EN BANC
transactions at the Shipping Section, respondents formed a special
FELIX B. PEREZ and G.R. No. 152048
AMANTE G. DORIA,Petitioners,Present:PUNO, C.J.,
QUISUMBING,YNARES-SANTIAGO,CARPIO,AUSTRIA-MARTINEZ,*
-v e r s u s - CORONA,CARPIO
MORALES,TINGA,CHICO-NAZARIO,VELASCO,
JR.,NACHURA,LEONARDO-DE CASTRO,BRION and PERALTA, JJ.
PHILIPPINE TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE COMPANY and JOSE LUIS
SANTIAGO, Respondents. Promulgated:
April 7, 2009
x--------------------------------------------------
x
DECISION
CORONA, J.:
Petitioners Felix B. Perez and Amante G. Doria were employed by
respondent Philippine Telegraph and Telephone Company (PT&T)
as shipping clerk and supervisor, respectively, in PT&Ts Shipping
Section, Materials Management Group.
Acting on an alleged unsigned letter regarding anomalous
above-mentioned memorandum.
audit team to investigate the matter. It was discovered that the
Shipping Section jacked up the value of the freight costs for goods
shipped and that the duplicates of the shipping documents
allegedly showed traces of tampering, alteration and
superimposition.
On September 3, 1993, petitioners were placed on preventive
suspension for 30 days for their alleged involvement in the
anomaly.[1] Their suspension was extended for 15 days twice: first
on October 3, 1993[2] and second on October 18, 1993.[3]
On October 29, 1993, a memorandum with the following tenor
was issued by respondents:
In line with the recommendation of the AVP-Audit as presented in
his report of October 15, 1993 (copy attached) and the subsequent
filing of criminal charges against the parties mentioned therein,
[Mr. Felix Perez and Mr. Amante Doria are] hereby dismissed from
the service for having falsified company documents.[4] (emphasis
supplied)
On November 9, 1993, petitioners filed a complaint for illegal
suspension and illegal dismissal.[5] They alleged that they were
dismissed on November 8, 1993, the date they received the
The labor arbiter found that the 30-day extension of petitioners
suspension and their subsequent dismissal were both illegal. He
ordered respondents to pay petitioners their salaries during their
30-day illegal suspension, as well as to reinstate them with
backwages and 13th month pay.
The National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) reversed the
decision of the labor arbiter. It ruled that petitioners were
dismissed for just cause, that they were accorded due process and
that they were illegally suspended for only 15 days (without stating
the reason for the reduction of the period of petitioners illegal
suspension).[6]
Petitioners appealed to the Court of Appeals (CA). In its January 29,
2002 decision,[7] the CA affirmed the NLRC decision insofar as
petitioners illegal suspension for 15 days and dismissal for just
cause were concerned. However, it found that petitioners were
dismissed without due process.
Petitioners now seek a reversal of the CA decision. They contend
that there was no just cause for their dismissal, that they were not
accorded due process and that they were illegally suspended for
30 days.
We rule in favor of petitioners.

RESPONDENTS FAILED TO PROVE JUST
CAUSE AND TO OBSERVE DUE PROCESS
The CA, in upholding the NLRCs decision, reasoned that there was
sufficient basis for respondents to lose their confidence in
petitioners[8] for allegedly tampering with the shipping documents.
Respondents emphasized the importance of a shipping order or
request, as it was the basis of their liability to a cargo forwarder.[9]
We disagree.
Without undermining the importance of a shipping order or
request, we find respondents evidence insufficient to clearly and
convincingly establish the facts from which the loss of confidence
resulted.[10] Other than their bare allegations and the fact that
such documents came into petitioners hands at some point,
respondents should have provided evidence of petitioners
functions, the extent of their duties, the procedure in the handling
and approval of shipping requests and the fact that no personnel
other than petitioners were involved. There was, therefore, a
patent paucity of proof connecting petitioners to the alleged
tampering of shipping documents.
The alterations on the shipping documents could not reasonably
be attributed to petitioners because it was never proven that
petitioners alone had control of or access to these documents.
Unless duly proved or sufficiently substantiated otherwise,
impartial tribunals should not rely only on the statement of the
employer that it has lost confidence in its employee.[11]
Willful breach by the employee of the trust reposed in him by his
employer or duly authorized representative is a just cause for
termination.[12] However, in General Bank and Trust Co. v.
CA,[13] we said:
[L]oss of confidence should not be simulated. It should not be used
as a subterfuge for causes which are improper, illegal or unjustified.
Loss of confidence may not be arbitrarily asserted in the face of
overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It must be genuine, not a
mere afterthought to justify an earlier action taken in bad faith.
The burden of proof rests on the employer to establish that the
dismissal is for cause in view of the security of tenure that
employees enjoy under the Constitution and the Labor Code. The
employers evidence must clearly and convincingly show the facts
on which the loss of confidence in the employee may be fairly
made to rest.[14] It must be adequately proven by substantial
evidence.[15] Respondents failed to discharge this burden.
Respondents illegal act of dismissing petitioners was aggravated by
their failure to observe due process. To meet the requirements of
due process in the dismissal of an employee, an employer must
furnish the worker with two written notices: (1) a written notice
specifying the grounds for termination and giving to said employee
a reasonable opportunity to explain his side and (2) another
written notice indicating that, upon due consideration of all
circumstances, grounds have been established to justify the
employer's decision to dismiss the employee.[16]
Petitioners were neither apprised of the charges against them nor
given a chance to defend themselves. They were simply and
arbitrarily separated from work and served notices of termination
in total disregard of their rights to due process and security of
tenure. The labor arbiter and the CA correctly found that
respondents failed to comply with the two-notice requirement for
terminating employees.
Petitioners likewise contended that due process was not observed
in the absence of a hearing in which they could have explained
their side and refuted the evidence against them.
There is no need for a hearing or conference. We note a marked
difference in the standards of due process to be followed as
prescribed in the Labor Code and its implementing rules. The Labor
Code, on one hand, provides that an employer must provide the
employee ample opportunity to be heard and to defend
himself with the assistance of his representative if he so desires:
ART. 277. Miscellaneous provisions. x x x
(b) Subject to the constitutional right of workers to security of
tenure and their right to be protected against dismissal except for
a just and authorized cause and without prejudice to the
requirement of notice under Article 283 of this Code, the employer
shall furnish the worker whose employment is sought to be
terminated a written notice containing a statement of the causes
for termination and shall afford the latter ample opportunity to be
heard and to defend himself with the assistance of his
representative if he so desires in accordance with company rules
and regulations promulgated pursuant to guidelines set by the
Department of Labor and Employment. Any decision taken by the
employer shall be without prejudice to the right of the worker to
contest the validity or legality of his dismissal by filing a complaint
with the regional branch of the National Labor Relations
Commission. The burden of proving that the termination was for a
valid or authorized cause shall rest on the employer. (emphasis
supplied)
The omnibus rules implementing the Labor Code, on the other
hand, require a hearing and conference during which the
employee concerned is given the opportunity to respond to the
charge, present his evidence or rebut the evidence presented
against him:[17]
Section 2. Security of Tenure. x x x
(d) In all cases of termination of employment, the following
standards of due process shall be substantially observed:
For termination of employment based on just causes as defined in
Article 282 of the Labor Code:
(i) A written notice served on the employee specifying the ground
or grounds for termination, and giving said employee reasonable
opportunity within which to explain his side.
(ii) A hearing or conference during which the employee concerned,
with the assistance of counsel if he so desires, is given opportunity
to respond to the charge, present his evidence or rebut the
evidence presented against him.
(iii) A written notice of termination served on the employee,
indicating that upon due consideration of all the circumstances,
grounds have been established to justify his termination.
(emphasis supplied)
Which one should be followed? Is a hearing (or conference)
mandatory in cases involving the dismissal of an employee? Can
the apparent conflict between the law and its IRR be reconciled?
At the outset, we reaffirm the time-honored doctrine that, in case
of conflict, the law prevails over the administrative regulations
implementing it.[18] The authority to promulgate implementing
rules proceeds from the law itself. To be valid, a rule or regulation
must conform to and be consistent with the provisions of the
enabling statute.[19] As such, it cannot amend the law either by
abridging or expanding its scope.[20]
Article 277(b) of the Labor Code provides that, in cases of
termination for a just cause, an employee must be given ample
opportunity to be heard and to defend himself.Thus, the
opportunity to be heard afforded by law to the employee is
qualified by the word ample which ordinarily means considerably
more than adequate or sufficient.[21] In this regard, the
phrase ample opportunity to be heard can be reasonably
interpreted as extensive enough to cover actual hearing or
conference. To this extent, Section 2(d), Rule I of the Implementing
Rules of Book VI of the Labor Code is in conformity with Article
277(b).
Nonetheless, Section 2(d), Rule I of the Implementing Rules of
Book VI of the Labor Code should not be taken to mean that
holding an actual hearing or conference is a condition sine qua
non for compliance with the due process requirement in
termination of employment. The test for the fair procedure
guaranteed under Article 277(b) cannot be whether there has
been a formal pretermination confrontation between the
employer and the employee. The ample opportunity to be heard
standard is neither synonymous nor similar to a formal hearing. To
confine the employees right to be heard to a solitary form narrows
down that right. It deprives him of other equally effective forms of
adducing evidence in his defense. Certainly, such an exclusivist and
absolutist interpretation is overly restrictive. The very nature of
due process negates any concept of inflexible procedures
universally applicable to every imaginable situation.[22]
The standard for the hearing requirement, ample opportunity, is
couched in general language revealing the legislative intent to give
some degree of flexibility or adaptability to meet the peculiarities
of a given situation. To confine it to a single rigid proceeding such
as a formal hearing will defeat its spirit.
Significantly, Section 2(d), Rule I of the Implementing Rules of Book
VI of the Labor Code itself provides that the so-called standards of
due process outlined therein shall be observed substantially, not
strictly. This is a recognition that while a formal hearing or
conference is ideal, it is not an absolute, mandatory or exclusive
avenue of due process.
An employees right to be heard in termination cases under Article
277(b) as implemented by Section 2(d), Rule I of the Implementing
Rules of Book VI of the Labor Code should be interpreted in broad
strokes. It is satisfied not only by a formal face to face
confrontation but by any meaningful opportunity to controvert the
charges against him and to submit evidence in support thereof.
A hearing means that a party should be given a chance to adduce
his evidence to support his side of the case and that the evidence
should be taken into account in the adjudication of the
controversy.[23] To be heard does not mean verbal argumentation
alone inasmuch as one may be heard just as effectively through
written explanations, submissions or pleadings.[24] Therefore,
while the phrase ample opportunity to be heard may in fact
include an actual hearing, it is not limited to a formal hearing only.
In other words, the existence of an actual, formal trial-type hearing,
although preferred, is not absolutely necessary to satisfy the
employees right to be heard.
This Court has consistently ruled that the due process requirement
in cases of termination of employment does not require an actual
or formal hearing. Thus, we categorically declared in Skippers
United Pacific, Inc. v. Maguad:[25]
The Labor Code does not, of course, require a formal or trial type
proceeding before an erring employee may be dismissed.
(emphasis supplied)
In Autobus Workers Union v. NLRC,[26] we ruled:
The twin requirements of notice and hearing constitute the
essential elements of due process. Due process of law simply
means giving opportunity to be heard before judgment is rendered.
In fact, there is no violation of due process even if no hearing was
conducted, where the party was given a chance to explain his side
of the controversy. What is frowned upon is the denial of the
opportunity to be heard.
xxxxxxxxx
A formal trial-type hearing is not even essential to due process. It is
enough that the parties are given a fair and reasonable
opportunity to explain their respective sides of the controversy
and to present supporting evidence on which a fair decision can be
based. This type of hearing is not even mandatory in cases of
complaints lodged before the Labor Arbiter. (emphasis supplied)
In Solid Development Corporation Workers Association v. Solid
Development Corporation,[27] we had the occasion to state:
[W]ell-settled is the dictum that the twin requirements of notice
and hearing constitute the essential elements of due process in the
dismissal of employees. It is a cardinal rule in our jurisdiction that
the employer must furnish the employee with two written notices
before the termination of employment can be effected: (1) the
first apprises the employee of the particular acts or omissions for
which his dismissal is sought; and (2) the second informs the
employee of the employers decision to dismiss him. The
requirement of a hearing, on the other hand, is complied with as
long as there was an opportunity to be heard, and not necessarily
that an actual hearing was conducted.
In separate infraction reports, petitioners were both apprised of
the particular acts or omissions constituting the charges against
them. They were also required to submit their written explanation
within 12 hours from receipt of the reports. Yet, neither of them
complied. Had they found the 12-hour period too short, they
should have requested for an extension of time. Further, notices of
termination were also sent to them informing them of the basis of
their dismissal. In fine, petitioners were given due process before
they were dismissed. Even if no hearing was conducted, the
requirement of due process had been met since they were
accorded a chance to explain their side of the controversy.
(emphasis supplied)
Our holding in National Semiconductor HK Distribution, Ltd. v.
NLRC[28] is of similar import:
That the investigations conducted by petitioner may not be
considered formal or recorded hearings or investigations is
immaterial. A formal or trial type hearing is not at all times and in
all instances essential to due process, the requirements of which
are satisfied where the parties are afforded fair and reasonable
opportunity to explain their side of the controversy. It is deemed
sufficient for the employer to follow the natural sequence of
notice, hearing and judgment.
The above rulings are a clear recognition that the employer may
provide an employee with ample opportunity to be heard and
defend himself with the assistance of a representative or counsel
in ways other than a formal hearing. The employee can be fully
afforded a chance to respond to the charges against him, adduce
his evidence or rebut the evidence against him through a wide
array of methods, verbal or written.
After receiving the first notice apprising him of the charges against
him, the employee may submit a written explanation (which may
be in the form of a letter, memorandum, affidavit or position
paper) and offer evidence in support thereof, like relevant
company records (such as his 201 file and daily time records) and
the sworn statements of his witnesses. For this purpose, he may
prepare his explanation personally or with the assistance of a
representative or counsel. He may also ask the employer to
provide him copy of records material to his defense. His written
explanation may also include a request that a formal hearing or
conference be held. In such a case, the conduct of a formal hearing
or conference becomes mandatory, just as it is where there exist
substantial evidentiary disputes[29] or where company rules or
practice requires an actual hearing as part of employment
pretermination procedure. To this extent, we refine the decisions
we have rendered so far on this point of law.
This interpretation of Section 2(d), Rule I of the Implementing
Rules of Book VI of the Labor Code reasonably implements the
ample opportunity to be heard standard under Article 277(b) of
the Labor Code without unduly restricting the language of the law
or excessively burdening the employer. This not only respects the
power vested in the Secretary of Labor and Employment to
promulgate rules and regulations that will lay down the guidelines
for the implementation of Article 277(b). More importantly, this is
faithful to the mandate of Article 4 of the Labor Code that [a]ll
doubts in the implementation and interpretation of the provisions
of [the Labor Code], including its implementing rules and
regulations shall be resolved in favor of labor.
In sum, the following are the guiding principles in connection with
the hearing requirement in dismissal cases:
(a) ample opportunity to be heard means any meaningful
opportunity (verbal or written) given to the employee to answer
the charges against him and submit evidence in support of his
defense, whether in a hearing, conference or some other fair, just
and reasonable way.
(b) a formal hearing or conference becomes mandatory only when
requested by the employee in writing or substantial evidentiary
disputes exist or a company rule or practice requires it, or when
similar circumstances justify it.
