WHITE
LIGHT CORPORATION, G.R.
No. 122846
TITANIUM CORPORATION and
STA.
LOPMENT CORPORATION,
Petitioners, PUNO,
C.J.
QUISUMBING,
YNARES
CARPIO,
AUSTRIA-MARTINEZ,
- versus -
CARPIO
MORALES,
AZCUNA,
TINGA,
CHICO-NAZARIO,
VELASCO,
JR.,
NACHURA,
CITY OF
MAYOR ALFREDO S. LIM, BRION,
and
Respondent. PERALTA, JJ.
Promulgated:
January
20, 2009
x---------------------------------------------------------------------------x
Tinga,
J.:
With
another city ordinance of
In
City of Manila v. Laguio, Jr.,[1] the
Court affirmed the nullification of a city ordinance barring the operation of
motels and inns, among other establishments, within the Ermita-Malate area. The
petition at bar assails a similarly-motivated city ordinance that prohibits
those same establishments from offering short-time admission, as well as
pro-rated or “wash up” rates for such abbreviated stays. Our earlier decision tested the city
ordinance against our sacred constitutional rights to liberty, due process and
equal protection of law. The same parameters apply to the present petition.
This Petition[2] under Rule 45 of the Revised Rules
on Civil Procedure, which seeks the reversal of the Decision[3] in
C.A.-G.R. S.P. No. 33316 of the Court of Appeals, challenges the validity of
Manila City Ordinance No. 7774 entitled, “An Ordinance Prohibiting Short-Time
Admission, Short-Time Admission Rates, and Wash-Up Rate Schemes in Hotels,
Motels, Inns, Lodging Houses, Pension Houses, and Similar Establishments in the
City of Manila” (the Ordinance).
I.
The facts are as follows:
On
SECTION 1. Declaration of Policy. It is hereby the declared policy of the City Government to protect the best interest, health and welfare, and the morality of its constituents in general and the youth in particular.
SEC.
2. Title. This ordinance shall be known
as “An Ordinance” prohibiting short time admission in hotels, motels, lodging
houses, pension houses and similar establishments in the City of
SEC. 3. Pursuant to the above policy, short-time admission and rate [sic], wash-up rate or other similarly concocted terms, are hereby prohibited in hotels, motels, inns, lodging houses, pension houses and similar establishments in the City of Manila.
SEC. 4. Definition of Term[s]. Short-time admission shall mean admittance and charging of room rate for less than twelve (12) hours at any given time or the renting out of rooms more than twice a day or any other term that may be concocted by owners or managers of said establishments but would mean the same or would bear the same meaning.
SEC. 5. Penalty Clause. Any person or corporation who shall violate
any provision of this ordinance shall upon conviction thereof be punished by a
fine of Five Thousand (P5,000.00) Pesos or imprisonment for a period of
not exceeding one (1) year or both such fine and imprisonment at the discretion
of the court; Provided, That in case of [a]
juridical person, the president, the manager, or the persons in charge of the
operation thereof shall be liable:
Provided, further, That in case of subsequent conviction for the same
offense, the business license of the guilty party shall automatically be
cancelled.
SEC. 6. Repealing Clause. Any or all provisions of City ordinances not consistent with or contrary to this measure or any portion hereof are hereby deemed repealed.
SEC. 7. Effectivity. This ordinance shall take effect immediately upon approval.
Enacted by the city Council of
Approved by His Honor, the Mayor on
On
December 15, 1992, the Malate
Tourist and Development Corporation (MTDC) filed a complaint for declaratory relief
with prayer for a writ of preliminary injunction and/or temporary restraining order ( TRO)[5] with
the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Manila,
Branch 9 impleading as defendant, herein
respondent City of Manila (the City) represented by Mayor Lim.[6]
MTDC prayed that the Ordinance, insofar as it includes motels and inns as among
its prohibited establishments, be declared invalid and unconstitutional. MTDC
claimed that as owner and operator of the Victoria Court in Malate, Manila it
was authorized by Presidential Decree (P.D.) No. 259 to admit customers on a
short time basis as well as to charge customers wash up rates for stays of only
three hours.
