Вы находитесь на странице: 1из 5

ERMITA MOTEL ASSOCIATION v.

MAYOR OF MANILA
ISSUE: whether Ordinance No. 4760 of the City of Manila is violative of the due process clause.
HELD: REVERSED
The lower court held that it is and adjudged it "unconstitutional, and, therefore, null
and void."
Such judgment must be reversed, there being a failure of the requisite showing to
sustain an attack against its validity.
FACTS:
The petition for prohibition against Ordinance No. 4760 was filed on July 5, 1963 by the
petitioners, Ermita-Malate Hotel and Motel Operators Association, one of its members,
Hotel del Mar Inc., and a certain Go Chiu, who is "the president and general manager
of the second petitioner" against the respondent Mayor of the City of Manila
It was alleged that the petitioner non-stock corporation is dedicated to the promotion
and protection of the interest of its eighteen (18) members "operating hotels and
motels, characterized as legitimate businesses duly licensed by both national and city
authorities, regularly paying taxes, employing and giving livelihood to not less than
2,500 person and representing an investment of more than P3 million."1 (par. 2).
There was the assertion of its being beyond the powers of the Municipal Board of the
City of Manila to enact insofar as it would regulate motels, on the ground that in the
revised charter of the City of Manila or in any other law, no reference is made to
motels; that Section 1 of the challenged ordinance is unconstitutional and void for
being unreasonable and violative of due process insofar as it would impose P6,000.00
fee per annum for first class motels and P4,500.00 for second class motels; that the
provision in the same section which would require the owner, manager, keeper or duly
authorized representative of a hotel, motel, or lodging house to refrain from
entertaining or accepting any guest or customer or letting any room or other quarter
to any person or persons without his filling up the prescribed form in a lobby open to
public view at all times and in his presence, wherein the surname, given name and
middle name, the date of birth, the address, the occupation, the sex, the nationality,
the length of stay and the number of companions in the room, if any, with the name,
relationship, age and sex would be specified, with data furnished as to his residence
certificate as well as his passport number, if any, coupled with a certification that a
person signing such form has personally filled it up and affixed his signature in the
presence of such owner, manager, keeper or duly authorized representative, with such
registration forms and records kept and bound together, it also being provided that
the premises and facilities of such hotels, motels and lodging houses would be open
for inspection either by the City Mayor, or the Chief of Police, or their duly authorized
representatives is unconstitutional and void again on due process grounds, not only for
being arbitrary, unreasonable or oppressive but also for being vague, indefinite and
uncertain, and likewise for the alleged invasion of the right to privacy and the
guaranty against self-incrimination; that Section 2 of the challenged ordinance
classifying motels into two classes and requiring the maintenance of certain minimum
facilities in first class motels such as a telephone in each room, a dining room or,
restaurant and laundry similarly offends against the due process clause for being
arbitrary, unreasonable and oppressive, a conclusion which applies to the portion of
the ordinance requiring second class motels to have a dining room;
that the provision of Section 2 of the challenged ordinance prohibiting a person less
than 18 years old from being accepted in such hotels, motels, lodging houses, tavern
or common inn unless accompanied by parents or a lawful guardian and making it
unlawful for the owner, manager, keeper or duly authorized representative of such
establishments to lease any room or portion thereof more than twice every 24 hours,
runs counter to the due process guaranty for lack of certainty and for its unreasonable,
arbitrary and oppressive character; and that insofar as the penalty provided for in
Section 4 of the challenged ordinance for a subsequent conviction would, cause the
automatic cancellation of the license of the offended party, in effect causing the
destruction of the business and loss of its investments, there is once again a
transgression of the due process clause.
The lower court on July 6, 1963 issued a writ of preliminary injunction ordering
respondent Mayor to refrain from enforcing said Ordinance No. 4760 from and after
July 8, 1963.