(c) the ample opportunity to be heard standard in the Labor Code
prevails over the hearing or conference requirement in the
implementing rules and regulations.
PETITIONERS WERE ILLEGALLY
SUSPENDED FOR 30 DAYS
An employee may be validly suspended by the employer for just
cause provided by law. Such suspension shall only be for a period
of 30 days, after which the employee shall either be reinstated or
paid his wages during the extended period.[30]
In this case, petitioners contended that they were not paid during
the two 15-day extensions, or a total of 30 days, of their
preventive suspension. Respondents failed to adduce evidence to
the contrary. Thus, we uphold the ruling of the labor arbiter on this
point.
Where the dismissal was without just or authorized cause and
there was no due process, Article 279 of the Labor Code, as
amended, mandates that the employee is entitled to
reinstatement without loss of seniority rights and other privileges
and full backwages, inclusive of allowances, and other benefits or
their monetary equivalent computed from the time the
compensation was not paid up to the time of actual
reinstatement.[31] In this case, however, reinstatement is no
longer possible because of the length of time that has passed from
the date of the incident to final resolution.[32] Fourteen years
have transpired from the time petitioners were wrongfully
dismissed. To order reinstatement at this juncture will no longer
serve any prudent or practical purpose.[33]
WHEREFORE, the petition is hereby GRANTED. The decision of the
Court of Appeals dated January 29, 2002 in CA-G.R. SP No. 50536
finding that petitioners Felix B. Perez and Amante G. Doria were
not illegally dismissed but were not accorded due process and
were illegally suspended for 15 days, is SET ASIDE. The decision of
the labor arbiter dated December 27, 1995 in NLRC NCR CN.
11-06930-93 is hereby AFFIRMED with the MODIFICATION that
petitioners should be paid their separation pay in lieu of
reinstatement.
SO ORDERED. RENATO C. CORONA Associate Justice
G.R. No. L-12172 August 29, 1958
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellee,
vs.
JUAN F. FAJARDO, ET AL., defendants-appellants.
Assistant Solicitor General Esmeraldo Umali and Higinio V. Catalan
for appellee.
Prila, Pardalis and Pejo for appellants.
REYES, J. B. L., J.:
Appeal from the decision of the Court of First Instance of
Camarines Sur convicting defendants-appellants Juan F. Fajardo
and Pedro Babilonia of a violation of Ordinance No. 7, Series of
1950, of the Municipality of Baao, Camarines Sur, for having
constructed without a permit from the municipal mayor a building
that destroys the view of the public plaza.
It appears that on August 15, 1950, during the incumbency of
defendant-appellant Juan F. Fajardo as mayor of the municipality
of Baao, Camarines Sur, the municipal council passed the
ordinance in question providing as follows:
SECTION 1. Any person or persons who will construct or repair a
building should, before constructing or repairing, obtain a written
permit from the Municipal Mayor.
SEC. 2. A fee of not less than P2.00 should be charged for each
building permit and P1.00 for each repair permit issued.
SEC. 3. PENALTY — Any violation of the provisions of the above,
this ordinance, shall make the violation liable to pay a fine of not
less than P25 nor more than P50 or imprisonment of not less than
12 days nor more than 24 days or both, at the discretion of the
court. If said building destroys the view of the Public Plaza or
occupies any public property, it shall be removed at the expense of
the owner of the building or house.
SEC. 4. EFFECTIVITY — This ordinance shall take effect on its
approval. (Orig. Recs., P. 3)
Four years later, after the term of appellant Fajardo as mayor had
expired, he and his son in-law, appellant Babilonia, filed a written
request with the incumbent municipal mayor for a permit to
construct a building adjacent to their gasoline station on a parcel
of land registered in Fajardo's name, located along the national
highway and separated from the public plaza by a creek (Exh. D).
On January 16, 1954, the request was denied, for the reason
among others that the proposed building would destroy the view
or beauty of the public plaza (Exh. E). On January 18, 1954,
defendants reiterated their request for a building permit (Exh. 3),
but again the request was turned down by the mayor. Whereupon,
appellants proceeded with the construction of the building without
a permit, because they needed a place of residence very badly,
their former house having been destroyed by a typhoon and
hitherto they had been living on leased property.
On February 26, 1954, appellants were charged before and
convicted by the justice of the peace court of Baao, Camarines Sur,
for violation of the ordinance in question. Defendants appealed to
the Court of First Instance, which affirmed the conviction, and
sentenced appellants to pay a fine of P35 each and the costs, as
well as to demolish the building in question because it destroys the
view of the public plaza of Baao, in that "it hinders the view of
travelers from the National Highway to the said public plaza." From
this decision, the accused appealed to the Court of Appeals, but
the latter forwarded the records to us because the appeal attacks
the constitutionality of the ordinance in question.
We find that the appealed conviction can not stand.
A first objection to the validity of the ordinance in question is that
under it the mayor has absolute discretion to issue or deny a
permit. The ordinance fails to state any policy, or to set up any
standard to guide or limit the mayor's action. No purpose to be
attained by requiring the permit is expressed; no conditions for its
grant or refusal are enumerated. It is not merely a case of deficient
standards; standards are entirely lacking. The ordinance thus
confers upon the mayor arbitrary and unrestricted power to grant
or deny the issuance of building permits, and it is a settled rule
that such an undefined and unlimited delegation of power to allow
or prevent an activity, per se lawful, is invalid (People vs. Vera, 65
Phil., 56; Primicias vs. Fugoso, 80 Phil., 71; Schloss Poster Adv. Co.
vs. Rock Hill, 2 SE (2d) 392)
The ordinance in question in no way controls or guides the
discretion vested thereby in the respondents. It prescribes no
uniform rule upon which the special permission of the city is to be
granted. Thus the city is clothed with the uncontrolled power to
capriciously grant the privilege to some and deny it others; to
refuse the application of one landowner or lessee and to grant that
of another, when for all material purposes, the two applying for
precisely the same privileges under the same circumstances. The
danger of such an ordinance is that it makes possible arbitrary
discriminations and abuses in its execution, depending upon no
conditions or qualifications whatever, other than the unregulated
arbitrary will of the city authorities as the touchstone by which its
validity is to be tested. Fundamental rights under our government
do not depend for their existence upon such a slender and
uncertain thread. Ordinances which thus invest a city council with
a discretion which is purely arbitrary, and which may be exercised
in the interest of a favored few, are unreasonable and invalid. The
ordinance should have established a rule by which its impartial
enforcement could be secured. All of the authorities cited above
sustain this conclusion.
As was said in City of Richmond vs. Dudley, 129 Ind. 112,28 N. E.
312, 314 13 L. R. A. 587, 28 Am. St. Rep. 180: "It seems from the
foregoing authorities to be well established that municipal
ordinances placing restrictions upon lawful conduct or the lawful
use of property must, in order to be valid, specify the rules and
conditions to be observed in such conduct or business; and must
admit of the exercise of the privilege of all citizens alike who will
comply with such rules and conditions; and must not admit of the
exercise, or of an opportunity for the exercise, of any arbitrary
discrimination by the municipal authorities between citizens who
will so comply. (Schloss Poster Adv. Co., Inc. vs. City of Rock Hill, et
al., 2 SE (2d), pp. 394-395).
It is contended, on the other hand, that the mayor can refuse a
permit solely in case that the proposed building "destroys the view
of the public plaza or occupies any public property" (as stated in its
section 3); and in fact, the refusal of the Mayor of Baao to issue a
building permit to the appellant was predicated on the ground that
the proposed building would "destroy the view of the public plaza"
by preventing its being seen from the public highway. Even thus
interpreted, the ordinance is unreasonable and oppressive, in that
it operates to permanently deprive appellants of the right to use
their own property; hence, it oversteps the bounds of police power,
and amounts to a taking of appellants property without just
compensation. We do not overlook that the modern tendency is to
regard the beautification of neighborhoods as conducive to the
comfort and happiness of residents. But while property may be
regulated in the interest of the general welfare, and in its pursuit,
the State may prohibit structures offensive to the sight (Churchill
and Tait vs. Rafferty, 32 Phil. 580), the State may not, under the
guise of police power, permanently divest owners of the beneficial
use of their property and practically confiscate them solely to
preserve or assure the aesthetic appearance of the community. As
the case now stands, every structure that may be erected on
appellants' land, regardless of its own beauty, stands condemned
under the ordinance in question, because it would interfere with
the view of the public plaza from the highway. The appellants
would, in effect, be constrained to let their land remain idle and
unused for the obvious purpose for which it is best suited, being
urban in character. To legally achieve that result, the municipality
must give appellants just compensation and an opportunity to be
heard.
An ordinance which permanently so restricts the use of property
that it can not be used for any reasonable purpose goes, it is plain,
beyond regulation and must be recognized as a taking of the
property. The only substantial difference, in such case, between
restriction and actual taking, is that the restriction leaves the
owner subject to the burden of payment of taxation, while
outright confiscation would relieve him of that burden. (Arverne
Bay Constr. Co. vs. Thatcher (N.Y.) 117 ALR. 1110, 1116).
A regulation which substantially deprives an owner of all beneficial
use of his property is confiscation and is a deprivation within the
meaning of the 14th Amendment. (Sundlum vs. Zoning Bd., 145 Atl.
451; also Eaton vs. Sweeny, 177 NE 412; Taylor vs. Jacksonville,
133 So. 114).
Zoning which admittedly limits property to a use which can not
reasonably be made of it cannot be said to set aside such property
to a use but constitutes the taking of such property without just
compensation. Use of property is an element of ownership therein.
Regardless of the opinion of zealots that property may properly, by
zoning, be utterly destroyed without compensation, such principle
finds no support in the genius of our government nor in the
principles of justice as we known them. Such a doctrine shocks the
sense of justice. If it be of public benefit that property remain open
and unused, then certainly the public, and not the private
individuals, should bear the cost of reasonable compensation for
such property under the rules of law governing the condemnation
of private property for public use. (Tews vs. Woolhiser (1933) 352
I11. 212, 185 N.E. 827) (Emphasis supplied.)
The validity of the ordinance in question was justified by the court
below under section 2243, par. (c), of the Revised Administrative
Code, as amended. This section provides:
SEC. 2243. Certain legislative powers of discretionary character. —
The municipal council shall have authority to exercise the following
discretionary powers:
xxx xxx xxx
(c) To establish fire limits in populous centers, prescribe the kinds
of buildings that may be constructed or repaired within them, and
issue permits for the creation or repair thereof, charging a fee
which shall be determined by the municipal council and which shall
not be less than two pesos for each building permit and one peso
for each repair permit issued. The fees collected under the
provisions of this subsection shall accrue to the municipal school
fund.
Under the provisions of the section above quoted, however, the
power of the municipal council to require the issuance of building
permits rests upon its first establishing fire limits in populous parts
of the town and prescribing the kinds of buildings that may be
constructed or repaired within them. As there is absolutely no
showing in this case that the municipal council had either
established fire limits within the municipality or set standards for
the kind or kinds of buildings to be constructed or repaired within
them before it passed the ordinance in question, it is clear that
said ordinance was not conceived and promulgated under the
express authority of sec. 2243 (c) aforequoted.
We rule that the regulation in question, Municipal Ordinance No. 7,
Series of 1950, of the Municipality of Baao, Camarines Sur, was
beyond the authority of said municipality to enact, and is therefore
null and void. Hence, the conviction of herein appellants is
reversed, and said accused are acquitted, with costs de oficio. So
ordered.
Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Baguio City
EN BANC
G.R. No. 191002 April 20, 2010
ARTURO M. DE CASTRO, Petitioner,
vs.
JUDICIAL AND BAR COUNCIL (JBC) and PRESIDENT GLORIA
MACAPAGAL - ARROYO, Respondents.
x - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -x
G.R. No. 191032
JAIME N. SORIANO, Petitioner,
vs.
JUDICIAL AND BAR COUNCIL (JBC), Respondent.
x - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -x
G.R. No. 191057
PHILIPPINE CONSTITUTION ASSOCIATION (PHILCONSA), Petitioner,
vs.
JUDICIAL AND BAR COUNCIL (JBC), Respondent.
x - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -x
A.M. No. 10-2-5-SC
IN RE APPLICABILITY OF SECTION 15, ARTICLE VII OF THE
CONSTITUTION TO APPOINTMENTS TO THE JUDICIARY, ESTELITO P.
MENDOZA, Petitioner,
x - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -x
G.R. No. 191149
JOHN G. PERALTA, Petitioner,
vs.
JUDICIAL AND BAR COUNCIL (JBC). Respondent.
PETER IRVING CORVERA; CHRISTIAN ROBERT S. LIM; ALFONSO V.
TAN, JR.; NATIONAL UNION OF PEOPLE’S LAWYERS; MARLOU B.
UBANO; INTEGRATED BAR OF THE PHILIPPINES-DAVAO DEL SUR
CHAPTER, represented by its Immediate Past President, ATTY.
ISRAELITO P. TORREON, and the latter in his own personal capacity
as a MEMBER of the PHILIPPINE BAR; MITCHELL JOHN L. BOISER;
BAGONG ALYANSANG BAYAN (BAYAN) CHAIRMAN DR. CAROLINA P.
ARAULLO; BAYAN SECRETARY GENERAL RENATO M. REYES, JR.;
CONFEDERATION FOR UNITY, RECOGNITION AND ADVANCE-MENT
OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES (COURAGE) CHAIRMAN FERDINAND
GAITE; KALIPUNAN NG DAMAYANG MAHIHIRAP (KADAMAY)
SECRETARY GENERAL GLORIA ARELLANO; ALYANSA NG
NAGKAKAISANG KABATAAN NG SAMBAYANAN PARA SA
KAUNLARAN (ANAKBAYAN) CHAIRMAN KEN LEONARD RAMOS;
TAYO ANG PAG-ASA CONVENOR ALVIN PETERS; LEAGUE OF
FILIPINO STUDENTS (LFS) CHAIRMAN JAMES MARK TERRY
LACUANAN RIDON; NATIONAL UNION OF STUDENTS OF THE
PHILIPPINES (NUSP) CHAIRMAN EINSTEIN RECEDES; COLLEGE
EDITORS GUILD OF THE PHILIPPINES (CEGP) CHAIRMAN VIJAE
ALQUISOLA; and STUDENT CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT OF THE
PHILIPPINES (SCMP) CHAIRMAN MA. CRISTINA ANGELA GUEVARRA;
WALDEN F. BELLO and LORETTA ANN P. ROSALES; WOMEN TRIAL
LAWYERS ORGANIZATION OF THE PHILIPPINES, represented by
YOLANDA QUISUMBING-JAVELLANA; BELLEZA ALOJADO DEMAISIP;
TERESITA GANDIONCO-OLEDAN; MA. VERENA
KASILAG-VILLANUEVA; MARILYN STA. ROMANA; LEONILA DE JESUS;
and GUINEVERE DE LEON; AQUILINO Q. PIMENTEL, JR.;Intervenors.
x - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -x
G.R. No. 191342
ATTY. AMADOR Z. TOLENTINO, JR., (IBP Governor-Southern Luzon),
and ATTY. ROLAND B. INTING (IBPGovernor-Eastern Visayas),
Petitioners,
vs.
JUDICIAL AND BAR COUNCIL (JBC), Respondent.
x - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -x
G.R. No. 191420
PHILIPPINE BAR ASSOCIATION, INC., Petitioner,
vs.