On
On
On
On
During
the pre-trial conference, the WLC, TC and STDC agreed to submit the case for
decision without trial as the case involved a purely legal question.[16]
On
WHEREFORE,
in view of all the foregoing, [O]rdinance No. 7774 of the City of
Accordingly, the preliminary injunction heretofor issued is hereby made permanent.
SO ORDERED.[17]
The RTC noted that the ordinance
“strikes at the personal liberty of the individual guaranteed and jealously
guarded by the Constitution.”[18]
Reference was made to the provisions of the Constitution encouraging private
enterprises and the incentive to needed investment, as well as the right to
operate economic enterprises. Finally, from the observation that the illicit
relationships the Ordinance sought to dissuade could nonetheless be consummated
by simply paying for a 12-hour stay, the RTC likened the law to the ordinance
annulled in Ynot v. Intermediate Appellate Court,[19]
where the legitimate purpose of preventing indiscriminate slaughter of
carabaos was sought to be effected through an inter-province ban on the
transport of carabaos and carabeef.
The City later filed a petition for
review on certiorari with the Supreme Court.[20]
The petition was docketed as G.R. No. 112471. However in a resolution dated
Before the Court of Appeals, the City
asserted that the Ordinance is a valid exercise of police power pursuant to
Section 458 (4)(iv) of the Local Government Code which confers on cities, among
other local government units, the power:
[To] regulate the establishment, operation and maintenance of cafes, restaurants, beerhouses, hotels, motels, inns, pension houses, lodging houses and other similar establishments, including tourist guides and transports.[22]
The Ordinance, it is argued, is also a valid
exercise of the power of the City under Article III, Section 18(kk) of the
Revised Manila Charter, thus:
“to enact all ordinances it may deem necessary and proper for the sanitation and safety, the furtherance of the prosperity and the promotion of the morality, peace, good order, comfort, convenience and general welfare of the city and its inhabitants, and such others as be necessary to carry into effect and discharge the powers and duties conferred by this Chapter; and to fix penalties for the violation of ordinances which shall not exceed two hundred pesos fine or six months imprisonment, or both such fine and imprisonment for a single offense.[23]
Petitioners argued that the Ordinance
is unconstitutional and void since it violates the right to privacy and the
freedom of movement; it is an invalid exercise of police power; and it is an
unreasonable and oppressive interference in their business.
The Court of Appeals reversed the decision of the RTC and
affirmed the constitutionality of the Ordinance.[24]
First, it held that the Ordinance did not violate the right to privacy or the
freedom of movement, as it only penalizes the owners or operators of
establishments that admit individuals for short time stays. Second, the virtually limitless reach of
police power is only constrained by having a lawful object obtained through a
lawful method. The lawful objective of the Ordinance is satisfied since it aims
to curb immoral activities. There is a lawful method since the establishments
are still allowed to operate. Third, the adverse effect on the establishments
is justified by the well-being of its constituents in general. Finally, as held
in Ermita-Malate Motel Operators Association v. City Mayor of
TC, WLC and STDC come to this Court via petition for review
on certiorari.[25]
In their petition and Memorandum,
petitioners in essence repeat the assertions they made before the Court of Appeals.
They contend that the assailed Ordinance is an invalid exercise of police
power.
II.
We must address the threshold issue of petitioners’
standing. Petitioners allege that as owners of establishments offering
“wash-up” rates, their business is being unlawfully interfered with by the
Ordinance. However, petitioners also allege that the equal protection rights of
their clients are also being interfered with. Thus, the crux of the matter is
whether or not these establishments have the requisite standing to plead for
protection of their patrons' equal protection rights.
Standing
or locus standi is the
ability of a party to demonstrate to the court sufficient connection to and
harm from the law or action challenged to support that party's participation in
the case. More importantly, the doctrine of standing
is built on the principle of separation of powers,[26] sparing as it does unnecessary interference or invalidation
by the judicial branch of the actions rendered by its co-equal branches of
government.
