There was a plea for the issuance of preliminary injunction and for a final

judgment declaring the above ordinance null and void and

unenforceable. 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.

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 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

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.

DECISION:

wherein stress was laid on the presumption of the validity of the

challenged ordinance, the burden of showing its lack of conformity to
the Constitution resting on the party who assails it, citing not only U.S. v.
Salaveria, but likewise applicable American authorities.

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. As was expressed categorically by
Justice Malcolm: "The presumption is all in favor of validity x x x . The
action of the elected representatives of the people cannot be lightly set
aside. The councilors must, in the very nature of things, be familiar with
the necessities of their particular municipality and with all the facts and
circumstances which surround the subject and necessitate action. The
local legislative body, by enacting the ordinance, has in effect given
notice that the regulations are essential to the well being of the people 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.2

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.

The principle has been nowhere better expressed than in the

leading case of O'Gorman & Young v. Hartford Fire Insurance
Co.,3 where the American Supreme Court through Justice
Brandeis tersely and succinctly summed up the matter thus:
The statute here questioned deals with a subject clearly within
the scope of the police power. We are asked to declare it void
on the ground that the specific method of regulation prescribed
is unreasonable and hence deprives the plaintiff of due process
of law. 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,4 extending as it does "to all the great public needs."5 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.6 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.7

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.

DUE PROCESS:

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.
 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.

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.