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     The lower court held that it is and
adjudged it "unconstitutional, and, therefore, null and void."
For reasons to be more specifically set forth, such judgment
must be reversed,    
  
     


 

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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 who was sued in his
capacity as such "charged with the general power and duty
to enforce ordinances of the City of Manila and to give the
necessary orders for the faithful execution and enforcement
of such ordinances." (par. 1). 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). It was then
alleged that on June 13, 1963, the Municipal Board of the
City of Manila enacted Ordinance No. 4760, approved on
June 14, 1963 by the then Vice-Mayor Herminio Astorga,
who was at the time acting as Mayor of the City of Manila.
(par. 3).

After which the alleged grievances against the ordinance


were set forth in detail. 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.

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.

In the a answer filed on August 3, 1963, there was an


admission of the personal circumstances regarding the
respondent Mayor and of the fact that petitioners are
licensed to engage in the hotel or motel business in the City
of Manila, of the provisions of the cited Ordinance but a
denial of its alleged nullity, whether on statutory or
constitutional grounds. 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 ‘  ‘ was contrary to law,
respondent Mayor prayed for, its dissolution and the
dismissal of the petition.

Instead of evidence being offered by both parties, there was


submitted a stipulation of facts dated September 28, 1964,
which reads:
1. That the petitioners Ermita-Malate Hotel and Motel
Operators Association, Inc. and Hotel del Mar Inc. are
duly organized and existing under the laws of the
Philippines, both with offices in the City of Manila, while
the petitioner Go Chin is the president and general
manager of Hotel del Mar Inc., and the intervenor Victor
Alabanza is a resident of Baguio City, all having the
capacity to sue and be sued;

2. That the respondent Mayor is the duly elected and


incumbent City Mayor and chief executive of the City of
Manila charged with the general power and duty to
enforce ordinances of the City of Manila and to give the
necessary orders for the faithful execution and
enforcement of such ordinances;

3. That the petitioners are duly licensed to engage in the


business of operating hotels and motels in Malate and
Ermita districts in Manila;

4. That on June 13, 1963, the Municipal Board of the City


of Manila enacted Ordinance No. 4760, which was
approved on June 14, 1963, by Vice-Mayor Herminio
Astorga, then the acting City Mayor of Manila, in the
absence of the respondent regular City Mayor,
amending sections 661, 662, 668-a, 668-b and 669 of
the compilation of the ordinances of the City of Manila
besides inserting therein three new sections. This
ordinance is similar to the one vetoed by the
respondent Mayor (Annex A) for the reasons stated in
its 4th Indorsement dated February 15, 1963 (Annex
B);
5. That the explanatory note signed by then Councilor
Herminio Astorga was submitted with the proposed
ordinance (now Ordinance 4760) to the Municipal
Board, copy of which is attached hereto as Annex C;

6. That the City of Manila derived in 1963 an annual


income of P101,904.05 from license fees paid by the
105 hotels and motels (including herein petitioners)
operating in the City of Manila.ï ï

Thereafter came a memorandum for respondent on January


22, 1965, 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   
 ‘ , but likewise
applicable American authorities. Such a memorandum
likewise refuted point by point the arguments advanced by
petitioners against its validity. Then barely two weeks later,
on February 4, 1965, the memorandum for petitioners was
filed reiterating in detail what was set forth in the petition,
with citations of what they considered to be applicable
American authorities and praying for a judgment declaring
the challenged ordinance "null and void and unenforceable"
and making permanent the writ of preliminary injunction
issued.

After referring to the motels and hotels, which are members


of the petitioners association, and referring to the alleged
constitutional questions raised by the party, the lower court
observed: "The only remaining issue here being purely a
question of law, the parties, with the nod of the Court, agreed
to file memoranda and thereafter, to submit the case for
decision of the Court." 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.

As noted at the outset, the judgment must be reversed. A


decent regard for constitutional doctrines of a fundamental
character ought to have admonished the lower court against
such a sweeping condemnation of the challenged ordinance.
Its decision cannot be allowed to stand, consistently with
what has hitherto been the accepted standards of
constitutional adjudication, in both procedural and
substantive aspects.