The requirement of standing is a core component of the
judicial system derived directly from the Constitution.[27] The
constitutional component of standing doctrine incorporates concepts which concededly
are not susceptible of precise definition.[28] In this jurisdiction, the extancy of “a direct and personal interest” presents
the most obvious cause, as well as the standard test for a petitioner's
standing.[29] In a
similar vein, the United States Supreme Court reviewed and elaborated on the
meaning of the three constitutional standing requirements of injury, causation,
and redressability in Allen v. Wright.[30]
Nonetheless, the general rules on standing admit of several
exceptions such as the overbreadth doctrine, taxpayer suits, third party
standing and, especially in the
For this
particular set of facts, the concept of third party standing as an exception
and the overbreadth doctrine are appropriate. In Powers v. Ohio,[32] the
United States Supreme Court wrote that: “We have
recognized the right of litigants to bring actions on behalf of third parties,
provided three important criteria are satisfied: the litigant must have
suffered an ‘injury-in-fact,’ thus giving him or her a "sufficiently
concrete interest" in the outcome of the issue in dispute; the litigant
must have a close relation to the third party; and there must exist some
hindrance to the third party's ability to protect his or her own interests."[33] Herein, it is
clear that the business interests of the petitioners are likewise injured by
the Ordinance. They rely on the patronage of their customers for their
continued viability which appears to be threatened by the enforcement of the
Ordinance. The relative silence in constitutional litigation of such special
interest groups in our nation such as the American Civil Liberties Union in the
American jurisprudence is replete with examples where
parties-in-interest were allowed standing to advocate or invoke the fundamental
due process or equal protection claims of other persons or classes of persons
injured by state action. In Griswold v. Connecticut,[35] the United States Supreme Court held that
physicians had standing to challenge a reproductive health statute that would
penalize them as accessories as well as to plead the constitutional protections
available to their patients. The Court held that:
“The rights of
husband and wife, pressed here, are likely to be diluted or adversely affected
unless those rights are considered in a suit involving those who have this kind
of confidential relation to them."[36]
An even
more analogous example may be found in Craig v. Boren,[37] wherein the United States Supreme Court held
that a licensed beverage
vendor has standing to raise the equal protection claim of a male customer
challenging a statutory scheme prohibiting the sale of beer to males under the
age of 21 and to females under the age of 18. The United States
High Court explained that the vendors had standing "by acting as advocates
of the rights of third parties who seek access to their market or
function."[38]
Assuming
arguendo that petitioners do not have a relationship with their patrons
for the former to assert the rights of the latter, the overbreadth doctrine
comes into play. In overbreadth analysis, challengers to government action are
in effect permitted to raise the rights of third parties. Generally applied to
statutes infringing on the freedom of speech, the overbreadth doctrine applies
when a statute needlessly restrains even constitutionally guaranteed rights.[39]
In this case, the petitioners claim that the Ordinance makes a sweeping
intrusion into the right to liberty of their clients. We can see that based on
the allegations in the petition, the Ordinance suffers from overbreadth.
We thus
recognize that the petitioners have a right to assert the constitutional rights
of their clients to patronize their establishments for a “wash-rate” time
frame.
III.
To students of jurisprudence, the
facts of this case will recall to mind not only the recent City of Manila ruling,
but our 1967 decision in Ermita-Malate Hotel and Motel Operations
Association, Inc., v. Hon. City Mayor of
The
common thread that runs through those decisions and the case at bar goes beyond
the singularity of the localities covered under the respective ordinances. All
three ordinances were enacted with a view of regulating public morals including
particular illicit activity in transient lodging establishments. This could be
described as the middle case, wherein there is no wholesale ban on motels and
hotels but the services offered by these establishments have been severely
restricted. At its core, this is another case about the extent to which the
State can intrude into and regulate the lives of its citizens.
The test of a valid ordinance is well
established. A long line of decisions including City of Manila has held
that for an ordinance to be valid, it must not only be within the corporate
powers of the local government unit to enact and pass according to the
procedure prescribed by law, it must also conform to the following substantive
requirements: (1) must not contravene the Constitution or any statute; (2) must
not be unfair or oppressive; (3) must not be partial or discriminatory; (4)
must not prohibit but may regulate trade; (5) must be general and consistent
with public policy; and (6) must not be unreasonable.[41]
The Ordinance prohibits two specific
and distinct business practices, namely wash rate admissions and renting out a
room more than twice a day. The ban is evidently sought to be rooted in the police power as conferred on local government
units by the Local Government Code through such implements as the general
welfare clause.
