SCBAR STAG NOTES Page 1 of 6

[ 2018 ] BRAVO BASTE!

FUNDAMENTAL POWERS OF THE Usually Property is wholesome and

STATE noxious or devoted to public use or
intended for purpose
Inherent powers of the State: a noxious
1. Police Power purpose and
2. Power of Eminent Domain may thus be
3. Power of Taxation destroyed
Compensation
Similarities: intangible, the full and protection
a. Inherent in the State, exercised even altruistic fair given and/or
without need of express constitutional feeling that equivalent of public
grant. the individual the property improvements
b. Necessary and indispensable; State has taken instituted by
cannot be effective without them. contributed government
c. Methods by which State interferes with to the public for the taxes
private property. good paid
d. Presuppose equivalent compensation Exercising Authority
e. Exercised primarily by the Legislature. Exercised May be Exercised
only by exercised by only by
Distinctions: government private government
entities
Police Power Eminent Taxation
Domain Delegation:
Purpose for the exercise of power
Public Necessity of Public Police Power Eminent Taxation
necessity and the public for necessity; life Domain
the right of the use of blood theory Generally exercised by Legislature
the State and private May be exercised upon valid delegation by:
of the public property 1. President; 1. President; 1. President;
to self- 2.Administrativ 2.Law-making 2.Law-
e bodies; bodies of making
preservation
3. Law-making LGUs; bodies of
and self-
bodies of LGUs 3.Public LGUs;
protection Corporations; 3.Public
Scope Quasi-public Corporations;
Regulates Affect only property rights Corporations; Quasi-public
both liberty and Corporations;
and property 4.Administrativ and
Nature of Property Involved e Bodies
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4.
Administrativ
e Bodies
POLICE POWER
- Power of promoting public welfare by
restraining and regulating the use of
liberty and property.
Concepts:
- Most pervasive, the least limitable, and
the most demanding of the three powers.
- Concerns government enactments which
precisely interfere with personal liberty
or property in order to promote general
welfare of the common good (Edu v.
Ericta, 1970).
- Cannot be bargained away through the
medium of a treaty or a contract (Stone v.
Mississippi, 101 U.S. 814)
- The taxing power may be used as an
implement of police power (Lutz v.
Araneta)
TAXATION AS IMPLEMENT OF POLICE
POWER
Gaston vs. Republic Planters Bank
Sugar Stabilization Fees – the
stabilization fees are in the nature of a
tax, which is within the power of the State
to impose for the promotion of the sugar
industry.
- Eminent domain may be used as an
implement of police power, especially in
the exercise of the latter in the regulation
of private property.
Requisites for valid exercise of Police Power:
1. Lawful Object
2. Lawful Means
EMINENT DOMAIN
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BRAVO BASTE!
- inherent right of the State to condemn
private property to public use upon
payment of just compensation.
Requisites for valid exercise of the power of
eminent domain:
1. Necessity
2. Private property
3. Taking in the constitutional sense
4. Public use
5. Payment of just compensation f. Due
process of law
Requisites of valid “taking”:
1. When the owner is actually deprived or
dispossessed of his property;
2. When there is a practical destruction or a
material impairment of the value of his
property;
3. When he is deprived of the ordinary use
thereof; or
4. Where the owner is deprived of the
ordinary and beneficial use of his
property. (Republic v. Borbon, G.R. No.
165354, January 12, 2015)
Meaning of Public Use
Filstream International Inc. v. Court of
Appeals
284 SCRA 716
The fact that the property is less than Vi
hectare and that only a few could actually
benefit from the expropriation does not
diminish its public use character, inasmuch
as “public use” now includes the broader
notion of indirect public benefit or
advantage, including, in particular, urban
land reform and housing.
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Manosca v. Court of Appeals
252 SCRA 412
The practical reality that greater benefit may
be derived by Iglesia ni Cristo members than
most others could well be true, but such
peculiar advantage still remains merely
incidental and secondary in nature. That only
few would actually benefit from the
expropriation of the property does not
necessarily diminish the essence and
character of public use.
Reckoning date of just compensation:
- based at the time it was taken from the
owner and appropriated by the
government. The “time of taking” does
not only mean the time when the
landowner was deprived of the use of his
property, or when the title was issued to
the Republic or the beneficiaries.
Exercise of Eminent Domain by LGUs
Requisites:
1. Exercised through the local chief
executive;
2. Through an ordinance (not a mere
resolution)
3. For public use, purpose, or welfare for
the benefit of the poor and the landless;
4. Payment of just compensation;
5. A valid and definite offer to buy was
made and was not accepted. (Sec. 19,
LGC)
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BRAVO BASTE!
Moday v. Court of Appeals
268 SCRA 568
Supreme Court held that the Sangguniang
Panlalawigan (of Agusan del Sur) was
without authority to disapprove Bunawan
Municipal Resolution No. 43-89 because,
clearly, the Municipality of Bunawan has the
authority to exercise the power of eminent
domain and its Sangguniang Bayan the
capacity to promulgate the assailed
resolution.
TAXATION
- Power by which the sovereign, through
its law-making body, raises revenue to
defray the necessary expenses of the
government.
Inherent Limitations:
1. Public purpose;
2. Non-delegability of power;
3. Situs of taxation
4. Exemption of government from taxation;
and
5. International comity
Constitutional Limitations:
1. Due process of law;
2. Equal protection of law;
3. Uniformity, equitability and
progressivity;
4. Non-impairment of contracts;
5. Non-imprisonment for non-payment of
poll tax;
6. Revenue and tariff bills must originate in
the House of Representatives;
7. Non-infringement of religious freedom;
8. Tax exemption of revenues and assets of
educational institutions
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[ 2018 ] BRAVO BASTE!

