Ermita V Manila
Ermita V Manila
Ermita V Manila
SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
RESOLUTION
FERNANDO, J.:
A Motion for the reconsideration of our decision of July 31, 1967 was filed
by petitioners, followed by a Motion for new trial. As the Motion for
reconsideration is clearly without merit, there is no occasion for this sought-
for new trial. Consequently, both motions are denied.
In the decision of this Court of July 31, 1967, sought to be reconsidered, its
basis was categorically set forth in the following language:
The late Professor Hamilton of the Yale Law School, one of the most
distinguished constitutionalists, would have been appalled by the
unorthodoxy of the view of counsel of petitioners. For him, the O'Gorman
opinion was a manifestation of the jurist's art at its best:
If the jurists have the feelings of other men, Monday, the fifth of
January nineteen hundred and thirty one, must have been a day of
consequence in the life of Mr. Justice Brandeis. On that day he
handed down the judgment of the United States Supreme Court in
the O'Gorman case. The cause was a simple suit in contract: the
result depended upon the validity of a New Jersey statute regulating
the commissions to be paid by insurance companies to their agents
for securing business. The more general question was the tolerance
to be accorded to legislative price-fixing under the Fourteenth
Amendment. And, as the fortunes of litigation broke, the issue came
to be the intellectual procedure by which the constitutionality of the
acts which make up the public control of business are to be
determined. Upon that day the views of Brandeis became "the
opinion of the court," and a new chapter in judicial history began to be
written.
The prop here failing, is there anything else in the Motion for
reconsideration that calls for a modification of the decision of this Court?
The answer must be in the negative. It ought not to have escaped
petitioners that the opinion of the Court after noting the lack of factual
foundation to offset the presumption of constitutionality went on to discuss
the due process aspects to make clear that on its face, the Ordinance
cannot be considered void.
Nor may petitioners assert with plausibility that on its face the
ordinance is fatally defective as being repugnant to the due process
clause of the Constitution. The mantle of protection associated with
the due process guaranty does not cover petitioners. This particular
manifestation of a police power measure being specifically aimed to
safeguard public morals is immune from such imputation of nullity
resting purely on conjecture and unsupported by anything of
substance. To hold otherwise would be to unduly restrict and narrow
the scope of police power which has been properly characterized as
the most essential, insistent and the least limitable of powers,
extending as it does "to all the great public needs." It would be, to
paraphrase another leading decision, to destroy the very purpose of
the state if it could be deprived or allowed itself to be deprived of its
competence to promote public health, public morals, public safety
and the general welfare. Negatively put, police power is "that inherent
and plenary power in the State which enables it to prohibit all that is
hurtful to the comfort, safety, and welfare of society."
There is nothing in the Motion for reconsideration that in any wise affects
adversely or impairs the force of the above conclusion. The task of proving
that the challenged Ordinance is void on its face is one attended with
difficulty. Nonetheless, with the persistence worthy of a better cause,
petitioners would cite as fatal infirmity the alleged invasion of the rights
against unreasonable search and seizure, to liberty, and to property.
That leaves only the alleged grievance that there was an unconstitutional
invasion of property rights. It goes without saying that petitioners
themselves cannot ignore that one could, consistently with the fundamental
law, be deprived of his property as long as due process is observed. The
decision makes clear that such indeed was the case as far as this
Ordinance was concerned. To that aspect, a considerable portion of the
opinion was devoted, citing a number of applicable decisions of this Court,
all tending to demonstrate that there was no due process infraction. The
Motion for reconsideration is conspicuously barren of any attempt to show
that under our previous decisions referred to, the challenged Ordinance
could be successfully assailed. It would follow then that this reiteration of
an argument, previously shown to be far from persuasive, is deserving of a
similar fate.
That is all there is to the Motion for reconsideration. That and what Justice
Cardozo aptly referred to as reference to "grotesque or fanciful situations,"
which if they would arise could then be appropriately dealt with. As the
famed jurist aptly noted: "That they are conceivable though improbable
ought not to govern our construction." 14 That is not the way then to impugn
the validity of an ordinance. Neither could it be rightfully looked upon as
laying a foundation for setting aside a decision. The Motion for
reconsideration, to repeat, is palpably lacking in merit.
Nor does the invocation of the laissez faire concept as bar against the
enactment of regulatory measures, which undoubtedly would result in the
diminution of income and the loss of business, occasion any misgiving as
to the conformity of the decision arrived at by this Court with controlling
constitutional law principles. Did not petitioners take note of the view
announced by Justice Laurel quoted in the decision to the effect that the
policy "of laissez faire has to some extent given way to the assumption by
the government of the right of intervention even in contractual relations
affected with public interest." The decision likewise cited this jurist,
speaking for the Court inCalalang v. Williams:15 "Public welfare, then, lies at
the bottom of the enactment of said law, and the state in order to promote
the general welfare may interfere with personal liberty, with property, and
with business and occupations. Perhaps and property may be subjected to
all kinds of restraints and burdens, in order to secure, the general comfort,
health, and prosperity of the state. . . . To this fundamental aim of our
Government the rights of the individual are subordinated." That was in
1940. Then in 1955, came Co Kiam v. City of Manila,16 where Justice
Reyes, A., for a unanimous Court categorically declared: "And surely, the
mere fact that some individuals in the community may be deprived of their
present business or a particular mode of earning a living can not prevent
the exercise of the police power. As was said in a case, persons licensed to
pursue occupations which may in the public need and interest be affected
by the exercise of the police power embark in those occupations subject to
the disadvantages which may result from the legal exercise of that power.
(City of New Orleans v. Stafford, 27 L. Ann. 417)."
Nor does the reference by new counsel to American state court decisions
call for a different conclusion. The United States Supreme Court in the
leading case of West Virginia State Board of Education v.
Barnette,17 decided in 1943, was equally explicit, saying "the laissez-faire
concept or principle of non-interference has withered at least as to
economic affairs, and social advancements are increasingly sought through
closer integration of society and through expanded and strengthened
governmental controls." Two names of great repute, Freund and Learned
Hand, were cited by petitioners. Neither if properly understood, could help
their cause at all. According to Freund: "In short, when freedom of the mind
is imperiled by law, it is freedom that commands a momentum of respect,
when property is imperiled, it is the lawmakers' judgment that commands
respect. This dual standard may not precisely reverse the presumption of
constitutionality in civil liberties cases, but obviously it does set up a
hierarchy of values within the due process clause." 18 The illustrious
Learned Hand writing on Chief Justice Stone's concept of the judicial
function had occasion to note the "discredited attitude" of what he referred
to "as the old apostles of the institution of property. . . ." 19
What then is left? Clearly nothing to call for the reconsideration of our
decision of July 31, 1967. Nor is there the least justification for a new trial
and reception of evidence.