A.
Police power, while incapable of an exact definition, has been purposely veiled in general terms to underscore its comprehensiveness to meet all exigencies and provide enough room for an efficient and flexible response as the conditions warrant.[42] Police power is based upon the concept of necessity of the State and its corresponding right to protect itself and its people.[43] Police power has been used as justification for numerous and varied actions by the State. These range from the regulation of dance halls,[44] movie theaters,[45] gas stations[46] and cockpits.[47] The awesome scope of police power is best demonstrated by the fact that in its hundred or so years of presence in our nation’s legal system, its use has rarely been denied.
The apparent goal of the Ordinance is
to minimize if not eliminate the use of the covered establishments for illicit
sex, prostitution, drug use and alike. These goals, by themselves, are
unimpeachable and certainly fall within the ambit of the police power of the
State. Yet the desirability of these ends do not sanctify any and all means for
their achievement. Those means must align with the Constitution, and our
emerging sophisticated analysis of its guarantees to the people. The Bill of
Rights stands as a rebuke to the seductive theory of Macchiavelli, and,
sometimes even, the political majorities animated by his cynicism.
Even as we design the
precedents that establish the framework for analysis of due process or equal
protection questions, the courts are naturally inhibited by a due deference to
the co-equal branches of government as they exercise their political functions.
But when we are compelled to nullify executive or legislative actions, yet
another form of caution emerges. If the Court were animated by the same passing
fancies or turbulent emotions that motivate many political decisions, judicial
integrity is compromised by any perception that the judiciary is merely the
third political branch of government. We derive our respect and good standing
in the annals of history by acting as judicious and neutral arbiters of the
rule of law, and there is no surer way to that end than through the development
of rigorous and sophisticated legal standards through which the courts analyze
the most fundamental and far-reaching constitutional questions of the day.
B.
The primary constitutional question
that confronts us is one of due process, as guaranteed under Section 1, Article
III of the Constitution. Due process evades a precise definition.[48] The purpose of the guaranty is to prevent arbitrary
governmental encroachment against the life, liberty and property of
individuals. The due process guaranty serves as a protection against arbitrary
regulation or seizure. Even corporations and partnerships are protected by the
guaranty insofar as their property is concerned.
The
due process guaranty has traditionally been interpreted as imposing two related
but distinct restrictions on government,
"procedural due process" and "substantive due
process." Procedural due process
refers to the procedures that the government must follow before it deprives a
person of life, liberty, or property.[49]
Procedural due process concerns itself with government action adhering to the
established process when it makes an intrusion into the private sphere.
Examples range from the form of notice given to the level of formality of a
hearing.
If due process were confined solely to its procedural
aspects, there would arise absurd situation of arbitrary government action,
provided the proper formalities are followed. Substantive due process completes
the protection envisioned by the due process clause. It inquires whether the
government has sufficient justification for depriving a person of life,
liberty, or property.[50]
The question of substantive due
process, moreso than most other fields of law, has reflected dynamism in progressive
legal thought tied with the expanded
acceptance of fundamental freedoms. Police power, traditionally awesome as it
may be, is now confronted with a more rigorous level of analysis before it can
be upheld. The vitality though of constitutional due process has not been
predicated on the frequency with which it has been utilized to achieve a
liberal result for, after all, the libertarian ends should sometimes yield to
the prerogatives of the State. Instead, the due process clause has acquired
potency because of the sophisticated methodology that has emerged to determine
the proper metes and bounds for its application.
C.