JUDICIAL AND BAR COUNCIL and HER EXCELLENCY GLORIA
MACAPAGAL-ARROYO, Respondents.
RESOLUTION
BERSAMIN, J.:
On March 17, 2010, the Court promulgated its decision, holding:
WHEREFORE, the Court:
1. Dismisses the petitions for certiorari and mandamus in G.R. No.
191002 and G.R. No. 191149, and the petition for mandamus in
G.R. No. 191057 for being premature;
2. Dismisses the petitions for prohibition in G.R. No. 191032 and
G.R. No. 191342 for lack of merit; and
3. Grants the petition in A.M. No. 10-2-5-SC and, accordingly,
directs the Judicial and Bar Council:
(a) To resume its proceedings for the nomination of candidates to
fill the vacancy to be created by the compulsory retirement of
Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno by May 17, 2010;
(b) To prepare the short list of nominees for the position of Chief
Justice;
(c) To submit to the incumbent President the short list of nominees
for the position of Chief Justice on or before May 17, 2010; and
(d) To continue its proceedings for the nomination of candidates to
fill other vacancies in the Judiciary and submit to the President the
short list of nominees corresponding thereto in accordance with
this decision.
SO ORDERED.
Motions for Reconsideration
Petitioners Jaime N. Soriano (G.R. No. 191032), Amador Z.
Tolentino and Roland B. Inting (G.R. No. 191342), and Philippine
Bar Association (G.R. No. 191420), as well as intervenors
Integrated Bar of the Philippines-Davao del Sur (IBP-Davao del Sur,
et al.); Christian Robert S. Lim; Peter Irving Corvera; Bagong
Alyansang Bayan and others (BAYAN, et al.); Alfonso V. Tan, Jr.; the
Women Trial Lawyers Organization of the Philippines (WTLOP);
Marlou B. Ubano; Mitchell John L. Boiser; and Walden F. Bello and
Loretta Ann P. Rosales (Bello, et al.), filed their respective motions
for reconsideration. Also filing a motion for reconsideration was
Senator Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr., whose belated intervention was
allowed.
We summarize the arguments and submissions of the various
motions for reconsideration, in the aforegiven order:
Soriano
1. The Court has not squarely ruled upon or addressed the issue of
whether or not the power to designate the Chief Justice belonged
to the Supreme Court en banc.
2. The Mendoza petition should have been dismissed, because it
sought a mere declaratory judgment and did not involve a
justiciable controversy.
3. All Justices of the Court should participate in the next
deliberations. The mere fact that the Chief Justice sits as ex officio
head of the JBC should not prevail over the more compelling state
interest for him to participate as a Member of the Court.
Tolentino and Inting
1. A plain reading of Section 15, Article VII does not lead to an
interpretation that exempts judicial appointments from the
express ban on midnight appointments.
2. In excluding the Judiciary from the ban, the Court has made
distinctions and has created exemptions when none exists.
3. The ban on midnight appointments is placed in Article VII, not in
Article VIII, because it limits an executive, not a judicial, power.
4. Resort to the deliberations of the Constitutional Commission is
superfluous, and is powerless to vary the terms of the clear
prohibition.
5. The Court has given too much credit to the position taken by
Justice Regalado. Thereby, the Court has raised the Constitution to
the level of a venerated text whose intent can only be divined by
its framers as to be outside the realm of understanding by the
sovereign people that ratified it.
6. Valenzuela should not be reversed.
7. The petitioners, as taxpayers and lawyers, have the clear legal
standing to question the illegal composition of the JBC.
Philippine Bar Association
1. The Court’s strained interpretation of the Constitution violates
the basic principle that the Court should not formulate a rule of
constitutional law broader than what is required by the precise
facts of the case.
2. Considering that Section 15, Article VII is clear and
straightforward, the only duty of the Court is to apply it. The
provision expressly and clearly provides a general limitation on the
appointing power of the President in prohibiting the appointment
of any person to any position in the Government without any
qualification and distinction.
3. The Court gravely erred in unilaterally ignoring the
constitutional safeguard against midnight appointments.
4. The Constitution has installed two constitutional safeguards:-
the prohibition against midnight appointments, and the creation of
the JBC. It is not within the authority of the Court to prefer one
over the other, for the Court’s duty is to apply the safeguards as
they are, not as the Court likes them to be.
5. The Court has erred in failing to apply the basic principles of
statutory construction in interpreting the Constitution.
6. The Court has erred in relying heavily on the title, chapter or
section headings, despite precedents on statutory construction
holding that such headings carried very little weight.
7. The Constitution has provided a general rule on midnight
appointments, and the only exception is that on temporary
appointments to executive positions.
8. The Court has erred in directing the JBC to resume the
proceedings for the nomination of the candidates to fill the
vacancy to be created by the compulsory retirement of Chief
Justice Puno with a view to submitting the list of nominees for
Chief Justice to President Arroyo on or before May 17, 2010. The
Constitution grants the Court only the power of supervision over
the JBC; hence, the Court cannot tell the JBC what to do, how to do
it, or when to do it, especially in the absence of a real and
justiciable case assailing any specific action or inaction of the JBC.
9. The Court has engaged in rendering an advisory opinion and has
indulged in speculations.
10. The constitutional ban on appointments being already in effect,
the Court’s directing the JBC to comply with the decision
constitutes a culpable violation of the Constitution and the
commission of an election offense.
11. The Court cannot reverse on the basis of a secondary authority
a doctrine unanimously formulated by the Court en banc.
12. The practice has been for the most senior Justice to act as Chief
Justice whenever the incumbent is indisposed. Thus, the
appointment of the successor Chief Justice is not urgently
necessary.
13. The principal purpose for the ban on midnight appointments is
to arrest any attempt to prolong the outgoing President’s powers
by means of proxies. The attempt of the incumbent President to
appoint the next Chief Justice is undeniably intended to
perpetuate her power beyond her term of office.
IBP-Davao del Sur, et al.
1. Its language being unambiguous, Section 15, Article VII of the
Constitution applies to appointments to the Judiciary. Hence, no
cogent reason exists to warrant the reversal of the Valenzuela
pronouncement.
2. Section 16, Article VII of the Constitution provides for
presidential appointments to the Constitutional Commissions and
the JBC with the consent of the Commission on Appointments. Its
phrase "other officers whose appointments are vested in him in
this Constitution" is enough proof that the limitation on the
appointing power of the President extends to appointments to the
Judiciary. Thus, Section 14, Section 15, and Section 16 of Article VII
apply to all presidential appointments in the Executive and Judicial
Branches of the Government.
3. There is no evidence that the framers of the Constitution
abhorred the idea of an Acting Chief Justice in all cases.
Lim
1. There is no justiciable controversy that warrants the Court’s
exercise of judicial review.
2. The election ban under Section 15, Article VII applies to
appointments to fill a vacancy in the Court and to other
appointments to the Judiciary.
3. The creation of the JBC does not justify the removal of the
safeguard under Section 15 of Article VII against midnight
appointments in the Judiciary.
Corvera
1. The Court’s exclusion of appointments to the Judiciary from the
Constitutional ban on midnight appointments is based on an
interpretation beyond the plain and unequivocal language of the
Constitution.
2. The intent of the ban on midnight appointments is to cover
appointments in both the Executive and Judicial Departments. The
application of the principle of verba legis (ordinary meaning) would
have obviated dwelling on the organization and arrangement of
the provisions of the Constitution. If there is any ambiguity in
Section 15, Article VII, the intent behind the provision, which is to
prevent political partisanship in all branches of the Government,
should have controlled.
3. A plain reading is preferred to a contorted and strained
interpretation based on compartmentalization and physical
arrangement, especially considering that the Constitution must be
interpreted as a whole.
4. Resort to the deliberations or to the personal interpretation of
the framers of the Constitution should yield to the plain and
unequivocal language of the Constitution.
5. There is no sufficient reason for reversing Valenzuela, a ruling
that is reasonable and in accord with the Constitution.
BAYAN, et al.
1. The Court erred in granting the petition in A.M. No. 10-2-5-SC,
because the petition did not present a justiciable controversy. The
issues it raised were not yet ripe for adjudication, considering that
the office of the Chief Justice was not yet vacant and that the JBC
itself has yet to decide whether or not to submit a list of nominees
to the President.
2. The collective wisdom of Valenzuela Court is more important
and compelling than the opinion of Justice Regalado.
3. In ruling that Section 15, Article VII is in conflict with Section 4(1),
Article VIII, the Court has violated the principle of ut magis valeat
quam pereat (which mandates that the Constitution should be
interpreted as a whole, such that any conflicting provisions are to
be harmonized as to fully give effect to all). There is no conflict
between the provisions; they complement each other.
4. The form and structure of the Constitution’s titles, chapters,
sections, and draftsmanship carry little weight in statutory
construction. The clear and plain language of Section 15, Article VII
precludes interpretation.
Tan, Jr.
1. The factual antecedents do not present an actual case or
controversy. The clash of legal rights and interests in the present
case are merely anticipated. Even if it is anticipated with certainty,
no actual vacancy in the position of the Chief Justice has yet
occurred.
2. The ruling that Section 15, Article VII does not apply to a vacancy
in the Court and the Judiciary runs in conflict with long standing
principles and doctrines of statutory construction. The provision
admits only one exception, temporary appointments in the
Executive Department. Thus, the Court should not distinguish,
because the law itself makes no distinction.
3. Valenzuela was erroneously reversed. The framers of the
Constitution clearly intended the ban on midnight appointments to
cover the members of the Judiciary. Hence, giving more weight to
the opinion of Justice Regalado to reverse the en banc decision in
Valenzuela was unwarranted.
4. Section 15, Article VII is not incompatible with Section 4(1),
Article VIII. The 90-day mandate to fill any vacancy lasts until
August 15, 2010, or a month and a half after the end of the ban.
The next President has roughly the same time of 45 days as the
incumbent President (i.e., 44 days) within which to scrutinize and
study the qualifications of the next Chief Justice. Thus, the JBC has
more than enough opportunity to examine the nominees without
haste and political uncertainty.1avvphi1
5. When the constitutional ban is in place, the 90-day period under
Section 4(1), Article VIII is suspended.
6. There is no basis to direct the JBC to submit the list of nominees
on or before May 17, 2010. The directive to the JBC sanctions a
culpable violation of the Constitution and constitutes an election
offense.
7. There is no pressing necessity for the appointment of a Chief
Justice, because the Court sits en banc, even when it acts as the
sole judge of all contests relative to the election, returns and
qualifications of the President and Vice-President. Fourteen other
Members of the Court can validly comprise the Presidential
Electoral Tribunal.
WTLOP
1. The Court exceeded its jurisdiction in ordering the JBC to submit
the list of nominees for Chief Justice to the President on or before
May 17, 2010, and to continue its proceedings for the nomination
of the candidates, because it granted a relief not prayed for;
imposed on the JBC a deadline not provided by law or the
Constitution; exercised control instead of mere supervision over
the JBC; and lacked sufficient votes to reverse Valenzuela.
2. In interpreting Section 15, Article VII, the Court has ignored the
basic principle of statutory construction to the effect that the
literal meaning of the law must be applied when it is clear and
unambiguous; and that we should not distinguish where the law
does not distinguish.
3. There is no urgency to appoint the next Chief Justice,
considering that the Judiciary Act of 1948 already provides that the
power and duties of the office devolve on the most senior
Associate Justice in case of a vacancy in the office of the Chief
Justice.
Ubano
1. The language of Section 15, Article VII, being clear and
unequivocal, needs no interpretation
2. The Constitution must be construed in its entirety, not by resort
to the organization and arrangement of its provisions.
3. The opinion of Justice Regalado is irrelevant, because Section 15,
Article VII and the pertinent records of the Constitutional
Commission are clear and unambiguous.
4. The Court has erred in ordering the JBC to submit the list of
nominees to the President by May 17, 2010 at the latest, because
no specific law requires the JBC to submit the list of nominees
even before the vacancy has occurred.
Boiser
1. Under Section 15, Article VII, the only exemption from the ban
on midnight appointments is the temporary appointment to an
executive position. The limitation is in keeping with the clear intent
of the framers of the Constitution to place a restriction on the
power of the outgoing Chief Executive to make appointments.
2. To exempt the appointment of the next Chief Justice from the
ban on midnight appointments makes the appointee beholden to
the outgoing Chief Executive, and compromises the independence
of the Chief Justice by having the outgoing President be continually
influential.
3. The Court’s reversal of Valenzuela without stating the sufficient
reason violates the principle of stare decisis.
Bello, et al.
1. Section 15, Article VII does not distinguish as to the type of
appointments an outgoing President is prohibited from making
within the prescribed period. Plain textual reading and the records
of the Constitutional Commission support the view that the ban on
midnight appointments extends to judicial appointments.
2. Supervision of the JBC by the Court involves oversight. The
subordinate subject to oversight must first act not in accord with
prescribed rules before the act can be redone to conform to the
prescribed rules.
3. The Court erred in granting the petition in A.M. No. 10-2-5-SC,
because the petition did not present a justiciable controversy.
Pimentel
1. Any constitutional interpretative changes must be reasonable,
rational, and conformable to the general intent of the Constitution
as a limitation to the powers of Government and as a bastion for
the protection of the rights of the people. Thus, in harmonizing
seemingly conflicting provisions of the Constitution, the
interpretation should always be one that protects the citizenry
from an ever expanding grant of authority to its representatives.
2. The decision expands the constitutional powers of the President
in a manner totally repugnant to republican constitutional
democracy, and is tantamount to a judicial amendment of the
Constitution without proper authority.
Comments
The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) and the JBC separately
represent in their respective comments, thus:
OSG
1. The JBC may be compelled to submit to the President a short list
of its nominees for the position of Chief Justice.
2. The incumbent President has the power to appoint the next
Chief Justice.
3. Section 15, Article VII does not apply to the Judiciary.
4. The principles of constitutional construction favor the
exemption of the Judiciary from the ban on midnight
appointments.1awph!1
5. The Court has the duty to consider and resolve all issues raised
by the parties as well as other related matters.
JBC
1. The consolidated petitions should have been dismissed for
prematurity, because the JBC has not yet decided at the time the
petitions were filed whether the incumbent President has the
power to appoint the new Chief Justice, and because the JBC,
having yet to interview the candidates, has not submitted a short
list to the President.
2. The statement in the decision that there is a doubt on whether a
JBC short list is necessary for the President to appoint a Chief
Justice should be struck down as bereft of constitutional and legal
basis. The statement undermines the independence of the JBC.
3. The JBC will abide by the final decision of the Court, but in
accord with its constitutional mandate and its implementing rules
and regulations.
For his part, petitioner Estelito P. Mendoza (A.M. No. 10-2-5-SC)
submits his comment even if the OSG and the JBC were the only
ones the Court has required to do so. He states that the motions
for reconsideration were directed at the administrative matter he
initiated and which the Court resolved. His comment asserts:
1. The grounds of the motions for reconsideration were already
resolved by the decision and the separate opinion.
2. The administrative matter he brought invoked the Court’s power
of supervision over the JBC as provided by Section 8(1), Article VIII
of the Constitution, as distinguished from the Court’s adjudicatory
power under Section 1, Article VIII. In the former, the requisites for
judicial review are not required, which was why Valenzuela was
docketed as an administrative matter. Considering that the JBC
itself has yet to take a position on when to submit the short list to
the proper appointing authority, it has effectively solicited the
exercise by the Court of its power of supervision over the JBC.
