City of Manila vs. Laguio, Jr.
City of Manila vs. Laguio, Jr.
*
G.R. No. 118127. April 12, 2005.
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* EN BANC.
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Same; Same; Same; Same; The rule is that the City Council
has only such powers as are expressly granted to it and those
which are necessarily implied or incidental to the exercise thereof.
—The rule is that the City Council has only such powers as are
expressly granted to it and those which are necessarily implied or
incidental to the exercise thereof. By reason of its limited powers
and the nature
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TINGA, J.:
I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after
and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.
Ernest Hermingway
Death in the Afternoon, Ch. 1
J. Christopher Gerald
Bonaparte in Egypt, Ch. I
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3
Trial Court (RTC) of Manila, Branch 18 (lower court), is
the validity of 4Ordinance No. 7783 (the Ordinance) of the
City of Manila.
The antecedents are as follows:
Private respondent Malate Tourist Development
Corporation (MTDC) is a corporation engaged in the
business5
of operating hotels, motels, hostels and lodging
houses. It built and opened Victoria Court in Malate which
was licensed as a motel although duly 6
accredited with the
Department of Tourism as a hotel. On 28 June 1993,
MTDC filed a Petition for Declaratory Relief with Prayer for
a Writ of Preliminary Injunction and/or Temporary
Restraining Order7 (RTC Petition) with the lower court
impleading as defendants, herein petitioners City of
Manila, Hon. Alfredo S. Lim (Lim), Hon. Joselito L.
Atienza, and the members of the City Council of Manila
(City Council). MTDC prayed that the Ordinance, insofar
as it includes motels and inns as among its prohibited8
establishments, be declared invalid
9
and unconstitutional.
Enacted by the City Council on 9 March 1993 and
approved by petitioner City Mayor on 30 March 1993, the
said Ordinance is entitled—
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9. Cabarets
10. Dance Halls
11. Motels
12. Inns
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12
12
Section 458 (a) 4 (iv) of the Local Government Code of
1991
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Section 458. Powers, Duties, Functions and Compensation. (a) The sangguniang
panlungsod, as the legislative body of the city, shall enact ordinances, approve
resolutions and appropriate funds for the general welfare of the city and its
inhabitants pursuant to Section 16 of this Code and in the proper
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exercise of the corporate powers of the city as provided for under Section 22 of this
Code, and shall:
...
(4) Regulate activities relative to the use of land, buildings and structures
within the city in order to promote the general welfare and for said purpose shall:
....
(iv) Regulate the establishment, operation and maintenance of cafes,
restaurants, beerhouses, hotels, motels, inns, pension houses, lodging houses, and
other similar establishments, including tourist guides and transports; . . .
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No. 1081, dated September 21, 1972, and General Order No. 1, dated September
22, 1972, as amended, do hereby order and decree the classification as a
Commercial Zone of that portion of the Ermita-Malate area bounded by Teodoro
M. Kalaw, Sr. Street in the north; Taft Avenue in the east; Vito Cruz Street in the
south and Roxas Boulevard in the west. PROVIDED, HOWEVER, That no permit
shall be granted for the establishment of any new warehouse or open storage
depot, dump or yard, motor repair shop, gasoline service station, light industry
with any machinery or funeral establishment in these areas, and PROVIDED,
FURTHER, That for purposes of realty tax assessment on properties situated
therein, lands and buildings used exclusively for residential purposes by the
owners themselves shall remain assessed as residential properties.
All laws, ordinances, orders, rules and regulations which are inconsistent with
this Decree are hereby repealed or modified accordingly.
This Decree shall take effect immediately.
Done in the City of Manila this 28th day of June in the year of Our Lord,
nineteen hundred and seventy-four.
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322 SUPREME COURT REPORTS ANNOTATED
City of Manila vs. Laguio, Jr.
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Citing Kwong Sing v. City of Manila, petitioners insisted
that the power of regulation spoken of in the above-quoted
provision included the power to control, to 18govern and to
restrain places of exhibition and amusement.
Petitioners likewise asserted that the Ordinance was
enacted by the City Council of Manila to protect the social
and moral welfare of the community in conjunction with its
police power as found19 in Article III, Section 18(kk) of
Republic Act No. 409, otherwise known as the Revised 20
Charter of the City of Manila (Revised Charter of Manila)
which reads, thus:
ARTICLE III
THE MUNICIPAL BOARD
...
Section 18. Legislative powers.—The Municipal Board shall
have the following legislative powers:
...
(kk) To enact all ordinances it may deem necessary and proper
for the sanitation and safety, the furtherance of the prosperity,
and the promotion of the morality, peace, good order, comfort,
convenience, and general welfare of the city and its inhabitants,
and such others as may be necessary to carry into effect and
discharge the powers and duties conferred by this chapter; and to
fix penalties for the violation of ordinances which shall not exceed
two hundred pesos fine or six months’ imprisonment, or both such
fine and imprisonment, for a single offense.