The general test of the validity of
an ordinance on substantive due process grounds is best tested when assessed
with the evolved footnote 4 test laid down by the U.S. Supreme Court in U.S. v. Carolene Products.[51] Footnote 4 of the Carolene Products case acknowledged
that the judiciary would defer to the legislature unless there is a
discrimination against a “discrete and insular” minority or infringement of a
“fundamental right.”[52] Consequently, two standards of judicial review
were established: strict scrutiny for laws dealing with freedom of the mind or
restricting the political process, and the rational basis standard of review
for economic legislation.
A third standard, denominated as
heightened or immediate scrutiny, was later adopted by the U.S. Supreme Court
for evaluating classifications based on gender[53]
and legitimacy.[54] Immediate scrutiny was adopted by the U.S.
Supreme Court in Craig,[55] after the Court declined to do so in Reed v. Reed.[56]
While the test may have first been
articulated in equal protection analysis, it has in the
We ourselves have often applied the
rational basis test mainly in analysis of equal protection challenges.[57] Using
the rational basis examination, laws or ordinances are upheld if they
rationally further a legitimate governmental interest.[58]
Under intermediate review, governmental interest is extensively examined and
the availability of less restrictive measures is considered.[59] Applying
strict scrutiny, the focus is on the presence of compelling, rather than substantial,
governmental interest and on the absence of less restrictive means for
achieving that interest.
In terms of judicial review of
statutes or ordinances, strict scrutiny refers to the standard for determining
the quality and the amount of governmental interest brought to justify the
regulation of fundamental freedoms.[60] Strict
scrutiny is used today to test the validity of laws dealing with the regulation
of speech, gender, or race as well as other fundamental rights as expansion
from its earlier applications to equal protection.[61]
The United States Supreme Court has expanded the scope of strict scrutiny to
protect fundamental rights such as suffrage,[62] judicial
access[63]
and interstate travel.[64]
If we were to take the myopic view
that an Ordinance should be analyzed strictly as to its effect only on the
petitioners at bar, then it would seem that the only restraint imposed by the
law which we are capacitated to act upon is the injury to property sustained by
the petitioners, an injury that would warrant the application of the most
deferential standard – the rational basis test. Yet as earlier stated, we
recognize the capacity of the petitioners to invoke as well the constitutional
rights of their patrons – those persons who would be deprived of availing short
time access or wash-up rates to the lodging establishments in question.
Viewed cynically, one might say that
the infringed rights of these customers were are trivial since they seem shorn
of political consequence. Concededly, these are not the sort of cherished
rights that, when proscribed, would impel the people to tear up their cedulas. Still, the Bill of Rights does
not shelter gravitas alone. Indeed,
it is those “trivial” yet fundamental freedoms – which the people reflexively
exercise any day without the impairing awareness of their constitutional
consequence – that accurately reflect the degree of liberty enjoyed by the
people. Liberty, as integrally incorporated as a fundamental right in the
Constitution, is not a Ten Commandments-style enumeration of what may or what
may not be done; but rather an atmosphere of freedom where the people do not
feel labored under a Big Brother presence as they interact with each other,
their society and nature, in a manner innately understood by them as inherent,
without doing harm or injury to others.
D.
The rights at stake herein fall
within the same fundamental rights to liberty which we upheld in City of Manila v. Hon. Laguio, Jr.
We expounded on that most primordial of rights, thus:
The U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Roth v. Board of Regents, sought to clarify the meaning of "liberty." It said:
While the Court has not attempted to define with exactness the liberty . . . guaranteed [by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments], the term denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and generally to enjoy those privileges long recognized . . . as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men. In a Constitution for a free people, there can be no doubt that the meaning of "liberty" must be broad indeed.[67] [Citations omitted]
It cannot be denied that the primary animus behind the ordinance is the
curtailment of sexual behavior. The City asserts before this Court that the
subject establishments “have gained notoriety as venue of ‘prostitution,
adultery and fornications’ in
The concept of liberty compels respect for the individual whose claim to privacy and interference demands respect. As the case of Morfe v. Mutuc, borrowing the words of Laski, so very aptly stated:
Man is one among many, obstinately refusing reduction to unity. His separateness, his isolation, are indefeasible; indeed, they are so fundamental that they are the basis on which his civic obligations are built. He cannot abandon the consequences of his isolation, which are, broadly speaking, that his experience is private, and the will built out of that experience personal to himself. If he surrenders his will to others, he surrenders himself. If his will is set by the will of others, he ceases to be a master of himself. I cannot believe that a man no longer a master of himself is in any real sense free.