3. To apply Section 15, Article VII to Section 4(1) and Section 9,
Article VIII is to amend the Constitution.
4. The portions of the deliberations of the Constitutional
Commission quoted in the dissent of Justice Carpio Morales, as
well as in some of the motions for reconsideration do not refer to
either Section 15, Article VII or Section 4(1), Article VIII, but to
Section 13, Article VII (on nepotism).
Ruling
We deny the motions for reconsideration for lack of merit, for all
the matters being thereby raised and argued, not being new, have
all been resolved by the decision of March 17, 2010.
Nonetheless, the Court opts to dwell on some matters only for the
purpose of clarification and emphasis.
First: Most of the movants contend that the principle of stare
decisis is controlling, and accordingly insist that the Court has
erred in disobeying or abandoning Valenzuela.1
The contention has no basis.
Stare decisis derives its name from the Latin maxim stare decisis et
non quieta movere, i.e., to adhere to precedent and not to
unsettle things that are settled. It simply means that a principle
underlying the decision in one case is deemed of imperative
authority, controlling the decisions of like cases in the same court
and in lower courts within the same jurisdiction, unless and until
the decision in question is reversed or overruled by a court of
competent authority. The decisions relied upon as precedents are
commonly those of appellate courts, because the decisions of the
trial courts may be appealed to higher courts and for that reason
are probably not the best evidence of the rules of law laid down. 2
Judicial decisions assume the same authority as a statute itself and,
until authoritatively abandoned, necessarily become, to the extent
that they are applicable, the criteria that must control the
actuations, not only of those called upon to abide by them, but
also of those duty-bound to enforce obedience to them.3 In a
hierarchical judicial system like ours, the decisions of the higher
courts bind the lower courts, but the courts of co-ordinate
authority do not bind each other. The one highest court does not
bind itself, being invested with the innate authority to rule
according to its best lights.4
The Court, as the highest court of the land, may be guided but is
not controlled by precedent. Thus, the Court, especially with a new
membership, is not obliged to follow blindly a particular decision
that it determines, after re-examination, to call for a
rectification.5 The adherence to precedents is strict and rigid in a
common-law setting like the United Kingdom, where judges make
law as binding as an Act of Parliament.6 But ours is not a
common-law system; hence, judicial precedents are not always
strictly and rigidly followed. A judicial pronouncement in an earlier
decision may be followed as a precedent in a subsequent case only
when its reasoning and justification are relevant, and the court in
the latter case accepts such reasoning and justification to be
applicable to the case. The application of the precedent is for the
sake of convenience and stability.
For the intervenors to insist that Valenzuela ought not to be
disobeyed, or abandoned, or reversed, and that its wisdom should
guide, if not control, the Court in this case is, therefore, devoid of
rationality and foundation. They seem to conveniently forget that
the Constitution itself recognizes the innate authority of the Court
en banc to modify or reverse a doctrine or principle of law laid
down in any decision rendered en banc or in division.7
Second: Some intervenors are grossly misleading the public by
their insistence that the Constitutional Commission extended to
the Judiciary the ban on presidential appointments during the
period stated in Section 15, Article VII.
The deliberations that the dissent of Justice Carpio Morales quoted
from the records of the Constitutional Commission did not concern
either Section 15, Article VII or Section 4(1), Article VIII, but only
Section 13, Article VII, a provision on nepotism. The records of the
Constitutional Commission show that Commissioner Hilario G.
Davide, Jr. had proposed to include judges and justices related to
the President within the fourth civil degree of consanguinity or
affinity among the persons whom the President might not appoint
during his or her tenure. In the end, however, Commissioner
Davide, Jr. withdrew the proposal to include the Judiciary in
Section 13, Article VII "(t)o avoid any further complication,"8 such
that the final version of the second paragraph of Section 13, Article
VII even completely omits any reference to the Judiciary, to wit:
Section 13. xxx
The spouse and relatives by consanguinity or affinity within the
fourth civil degree of the President shall not during his tenure be
appointed as Members of the Constitutional Commissions, or the
Office of the Ombudsman, or as Secretaries, Undersecretaries,
chairmen or heads of bureaus or offices, including
government-owned or controlled corporations and their
subsidiaries.
Last: The movants take the majority to task for holding that
Section 15, Article VII does not apply to appointments in the
Judiciary. They aver that the Court either ignored or refused to
apply many principles of statutory construction.
The movants gravely err in their posture, and are themselves
apparently contravening their avowed reliance on the principles of
statutory construction.
For one, the movants, disregarding the absence from Section 15,
Article VII of the express extension of the ban on appointments to
the Judiciary, insist that the ban applied to the Judiciary under the
principle of verba legis. That is self-contradiction at its worst.
Another instance is the movants’ unhesitating willingness to read
into Section 4(1) and Section 9, both of Article VIII, the express
applicability of the ban under Section 15, Article VII during the
period provided therein, despite the silence of said provisions
thereon. Yet, construction cannot supply the omission, for doing so
would generally constitute an encroachment upon the field of the
Constitutional Commission. Rather, Section 4(1) and Section 9
should be left as they are, given that their meaning is clear and
explicit, and no words can be interpolated in them.9Interpolation
of words is unnecessary, because the law is more than likely to fail
to express the legislative intent with the interpolation. In other
words, the addition of new words may alter the thought intended
to be conveyed. And, even where the meaning of the law is clear
and sensible, either with or without the omitted word or words,
interpolation is improper, because the primary source of the
legislative intent is in the language of the law itself.10
Thus, the decision of March 17, 2010 has fittingly observed:
Had the framers intended to extend the prohibition contained in
Section 15, Article VII to the appointment of Members of the
Supreme Court, they could have explicitly done so. They could not
have ignored the meticulous ordering of the provisions. They
would have easily and surely written the prohibition made explicit
in Section 15, Article VII as being equally applicable to the
appointment of Members of the Supreme Court in Article VIII itself,
most likely in Section 4 (1), Article VIII. That such specification was
not done only reveals that the prohibition against the President or
Acting President making appointments within two months before
the next presidential elections and up to the end of the President’s
or Acting President’s term does not refer to the Members of the
Supreme Court.
We cannot permit the meaning of the Constitution to be stretched
to any unintended point in order to suit the purposes of any
quarter.
Final Word
It has been insinuated as part of the polemics attendant to the
controversy we are resolving that because all the Members of the
present Court were appointed by the incumbent President, a
majority of them are now granting to her the authority to appoint
the successor of the retiring Chief Justice.
The insinuation is misguided and utterly unfair.
The Members of the Court vote on the sole basis of their
conscience and the merits of the issues. Any claim to the contrary
proceeds from malice and condescension. Neither the outgoing
President nor the present Members of the Court had arranged the
current situation to happen and to evolve as it has. None of the
Members of the Court could have prevented the Members
composing the Court when she assumed the Presidency about a
decade ago from retiring during her prolonged term and tenure,
for their retirements were mandatory. Yet, she is now left with an
imperative duty under the Constitution to fill up the vacancies
created by such inexorable retirements within 90 days from their
occurrence. Her official duty she must comply with. So must we
ours who are tasked by the Constitution to settle the controversy.
ACCORDINGLY, the motions for reconsideration are denied with
finality.
SO ORDERED.
LUCAS P. BERSAMIN
Associate Justice
ARTURO M. DE CASTRO vs. JUDICIAL AND BAR COUNCIL (JBC) and
PRESIDENT GLORIA MACAPAGAL – ARROYO
G.R. No. 191002, March 17, 2010
FACTS: The compulsory retirement of Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno
by May 17, 2010 occurs just days after the coming presidential
elections on May 10, 2010.
These cases trace their genesis to the controversy that has arisen
from the forthcoming compulsory retirement of Chief Justice Puno
on May 17, 2010, or seven days after the presidential election.
Under Section 4(1), in relation to Section 9, Article VIII, that
“vacancy shall be filled within ninety days from the occurrence
thereof” from a “list of at least three nominees prepared by the
Judicial and Bar Council for every vacancy.” Also considering that
Section 15, Article VII (Executive Department) of the Constitution
prohibits the President or Acting President from making
appointments within two months immediately before the next
presidential elections and up to the end of his term, except
temporary appointments to executive positions when continued
vacancies therein will prejudice public service or endanger public
safety.
The JBC, in its en banc meeting of January 18, 2010, unanimously
agreed to start the process of filling up the position of Chief
Justice.
Conformably with its existing practice, the JBC “automatically
considered” for the position of Chief Justice the five most senior of
the Associate Justices of the Court, namely: Associate Justice
Antonio T. Carpio; Associate Justice Renato C. Corona; Associate
Justice Conchita Carpio Morales; Associate Justice Presbitero J.
Velasco, Jr.; and Associate Justice Antonio Eduardo B. Nachura.
However, the last two declined their nomination through letters
dated January 18, 2010 and January 25, 2010, respectively.
The OSG contends that the incumbent President may appoint the
next Chief Justice, because the prohibition under Section 15,
Article VII of the Constitution does not apply to appointments in
the Supreme Court. It argues that any vacancy in the Supreme
Court must be filled within 90 days from its occurrence, pursuant
to Section 4(1), Article VIII of the Constitution; that had the
framers intended the prohibition to apply to Supreme Court
appointments, they could have easily expressly stated so in the
Constitution, which explains why the prohibition found in Article
VII (Executive Department) was not written in Article VIII (Judicial
Department); and that the framers also incorporated in Article VIII
ample restrictions or limitations on the President’s power to
appoint members of the Supreme Court to ensure its
independence from “political vicissitudes” and its “insulation from
political pressures,” such as stringent qualifications for the
positions, the establishment of the JBC, the specified period within
which the President shall appoint a Supreme Court Justice.
A part of the question to be reviewed by the Court is whether the
JBC properly initiated the process, there being an insistence from
some of the oppositors-intervenors that the JBC could only do so
once the vacancy has occurred (that is, after May 17, 2010).
Another part is, of course, whether the JBC may resume its process
until the short list is prepared, in view of the provision of Section
4(1), Article VIII, which unqualifiedly requires the President to
appoint one from the short list to fill the vacancy in the Supreme
Court (be it the Chief Justice or an Associate Justice) within 90 days
from the occurrence of the vacancy.
ISSUE: Whether the incumbent President can appoint the
successor of Chief Justice Puno upon his retirement.
HELD:
Prohibition under Section 15, Article VII does not apply to
appointments to fill a vacancy in the Supreme Court or to other
appointments to the Judiciary.
Two constitutional provisions are seemingly in conflict.
The first, Section 15, Article VII (Executive Department), provides:
Section 15. Two months immediately before the next presidential
elections and up to the end of his term, a President or Acting
President shall not make appointments, except temporary
appointments to executive positions when continued vacancies
therein will prejudice public service or endanger public safety.
The other, Section 4 (1), Article VIII (Judicial Department), states:
Section 4. (1). The Supreme Court shall be composed of a Chief
Justice and fourteen Associate Justices. It may sit en banc or in its
discretion, in division of three, five, or seven Members. Any
vacancy shall be filled within ninety days from the occurrence
thereof.
Had the framers intended to extend the prohibition contained in
Section 15, Article VII to the appointment of Members of the
Supreme Court, they could have explicitly done so. They could not
have ignored the meticulous ordering of the provisions. They
would have easily and surely written the prohibition made explicit
in Section 15, Article VII as being equally applicable to the
appointment of Members of the Supreme Court in Article VIII itself,
most likely in Section 4 (1), Article VIII. That such specification was
not done only reveals that the prohibition against the President or
Acting President making appointments within two months before
the next presidential elections and up to the end of the President’s
or Acting President’s term does not refer to the Members of the
Supreme Court.
Had the framers intended to extend the prohibition contained in
Section 15, Article VII to the appointment of Members of the
Supreme Court, they could have explicitly done so. They could not
have ignored the meticulous ordering of the provisions. They
would have easily and surely written the prohibition made explicit
in Section 15, Article VII as being equally applicable to the
appointment of Members of the Supreme Court in Article VIII itself,
most likely in Section 4 (1), Article VIII. That such specification was
not done only reveals that the prohibition against the President or
Acting President making appointments within two months before
the next presidential elections and up to the end of the President’s
or Acting President’s term does not refer to the Members of the
Supreme Court.
Section 14, Section 15, and Section 16 are obviously of the same
character, in that they affect the power of the President to appoint.
The fact that Section 14 and Section 16 refer only to appointments
within the Executive Department renders conclusive that Section
15 also applies only to the Executive Department. This conclusion
is consistent with the rule that every part of the statute must be
interpreted with reference to the context, i.e. that every part must
be considered together with the other parts, and kept subservient
to the general intent of the whole enactment. It is absurd to
assume that the framers deliberately situated Section 15 between
Section 14 and Section 16, if they intended Section 15 to cover all
kinds of presidential appointments. If that was their intention in
respect of appointments to the Judiciary, the framers, if only to be
clear, would have easily and surely inserted a similar prohibition in
Article VIII, most likely within Section 4 (1) thereof.
G.R. No. L-10572 December 21, 1915
FRANCIS A. CHURCHILL and STEWART TAIT, plaintiffs-appellees,
vs.
JAMES J. RAFFERTY, Collector of Internal
Revenue, defendant-appellant.
Attorney-General Avanceña for appellant.
Aitken and DeSelms for appellees.
TRENT, J.:
The judgment appealed from in this case perpetually restrains and
prohibits the defendant and his deputies from collecting and
enforcing against the plaintiffs and their property the annual tax
mentioned and described in subsection (b) of section 100 of Act No.
2339, effective July 1, 1914, and from destroying or removing any
sign, signboard, or billboard, the property of the plaintiffs, for the
sole reason that such sign, signboard, or billboard is, or may be,
offensive to the sight; and decrees the cancellation of the bond
given by the plaintiffs to secure the issuance of the preliminary
injunction granted soon after the commencement of this action.
This case divides itself into two parts and gives rise to two main
questions; (1) that relating to the power of the court to restrain by
injunction the collection of the tax complained of, and (2) that
relating to the validity of those provisions of subsection (b) of
section 100 of Act No. 2339, conferring power upon the Collector
of Internal Revenue to remove any sign, signboard, or billboard
upon the ground that the same is offensive to the sight or is
otherwise a nuisance.
The first question is one of the jurisdiction and is of vital
importance to the Government. The sections of Act No. 2339,
which bear directly upon the subject, are 139 and 140. The first
expressly forbids the use of an injunction to stay the collection of
any internal revenue tax; the second provides a remedy for any
wrong in connection with such taxes, and this remedy was
intended to be exclusive, thereby precluding the remedy by
injunction, which remedy is claimed to be constitutional. The two
sections, then, involve the right of a dissatisfied taxpayers to use
an exceptional remedy to test the validity of any tax or to
determine any other question connected therewith, and the
question whether the remedy by injunction is exceptional.
Preventive remedies of the courts are extraordinary and are not
the usual remedies. The origin and history of the writ of injunction
show that it has always been regarded as an extraordinary,
preventive remedy, as distinguished from the common course of
the law to redress evils after they have been consummated. No
injunction issues as of course, but is granted only upon the oath of
a party and when there is no adequate remedy at law. The
Government does, by section 139 and 140, take away the
preventive remedy of injunction, if it ever existed, and leaves the
taxpayer, in a contest with it, the same ordinary remedial actions
which prevail between citizen and citizen. The Attorney-General,
on behalf of the defendant, contends that there is no provisions of
the paramount law which prohibits such a course. While, on the
other hand, counsel for plaintiffs urge that the two sections are
unconstitutional because (a) they attempt to deprive aggrieved
taxpayers of all substantial remedy for the protection of their
property, thereby, in effect, depriving them of their property
without due process of law, and (b) they attempt to diminish the
jurisdiction of the courts, as conferred upon them by Acts Nos. 136
and 190, which jurisdiction was ratified and confirmed by the Act
of Congress of July 1, 1902.
