SECTION 1.

No PERSON SHALL BE DEPRIVED OF LIFE, LDJERTY OR PROPERTY WITHOUT DUE PROCESS OF

LAW, NOR SHALL ANY PERSON BE DENIED THE EQUAL PROTECTION OF THE LAWS

Bill of Rights: Protection against abuse of power.

-Police power has been characterized as "the most essential, insistent, and the least limitable of powers,
extending as it does to all ,public needs. Negatively, it has been defined as "that inherent and

plenary power in the State which enables it to prohibit all that to the comfort, safety, and welfare of
society.

-Police power has likewise been used to justify public safety measures such as building regulations,the
regulation of the carrying of deadly weapons, the requirement of rotational participation in patrol duty,
regulation of gasoline stations and movie theaters, and the use of city roads.

-public morals- police power has been used as the basis for judicial approval of legislation punishing
vagrancy and classifying a pimp as a vagrant, regulating the operation of public dance halls, prohibiting
gambling, regulating the days when panguingui may be played, licensing cockpits, penalizing various
activities connected with the use of opium, prohibiting the operation of pinball machines, regulating the
operation of motels and hotels, and regulating establishment of massage parlors.

-But where a municipality refused to give any permit for night clubs and any license for professional
dancers, the Court declared the ordinance unconstitutional as going beyond mere regulation into
prohibition of a profession or calling which, properly regulated, can be legitimate. Similarly, even
conceding that the Ermita- Malate area teems with houses of ill-repute and establishments of the like
which the City Council may lawfully prohibit, it is baseless and insupportable to bring within that
classification sauna parlors, massage parlors, karaoke bars, night clubs, day clubs, supper clubs,
discotheques, cabarets, dance halls, motels and inns. The enumerated establishments are lawful
pursuits which are not per se offensive to the moral welfare of the community.

-Moreover, while gambling may prohibited, when it is allowed, the courts will not pass judgment on the
choice of Congress. "The morality of gambling is not a justiciable issue. Gambling is not illegal per se.
While it is generally considered inimical to the interests of the people, there is nothing in the
Constitution categorically proscribing or penalizing gambling or, for that matter, even mentioning it at
all. It is left to the discretion of Congress to deal with the activity as it sees fit." Nor may local
governments, in spite of the provisions on local autonomy, contravene the judgment of Congress not to
prohibit gambling.

-Under the general rubric of promoting the general welfare, enactments have been upheld regulating
the slaughter of carabaos, prescribing provisions for the suppression of agricultural pests, regulating
nuisances, laying down rules for the deportation of aliens, regulating building construction and the
activities of town criers and the noise of bells, prescribing registration of land under the Torrens System,
zoning regulations, moratorium laws, anti-graft laws designed to curb activities of public officials,
restrictions on foreign exchange, and limitation on the net profits realized by public utilities.
-PP is subject to the supervision of courts.

Life, liberty, property

-A law allowing only skilled workers to be deployed for overseas employment can be valid. No right is
absolute, and the proper regulation of a profession, calling, business or trade has always been upheld as
a legitimate subject of a valid exercise of the police power by the state particularly when their conduct
affects either the execution of legitimate governmental functions, the preservation of the State, or the

public health and welfare and public morals.

-Private commercial blood banks are protected property. However, although their phase out can be
disadvantageous to the owners as it can affect their businesses and existing contracts with hospitals and
other health institutions, it can be justified by the duty of the State to promote the general welfare. The
State may interfere with personal liberty, with property, and with business and occupations in order to
secure the general welfare.

-But an Executive Order requiring the closure of bus terminals in the city was found to be an
unreasonable exercise of police power as it would seriously inconvenience the riding public. Moreover,
even if the E.O. were valid, the MMDA would be the wrong person to carry it out since this matter has
been given by law to DOTC.

-The constitutional protection of the right to life is not just a protection of the right to be alive or to the
security of one's limb against physical harm. The right to life is also the right to a good life.

Hierarchy of rights

Property and property rights can be lost through prescription; but human rights are imprescriptible. If
human rights are extinguished by the passage of time, then the Bill of Rights is a useless attempt to limit
the power of government and ceases to be an efficacious shield against the tyranny of officials, of
majorities, of the influential and powerful, and of oligarchs — political, economic or otherwise.

In the hierarchy of civil liberties, the rights of free expression and of assembly occupy a preferred
position as they are essential to the preservation and vitality of our civil and political institutions; and
such priority "gives these liberties the sanctity and the sanction not permitting dubious intrusions."

