ermita motel association v mayor of manila

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    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 tosustain 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 aperson 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 afterJuly 8, 1963.

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    - 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 otherapplicable constitutional guaranty may call for correction by the courts.

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    - 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 forthat 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 bedeemed 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 bythe 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.

    - 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.

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    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 inthe 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 themaintenance 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.33to

    Adderley v. Florida,34the 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 nocanon 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.

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