PRIVATE ACTS AND THE BILL OF Constitutional Statutory

RIGHTS Protects the Found in the Labor
individual from the Code and
The principle that the Bill of Rights applies only government and implementing rules
to actions taken by the state officials does not assures him of his and protects
necessarily mean that a private individual cannot rights in criminal, employees from
violate the liberty of another. Violation of the Bill civil, or being unjustly
of Rights as a constitutional guarantee can be administrative terminated without
done ONLY by public officials. But almost all of proceedings (Agabon just cause after notice
these liberties are also guaranteed by Article 32 v. NLRC, 2004) and hearing (Agabon
of the Civil Code, thus making private violations v. NLRC, 2004).
actionable even if the violation does not have a
constitutional consequence. 4. Hierarchy of rights
- While the rights are intimately related,
DUE PROCESS they have a hierarchy. As to their order of
- A law which hears before it condemns,
importance, right to life comes first,
which proceeds upon inquiry and renders
judgment only after trial” (Darmouth followed by right to liberty, and then right
College v. Woodward, 4 Wheaton 518) of property.

1. Relativity of due process 5. Judicial Review

Due process is flexible because not all situations

Requisites:
calling for procedural safeguards call for the
same kind of procedure (Secretary of Justice v. 1. Actual case or controversy;
Lantion, 2000) 2. Question must be raised by the proper
party;
2. Procedural and substantive due process 3. Raised at the earliest possible
opportunity; and
Procedural Substantive 4. Decision on the question must be
Compliance with the Substantive due
determinative of the case itself (Dumlao
procedures or steps, process is the intrinsic
even periods, validity of a law that v. COMELEC, 1980).
prescribed by the interferes with the
statute, in conformity rights of a person to Actual controversy
with the standard of his property (Ynot v. - There must be an actual conflict of legal
fair play and without Intermediate interest which can be resolved through
the arbitrariness on Appellate Court, judicial determination.
the part of those 1987).
who are called upon
to administer it
(Tupas v. Court of
Appeals, 1991).

3. Constitutional and statutory due

process
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[ 2018 ] BRAVO BASTE!

Montesclaros v. Commission on 6. Void-for-vagueness doctrine

Elections
384 SCRA 269
The Supreme Court cannot be asked to
declare a pending bill unconstitutional if
enacted into law. Until it becomes a law,
it creates no rights and obligations. To
declare it unconstitutional will involve
exercise of advisory power, which is not
judicial.
When a statute forbids or requires the doing of an
act in terms so vague that men of common
intelligence must necessarily guess as to its meaning
and differ as to its application, the law is deemed
void. Such kind of statute violates the first essential
requisite of due process of law because it denies the
accused the right to be informed of the charge
against him. (Estrada v. Sandiganbayan, 421 Phil.
290,430, November 19, 2001)

Locus Standi Void-for-vagueness Overbreadth

- Standing is peculiar to constitutional law. Doctrine Doctrine
When a case involves an issue of A statute is void for Decrees that a
transcendental importance, a private vagueness when it governmental
citizen is allowed to sue (Francisco Jr v. forbids or requires the purpose may not be
House of Representatives, 2003) doing of an act in
achieved by means of
terms so vague that
men of common a statute which
When may taxpayers, voters, citizens, and sweeps unnecessarily
intelligence cannot
legislators be accorded standing to sue? and thereby, invades
necessarily guess its
meaning and differ as the area of protected
When the following requirements are met: to its application. freedom
1. The case involves a constitutional issue;
2. For taxpayers: There is a claim of illegal
disbursement of public funds or the tax
measure is unconstitutional;
3. For voters: There is a showing of obvious
interest in the validity of the election law
in question;
4. For concerned citizens: There is a
showing that the issues are of
transcendental importance, which must
be settled early;
5. For legislators: There must be a claim
that the official action complained of
infringes upon their prerogatives as
legislators. (David v. Arroyo, 2006)
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[ 2018 ] BRAVO BASTE!