After setting forth that the petition did fail to state a cause of action and that the
challenged ordinance bears a reasonable relation, to a proper purpose, which is to
curb immorality, a valid and proper exercise of the police power and that only the
guests or customers not before the court could complain of the alleged invasion of the
right to privacy and the guaranty against self incrimination, with the assertion that the
issuance of the preliminary injunction ex parte was contrary to law, respondent Mayor
prayed for, its dissolution and the dismissal of the petition.
LC HELD: It does appear obvious then that without any evidence submitted by the
parties, the decision passed upon the alleged infirmity on constitutional grounds of the
challenged ordinance, dismissing as is undoubtedly right and proper the untenable
objection on the alleged lack of authority of the City of Manila to regulate motels, and
came to the conclusion that "the challenged Ordinance No. 4760 of the City of
Manila, would be unconstitutional and, therefore, null and void."
It made permanent the preliminary injunction issued against respondent Mayor and
his agents "to restrain him from enforcing the ordinance in question." Hence this
appeal.

HELD: REVERSED
RATIO:
Primarily what calls for a reversal of such a decision is the absence of any evidence to
offset the presumption of validity that attaches to a challenged statute or ordinance.
"The presumption is all in favor of validity x x x The Judiciary should not lightly set aside
legislative action when there is not a clear invasion of personal or property rights under
the guise of police regulation
It admits of no doubt therefore that there being a presumption of validity, the necessity
for evidence to rebut it is unavoidable, unless the statute or ordinance is void on its
face which is not the case here.
As underlying questions of fact may condition the constitutionality of legislation of this
character, the resumption of constitutionality must prevail in the absence of some
factual foundation of record for overthrowing the statute." No such factual foundation
being laid in the present case, the lower court deciding the matter on the pleadings
and the stipulation of facts, the presumption of validity must prevail and the judgment
against the ordinance set aside
-

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 genera welfare.
Negatively put, police power is "that inherent and plenary power in the State which
enables it to prohibit all that is hurt full to the comfort, safety, and welfare of society.
There is no question but that the challenged ordinance was precisely enacted to
minimize certain practices hurtful to public morals
On the legislative organs of the government, whether national or local, primarily rest
the exercise of the police power, which, it cannot be too often emphasized, is the
power to prescribe regulations to promote the health, morals, peace, good order,
safety and general welfare of the people.
In view of the requirements of due process, equal protection and other applicable
constitutional guaranties however, the exercise of such police power insofar as it may
affect the life, liberty or property of any person is subject to judicial inquiry.
Where such exercise of police power may be considered as either capricious,
whimsical, unjust or unreasonable, a denial of due process or a violation of any other
applicable constitutional guaranty may call for correction by the courts.

We are thus led to considering the insistent, almost shrill tone, in which the objection is
raised to the question of due process.
There is no controlling and precise definition of due process. It furnishes though a
standard to which the governmental action should conform in order that deprivation
of life, liberty or property, in each appropriate case, be valid.
What then is the standard of due process which must exist both as a procedural and a
substantive requisite to free the challenged ordinance, or any governmental action for
that matter, from the imputation of legal infirmity sufficient to spell its doom?
It is responsiveness to the supremacy of reason, obedience to the dictates of justice.
Negatively put, arbitrariness is ruled out and unfairness avoided.
To satisfy the due process requirement, official action, to paraphrase Cardozo, must
not outrun the bounds of reason and result in sheer oppression.
Due process is thus hostile to any official action marred by lack of reasonableness.
Correctly it has been identified as freedom from arbitrariness. It is the embodiment of
the sporting idea of fair play. It exacts fealty "to those strivings for justice" and judges
the act of officialdom of whatever branch "in the light of reason drawn from
considerations of fairness that reflect [democratic] traditions of legal and political
thought."
It would thus be an affront to reason to stigmatize an ordinance enacted precisely to
meet what a municipal lawmaking body considers an evil of rather serious proportion
an arbitrary and capricious exercise of authority. It would seem that what should be
deemed unreasonable and what would amount to an abdication of the power to
govern is inaction in the face of an admitted deterioration of the state of public
morals.
To be more specific, the Municipal Board of the City of Manila felt the need for a
remedial measure. It provided it with the enactment of the challenged ordinance. A
strong case must be found in the records, and, as has been set forth, none is even
attempted here to attach to an ordinance of such character the taint of nullity for an
alleged failure to meet the due process requirement.
Nor does it lend any semblance even of deceptive plausibility to petitioners'
indictment of Ordinance No. 4760 on due process grounds to single out such features
as the increased fees for motels and hotels, the curtailment of the area of freedom to
contract, and, in certain particulars, its alleged vagueness.
Admittedly there was a decided increase of the annual license fees provided for by
the challenged ordinance for hotels and motels, 150% for the former and over 200% for
the latter, first-class motels being required to pay a P6,000 annual fee and secondclass motels, P4,500 yearly.
It has been the settled law however, as far back as 1922 that municipal license fees
could be classified into those imposed for regulating occupations or regular
enterprises, for the regulation or restriction of non-useful occupations or enterprises and
for revenue purposes only.
The desirability of imposing restraint upon the number of persons who might otherwise
engage in non-useful enterprises is, of course, generally an important factor in the
determination of the amount of this kind of license fee.
Hence license fees clearly in the nature of privilege taxes for revenue have frequently
been upheld, especially in of licenses for the sale of liquors. In fact, in the latter cases
the fees have rarely been declared unreasonable
Nor does the restriction on the freedom to contract, insofar as the challenged
ordinance makes it unlawful for the owner, manager, keeper or duly authorized
representative of any hotel, motel, lodging house, tavern, common inn or the like, to
lease or rent room or portion thereof more than twice every 24 hours, with a proviso
that in all cases full payment shall be charged, call for a different conclusion.
Again, such a limitation cannot be viewed as a transgression against the command of
due process. It is neither unreasonable nor arbitrary.
Precisely it was intended to curb the opportunity for the immoral or illegitimate use to
which such premises could be, and, according to the explanatory note, are being
devoted.
How could it then be arbitrary or oppressive when there appears a correspondence
between the undeniable existence of an undesirable situation and the legislative
attempt at correction.
Moreover, petitioners cannot be unaware that every regulation of conduct amounts
to curtailment of liberty which as pointed out by Justice Malcolm cannot be absolute.