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17 41 Phil. 103 (1920); see also Samson v. Mayor of Bacolod City, G.R.
No. L-28745, 23 October 1974, 60 SCRA 267.
18 RTC Records, p. 161.
19 Approved on 18 June 1949.
20 RTC Records, p. 160.
21 Supra note 18.
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22 Id., at p. 164.
23 Ibid.
24 Id., at pp. 165-169.
25 Id., at p. 84.
26 Id., at p. 453.
27 Rollo, pp. 6 and 72.
28 Id., at p. 6.
29 Dated 12 December 1994; Id., at p. 73.
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30 Id., at p. 2.
31 Supra note 13.
32 Rollo, p. 13.
33 Id., at pp. 190-201.
34 Id., at pp. 16, 194, 198.
35 Id., at pp. 19, 22, 25-26, 199.
36 Id., at pp. 150-180.
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38 See ART. 7, par. (3) of the Civil Code which reads, thus:
...
Administrative or executive acts, orders and regulations shall be valid only
when they are not contrary to the laws or the Constitution.
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49
reason, obedience to the dictates of justice, and as50such it
is a limitation upon the exercise of the police power.
The purpose of the guaranty is to prevent governmental
encroachment against the life, liberty and property of
individuals; to secure the individual from the arbitrary
exercise of the powers of the government, unrestrained by
the established principles of private rights and distributive
justice; to protect property from confiscation by legislative
enactments, from seizure, forfeiture, and destruction
without a trial and conviction by the ordinary mode of
judicial procedure; and to secure to all persons equal
51
and
impartial justice and the benefit of the general law.
The guaranty serves as a protection against arbitrary
regulation, and private corporations and partnerships are
“persons” within the scope
52
of the guaranty insofar as their
property is concerned.
This clause has been interpreted as imposing two
separate limits on government, usually called “procedural
due process” and “substantive due process.”
Procedural due process, as the phrase implies, refers to
the procedures that the government must follow before it
deprives a person of life, liberty, or property. Classic
procedural due process issues are concerned with what
kind of notice and what form of hearing the 53government
must provide when it takes a particular action.
Substantive due process, as that phrase connotes, asks
whether the government has an adequate reason for taking
away a person’s life, liberty, or property. In other words,
sub-
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VOL. 455, APRIL 12, 2005 333
City of Manila vs. Laguio, Jr.
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tion, Inc. v. City Mayor of Manila had already taken
judicial notice of the “alarming increase in the rate of
prostitution, adultery and fornication in Manila traceable
in great part to existence of motels, which provide a
necessary atmosphere for clandestine entry, presence and
exit and thus 64 become the ideal haven for prostitutes and
thrill-seekers.”
The object of the Ordinance was, accordingly, the
promotion and protection of the social and moral values of
the community. Granting for the sake of argument that the
objectives of the Ordinance are within the scope of the City
Council’s police powers, the means employed for the
accomplishment thereof were unreasonable and unduly
oppressive.
It is undoubtedly one of the fundamental duties of the
City of Manila to make all reasonable regulations looking
to the promotion of the moral and social values of the
community. However, the worthy aim of fostering public
morals and the eradication of the community’s social ills
can be achieved through means less restrictive of private
rights; it can be attained by reasonable restrictions rather
than by an absolute prohibition. The closing down and
transfer of businesses or their conversion into businesses
“allowed” under the Ordinance have no reasonable relation
to the accomplishment of its purposes. Otherwise stated,
the prohibition of the enumerated establishments will not
per se protect and promote the social and moral welfare of
the community; it will not in itself eradicate the alluded
social ills of prostitution, adultery, fornication nor will it
arrest the spread of sexual disease in Manila.
Conceding for the nonce that the Ermita-Malate area
teems with houses of ill-repute and establishments 65of the
like which the City Council may lawfully prohibit, it is
baseless
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While the Court has not attempted to define with exactness the
liberty. . . guaranteed [by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments],
the term denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but
also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of
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67 Rubi v. Provincial Board, 39 Phil. 660 (1919), as cited in Morfe v. Mutuc, 130
Phil. 415; 22 SCRA 424 (1968).
68 Morfe v. Mutuc, 130 Phil. 415, 440; 22 SCRA 424, 440 (1968).
69 408 U.S. 572.
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tected by the
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Constitution allows persons the right to make
this choice. Their right to liberty under the due process
clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct
without intervention of the government, as long as they do
not run afoul of the law. Liberty should be the rule and
restraint the exception.