In the first place, it has been suggested that section 139 does not
apply to the tax in question because the section, in speaking of a
"tax," means only legal taxes; and that an illegal tax (the one
complained of) is not a tax, and, therefore, does not fall within the
inhibition of the section, and may be restrained by injunction.
There is no force in this suggestion. The inhibition applies to all
internal revenue taxes imposes, or authorized to be imposed, by
Act No. 2339. (Snyder vs. Marks, 109 U.S., 189.) And, furthermore,
the mere fact that a tax is illegal, or that the law, by virtue of which
it is imposed, is unconstitutional, does not authorize a court of
equity to restrain its collection by injunction. There must be a
further showing that there are special circumstances which bring
the case under some well recognized head of equity jurisprudence,
such as that irreparable injury, multiplicity of suits, or a cloud upon
title to real estate will result, and also that there is, as we have
indicated, no adequate remedy at law. This is the settled law in the
United States, even in the absence of statutory enactments such as
sections 139 and 140. (Hannewinkle vs. Mayor, etc., of
Georgetown, 82 U.S., 547; Indiana Mfg. Co. vs. Koehne, 188 U.S.,
681; Ohio Tax cases, 232 U. S., 576, 587; Pittsburgh C. C. & St. L. R.
Co. vs. Board of Public Works, 172 U. S., 32; Shelton vs. Plat, 139
U.S., 591; State Railroad Tax Cases, 92 U. S., 575.) Therefore, this
branch of the case must be controlled by sections 139 and 140,
unless the same be held unconstitutional, and consequently, null
and void.
The right and power of judicial tribunals to declare whether
enactments of the legislature exceed the constitutional limitations
and are invalid has always been considered a grave responsibility,
as well as a solemn duty. The courts invariably give the most
careful consideration to questions involving the interpretation and
application of the Constitution, and approach constitutional
questions with great deliberation, exercising their power in this
respect with the greatest possible caution and even reluctance;
and they should never declare a statute void, unless its invalidity is,
in their judgment, beyond reasonable doubt. To justify a court in
pronouncing a legislative act unconstitutional, or a provision of a
state constitution to be in contravention of the Constitution of the
United States, the case must be so clear to be free from doubt, and
the conflict of the statute with the constitution must be
irreconcilable, because it is but a decent respect to the wisdom,
the integrity, and the patriotism of the legislative body by which
any law is passed to presume in favor of its validity until the
contrary is shown beyond reasonable doubt. Therefore, in no
doubtful case will the judiciary pronounce a legislative act to be
contrary to the constitution. To doubt the constitutionality of a law
is to resolve the doubt in favor of its validity. (6 Ruling Case Law,
secs. 71, 72, and 73, and cases cited therein.)
It is also the settled law in the United States that "due process of
law" does not always require, in respect to the Government, the
same process that is required between citizens, though it generally
implies and includes regular allegations, opportunity to answer,
and a trial according to some well settled course of judicial
proceedings. The case with which we are dealing is in point. A
citizen's property, both real and personal, may be taken, and
usually is taken, by the government in payment of its taxes without
any judicial proceedings whatever. In this country, as well as in the
United States, the officer charged with the collection of taxes is
authorized to seize and sell the property of delinquent taxpayers
without applying to the courts for assistance, and the
constitutionality of the law authorizing this procedure never has
been seriously questioned. (City of Philadelphia vs. [Diehl] The
Collector, 5 Wall., 720; Nicholl vs. U.S., 7 Wall., 122, and cases
cited.) This must necessarily be the course, because it is upon
taxation that the Government chiefly relies to obtain the means to
carry on its operations, and it is of the utmost importance that the
modes adopted to enforce the collection of the taxes levied should
be summary and interfered with as little as possible. No
government could exist if every litigious man were permitted to
delay the collection of its taxes. This principle of public policy must
be constantly borne in mind in determining cases such as the one
under consideration.
With these principles to guide us, we will proceed to inquire
whether there is any merit in the two propositions insisted upon
by counsel for the plaintiffs. Section 5 of the Philippine Bill
provides: "That no law shall be enacted in said Islands which shall
deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process
of law, or deny to any person therein the equal protection of the
law."
The origin and history of these provisions are well-known. They are
found in substance in the Constitution of the United States and in
that of ever state in the Union.
Section 3224 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, effective
since 1867, provides that: "No suit for the purpose of restraining
the assessment or collection of any tax shall be maintained in any
court."
Section 139, with which we have been dealing, reads: "No court
shall have authority to grant an injunction to restrain the collection
of any internal-revenue tax."
A comparison of these two sections show that they are essentially
the same. Both expressly prohibit the restraining of taxes by
injunction. If the Supreme Court of the United States has clearly
and definitely held that the provisions of section 3224 do not
violate the "due process of law" and "equal protection of the law"
clauses in the Constitution, we would be going too far to hold that
section 139 violates those same provisions in the Philippine Bill.
That the Supreme Court of the United States has so held, cannot
be doubted.
In Cheatham vs. United States (92 U.S., 85,89) which involved the
validity of an income tax levied by an act of Congress prior to the
one in issue in the case of Pollock vs. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.
(157 U.S., 429) the court, through Mr. Justice Miller, said: "If there
existed in the courts, state or National, any general power of
impeding or controlling the collection of taxes, or relieving the
hardship incident to taxation, the very existence of the And again, in Snyder vs. Marks (109 U.S., 189), the court said: "The
government might be placed in the power of a hostile judiciary. remedy of a suit to recover back the tax after it is paid is provided
(Dows vs. The City of Chicago, 11 Wall., 108.) While a free course by statute, and a suit to restrain its collection is forbidden. The
of remonstrance and appeal is allowed within the departments remedy so given is exclusive, and no other remedy can be
before the money is finally exacted, the General Government has substituted for it. Such has been the current of decisions in the
wisely made the payment of the tax claimed, whether of customs Circuit Courts of the United States, and we are satisfied it is a
or of internal revenue, a condition precedent to a resort to the correct view of the law."itc-a1f
courts by the party against whom the tax is assessed. In the
In the consideration of the plaintiffs' second proposition, we will
internal revenue branch it has further prescribed that no such suit
attempt to show (1) that the Philippine courts never have had,
shall be brought until the remedy by appeal has been tried; and, if
since the American occupation, the power to restrain by injunction
brought after this, it must be within six months after the decision
the collection of any tax imposed by the Insular Government for its
on the appeal. We regard this as a condition on which alone the
own purpose and benefit, and (2) that assuming that our courts
government consents to litigate the lawfulness of the original tax.
had or have such power, this power has not been diminished or
It is not a hard condition. Few governments have conceded such a
curtailed by sections 139 and 140.
right on any condition. If the compliance with this condition
requires the party aggrieved to pay the money, he must do it." We will first review briefly the former and present systems of
taxation. Upon the American occupation of the Philippine, there
Again, in State Railroad Tax Cases (92 U.S., 575, 613), the court said:
was found a fairly complete system of taxation. This system was
"That there might be no misunderstanding of the universality of
continued in force by the military authorities, with but few
this principle, it was expressly enacted, in 1867, that "no suit for
changes, until the Civil Government assumed charge of the subject.
the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of any tax
The principal sources of revenue under the Spanish regime were
shall be maintained in any court." (Rev, Stat., sec. 3224.) And
derived from customs receipts, the so-called industrial taxes, the
though this was intended to apply alone to taxes levied by the
urbana taxes, the stamp tax, the personal cedula tax, and the sale
United States, it shows the sense of Congress of the evils to be
of the public domain. The industrial and urbana taxes constituted
feared if courts of justice could, in any case, interfere with the
practically an income tax of some 5 per cent on the net income of
process of collecting taxes on which the government depends for
persons engaged in industrial and commercial pursuits and on the
its continued existence. It is a wise policy. It is founded in the
income of owners of improved city property. The sale of stamped
simple philosophy derived from the experience of ages, that the
paper and adhesive stamp tax. The cedula tax was a graduated tax,
payment of taxes has to be enforced by summary and stringent
ranging from nothing up to P37.50. The revenue derived from the
means against a reluctant and often adverse sentiment; and to do
sale of the public domain was not considered a tax. The American
this successfully, other instrumentalities and other modes of
authorities at once abolished the cedula tax, but later restored it in
procedure are necessary, than those which belong to courts of
a modified form, charging for each cedula twenty centavos, an
justice."
amount which was supposed to be just sufficient to cover the cost
of issuance. The urbana tax was abolished by Act No. 223, effective
September 6, 1901.
The "Municipal Code" (Act No. 82) and the Provincial Government
Act (No. 83), both enacted in 1901, authorize municipal councils
and provincial boards to impose an ad valorem tax on real estate.
The Municipal Code did not apply to the city of Manila. This city
was given a special charter (Act No. 183), effective August 30, 1901;
Under this charter the Municipal Board of Manila is authorized and
empowered to impose taxes upon real estate and, like municipal
councils, to license and regulate certain occupations. Customs
matters were completely reorganized by Act No. 355, effective at
the port of Manila on February 7, 1902, and at other ports in the
Philippine Islands the day after the receipt of a certified copy of
the Act. The Internal Revenue Law of 1904 (Act No. 1189),
repealed all existing laws, ordinances, etc., imposing taxes upon
the persons, objects, or occupations taxed under that act, and all
industrial taxes and stamp taxes imposed under the Spanish
regime were eliminated, but the industrial tax was continued in
force until January 1, 1905. This Internal Revenue Law did not take
away from municipal councils, provincial boards, and the Municipal
Board of the city of Manila the power to impose taxes upon real
estate. This Act (No. 1189), with its amendments, was repealed by
Act No. 2339, an act "revising and consolidating the laws relative
to internal revenue."
Section 84 of Act No. 82 provides that "No court shall entertain any
suit assailing the validity of a tax assessed under this act until the
taxpayer shall have paid, under protest, the taxes assessed against
him, . . . ."
This inhibition was inserted in section 17 of Act No. 83 and applies
to taxes imposed by provincial boards. The inhibition was not
inserted in the Manila Charter until the passage of Act No. 1793,
effective October 12, 1907. Act No. 355 expressly makes the
payment of the exactions claimed a condition precedent to a
resort to the courts by dissatisfied importers. Section 52 of Act No.
1189 provides "That no courts shall have authority to grant an
injunction restraining the collection of any taxes imposed by virtue
of the provisions of this Act, but the remedy of the taxpayer who
claims that he is unjustly assessed or taxed shall be by payment
under protest of the sum claimed from him by the Collector of
Internal Revenue and by action to recover back the sum claimed to
have been illegally collected."
Sections 139 and 140 of Act No. 2339 contain, as we have
indicated, the same prohibition and remedy. The result is that the
courts have been expressly forbidden, in every act creating or
imposing taxes or imposts enacted by the legislative body of the
Philippines since the American occupation, to entertain any suit
assailing the validity of any tax or impost thus imposed until the
tax shall have been paid under protest. The only taxes which have
not been brought within the express inhibition were those
included in that part of the old Spanish system which completely
disappeared on or before January 1, 1905, and possibly the old
customs duties which disappeared in February, 1902.
Section 56 of the Organic Act (No. 136), effective June 16, 1901,
provides that "Courts of First Instance shall have original
jurisdiction:
xxx xxx xxx
2. In all civil actions which involve the ... legality of any tax, impost,
or assessment, . . . .
xxx xxx xxx
7. Said courts and their judges, or any of them, shall have power to
issue writs of injunction, mandamus, certiorari, prohibition, quo
warranto, and habeas corpus in their respective provinces and
districts, in the manner provided in the Code of Civil Procedure.
The provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure (Act No. 190),
effective October 1, 1901, which deals with the subject of
injunctions, are sections 162 to 172, inclusive. Injunctions, as here
defined, are of two kinds; preliminary and final. The former may be
granted at any time after the commencement of the action and
before final judgment, and the latter at the termination of the trial
as the relief or part of the relief prayed for (sec. 162). Any judge of
the Supreme Court may grant a preliminary injunction in any
action pending in that court or in any Court of First Instance. A
preliminary injunction may also be granted by a judge of the Court
of First Instance in actions pending in his district in which he has
original jurisdiction (sec. 163). But such injunctions may be
granted only when the complaint shows facts entitling the plaintiff
to the relief demanded (sec. 166), and before a final or permanent
injunction can be granted, it must appear upon the trial of the
action that the plaintiff is entitled to have commission or
continuance of the acts complained of perpetually restrained (sec.
171). These provisions authorize the institution in Courts of First
Instance of what are known as "injunction suits," the sole object of
which is to obtain the issuance of a final injunction. They also
authorize the granting of injunctions as aiders in ordinary civil
actions. We have defined in Davesa vs. Arbes (13 Phil. Rep., 273),
an injunction to be "A "special remedy" adopted in that code (Act
190) from American practice, and originally borrowed from English
legal procedure, which was there issued by the authority and
under the seal of a court of equity, and limited, as in other cases
where equitable relief is sought, to those cases where there is no
"plain, adequate, and complete remedy at law,"which will not be
granted while the rights between the parties are undetermined,
except in extraordinary cases where material and irreparable injury
will be done,"which cannot be compensated in damages . . .
By paragraph 2 of section 56 of Act No. 136, supra, and the
provisions of the various subsequent Acts heretofore mentioned,
the Insular Government has consented to litigate with aggrieved
persons the validity of any original tax or impost imposed by it on
condition that this be done in ordinary civil actions after the taxes
or exactions shall have been paid. But it is said that paragraph 2
confers original jurisdiction upon Courts of First Instance to hear
and determine "all civil actions" which involve the validity of any
tax, impost or assessment, and that if the all-inclusive words "all"
and "any" be given their natural and unrestricted meaning, no
action wherein that question is involved can arise over which such
courts do not have jurisdiction. (Barrameda vs. Moir, 25 Phil. Rep.,
44.) This is true. But the term "civil actions" had its well defined
meaning at the time the paragraph was enacted. The same
legislative body which enacted paragraph 2 on June 16, 1901, had,
just a few months prior to that time, defined the only kind of
action in which the legality of any tax imposed by it might be
assailed. (Sec. 84, Act 82, enacted January 31, 1901, and sec. 17,
Act No. 83, enacted February 6, 1901.) That kind of action being
payment of the tax under protest and an ordinary suit to recover
and no other, there can be no doubt that Courts of First Instance
have jurisdiction over all such actions. The subsequent legislation
on the same subject shows clearly that the Commission, in
enacting paragraph 2, supra, did not intend to change or modify in
any way section 84 of Act No. 82 and section 17 of Act No. 83, but,
on the contrary, it was intended that "civil actions," mentioned in
said paragraph, should be understood to mean, in so far as testing
the legality of taxes were concerned, only those of the kind and
character provided for in the two sections above mentioned. It is
also urged that the power to restrain by injunction the collection
of taxes or imposts is conferred upon Courts of First Instance by
paragraph 7 of section 56, supra. This paragraph does empower
those courts to grant injunctions, both preliminary and final,
in any civil action pending in their districts, provided always, that
the complaint shows facts entitling the plaintiff to the relief
demanded. Injunction suits, such as the one at bar, are "civil
actions," but of a special or extraordinary character. It cannot be
said that the Commission intended to give a broader or different
meaning to the word "action," used in Chapter 9 of the Code of
Civil Procedure in connection with injunctions, than it gave to the
same word found in paragraph 2 of section 56 of the Organic Act.