Indeed, the right to privacy as a constitutional right was recognized in Morfe, the invasion of which should be justified by a compelling state interest. Morfe accorded recognition to the right to privacy independently of its identification with liberty; in itself it is fully deserving of constitutional protection. Governmental powers should stop short of certain intrusions into the personal life of the citizen.[70]
We cannot discount other legitimate
activities which the Ordinance would proscribe or impair. There are very
legitimate uses for a wash rate or renting the room out for more than twice a
day. Entire families are known to choose pass the time in a motel or hotel
whilst the power is momentarily out in their homes. In transit passengers who wish
to wash up and rest between trips have a legitimate purpose for abbreviated
stays in motels or hotels. Indeed any person or groups of persons in need of
comfortable private spaces for a span of a few hours with purposes other than
having sex or using illegal drugs can legitimately look to staying in a motel
or hotel as a convenient alternative.
E.
That the Ordinance prevents the
lawful uses of a wash rate depriving patrons of a product and the petitioners
of lucrative business ties in with another constitutional requisite for the
legitimacy of the Ordinance as a police power measure. It must appear that the
interests of the public generally, as distinguished from those of a particular
class, require an interference with private rights and the means must be reasonably necessary for the
accomplishment of the purpose and not unduly oppressive of private rights.[71] It must also be evident that no other
alternative for the accomplishment of the purpose less intrusive of private
rights can work. More importantly, a reasonable relation must exist between the
purposes of the measure and the means employed for its accomplishment, for even
under the guise of protecting the public interest, personal rights and those
pertaining to private property will not be permitted to be arbitrarily invaded.[72]
Lacking a concurrence of these
requisites, the police measure shall be struck down as an arbitrary intrusion
into private rights. As held in Morfe v. Mutuc, the exercise of police
power is subject to judicial review when life, liberty or property is affected.[73]
However, this is not in any way meant to take it away from the vastness of
State police power whose exercise enjoys the presumption of validity.[74]
Similar to the Comelec resolution
requiring newspapers to donate advertising space to candidates, this Ordinance
is a blunt and heavy instrument.[75] The
Ordinance makes no distinction between places frequented by patrons engaged in
illicit activities and patrons engaged in legitimate actions. Thus it prevents
legitimate use of places where illicit activities are rare or even unheard of.
A plain reading of section 3 of the Ordinance shows it makes no classification
of places of lodging, thus deems them all susceptible to illicit
patronage and subject them without exception to the unjustified prohibition.
The Court has professed its deep
sentiment and tenderness of the Ermita-Malate area, its longtime home,[76]
and it is skeptical of those who wish to depict our capital city – the
The behavior which the Ordinance
seeks to curtail is in fact already prohibited and could in fact be diminished
simply by applying existing laws. Less intrusive measures such as curbing the
proliferation of prostitutes and drug dealers through active police work would
be more effective in easing the situation. So would the strict enforcement of
existing laws and regulations penalizing prostitution and drug use. These measures would have minimal intrusion
on the businesses of the petitioners and other legitimate merchants. Further,
it is apparent that the Ordinance can easily be circumvented by merely paying
the whole day rate without any hindrance to those engaged in illicit
activities. Moreover, drug dealers and prostitutes can in fact collect “wash
rates” from their clientele by charging their customers a portion of the rent
for motel rooms and even apartments.
IV.
We reiterate that individual rights
may be adversely affected only to the extent that may fairly be required by the
legitimate demands of public interest or public welfare. The State is a leviathan that must be
restrained from needlessly intruding into the lives of its citizens. However well-intentioned
the Ordinance may be, it is in effect an arbitrary and whimsical intrusion into
the rights of the establishments as well as their patrons. The Ordinance
needlessly restrains the operation of the businesses of the petitioners as well
as restricting the rights of their patrons without sufficient justification.