The superiority of these freedoms over property rights is underscored by the fact that a mere
reasonable or rational relation between the means employed by the law and its object or purpose —
that the law is neither arbitrary nor discriminatory nor oppressive — would suffice to validate a law
which restricts or impairs property rights. On the other hand, a constitutional or valid infringement of
human rights requires a more stringent criterion, namely existence of a grave and immediate danger of
a substantive evil which the State has the right to prevent.
Due process as procedural fairness

-Thus, due process was understood to relate chiefly to the mode of procedure which government
agencies must follow; it was understood as a guarantee of procedural fairness. Law that hears before it
condemns.

-U.S. v. Ling Su Fan proclaims that due process simply means:

First. That there shall be a law prescribed in harmony with the general powers of the legislative
department of the Government;

Second. That this law shall be reasonable in its operation;

Third. That it shall be enforced according to the regular methods of procedure prescribed; and

Fourth. That it shall be applicable aliketo all citizens of a state or to all of a class.

-Forbes v. Chuoco Tiaco has this generalized statement:

Due process of law, in any particular case, means such an exercise of the powers of the government as
the settled maxims of law permit and sanction under such safeguards for the protection of individual
rights as those maxims prescribe for the class of cases to which the one in question belongs.

-due process of law depends on circumstances. It varies with the subject matter and the necessities of
the situation.

-Espanol Filipino v. Palanca, presents what has been considered a clear delineation of the essentials of
procedural fairness in judicial proceedings. The Court said:

As applied to judicial proceedings ... it may be laid down with certainty that the requirement of due
process is satisfied if the following conditions are present, namely:

(1) There must be a court or tribunal clothed with judicial power to hear and determine the matter
before it;

(2) jurisdiction must be lawfully acquired over the person of the defendant or over the property which is
the subject of the proceedings;

(3) the defendant must be given an opportunity to be heard; and

(4) judgment must be rendered upon lawful hearing.

-Ang Tibay v. Court of Industrial Relations has called the "cardinal primary" requirements in
administrative proceedings. These requirements Justice Laurel gleaned from an array of American
decisions. They are:

(1) The right to a hearing, which includes the right to present one's case and submit evidence in support
thereof;
(2) The tribunal must consider the evidence presented;

(3) The decision must have something to support itself;

(4) The evidence must be substantial. Substantial evidence means such reasonable evidence as a
reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion;

(5) The decision must be based on the evidence presented at the hearing, or at least contained in the
record and disclosed to the parties affected;

(6) The tribunal or body or any of its judges must act on its own independent consideration of the law
and facts of the controversy, and not simply accept the views of a subordinate;

(7) The Board or body should, in all controversial questions, render its decision in such manner that the

parties to the proceeding can know the various issues involved, and the reason for the decision
rendered.

-Whether in judicial or administrative proceedings, therefore, the heart of procedural due process is the
need for notice and an opportunity to be heard. Moreover, what is required is not actual hearing but a
real opportunity to be heard. Thus, one who refuses to appear at a hearing is not thereby denied due
process if a decision is reached without waiting for him. Likewise, the requirement of due process can be
satisfied by subsequent due hearing.

-It has recently been held that, While fairness is not violated in administrative proceedings when the
hearing officer is not the same person who decides the case, there is violation of due process when the

officer who reviews a case is the same person whose decision is on appeal. It has also been held that,
while notice and hearing are required in judicial and quasi-judicial proceedings, they are not
prerequisites in the promulgation of general rules. But fixing rates, being a quasi-judicial process,
requires hearing.

Substantive due process.

-If all that the due process clause requires is proper procedure, then life, liberty, and property can be
destroyed provided proper forms are observed. Such an interpretation, evidently, makes of the due
process clause a totally inadequate protection for personal and property rights. Hence, the clause must
be understood to guarantee not just forms of procedure but also the very substance of life, liberty and
property. The due process clause must be interpreted both as a procedural and as a substantive
guarantee. It must be a guarantee against the exercise of arbitrary power even when the power is
exercised according to proper forms and procedure.

-U.S. v. Toribio, where a statute regulating the slaughter of large cattle, a measure designed to preserve
work animals needed for agriculture, was challenged as unlawful deprivation of property. With approval,
the Court quoted Lawton v. Steel:
... [t]he State may interfere wherever the public interest demands it, and in this particular a large
discretion is necessarily vested in the legislature to determine, not only what the interests of the public
require, but what measures are necessary for the protection of such interests. To justify the State in
thus interposing its authority in behalf of the public, it must appear, first, that the interests of the public
generally, as distinguished from those of a particular class, require such interference; and, second, that
the means are reasonably necessary for the accomplishment of the purpose, and not unduly oppressive
upon individuals. The legislature may not, under the guise of protecting the public interest, arbitrarily
interfere with private business, or impose unusual and unnecessary restrictions upon lawful
occupations. In other words, its determination as to what is a proper exercise of its police powers is not
final or conclusive, but is subject to the supervision of the courts.