The Insular Government, in exercising the power conferred upon it
by the Congress of the United States, has declared that the citizens
and residents of this country shall pay certain specified taxes and
imposts. The power to tax necessarily carries with it the power to
collect the taxes. This being true, the weight of authority supports
the proposition that the Government may fix the conditions upon
which it will consent to litigate the validity of its original taxes.
(Tennessee vs. Sneed, 96 U.S., 69.)
We must, therefore, conclude that paragraph 2 and 7 of section 56
of Act No. 136, construed in the light of the prior and subsequent
legislation to which we have referred, and the legislative and
judicial history of the same subject in the United States with which
the Commission was familiar, do not empower Courts of firs
Instance to interfere by injunction with the collection of the taxes
in question in this case.1awphil.net
If we are in error as to the scope of paragraph 2 and 7, supra, and
the Commission did intend to confer the power upon the courts to
restrain the collection of taxes, it does not necessarily follow that
this power or jurisdiction has been taken away by section 139 of
Act No. 2339, for the reason that all agree that an injunction will
not issue in any case if there is an adequate remedy at law. The
very nature of the writ itself prevents its issuance under such
circumstances. Legislation forbidding the issuing of injunctions in
such cases is unnecessary. So the only question to be here
determined is whether the remedy provided for in section 140 of
Act No. 2339 is adequate. If it is, the writs which form the basis of
this appeal should not have been issued. If this is the correct view,
the authority to issue injunctions will not have been taken away by
section 139, but rendered inoperative only by reason of an
adequate remedy having been made available.
The legislative body of the Philippine Islands has declared from the
beginning (Act No. 82) that payment under protest and suit to
recover is an adequate remedy to test the legality of any tax or
impost, and that this remedy is exclusive. Can we say that the
remedy is not adequate or that it is not exclusive, or both? The
plaintiffs in the case at bar are the first, in so far as we are aware,
to question either the adequacy or exclusiveness of this remedy.
We will refer to a few cases in the United States where statutes
similar to sections 139 and 140 have been construed and applied.
In May, 1874, one Bloomstein presented a petition to the circuit
court sitting in Nashville, Tennessee, stating that his real and
personal property had been assessed for state taxes in the year
1872 to the amount of $132.60; that he tendered to the collector
this amount in "funds receivable by law for such purposes;" and
that the collector refused to receive the same. He prayed for an
alternative writ of mandamus to compel the collector to receive
the bills in payment for such taxes, or to show cause to the
contrary. To this petition the collector, in his answer, set up the
defense that the petitioner's suit was expressly prohibited by the
Act of the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee, passed in
1873. The petition was dismissed and the relief prayed for refused.
An appeal to the supreme court of the State resulted in the
affirmance of the judgment of the lower court. The case was then
carried to the Supreme Court of the United States
(Tennessee vs. Sneed, 96 U. S., 69), where the judgment was again
affirmed.
The two sections of the Act of [March 21,] 1873, drawn in question
in that cases, read as follows:
1. That in all cases in which an officer, charged by law with the
collection of revenue due the State, shall institute any proceeding,
or take any steps for the collection of the same, alleged or claimed
to be due by said officer from any citizen, the party against whom
the proceeding or step is taken shall, if he conceives the same to
be unjust or illegal, or against any statute or clause of the
Constitution of the State, pay the same under protest; and, upon
his making said payment, the officer or collector shall pay such
revenue into the State Treasury, giving notice at the time of
payment to the Comptroller that the same was paid under protest;
and the party paying said revenue may, at any time within thirty
days after making said payment, and not longer thereafter, sue the
said officer having collected said sum, for the recovery thereof.
And the same may be tried in any court having the jurisdiction of
the amount and parties; and, if it be determined that the same
was wrongfully collected, as not being due from said party to the
State, for any reason going to the merits of the same, then the
court trying the case may certify of record that the same was
wrongfully paid and ought to be refunded; and thereupon the
Comptroller shall issue his warrant for the same, which shall be
paid in preference to other claims on the Treasury.
2. That there shall be no other remedy, in any case of the
collection of revenue, or attempt to collect revenue illegally, or
attempt to collect revenue in funds only receivable by said officer
under the law, the same being other or different funds than such
as the tax payer may tender, or claim the right to pay, than that
above provided; and no writ for the prevention of the collection of
any revenue claimed, or to hinder or delay the collection of the
same, shall in anywise issue, either injunction, supersedeas,
prohibition, or any other writ or process whatever; but in all cases
in which, for any reason, any person shall claim that the tax so
collected was wrongfully or illegally collected, the remedy for said
party shall be as above provided, and in no other manner."
In discussing the adequacy of the remedy provided by the
Tennessee Legislature, as above set forth, the Supreme Court of
the United States, in the case just cited, said: "This remedy is
simple and effective. A suit at law to recover money unlawfully
exacted is as speedy, as easily tried, and less complicated than a
proceeding by mandamus. ... In revenue cases, whether arising
upon its (United States) Internal Revenue Laws or those providing
for the collection of duties upon foreign imports, it (United States)
adopts the rule prescribed by the State of Tennessee. It requires
the contestant to pay the amount as fixed by the Government, and
gives him power to sue the collector, and in such suit to test the
legality of the tax. There is nothing illegal or even harsh in this. It is
a wise and reasonable precaution for the security of the
Government."
Thomas C. Platt commenced an action in the Circuit Court of the
United States for the Eastern District of Tennessee to restrain the
collection of a license tax from the company which he represented.
The defense was that sections 1 and 2 of the Act of 1873, supra,
prohibited the bringing of that suit. This case also reached the
Supreme Court of the United States. (Shelton vs. Platt, 139 U. 591.)
In speaking of the inhibitory provisions of sections 1 and 2 of the
Act of 1873, the court said: "This Act has been sanctioned and
applied by the Courts of Tennessee. (Nashville vs.Smith, 86 Tenn.,
213; Louisville & N. R. Co. vs. State, 8 Heisk., 663, 804.) It is, as
counsel observe, similar to the Act of Congress forbidding suit for
the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of taxes
under the Internal Revenue Laws, in respect to which this court
held that the remedy by suit to recover back the tax after payment,
provided for by the Statute, was exclusive. (Snyder vs. Marks, of
this character has been called for by the embarrassments resulting
from the improvident employment of the writ of injunction in
arresting the collection of the public revenue; and, even in its
absence, the strong arm of the court of chancery ought not to be
interposed in that direction except where resort to that court is
grounded upon the settled principles which govern its jurisdiction."
In Louisville & N.R. Co. vs. State (8 Heisk. [64 Tenn.], 663, 804),
cited by the Supreme Court of the United States in
Shelton vs. Platt, supra, the court said: "It was urged that this
statute (sections 1 and 2 of the Act of 1873, supra) is
unconstitutional and void, as it deprives the citizen of the remedy
by certiorari, guaranteed by the organic law."
By the 10th section of the sixth article of the Constitution,
[Tennessee] it is provided that: "The judges or justices of inferior
courts of law and equity shall have power in all civil cases to issue
writs of certiorari, to remove any cause, or the transcript of the
record thereof, from any inferior jurisdiction into such court of law,
on sufficient cause, supported by oath or affirmation."
The court held the act valid as not being in conflict with these
provisions of the State constitution.
In Eddy vs. The Township of Lee (73 Mich., 123), the complainants
sought to enjoin the collection of certain taxes for the year 1886.
The defendants, in support of their demurrer, insisted that the
remedy by injunction had been taken away by section 107 of the
Act of 1885, which section reads as follows: "No injunction shall
issue to stay proceedings for the assessment or collection of taxes
under this Act."
It was claimed by the complainants that the above quoted
provisions of the Act of 1885 were unconstitutional and void as
being in conflict with article 6, sec. 8, of the Constitution, which
provides that: "The circuit courts shall have original jurisdiction in
all matters, civil and criminal, not excepted in this Constitution,
and not prohibited by law. ... They shall also have power to issue
writs of habeas corpus, mandamus, injunction, quo
warranto, certiorari, and other writs necessary to carry into effect
their orders, judgments, and decrees."
Mr. Justice Champlin, speaking for the court, said: "I have no doubt
that the Legislature has the constitutional authority, where it has
provided a plain, adequate, and complete remedy at law to
recover back taxes illegally assessed and collected, to take away
the remedy by injunction to restrain their collection."
Section 9 of the Philippine Bill reads in part as follows: "That the
Supreme Court and the Courts of First Instance of the Philippine
Islands shall possess and exercise jurisdiction as heretofore
provided and such additional jurisdiction as shall hereafter be
prescribed by the Government of said Islands, subject to the power
of said Government to change the practice and method of
procedure."
It will be seen that this section has not taken away from the
Philippine Government the power to change the practice and
method of procedure. If sections 139 and 140, considered together,
and this must always be done, are nothing more than a mode of
procedure, then it would seem that the Legislature did not exceed
its constitutional authority in enacting them. Conceding for the
moment that the duly authorized procedure for the determination
of the validity of any tax, impost, or assessment was by injunction
suits and that this method was available to aggrieved taxpayers
prior to the passage of Act No. 2339, may the Legislature change
this method of procedure? That the Legislature has the power to
do this, there can be no doubt, provided some other adequate
remedy is substituted in lieu thereof. In speaking of the modes of
enforcing rights created by contracts, the Supreme Court of the
United States, in Tennessee vs. Sneed, supra, said: "The rule seems
to be that in modes of proceedings and of forms to enforce the
contract the Legislature has the control, and may enlarge, limit or
alter them, provided that it does not deny a remedy, or so
embarrass it with conditions and restrictions as seriously to impair
the value of the right."
In that case the petitioner urged that the Acts of 1873 were laws
impairing the obligation of the contract contained in the charter of
the Bank of Tennessee, which contract was entered into with the
State in 1838. It was claimed that this was done by placing such
impediments and obstructions in the way of its enforcement,
thereby so impairing the remedies as practically to render the
obligation of no value. In disposing of this contention, the court
said: "If we assume that prior to 1873 the relator had authority to
prosecute his claim against the State by mandamus, and that by
the statutes of that year the further use of that form was
prohibited to him, the question remains. whether an effectual
remedy was left to him or provided for him. We think the
regulation of the statute gave him an abundant means of enforcing
such right as he possessed. It provided that he might pay his claim
to the collector under protest, giving notice thereof to the
Comptroller of the Treasury; that at any time within thirty days
thereafter he might sue the officer making the collection; that the
case should be tried by any court having jurisdiction and, if found
in favor of the plaintiff on the merits, the court should certify that
the same was wrongfully paid and ought to be refunded and the
Comptroller should thereupon issue his warrant therefor, which
should be paid in preference to other claim on the Treasury."
But great stress is laid upon the fact that the plaintiffs in the case
under consideration are unable to pay the taxes assessed against
them and that if the law is enforced, they will be compelled to
suspend business. This point may be best answered by quoting
from the case of Youngblood vs. Sexton (32 Mich., 406), wherein
Judge Cooley, speaking for the court, said: "But if this
consideration is sufficient to justify the transfer of a controversy
from a court of law to a court of equity, then every controversy
where money is demanded may be made the subject of equitable
cognizance. To enforce against a dealer a promissory note may in
some cases as effectually break up his business as to collect from
him a tax of equal amount. This is not what is known to the law as
irreparable injury. The courts have never recognized the
consequences of the mere enforcement of a money demand as
falling within that category."
Certain specified sections of Act No. 2339 were amended by Act
No. 2432, enacted December 23, 1914, effective January 1, 1915,
by imposing increased and additional taxes. Act No. 2432 was
amended, were ratified by the Congress of the United States on
March 4, 1915. The opposition manifested against the taxes
imposed by Acts Nos. 2339 and 2432 is a matter of local history. A
great many business men thought the taxes thus imposed were
too high. If the collection of the new taxes on signs, signboards,
and billboards may be restrained, we see no well-founded reason
why injunctions cannot be granted restraining the collection of all
or at least a number of the other increased taxes. The fact that this
may be done, shows the wisdom of the Legislature in denying the
use of the writ of injunction to restrain the collection of any tax
imposed by the Acts. When this was done, an equitable remedy
was made available to all dissatisfied taxpayers.
The question now arises whether, the case being one of which the
court below had no jurisdiction, this court, on appeal, shall
proceed to express an opinion upon the validity of provisions of
subsection (b) of section 100 of Act No. 2339, imposing the taxes
complained of. As a general rule, an opinion on the merits of a
controversy ought to be declined when the court is powerless to
give the relief demanded. But it is claimed that this case is, in many
particulars, exceptional. It is true that it has been argued on the
merits, and there is no reason for any suggestion or suspicion that
it is not a bona fide controversy. The legal points involved in the
merits have been presented with force, clearness, and great ability
by the learned counsel of both sides. If the law assailed were still in
force, we would feel that an opinion on its validity would be
justifiable, but, as the amendment became effective on January 1,
1915, we think it advisable to proceed no further with this branch
of the case.
The next question arises in connection with the supplementary
complaint, the object of which is to enjoin the Collector of Internal
Revenue from removing certain billboards, the property of the
plaintiffs located upon private lands in the Province of Rizal. The
plaintiffs allege that the billboards here in question "in no sense
constitute a nuisance and are not deleterious to the health, morals,
or general welfare of the community, or of any persons." The
defendant denies these allegations in his answer and claims that
after due investigation made upon the complaints of the British
and German Consuls, he "decided that the billboard complained of
was and still is offensive to the sight, and is otherwise a nuisance."
The plaintiffs proved by Mr. Churchill that the "billboards were
quite a distance from the road and that they were strongly built,
not dangerous to the safety of the people, and contained no
advertising matter which is filthy, indecent, or deleterious to the
morals of the community." The defendant presented no testimony
upon this point. In the agreed statement of facts submitted by the
parties, the plaintiffs "admit that the billboards mentioned were
and still are offensive to the sight."
The pertinent provisions of subsection (b) of section 100 of Act No.
2339 read: "If after due investigation the Collector of Internal
Revenue shall decide that any sign, signboard, or billboard
displayed or exposed to public view is offensive to the sight or is
otherwise a nuisance, he may by summary order direct the
removal of such sign, signboard, or billboard, and if same is not
removed within ten days after he has issued such order he my
himself cause its removal, and the sign, signboard, or billboard
shall thereupon be forfeited to the Government, and the owner
thereof charged with the expenses of the removal so effected.
When the sign, signboard, or billboard ordered to be removed as
herein provided shall not comply with the provisions of the general
regulations of the Collector of Internal Revenue, no rebate or
refund shall be allowed for any portion of a year for which the tax
may have been paid. Otherwise, the Collector of Internal Revenue
may in his discretion make a proportionate refund of the tax for
the portion of the year remaining for which the taxes were paid.
An appeal may be had from the order of the Collector of Internal
Revenue to the Secretary of Finance and Justice whose decision
thereon shall be final."
The Attorney-General, on behalf of the defendant, says: "The
question which the case presents under this head for
determination, resolves itself into this inquiry: Is the suppression
of advertising signs displayed or exposed to public view, which are
admittedly offensive to the sight, conducive to the public
interest?"