Thus: "One thought which runs through all these different conceptions of liberty is
plainly apparent. It is this: 'Liberty' as understood in democracies, is not license; it is
'liberty regulated by law.' Implied in the term is restraint by law for the good of the
individual and for the greater good of the peace and order of society and the general
well-being. No man can do exactly as he pleases. Every man must renounce unbridled
license. The right of the individual is necessarily subject to reasonable restraint by
general law for the common good x x x The liberty of the citizen may be restrained in
the interest of the public health, or of the public order and safety, or otherwise within
the proper scope of the police power."28
-

Lastly, there is the attempt to impugn the ordinance on another due process ground
by invoking the principles of vagueness or uncertainty.
It would appear from a recital in the petition itself that what seems to be the
gravamen of the alleged grievance is that the provisions are too detailed and specific
rather than vague or uncertain.
Petitioners, however, point to the requirement that a guest should give the name,
relationship, age and sex of the companion or companions as indefinite and uncertain
in view of the necessity for determining whether the companion or companions
referred to are those arriving with the customer or guest at the time of the registry or
entering the room With him at about the same time or coming at any indefinite time
later to join him; a proviso in one of its sections which cast doubt as to whether the
maintenance of a restaurant in a motel is dependent upon the discretion of its owners
or operators; another proviso which from their standpoint would require a guess as to
whether the "full rate of payment" to be charged for every such lease thereof means a
full day's or merely a half-day's rate.
It may be asked, do these allegations suffice to render the ordinance void on its face
for alleged vagueness or uncertainty?
To ask the question is to answer it. From Connally v. General Construction Co.33 to
Adderley v. Florida,34 the principle has been consistently upheld that what makes a
statute susceptible to such a charge is an enactment either forbidding or requiring the
doing of an act that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its
meaning and differ as to its application. Is this the situation before us?
A citation from Justice Holmes would prove illuminating: "We agree to all the
generalities about not supplying criminal laws with what they omit but there is no
canon against using common sense in construing laws as saying what they obviously
mean."35
That is all then that this case presents. As it stands, with all due allowance for the
arguments pressed with such vigor and determination, the attack against the validity
of the challenged ordinance cannot be considered a success.
Far from it. Respect for constitutional law principles so uniformly held and so
uninterruptedly adhered to by this Court compels a reversal of the appealed decision.

Вам также может понравиться