-Not so successful, however, were the efforts of the Mayor and Chief of Police of Manila to clean the city
of prostitutes. Not authorized by any law, order or regulation, they herded together the prostitutes of
Manila and shipped them to the distant province of Davao. There was at that time no provision in the
constitution guaranteeing to citizens the right not to be made to change their residence. Nevertheless,
the liberty of abode and of changing the same was subsumed under the due process clause.

-People v. Fajardo.m Here, a building permit was denied to an owner of a piece of land on the ground
that the proposed construction would block the view from the highway towards the municipal

plaza. The Court said:

1 [T]he ordinance is unreasonable and oppressive in that it operates to permanently deprive appellants
of the right to use their own property; hence, it oversteps the bounds of police power, and

amounts to a taking of appellant's property without just compensation. We do not overlook that the
modem tendency is to regard the beautification of neighborhoods as conducive to the comfort and

happiness of residents. But while property may be regulated in the interest of the general welfare, and
in its pursuit, the State may prohibit structures offensive to the sight, the State may not under the guise
of police power permanently divest owners of the beneficial use of their property and practically
confiscate them solely to preserve or assure the aesthetic appearance of the community. As the case
now stands, every structure that may be erected on appellant's land regardless of its own beauty, stands
condemned under the ordinance in question, because it would interfere with the view of the public
plaza from the highway. The appellants would, in effect, be constrained to let their land remain idle and
unused for the obvious purpose for which it is best suited, being urban in character. To legally achieve
that result, the municipality must give appellants just compensation and an opportunity to be heard.

-Ermita Malate Hotel and Motel Operators, Inc. v. City Mayor of Manila,"' involved a city ordinance
designed in part to curb the rampant use of hotels and motels as places of illicit assignation. The
constitutionality of the ordinance was challenged on various grounds: (1) that the license fee it imposed
was unreasonably high; (2) that the registration requirements for guests (requiring full name, date of
birth, address, occupation,sex, nationality, planned length of stay, number of companions and their
names, relationship, age and sex, data from the guest's residence certificate and his passport number,
together with a certification by the competent hotel or motel officer that the person signing the form
filled it up personally and affixed his signature in the presence of such officer)

violated due process not only for being arbitrary and oppressive but also for being vague, uncertain, and
likewise for being an invasion of privacy and of the guaranty against self-incrimination; (3) that the
official inspection requirements violated due process; (4) that the minimum facilities requirements were
arbitrary and oppressive; (5) that the requirements that persons less than 18 years of age may not be
accepted unless accompanied by parent or guardian and that no room may be let out more than twice
every 24 hours lacked certainty and were unreasonable and arbitrary; and (6) that the penalty of
automatic cancellation of license was violative of due process.

-Morfe v. Mutuc" and Alalayan v. National Power Corporation, again emphasized presumption of
constitutionality. Moreover, they again demonstrated the elastic approach to challenges against the
exercise of police power.

- In Morfe v. Mutuc, a provision in the Anti-Graft Law which required public officers to submit
periodically a sworn statement of assets and liabilities was challenged as an oppressive exercise of
police power. The Court said that "[i]t would be to dwell in the realm of abstractions and to ignore the
harsh and compelling realities of public service with its ever-present temptation to heed the call of
greed and avarice" were it to condemn such requirement as arbitrary and oppressive.

-Alalayan v. National Power Corporation, the requirement that electric power franchise holders,
receiving at least fifty per cent of its electric power from the National Power Corporation, "shall not
realize a net profit of more than 12% annually of its investments plus two-month operating expenses"
was branded as confiscatory by the petitioner. The Court said, "To speak of it as confiscatory ... is to
employ the language of hyperbole." Such comment was made in the context of an earlier case, Manila
Electric Co. v. Public Service Commission,'47 where 12% rate of return had been challenged,
unsuccessfully, as too generous.

-Homeowner's Association of the Philippines, Inc. v. Municipal Board of Manila: presented one of those
rare cases where a police power measure was declared unconstitutional. At issue was a municipal
ordinance declaring a state of emergency in the matter of housing accommodations and regulating
rentals of lots and buildings for residential purposes. Solely on the ground that the ordinance did not fix
the period of its effectivity, the Court declared it unreasonable and therefor unconstitutional.