The Ordinance rashly equates wash rates and renting out a room more than twice
a day with immorality without accommodating innocuous intentions.
The promotion of public
welfare and a sense of morality among citizens deserves the full endorsement of
the judiciary provided that such measures do not trample rights this Court is
sworn to protect.[77] The notion that the promotion of public
morality is a function of the State is as old as Aristotle.[78] The advancement of moral relativism as a
school of philosophy does not de-legitimize the role of morality in law, even
if it may foster wider debate on which particular behavior to penalize. It is conceivable that a society with relatively little
shared morality among its citizens could be functional so long as the pursuit
of sharply variant moral perspectives yields an adequate accommodation of
different interests.[79]
To be candid
about it, the oft-quoted American maxim that “you cannot legislate morality” is ultimately illegitimate as a matter
of law, since as explained by Calabresi, that
phrase is more accurately interpreted as meaning that efforts to legislate
morality will fail if they are widely at variance with public attitudes about
right and wrong.[80] Our penal laws, for one, are founded on age-old moral
traditions, and as long as there are widely accepted distinctions between right
and wrong, they will remain so oriented.
Yet the continuing progression of the human story has seen not
only the acceptance of the right-wrong distinction, but also the advent of
fundamental liberties as the key to the enjoyment of life to the fullest. Our
democracy is distinguished from non-free societies not with any more extensive
elaboration on our part of what is moral and immoral, but from our recognition
that the individual liberty to make the choices in our lives is innate, and
protected by the State. Independent and fair-minded judges themselves are under
a moral duty to uphold the Constitution as the embodiment of the rule of law,
by reason of their expression of consent to do so when they take the oath of
office, and because they are entrusted by the people to uphold the law.[81]
Even as the implementation of moral norms remains an
indispensable complement to governance, that prerogative is hardly absolute,
especially in the face of the norms of due process of liberty. And while the
tension may often be left to the courts to relieve, it is possible for the
government to avoid the constitutional conflict by employing more judicious,
less drastic means to promote morality.
WHEREFORE, the Petition is GRANTED. The
Decision of the Court of Appeals is REVERSED, and the Decision of the
Regional Trial Court of Manila, Branch 9, is REINSTATED. Ordinance No.
7774 is hereby declared UNCONSTITUTIONAL. No pronouncement as to costs.
SO ORDERED.
DANTE O. TINGA
Associate
Justice
WE CONCUR:
REYNATO S. PUNO
Chief Justice
|
LEONARDO A. QUISUMBING Associate
Justice
(On Official Leave) |
CONSUELO YNARES-SANTIAGO Associate Justice |
|
ANTONIO T. CARPIO Associate
Justice |
MA. ALICIA AUSTRIA-MARTINEZ Associate Justice |
|
RENATO C. CORONA Associate Justice |
CONCHITA CARPIO MORALES Associate Justice |
|
ADOLFO S. AZCUNA Associate
Justice PRESBITERO J. VELASCO, JR. |
MINITA V.
CHICO-NAZARIO Associate Justice ANTONIO EDUARDO B. NACHURA |
|
Associate
Justice |
Associate Justice (On Sick Leave) |
|
TERESITA
LEONARDO DE CASTRO Associate
Justice |
ARTURO D. BRION Associate
Justice |
(On
Official Leave)
DIOSDADO M. PERALTA
Associate Justice
C E R T I F I C A T I O N
Pursuant
to Article VIII, Section 13 of the Constitution, it is hereby certified that
the conclusions in the above Decision were reached in consultation
before the case was assigned to the writer of the opinion of the Court.
REYNATO S.
PUNO
Chief Justice
[3]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[18]
[28]
[29]See Domingo v. Carague, G.R. No. 161065,
[31]Supra note 29.
[34]See
Kelsey McCowan Heilman, The Rights of
Others: Protection and Advocacy
Organizations Associational Standing to Sue, 157
U.
[37]429
U.S. 190 (1976).
[38]
[39]Chavez v. Comelec, G.R. No. 162777,
[40]127 Phil. 306 (1967).