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      The principle
has been nowhere better expressed than in the leading case
of `  
 
     %
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

There is no question but that the challenged ordinance was


precisely enacted to minimize certain practices hurtful to
public morals. The explanatory note of the Councilor
Herminio Astorga included as annex to the stipulation of
facts, speaks of the alarming increase in the rate of
prostitution, adultery and fornication in Manila traceable in
great part to the existence of motels, which "provide a
necessary atmosphere for clandestine entry, presence and
exit" and thus become the "ideal haven for prostitutes and
thrill-seekers." The challenged ordinance then proposes to
check the clandestine harboring of transients and guests of
these establishments by requiring these transients and
guests to fill up a registration form, prepared for the
purpose, in a lobby open to public view at all times, and by
introducing several other amendatory provisions calculated
to shatter the privacy that characterizes the registration of
transients and guests." Moreover, the increase in the
licensed fees was intended to discourage "establishments of
the kind from operating for purpose other than legal" and at
the same time, to increase "the income of the city
government." It would appear therefore that the stipulation
of facts, far from sustaining any attack against the validity of
the ordinance, argues eloquently for it.

It is a fact worth noting that this Court has invariably


stamped with the seal of its approval, ordinances punishing
vagrancy and classifying a pimp or procurer as a vagrant;8
provide a license tax for and regulating the maintenance or
operation of public dance halls;9 prohibiting gambling;10
prohibiting jueteng;11 and monte;12 prohibiting playing of
panguingui on days other than Sundays or legal holidays;13
prohibiting the operation of pinball machines;14 and
prohibiting any person from keeping, conducting or
maintaining an opium joint or visiting a place where opium
is smoked or otherwise used,15 all of which are intended to
protect 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.       
    

             
            
             
      
           
     

   
We are thus led to considering the insistent, almost shrill
tone, in which the objection is raised to the question of due
process.16 @  
 
    
   

             


           
                
       
    


            
   
          
     
       
     
        @    
        
   
              
      
    
         
     17 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."18 It is
not a narrow or "technical conception with fixed content
unrelated to time, place and circumstances,"19 decisions
based on such a clause requiring a "close and perceptive
inquiry into fundamental principles of our society."20
Questions of due process are not to be treated narrowly or
pedantically in slavery to form or phrases.21

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,  
       
     
        
 

     
         

  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 second-class 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.22 As was
explained more in detail in the above Cu Unjieng case: (2)
Licenses for non-useful occupations are also incidental to the
police power and the right to exact a fee may be implied
from the power to license and regulate, but in fixing amount
of the license fees the municipal corporations are allowed a
much wider discretion in this class of cases than in the
former, and aside from applying the well-known legal
principle that municipal ordinances must not be
unreasonable, oppressive, or tyrannical, courts have, as a
general rule, declined to interfere with such discretion. 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.23

Moreover in the equally leading case of O    ‘24 this


Court affirmed the doctrine earlier announced by the
American Supreme Court that taxation may be made to
implement the state's police power. Only the other day, this
Court had occasion to affirm that the broad taxing authority
conferred by the Local Autonomy Act of 1959 to cities and
municipalities is sufficiently plenary to cover a wide range of
subjects with the only limitation that the tax so levied is for
public purposes, just and uniform.25

As a matter of fact, even without reference to the wide


latitude enjoyed by the City of Manila in imposing licenses
for revenue, it has been explicitly held in one case that
"much discretion is given to municipal corporations in
determining the amount," here the license fee of the
operator of a massage clinic, even if it were viewed purely as
a police power measure.26 The discussion of this particular
matter may fitly close with this pertinent citation from
another decision of significance: "It is urged on behalf of the
plaintiffs-appellees that the enforcement of the ordinance
could deprive them of their lawful occupation and means of
livelihood because they can not rent stalls in the public
markets. But it appears that plaintiffs are also dealers in
refrigerated or cold storage meat, the sale of which outside
the city markets under certain conditions is permitted x x x .
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 cannot prevent the
exercise of the police power. — 
             
    
           
 
       
 
    

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: `  
   
  
          
             
   
  
     
 
      

     
     
   
   
           
    @  
       
  
  
  
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A similar observation was made by Justice Laurel: "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. Persons 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 x x x To this fundamental aim of our Government the
rights of the individual are subordinated.   
 
        
             
        
               
         @          
          
 
           
              
    

It is noteworthy that the only decision of this Court


nullifying legislation because of undue deprivation of
freedom to contract, à‘
‘ à,30 no longer "retains its
virtuality as a living principle. The policy of
 ‘  ‘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.31 What may be
stressed sufficiently is that if the liberty involved were
freedom of the mind or the person, the standard for the
validity of governmental acts is much more rigorous and
exacting, but where the liberty curtailed affects at the most
rights of property, the permissible scope of regulatory
measure is wider.32 How justify then the allegation of a
denial of due process?

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 2

  ‘‘

2   2.33 to ‘
‘  
 ,34 the principle has
been consistently upheld that     
        
      

  
   
       
   
   
  

             
   A citation from Justice Holmes would
prove illuminating: "
  
 
  
             
     
 
    

 
      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.

Wherefore, the judgment of the lower court is reversed and


the injunction issued lifted forthwith. With costs.
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