle that such a delegated
power constitutes not only a right but a duty to be performed by the delegate by the instrumentality of his own judgment
acting immediately upon the matter of legislation and not through the intervening mind of another. (U. S. vs. Barrias,
supra, at p. 330.)

The rule, however, which forbids the delegation of legislative power is not absolute and inflexible. It admits of
exceptions. An exceptions sanctioned by immemorial practice permits the central legislative body to delegate
legislative powers to local authorities. (Rubi vs. Provincial Board of Mindoro [1919], 39 Phil., 660; U. S. vs. Salaveria
[1918], 39 Phil., 102; Stoutenburgh vs. Hennick [1889], 129 U. S., 141; 32 Law. ed., 637; 9 Sup. Ct. Rep., 256; State
vs. Noyes [1855], 30 N. H., 279.) "It is a cardinal principle of our system of government, that local affairs shall be
managed by local authorities, and general affairs by the central authorities; and hence while the rule is also
fundamental that the power to make laws cannot be delegated, the creation of the municipalities exercising local self
government has never been held to trench upon that rule. Such legislation is not regarded as a transfer of general
legislative power, but rather as the grant of the authority to prescribed local regulations, according to immemorial
practice, subject of course to the interposition of the superior in cases of necessity." (Stoutenburgh vs. Hennick, supra.)
On quite the same principle, Congress is powered to delegate legislative power to such agencies in the territories of
the United States as it may select. A territory stands in the same relation to Congress as a municipality or city to the
state government. (United States vs. Heinszen [1907], 206 U. S., 370; 27 Sup. Ct. Rep., 742; 51 L. ed., 1098; 11 Ann.
Cas., 688; Dorr vs. United States [1904], 195 U.S., 138; 24 Sup. Ct. Rep., 808; 49 Law. ed., 128; 1 Ann. Cas., 697.)
Courts have also sustained the delegation of legislative power to the people at large. Some authorities maintain that
this may not be done (12 C. J., pp. 841, 842; 6 R. C. L., p. 164, citing People vs. Kennedy [1913], 207 N. Y., 533; 101
N. E., 442; Ann. Cas., 1914C, 616). However, the question of whether or not a state has ceased to be republican in
form because of its adoption of the initiative and referendum has been held not to be a judicial but a political question
(Pacific States Tel. & Tel. Co. vs. Oregon [1912], 223 U. S., 118; 56 Law. ed., 377; 32 Sup. Cet. Rep., 224), and as the
constitutionality of such laws has been looked upon with favor by certain progressive courts, the sting of the decisions
of the more conservative courts has been pretty well drawn. (Opinions of the Justices [1894], 160 Mass., 586; 36 N. E.,
488; 23 L. R. A., 113; Kiernan vs. Portland [1910], 57 Ore., 454; 111 Pac., 379; 1132 Pac., 402; 37 L. R. A. [N. S.],
332; Pacific States Tel. & Tel. Co. vs. Oregon, supra.) Doubtless, also, legislative power may be delegated by the
Constitution itself. Section 14, paragraph 2, of article VI of the Constitution of the Philippines provides that "The
National Assembly may by law authorize the President, subject to such limitations and restrictions as it may impose, to
fix within specified limits, tariff rates, import or export quotas, and tonnage and wharfage dues." And section 16 of the
same article of the Constitution provides that "In times of war or other national emergency, the National Assembly may
by law authorize the President, for a limited period and subject to such restrictions as it may prescribed, to promulgate
rules and regulations to carry out a declared national policy." It is beyond the scope of this decision to determine
whether or not, in the absence of the foregoing constitutional provisions, the President could be authorized to exercise
the powers thereby vested in him. Upon the other hand, whatever doubt may have existed has been removed by the
Constitution itself.

The case before us does not fall under any of the exceptions hereinabove mentioned.

The challenged section of Act No. 4221 in section 11 which reads as follows:
 This Act shall apply only in those provinces in which the respective provincial boards have provided for the
salary of a probation officer at rates not lower than those now provided for provincial fiscals. Said probation
officer shall be appointed by the Secretary of Justice and shall be subject to the direction of the Probation
Office. (Emphasis ours.)

In testing whether a statute constitute an undue delegation of legislative power or not, it is usual to inquire whether the
statute was complete in all its terms and provisions when it left the hands of the legislature so that nothing was left to the
judgment of any other appointee or delegate of the legislature. (6 R. C. L., p. 165.) In the United States vs. Ang Tang Ho
([1922], 43 Phil., 1), this court adhered to the foregoing rule when it held an act of the legislature void in so far as it
undertook to authorize the Governor-General, in his discretion, to issue a proclamation fixing the price of rice and to
make the sale of it in violation of the proclamation a crime. The general rule, however, is limited by another rule that to a
certain extent matters of detail may be left to be filled in by rules and regulations to be adopted or promulgated by
executive officers and administrative boards. (6 R. C. L., pp. 177-179.)

For the purpose of Probation Act, the provincial boards may be regarded as administrative bodies endowed with power
to determine when the Act should take effect in their respective provinces. They are the agents or delegates of the
legislature in this respect. The rules governing delegation of legislative power to administrative and executive officers are
applicable or are at least indicative of the rule which should be here adopted. An examination of a variety of cases on
delegation of power to administrative bodies will show that the ratio decidendi is at variance but, it can be broadly asserted
that the rationale revolves around the presence or absence of a standard or rule of action or the sufficiency thereof in
the statute, to aid the delegate in exercising the granted discretion. In some cases, it is held that the standard is sufficient;
in others that is insufficient; and in still others that it is entirely lacking.

As a rule, an act of the legislature is incomplete and hence invalid if it does not lay down any rule or definite standard by
which the administrative officer or board may be guided in the exercise of the discretionary powers delegated to it. (See
Schecter vs. United States [1925], 295 U. S., 495; 79 L. ed., 1570; 55 Sup. Ct. Rep., 837; 97 A.L.R., 947; People ex rel.
Rice vs. Wilson Oil Co. [1936], 364 Ill., 406; 4 N. E. [2d], 847; 107 A.L.R., 1500 and cases cited. See also R. C. L., title
"Constitutional Law", sec 174.) In the case at bar, what rules are to guide the provincial boards in the exercise of their
discretionary power to determine whether or not the Probation Act shall apply in their respective provinces? What
standards are fixed by the Act? We do not find any and none has been pointed to us by the respondents. The probation
Act does not, by the force of any of its provisions, fix and impose upon the provincial boards any standard or guide in the
exercise of their discretionary power. What is granted, if we may use the language of Justice Cardozo in the recent case
of Schecter, supra, is a "roving commission" which enables the provincial boards to exercise arbitrary discretion. By
section 11 if the Act, the legislature does not seemingly on its own authority extend the benefits of the Probation Act to
the provinces but in reality leaves the entire matter for the various provincial boards to determine. In other words, the
provincial boards of the various provinces are to determine for themselves, whether the Probation Law shall apply to
their provinces or not at all. The applicability and application of the Probation Act are entirely placed in the hands of the
provincial boards. If the provincial board does not wish to have the Act applied in its province, all that it has to do is to
decline to appropriate the needed amount for the salary of a probation officer. The plain language of the Act is not
susceptible of any other interpretation. This, to our minds, is a virtual surrender of legislative power to the provincial
boards.