[41]City of
Manila v. Laguio, Jr., supra
note 1; Tatel v. Municipality of Virac,
G.R. No. 40243, 11 March 1992, 207 SCRA 157, 161; Solicitor General v. Metropolitan Manila Authority, G.R. No.
102782, 11 December 1991, 204 SCRA 837, 845; Magtajas v. Pryce Properties Corp., Inc., G.R. No. 111097, 20 July
1994, 234 SCRA 255, 268-267.
[42]Ermita-Malate Hotel and Motel Operators
Association, Inc. v. City Mayor of
[43]JMM Promotion and Management Inc. v. Court of Appeals, 329 Phil. 87, 94 (1996) citing Rubi v.
Provincial Board of Mindoro, 39 Phil. 660 (1919).
[44]
[45]People v. Chan, 65 Phil. 611 (1938).
[46]Javier v. Earnshaw, 64 Phil. 626 (1937).
[48]See
[50]
[53]Craig
v. Boren, 429
[57]Central Bank Employee’s Association v. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, 487 Phil. 531 (2004); Association of Small Landowners in the Philippines v. Secretary of Agrarian Reform, G.R. Nos. 78742, 79310, 79744, and 79777, July 14, 1989, 175 SCRA 343; In Ermita-Malate, supra note 1 at 324, the Court in fact noted: “if the liberty involved were freedom of the mind or the person, the standard for the validity of government acts is much more rigorous and exacting, but where the liberty curtailed affects what are at the most rights of property, the permissible scope of regulatory measures is wider."
[58]Central Bank Employee’s Association v. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, supra note 57.
[59]Id.
[60]Mendoza,
J., Concurring Opinion in Estrada v. Sandiganbayan, G.R. No. 148560,
[61]
[62]Bush
v. Gore, 531
[63]Boddie
v.
[64]Shapiro
v. Thompson, 394
[66]
[69]“Motel
patrons who are single and unmarried may invoke this right to autonomy to
consummate their bonds in intimate sexual conduct within the motel's premises —
be it stressed that their consensual sexual behavior does not contravene any
fundamental state policy as contained in the Constitution. (See Concerned Employee v. Glenda Espiritu Mayor,
A.M. No. P-02-1564,
[71]Metro Manila Development Authority v. Viron Transportation Co., G.R. Nos. 170656 and 170657, 15 August 2007, 530 SCRA 341.
[73]130 Phil. 415 (1968).
[74]Carlos Superdrug v. DSWD, G.R. No. 166494, June 29, 2007, Alalayan v. National Power Corporation, 24 Phil. 172 (1968); U.S. v. Salaveria, 39 Phil. 102 (1918).
[77]City of
[78]“The end of the state is not mere life; it is, rather, a good quality of life.” Therefore any state “which is truly so called, and is not merely one in name, must devote itself to the end of encouraging goodness. Otherwise, a political association sinks into a mere alliance…” The law “should be a rule of life such as will make the members of a [state] good and just.” Otherwise it “becomes a mere covenant – or (in the phrase of the Sophist Lycophron) ‘a guarantor of men’s rights against one another.’” Politics II.9.6-8.1280 31-1280bii; cited in Hamburger, M., Morals and Law: The Growth of Aristotle’s Legal Theory (1951 ed.), p. 178.
[80]Steven G., Render Unto
Caesar that which is Caesars, and unto God that which is God’s, 31 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 495. He cites the example of
the failed Twentieth (?) Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibited
the sale and consumption of liquor, where it was clear that the State cannot
justly and successfully regulate consumption of alcohol, when huge portions of
the population engage in its consumption.
See also Posner, Richard
H., The Problematics of Moral And
Legal Theory, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2002).
He writes:
. . . Holmes warned long ago of the pitfalls of
misunderstanding law by taking its moral vocabulary too seriously. A big part of legal education consists of
showing students how to skirt those pitfalls.
The law uses moral terms in part because of its origin, in part to be
impressive, in part to speak a language that the laity, to whom the commands of
the law are addressed, is more likely to understand – and in part, because
there is a considerable overlap between law and morality. The overlap, however, is too limited to
justify trying to align these two systems of social control (the sort of
project that Islamic nations such as