And cunsel for the plaintiffs states the question thus: "We contend
that that portion of section 100 of Act No. 2339, empowering the
Collector of Internal Revenue to remove billboards as nuisances, if
objectionable to the sight, is unconstitutional, as constituting a
deprivation of property without due process of law."
From the position taken by counsel for both sides, it is clear that
our inquiry is limited to the question whether the enactment
assailed by the plaintiffs was a legitimate exercise of the police
power of the Government; for all property is held subject to that
power.
As a consequence of the foregoing, all discussion and authorities
cited, which go to the power of the state to authorize
administrative officers to find, as a fact, that legitimate trades,
callings, and businesses are, under certain circumstances, statutory
nuisances, and whether the procedure prescribed for this purpose
is due process of law, are foreign to the issue here presented.
There can be no doubt that the exercise of the police power of the
Philippine Government belongs to the Legislature and that this
power is limited only by the Acts of Congress and those
fundamentals principles which lie at the foundation of all
republican forms of government. An Act of the Legislature which is
obviously and undoubtedly foreign to any of the purposes of the
police power and interferes with the ordinary enjoyment of
property would, without doubt, be held to be invalid. But where
the Act is reasonably within a proper consideration of and care for
the public health, safety, or comfort, it should not be disturbed by
the courts. The courts cannot substitute their own views for what
is proper in the premises for those of the Legislature. In
Munn vs. Illinois (94 U.S., 113), the United States Supreme Court
states the rule thus: "If no state of circumstances could exist to
justify such statute, then we may declare this one void because in
excess of the legislative power of this state; but if it could, we must
presume it did. Of the propriety of legislative interference, within
the scope of the legislative power, a legislature is the exclusive
judge."
This rule very fully discussed and declared in
Powell vs. Pennsylvania (127 U.S., 678) — "oleo-margarine" case.
(See also Crowley vs. Christensen, 137 U.S., 86, 87;
Camfield vs. U.S., 167 U.S., 518.) While the state may interfere
wherever the public interests demand it, and in this particular a
large discretion is necessarily vested in the legislature to
determine, not only what the interest of the public require, but
what measures are necessary for the protection of such interests;
yet, its determination in these matters is not final or conclusive,
but is subject to the supervision of the courts. (Lawton vs. Steele,
152 U.S., 133.) Can it be said judicially that signs, signboards, and
billboards, which are admittedly offensive to the sight, are not
with the category of things which interfere with the public safety,
welfare, and comfort, and therefore beyond the reach of the
police power of the Philippine Government?
The numerous attempts which have been made to limit by
definition the scope of the police power are only interesting as
illustrating its rapid extension within comparatively recent years to
points heretofore deemed entirely within the field of private
liberty and property rights. Blackstone's definition of the police
power was as follows: "The due regulation and domestic order of
the kingdom, whereby the individuals of the state, like members of
a well governed family, are bound to conform their general
behavior to the rules of propriety, good neigborhood, and good
manners, to be decent, industrious, and inoffensive in their
respective stations." (Commentaries, vol. 4, p. 162.)
Chanceller Kent considered the police power the authority of the
state "to regulate unwholesome trades, slaughter houses,
operations offensive to the senses." Chief Justice Shaw of
Massachusetts defined it as follows: "The power vested in the
legislature by the constitution to make, ordain, and establish all
manner of wholesome and reasonable laws, statutes, and
ordinances, either with penalties or without, not repugnant to the
constitution, as they shall judge to be for the good and welfare of
the commonwealth, and of the subjects of the same."
(Com. vs. Alger, 7 Cush., 53.)
In the case of Butchers' Union Slaughter-house, etc.
Co. vs. Crescent City Live Stock Landing, etc. Co. (111 U.S., 746), it
was suggested that the public health and public morals are matters
of legislative concern of which the legislature cannot divest itself.
(See State vs. Mountain Timber Co. [1913], 75 Wash., 581, where
these definitions are collated.)
In Champer vs. Greencastle (138 Ind., 339), it was said: "The police
power of the State, so far, has not received a full and complete
definition. It may be said, however, to be the right of the State, or
state functionary, to prescribe regulations for the good order,
peace, health, protection, comfort, convenience and morals of the
community, which do not ... violate any of the provisions of the
organic law." (Quoted with approval in Hopkins vs. Richmond [Va.,
1915], 86 S.E., 139.)
In Com. vs. Plymouth Coal Co. ([1911] 232 Pa., 141), it was said:
"The police power of the state is difficult of definition, but it has
been held by the courts to be the right to prescribe regulations for
the good order, peace, health, protection, comfort, convenience
and morals of the community, which does not encroach on a like
power vested in congress or state legislatures by the federal
constitution, or does not violate the provisions of the organic law;
and it has been expressly held that the fourteenth amendment to
the federal constitution was not designed to interfere with the
exercise of that power by the state."
In People vs. Brazee ([Mich., 1914], 149 N.W., 1053), it was said: "It
[the police power] has for its object the improvement of social and
economic conditioned affecting the community at large and
collectively with a view to bring about "he greatest good of the
greatest number."Courts have consistently and wisely declined to
set any fixed limitations upon subjects calling for the exercise of
this power. It is elastic and is exercised from time to time as
varying social conditions demand correction."
In 8 Cyc., 863, it is said: "Police power is the name given to that
inherent sovereignty which it is the right and duty of the
government or its agents to exercise whenever public policy, in a
broad sense, demands, for the benefit of society at large,
regulations to guard its morals, safety, health, order or to insure in
any respect such economic conditions as an advancing civilization
of a high complex character requires." (As quoted with approval in
Stettler vs.O'Hara [1914], 69 Ore, 519.)
Finally, the Supreme Court of the United States has said in Noble
State Bank vs. Haskell (219 U.S. [1911], 575: "It may be said in a
general way that the police power extends to all the great public
needs. It may be put forth in aid of what is sanctioned by usage, or
held by the prevailing morality or strong and preponderant opinion
to be greatly and immediately necessary to the public welfare."
This statement, recent as it is, has been quoted with approval by
several courts. (Cunningham vs. Northwestern Imp. Co. [1911], 44
Mont., 180; State vs. Mountain Timber Co. [1913], 75 Wash., 581;
McDavid vs. Bank of Bay Minette [Ala., 1915], 69 Sou., 452;
Hopkins vs. City of Richmond [Va., 1915], 86 S.E., 139;
State vs. Philipps [Miss. 1915], 67 Sou., 651.)
It was said in Com. vs. Alger (7 Cush., 53, 85), per Shaw, C.J., that:
"It is much easier to perceive and realize the existence and sources
of this police power than to mark its boundaries, or to prescribe
limits to its exercise." In Stone vs. Mississippi (101 U.S., 814), it was
said: "Many attempts have been made in this court and elsewhere
to define the police power, but never with entire success. It is
always easier to determine whether a particular case comes within
the general scope of the power, than to give an abstract definition
of the power itself, which will be in all respects accurate."
Other courts have held the same vow of efforts to evolve a
satisfactory definition of the police power. Manifestly, definitions
which fail to anticipate cases properly within the scope of the
police power are deficient. It is necessary, therefore, to confine
our discussion to the principle involved and determine whether
the cases as they come up are within that principle. The basic idea
of civil polity in the United States is that government should
interfere with individual effort only to the extent necessary to
preserve a healthy social and economic condition of the country.
State interference with the use of private property may be
exercised in three ways. First, through the power of taxation,
second, through the power of eminent domain, and third, through
the police power. Buy the first method it is assumed that the
individual receives the equivalent of the tax in the form of
protection and benefit he receives from the government as such.
By the second method he receives the market value of the
property taken from him. But under the third method the benefits
he derived are only such as may arise from the maintenance of a
healthy economic standard of society and is often referred to
as damnum absque injuria. (Com. vs. Plymouth Coal Co. 232 Pa.,
141; Bemis vs. Guirl Drainage Co., 182 Ind., 36.) There was a time
when state interference with the use of private property under the
guise of the police power was practically confined to the
suppression of common nuisances. At the present day, however,
industry is organized along lines which make it possible for large
combinations of capital to profit at the expense of the
socio-economic progress of the nation by controlling prices and
dictating to industrial workers wages and conditions of labor. Not
only this but the universal use of mechanical contrivances by
producers and common carriers has enormously increased the toll
of human life and limb in the production and distribution of
consumption goods. To the extent that these businesses affect not
only the public health, safety, and morals, but also the general
social and economic life of the nation, it has been and will continue
to be necessary for the state to interfere by regulation. By so doing,
it is true that the enjoyment of private property is interfered with
in no small degree and in ways that would have been considered
entirely unnecessary in years gone by. The regulation of rates
charged by common carriers, for instance, or the limitation of
hours of work in industrial establishments have only a very indirect
bearing upon the public health, safety, and morals, but do bear
directly upon social and economic conditions. To permit each
individual unit of society to feel that his industry will bring a fair
return; to see that his work shall be done under conditions that
will not either immediately or eventually ruin his health; to
prevent the artificial inflation of prices of the things which are
necessary for his physical well being are matters which the
individual is no longer capable of attending to himself. It is within
the province of the police power to render assistance to the
people to the extent that may be necessary to safeguard these
rights. Hence, laws providing for the regulation of wages and hours
of labor of coal miners (Rail & River Coal Co. vs. Taylor, 234 U.S.,
224); requiring payment of employees of railroads and other
industrial concerns in legal tender and requiring salaries to be paid
semimonthly (Erie R.R. Co. vs. Williams, 233 U.S., 685); providing a
maximum number of hours of labor for women (Miller vs. Wilson,
U.S. Sup. Ct. [Feb. 23, 1915], Adv. Opns., p. 342); prohibiting child
labor (Sturges & Burn vs. Beauchamp, 231 U.S., 320); restricting
the hours of labor in public laundries (In re Wong Wing, 167 Cal.,
109); limiting hours of labor in industrial establishment generally
(State vs. Bunting, 71 Ore., 259); Sunday Closing Laws
(State vs. Nicholls [Ore., 1915], 151 Pac., 473; People vs. C. Klinck
Packing Co. [N.Y., 1915], 108 N. E., 278; Hiller vs. State [Md., 1914],
92 Atl., 842; State vs. Penny, 42 Mont., 118; City of
Springfield vs. Richter, 257 Ill., 578, 580; State vs. Hondros [S.C.,
1915], 84 S.E., 781); have all been upheld as a valid exercise of the
police power. Again, workmen's compensation laws have been
quite generally upheld. These statutes discard the common law
theory that employers are not liable for industrial accidents and
make them responsible for all accidents resulting from trade risks,
it being considered that such accidents are a legitimate charge
against production and that the employer by controlling the prices
of his product may shift the burden to the community. Laws
requiring state banks to join in establishing a depositors' guarantee
fund have also been upheld by the Federal Supreme Court in Noble
State Bank vs. Haskell (219 U. S., 104), and Assaria State
Bank vs. Dolley (219 U.S., 121).
Offensive noises and smells have been for a long time considered
susceptible of suppression in thickly populated districts. Barring
livery stables from such locations was approved of in
Reinman vs. Little Rock (U.S. Sup. Ct. [Apr. 5, 1915], U.S. Adv. Opns.,
p. 511). And a municipal ordinance was recently upheld
(People vs. Ericsson, 263 Ill., 368), which prohibited the location of
garages within two hundred feet of any hospital, church, or school,
or in any block used exclusively for residential purposes, unless the
consent of the majority of the property owners be obtained. Such
statutes as these are usually upheld on the theory of safeguarding
the public health. But we apprehend that in point of fact they have
little bearing upon the health of the normal person, but a great
deal to do with his physical comfort and convenience and not a
little to do with his peace of mind. Without entering into the realm
of psychology, we think it quite demonstrable that sight is as
valuable to a human being as any of his other senses, and that the
proper ministration to this sense conduces as much to his
contentment as the care bestowed upon the senses of hearing or
smell, and probably as much as both together. Objects may be
offensive to the eye as well as to the nose or ear. Man's esthetic
feelings are constantly being appealed to through his sense of sight.
Large investments have been made in theaters and other forms of
amusement, in paintings and spectacular displays, the success of
which depends in great part upon the appeal made through the
sense of sight. Moving picture shows could not possible without
the sense of sight. Governments have spent millions on parks and
boulevards and other forms of civic beauty, the first aim of which
is to appeal to the sense of sight. Why, then, should the
Government not interpose to protect from annoyance this most
valuable of man's senses as readily as to protect him from
offensive noises and smells?
The advertising industry is a legitimate one. It is at the same time a
cause and an effect of the great industrial age through which the
world is now passing. Millions are spent each year in this manner
to guide the consumer to the articles which he needs. The sense of
sight is the primary essential to advertising success. Billboard
advertising, as it is now conducted, is a comparatively recent form
of advertising. It is conducted out of doors and along the arteries
of travel, and compels attention by the strategic locations of the
boards, which obstruct the range of vision at points where
travelers are most likely to direct their eyes. Beautiful landscapes
are marred or may not be seen at all by the traveler because of the
gaudy array of posters announcing a particular kind of breakfast
food, or underwear, the coming of a circus, an incomparable soap,
nostrums or medicines for the curing of all the ills to which the
flesh is heir, etc. It is quite natural for people to protest against this
indiscriminate and wholesale use of the landscape by advertisers
and the intrusion of tradesmen upon their hours of leisure and
relaxation from work. Outdoor life must lose much of its charm
and pleasure if this form of advertising is permitted to continue
unhampered until it converts the streets and highways into
veritable canyons through which the world must travel in going to
work or in search of outdoor pleasure.
The success of billboard advertising depends not so much upon the
use of private property as it does upon the use of the channels of
travel used by the general public. Suppose that the owner of
private property, who so vigorously objects to the restriction of
this form of advertising, should require the advertiser to paste his
posters upon the billboards so that they would face the interior of
the property instead of the exterior. Billboard advertising would
die a natural death if this were done, and its real dependency not
upon the unrestricted use of private property but upon the
unrestricted use of the public highways is at once apparent.
Ostensibly located on private property, the real and sole value of
the billboard is its proximity to the public thoroughfares. Hence,
we conceive that the regulation of billboards and their restriction
is not so much a regulation of private property as it is a regulation
of the use of the streets and other public thoroughfares.
We would not be understood as saying that billboard advertising is
not a legitimate business any more than we would say that a livery
stable or an automobile garage is not. Even a billboard is more
sightly than piles of rubbish or an open sewer. But all these
businesses are offensive to the senses under certain conditions.
It has been urged against ministering to the sense of sight that
tastes are so diversified that there is no safe standard of legislation
in this direction. We answer in the language of the Supreme Court
in Noble State Bank vs.Haskell (219 U.S., 104), and which has
already been adopted by several state courts (see supra), that "the
prevailing morality or strong and preponderating opinion"
demands such legislation. The agitation against the unrestrained
development of the billboard business has produced results in
nearly all the countries of Europe. (Ency. Britannica, vol. 1, pp.
237-240.) Many drastic ordinances and state laws have been
passed in the United States seeking to make the business
amenable to regulation. But their regulation in the United states is
hampered by what we conceive an unwarranted restriction upon
the scope of the police power by the courts. If the police power
may be exercised to encourage a healthy social and economic
condition in the country, and if the comfort and convenience of
the people are included within those subjects, everything which
encroaches upon such territory is amenable to the police power. A
source of annoyance and irritation to the public does not minister
to the comfort and convenience of the public. And we are of the
opinion that the prevailing sentiment is manifestly against the
erection of billboards which are offensive to the sight.