Liberty in the constitutional sense not only means
freedom from unlawful government restraint; it must
include privacy as well, if it is to be a repository of freedom.
The right to be let alone is the beginning of all freedom—it
is the most comprehensive73
of rights and the right most
valued by civilized men.
The concept of liberty compels respect for the individual
whose claim to privacy and interference
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demands respect.
As the case of Morfe v. Mutuc, borrowing the words of
Laski, so very aptly stated
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Modality employed is
unlawful taking
In addition, the Ordinance is unreasonable and oppressive
as it substantially divests
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the respondent of the beneficial
use of its property. The Ordinance in Section 1 thereof
forbids the running of the enumerated businesses in the
Ermita-Malate area and in Section 3 instructs its
owners/operators to wind up business operations or to
transfer outside the area or convert said businesses into
allowed businesses. An ordinance which permanently
restricts the use of property that it can not be used for any
reasonable purpose goes beyond regulation and must be
recognized as77 a taking of the property without just
compensation. It is intrusive and violative of the
private property rights of individuals.
The Constitution expressly provides in Article III,
Section 9, that “private property shall not be taken for
public use without just compensation.” The provision is the
most impor-
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82 See Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, 438 U.S. 104
(1978).
83 CHEMERINSKY , supra note 53 at pp. 623-626.
84 See Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003 (1992).
85 Ibid.
86 CHEMERINSKY, supra note 53 at p. 166.
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344
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89 People v. Fajardo, supra note 76 at 443, 448 citing Tews v. Woolhiser
(1933) 352 I11. 212, 185 N.E. 827.
90 Id., at pp. 446-447.
91 Id., at p. 447, citing Schloss Poster Adv. Co., Inc. v. City of Rock Hill,
et al., 2 SE (2d), pp. 394-395; People v. Nazario, No. L-44143, 31 August
1988, 165 SCRA 186, 195.
92 402 U.S. 611 (1971).
93 No. L-44143, 31 August 1988, 165 SCRA 186, 195.
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VOL. 455, APRIL 12, 2005 347
City of Manila vs. Laguio, Jr.
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101 Nuñez v. Sandiganbayan, 197 Phil. 407; 111 SCRA 433 (1982).
102 CRUZ, supra note 59 at p. 125.
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351
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And in People v. Esguerra, wherein the Court nullified an
ordinance of the Municipality of Tacloban which prohibited
the selling, giving and dispensing of liquor ratiocinating
that the municipality is empowered only to regulate the
same and not prohibit. The Court therein declared that:
These doctrines
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still hold contrary to petitioners’
assertion that they were modified by the Code vesting
upon City Councils prohibitory powers.
Similarly, the City Council exercises regulatory powers
over public dancing schools, public dance halls, sauna
baths, massage parlors, and other places for entertainment
or amusement as found in the first clause of Section 458 (a)
4 (vii). Its powers to regulate, suppress and suspend “such
other events or activities for amusement or entertainment,
particularly those which tend to disturb the community or
annoy the inhabitants” and to “prohibit certain forms of
amusement or entertainment in order to protect the social
and moral welfare of the community” are stated in the
second and third clauses, respectively of the same Section.
The several powers of the City Council as provided in
Section 458 (a) 4 (vii) of the Code, it is pertinent to
emphasize, are separated by semi-colons (;), the use of
which indicates that the clauses in which these powers are
set forth are independent of each other albeit closely
related to justify being 110 put together in a single
enumeration or paragraph. These powers, therefore,
should not
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...
If it were the intention of Congress to confer upon the City
Council the power to prohibit the establishments
enumerated in Section 1 of the Ordinance, it would have so
declared in
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119 FRANCISCO, supra note 113 at pp. 178-179; See King, et al. v.
Hernaez, etc., et al., 114 Phil. 730, 739; 4 SCRA 792, 801 (1962).
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The requirement that the enactment must not violate existing law
explains itself. Local political subdivisions are able to legislate
only by virtue of a valid delegation of legislative power from the
national legislature (except only that the power to create their
own sources of revenue and to levy taxes is conferred by the
Constitution itself). They are mere agents vested with what is
called the power of subordinate legislation. As delegates of the
Congress, the local government units cannot contravene but must
obey at all times the will of their principal. In the case before us,
the enactment in question, which are merely local in origin cannot
prevail 122
against the decree, which has the force and effect of a
statute.
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120 Chua Lao, etc., et al. v. Raymundo, etc., et al., 104 Phil. 302, 307
(1958).
121 G.R. No. 102782, 11 December 1991, 204 SCRA 837.
122 Id., at p. 847.
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Conclusion
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123 Balacuit v. Court of First Instance of Agusan del Norte, supra note
61 at pp. 198-199.
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SO ORDERED.
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