We do not consider that we are in conflict with the decision in
Eubank vs. Richmond (226 U.S., 137), where a municipal ordinance
establishing a building line to which property owners must
conform was held unconstitutional. As we have pointed out,
billboard advertising is not so much a use of private property as it
is a use of the public thoroughfares. It derives its value to the
power solely because the posters are exposed to the public gaze. It
may well be that the state may not require private property
owners to conform to a building line, but may prescribe the
conditions under which they shall make use of the adjoining
streets and highways. Nor is the law in question to be held invalid
as denying equal protection of the laws. In Keokee Coke
Co. vs. Taylor (234 U.S., 224), it was said: "It is more pressed that
the act discriminates unconstitutionally against certain classes. But
while there are differences of opinion as to the degree and kind of
discrimination permitted by the Fourteenth Amendment, it is
established by repeated decisions that a statute aimed at what is
deemed an evil, and hitting it presumably where experience shows
it to be most felt, is not to be upset by thinking up and
enumerating other instances to which it might have been applied
equally well, so far as the court can see. That is for the legislature
to judge unless the case is very clear."
But we have not overlooked the fact that we are not in harmony
with the highest courts of a number of the states in the American
Union upon this point. Those courts being of the opinion that
statutes which are prompted and inspired by esthetic
considerations merely, having for their sole purpose the promotion
and gratification of the esthetic sense, and not the promotion or
protection of the public safety, the public peace and good order of
society, must be held invalid and contrary to constitutional
provisions holding inviolate the rights of private property. Or, in
other words, the police power cannot interfere with private
property rights for purely esthetic purposes. The courts, taking this
view, rest their decisions upon the proposition that the esthetic
sense is disassociated entirely from any relation to the public
health, morals, comfort, or general welfare and is, therefore,
beyond the police power of the state. But we are of the opinion, as
above indicated, that unsightly advertisements or signs, signboards,
or billboards which are offensive to the sight, are not disassociated
from the general welfare of the public. This is not establishing a
new principle, but carrying a well recognized principle to further
application. (Fruend on Police Power, p. 166.)
For the foregoing reasons the judgment appealed from is hereby
reversed and the action dismissed upon the merits, with costs. So
ordered.
Arellano, C.J., Torres, Carson, and Araullo, JJ., concur.
DECISION ON THE MOTION FOR A REHEARING, JANUARY 24, 1916.
TRENT, J.:
Counsel for the plaintiffs call our attention to the case of Ex
parte Young (209 U.S., 123); and say that they are of the opinion
that this case "is the absolutely determinative of the question of
jurisdiction in injunctions of this kind." We did not refer to this
case in our former opinion because we were satisfied that the
reasoning of the case is not applicable to section 100 (b), 139 and
140 of Act No. 2339. The principles announced in the Young case
are stated as follows: "It may therefore be said that when the
penalties for disobedience are by fines so enormous and
imprisonment so severe as to intimidate the company and its
officers from resorting to the courts to test the validity of the
legislation, the result is the same as if the law in terms prohibited
the company from seeking judicial construction of laws which
deeply affect its rights.
It is urged that there is no principle upon which to base the claim
that a person is entitled to disobey a statute at least once, for the
purpose of testing its validity without subjecting himself to the
penalties for disobedience provided by the statute in case it is valid.
This is not an accurate statement of the case. Ordinarily a law
creating offenses in the nature of misdemeanors or felonies relates
to a subject over which the jurisdiction of the legislature is
complete in any event. In these case, however, of the
establishment of certain rates without any hearing, the validity of
such rates necessarily depends upon whether they are high
enough to permit at least some return upon the investment (how
much it is not now necessary to state), and an inquiry as to that
fact is a proper subject of judicial investigation. If it turns out that
the rates are too low for that purpose, then they are illegal. Now,
to impose upon a party interested the burden of obtaining a
judicial decision of such a question (no prior hearing having ever
been given) only upon the condition that, if unsuccessful, he must
suffer imprisonment and pay fines as provided in these acts, is, in
effect, to close up all approaches to the courts, and thus prevent
any hearing upon the question whether the rates as provided by
the acts are not too low, and therefore invalid. The distinction is
obvious between a case where the validity of the acts depends
upon the existence of a fact which can be determined only after
investigation of a very complicated and technical character, and
the ordinary case of a statute upon a subject requiring no such
investigation and over which the jurisdiction of the legislature is
complete in any event.
An examination of the sections of our Internal Revenue Law and of
the circumstances under which and the purposes for which they
were enacted, will show that, unlike the statutes under
consideration in the above cited case, their enactment involved no
attempt on the part of the Legislature to prevent dissatisfied
taxpayers "from resorting to the courts to test the validity of the
legislation;" no effort to prevent any inquiry as to their validity.
While section 139 does prevent the testing of the validity of
subsection (b) of section 100 in injunction suits instituted for the
purpose of restraining the collection of internal revenue taxes,
section 140 provides a complete remedy for that purpose. And
furthermore, the validity of subsection (b) does not depend upon
"the existence of a fact which can be determined only after
investigation of a very complicated and technical character," but
the jurisdiction of the Legislature over the subject with which the
subsection deals "is complete in any event." The judgment of the
court in the Young case rests upon the proposition that the
aggrieved parties had no adequate remedy at law.
Neither did we overlook the case of General Oil Co. vs. Crain (209
U.S., 211), decided the same day and citing Ex parte Young, supra.
In that case the plaintiff was a Tennessee corporation, with its
principal place of business in Memphis, Tennessee. It was engaged
in the manufacture and sale of coal oil, etc. Its wells and plant
were located in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Memphis was not only its
place of business, at which place it sold oil to the residents of
Tennessee, but also a distributing point to which oils were shipped
from Pennsylvania and Ohio and unloaded into various tanks for
the purpose of being forwarded to the Arkansas, Louisiana, and
Mississippi customers. Notwithstanding the fact that the company
separated its oils, which were designated to meet the
requirements of the orders from those States, from the oils for
sale in Tennessee, the defendant insisted that he had a right,
under the Act of the Tennessee Legislature, approved April 21,
1899, to inspect all the oils unlocated in Memphis, whether for
sale in that State or not, and charge and collect for such inspection
a regular fee of twenty-five cents per barrel. The company, being
advised that the defendant had no such right, instituted this action
in the inferior States court for the purpose of enjoining the
defendant, upon the grounds stated in the bill, from inspecting or
attempting to inspect its oils. Upon trial, the preliminary injunction
which had been granted at the commencement of the action, was
continued in force. Upon appeal, the supreme court of the State of
Tennessee decided that the suit was one against the State and
reversed the judgment of the Chancellor. In the Supreme Court of
the United States, where the case was reviewed upon a writ of
error, the contentions of the parties were stated by the court as
follows: "It is contended by defendant in error that this court is
without jurisdiction because no matter sought to be litigated by
plaintiff in error was determined by the Supreme Court of
Tennessee. The court simply held, it is paid, that, under the laws of
the State, it had no jurisdiction to entertain the suit for any
purpose. And it is insisted "hat this holding involved no Federal
question, but only the powers and jurisdiction of the courts of the
State of Tennessee, in respect to which the Supreme Court of
Tennessee is the final arbiter."
Opposing these contentions, plaintiff in error urges that whether a
suit is one against a State cannot depend upon the declaration of a
statute, but depends upon the essential nature ofthe suit, and that
the Supreme Court recognized that the statute "aded nothing to
the axiomatic principle that the State, as a sovereign, is not subject
to suit save by its own consent."And it is hence insisted that the
court by dismissing the bill gave effect to the law which was
attacked. It is further insisted that the bill undoubtedly present
rights under the Constitution of the United States and conditions
which entitle plaintiff in error to an injunction for the protection of
such rights, and that a statute of the State which operates to deny
such rights, or such relief, `is itself in conflict with the Constitution
of the United States."
That statute of Tennessee, which the supreme court of that State
construed and held to be prohibitory of the suit, was an act passed
February 28, 1873, which provides: "That no court in the State of
Tennessee has, nor shall hereafter have, any power, jurisdiction, or
authority to entertain any suit against the State, or any officer
acting by the authority of the State, with a view to reach the State,
its treasury, funds or property; and all such suits now pending, or
hereafter brought, shall be dismissed as to the State, or such
officer, on motion, plea or demurrer of the law officer of the State,
or counsel employed by the State."
The Supreme Court of the United States, after reviewing many
cases, said: "Necessarily, to give adequate protection to
constitutional rights a distinction must be made between valid and
invalid state laws, as determining the character of the suit against
state officers. And the suit at bar illustrates the necessity. If a suit
against state officer is precluded in the national courts by the
Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution, and may be forbidden
by a State to its courts, as it is contended in the case at bar that it
may be, without power of review by this court, it must be evident
that an easy way is open to prevent the enforcement of many
provisions of the Constitution; and the Fourteenth Amendment,
which is directed at state action, could be nullified as to much of its
operation. ... It being then the right of a party to be protected
against a law which violates a constitutional right, whether by its
terms or the manner of its enforcement, it is manifest that a
decision which denies such protection gives effect to the law, and
the decision is reviewable by this court."
The court then proceeded to consider whether the law of 1899
would, if administered against the oils in question, violate any
constitutional right of the plaintiff and after finding and adjudging
that the oils were not in movement through the States, that they
had reached the destination of their first shipment, and were held
there, not in necessary delay at means of transportation but for
the business purposes and profit of the company, and resting its
judgment upon the taxing power of the State, affirmed the decree
of the supreme court of the State of Tennessee.
From the foregoing it will be seen that the Supreme Court of
Tennessee dismissed the case for want of jurisdiction because the
suit was one against the State, which was prohibited by the
Tennessee Legislature. The Supreme Court of the United States
took jurisdiction of the controversy for the reasons above quoted
and sustained the Act of 1899 as a revenue law.
The case of Tennessee vs. Sneed (96 U.S., 69), and Shelton vs. Platt
(139 U.S., 591), relied upon in our former opinion, were not cited
in General Oil Co. vs. Crain, supra, because the questions
presented and the statutes under consideration were entirely
different. The Act approved March 31, 1873, expressly prohibits
the courts from restraining the collection of any tax, leaving the
dissatisfied taxpayer to his exclusive remedy — payment under
protest and suit to recover — while the Act approved February 28,
1873, prohibits suits against the State.
In upholding the statute which authorizes the removal of
signboards or billboards upon the sole ground that they are
offensive to the sight, we recognized the fact that we are not in
harmony with various state courts in the American Union. We have
just examined the decision of the Supreme Court of the State of
Illinois in the recent case (October [December], 1914) of Thomas
Cusack Co. vs. City of Chicago (267 Ill., 344), wherein the court
upheld the validity of a municipal ordinances, which reads as
follows: "707. Frontage consents required. It shall be unlawful for
any person, firm or corporation to erect or construct any bill-board
or sign-board in any block on any public street in which one-half of
the buildings on both sides of the street are used exclusively for
residence purposes, without first obtaining the consent, in writing,
of the owners or duly authorized agents of said owners owning a
majority of the frontage of the property, on both sides of the
street, in the block in which such bill-board or sign-board is to be
erected, constructed or located. Such written consent shall be filed
with the commissioner of buildings before a permit shall be issued
for the erection, construction or location of such bill-board or
sign-board."
The evidence which the Illinois court relied upon was the danger of
fires, the fact that billboards promote the commission of various
immoral and filthy acts by disorderly persons, and the inadequate
police protection furnished to residential districts. The last
objection has no virtue unless one or the other of the other
objections are valid. If the billboard industry does, in fact, promote
such municipal evils to noticeable extent, it seems a curious
inconsistency that a majority of the property owners on a given
block may legalize the business. However, the decision is
undoubtedly a considerable advance over the views taken by other
high courts in the United States and distinguishes several Illinois
decisions. It is an advance because it permits the suppression of
billboards where they are undesirable. The ordinance which the
court approved will no doubt cause the virtual suppression of the
business in the residential districts. Hence, it is recognized that
under certain circumstances billboards may be suppressed as an
unlawful use of private property. Logically, it would seem that the
premise of fact relied upon is not very solid. Objections to the
billboard upon police, sanitary, and moral grounds have been, as
pointed out by counsel for Churchill and Tait, duly considered by
numerous high courts in the United States, and, with one
exception, have been rejected as without foundation. The
exception is the Supreme Court of Missouri, which advances
practically the same line of reasoning as has the Illinois court in
this recent case. (St. Louis Gunning Advt. Co. vs. City of St. Louis,
137 S. W., 929.) In fact, the Illinois court, in Haller Sign
Works vs. Physical Culture Training School (249 Ill., 436),
"distinguished" in the recent case, said: "There is nothing
inherently dangerous to the health or safety of the public in
structures that are properly erected for advertising purposes."
If a billboard is so constructed as to offer no room for objections
on sanitary or moral grounds, it would seem that the ordinance
above quoted would have to be sustained upon the very grounds
which we have advanced in sustaining our own statute.
It might be well to note that billboard legislation in the United
States is attempting to eradicate a business which has already
been firmly established. This business was allowed to expand
unchecked until its very extent called attention to its objectionable
features. In the Philippine Islands such legislation has almost
anticipated the business, which is not yet of such proportions that
it can be said to be fairly established. It may be that the courts in
the United States have committed themselves to a course of
decisions with respect to billboard advertising, the full
consequences of which were not perceived for the reason that the
development of the business has been so recent that the
objectionable features of it did not present themselves clearly to
the courts nor to the people. We, in this country, have the benefit
of the experience of the people of the United States and may make
our legislation preventive rather than corrective. There are in this
country, moreover, on every hand in those districts where Spanish
civilization has held sway for so many centuries, examples of
architecture now belonging to a past age, and which are attractive
not only to the residents of the country but to visitors. If the
billboard industry is permitted without constraint or control to
hide these historic sites from the passerby, the country will be less
attractive to the tourist and the people will suffer a district
economic loss.
RULING: NO. A provision in an internal revenue law prohibiting the
courts from enjoining the collection for an internal revenue tax is
not invalid as opposed to the due process and equal protection of
the law clauses of the bill of rights of the Organic Act. Such
legislation has been upheld by the United States Supreme Court

The motion for a rehearing is therefore denied. Nor is such a provision of law invalid as curtailing the jurisdiction of
the courts of the Philippine Islands as fixed by section 9 of the
Arellano, C.J., Torres, and Carson, JJ., concur.
Organic Act; a) because jurisdiction was never conferred upon
Francis Churchill vs James Rafferty Philippine courts to enjoin the collection of taxes imposed by the
Philippine Commission; and b) because, in the present case,
FACTS: The judgment appealed from in this case perpetually
another adequate remedy has been provided by payment and
restrains and prohibits the defendant and his deputies from
protest
collecting and enforcing against the plaintiffs and their property
the annual tax mentioned and described in subsection (b) of
section 100 of Act No. 2339, effective July 1, 1914, and from
destroying or removing any sign, signboard, or billboard, the
property of the plaintiffs, for the sole reason that such sign,
signboard, or billboard is, or may be, offensive to the sight; and
decrees the cancellation of the bond given by the plaintiffs to
secure the issuance of the preliminary injunction granted soon
after the commencement of this action.

ISSUE: Whether or not a provision in the internal revenue law

prohibiting the courts from enjoining the collection of an internal
revenue tax is invalid