-Rutter v. Esteban and the Emergency Powers Cases.It is not clear, however, that the Court's conclusion
truly reflects the doctrine of the cited cases. In Rutter v. Esteban, what the Court declared
unconstitutional was the continued application of the moratory law even after the lapse of eight years.
The Court presumed the initial validity of the law. Likewise, in the Emergency Powers Cases, although
Congress did not set the time limit to the grant of emergency powers to the President, the Court did not
question the validity of the initial grant. Rather, the cases on the emergency powers were an exercise in
search for a time limit that could not be found in the statute itself.
-For instance, a regulation requiring cars to be equipped with "early warning devices" (EWD), an
ordinance regulating the storage of copra and another regulating public markets as well as a regulation
imposing an age limit on taxicabs, were all upheld. The principle was also reiterated that notice and
hearing, while required for judicial and quasi-judicial proceedings, is not needed in the promulgation of

general regulations. But a law requiring that skimmed milk carry the warning that it is not suitable for
infants was found to be a deprivation of property without due process. On due process grounds too, a
Manila ordinance requiring aliens to obtain a permit from the Mayor before accepting employment was
declared unconstitutional. "While it is true that the Philippines as a State is not obliged to admit aliens
within its territory, once an alien is admitted, he cannot be deprived of life without due process of law."

-car license plates may not be detached by traffic officers in the absence of a law prescribing such police
action. Outright confiscation of carabaos illegally transported is unduly oppressive. Indelible markings on
the forefinger as a requisite for the exercise of suffrage is a reasonable instrument for preserving the
sanctity of the ballot. A rule of the Professional Regulatory Commission which restricted reviewees from
attending review classes, briefing conferences or the like, and receiving any hand out, review material,
etc., was deemed unreasonable and arbitrary and violative of the academic freedom of schools. An
ordinance prescribing that children between the ages of 7 and 12 should be charged only half the
admission price in movie houses was found to be unrelated to a public purpose.

Publication and clarity of laws as a requirement of due process.

-The central issue in Tanada v. Tuvera™ was the meaning to be given to the Civil Code's requirement of
publication. Article 2 of the Code says: "Laws shall take effect after fifteen days following the completion
of their publication in the Official Gazette, unless it is otherwise provided.

-a statute or act may be said to be vague when it lacks comprehensible standards that men "of common
intellilgence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application. It is repugnant to the
Constitution in two respects:

(1) it violates due process for failure to accord persons, especially the parties targeted by it, fair notice of
the conduct to avoid; and

(2) it leaves law enforcers unbridled discretion in carrying out its provisions and becomes an arbitrary
flexing of the Government muscle.

-Coates v. City of Cincinnati the U.S. Supreme Court struck down an ordinance that had made it illegal
for "three or more persons to assemble on any sidewalk and there conduct themselves in a manner
annoying to persons passing by." Clearly, the ordinance imposed no standard at all "because one may
never know in advance what 'annoys some people but does not annoy others.'"

-The most important case involving vagueness was the effort of the defense of President Estrada to
declare the Plunder Law, R.A. No. 7089, invalid for being, among other things, vague. The defense put
up a three pronged attack on the law saying that (a) it suffered from the vice of vagueness; (b) it
dispensed with the "reasonable doubt" standard in criminal prosecutions; and, (c) it abolished. The
element of mens rea in crimes already punishable under The Revised Penal Code, all of which are
purportedly clear violations of the fundamental rights of the accused to due process and to be informed
of the nature and cause of the accusation against him. The Court was unconvinced and, on the

issue of vagueness.

-Plunder Law contains ascertainable standards and well-defined parameters which would enable the

accused to determine the nature of his violation. Section 2 is sufficiently explicit in its description of the
acts, conduct and conditions required or forbidden, and prescribes the elements of the crime with
reasonable certainty and particularity. Thus —

1. That the offender is a public officer who acts by himself or in connivance with members of his family,
relatives by affinity or consanguinity, business associates, subordinates or other persons;

2. That he amassed, accumulated or acquired ill-gotten wealth through a combination or series of the
following overt or criminal acts: (a) through misappropriation, conversion, misuse, or malversation of
public funds or raids on the public treasury; (b) by receiving, directly or indirectly, any commission, gift,
share, percentage, kickback or any other form of pecuniary benefits from any person and/or entity in
connection with any government contract or project or by reason of the office or position of the public
officer; (c) by the illegal or fraudulent conveyance or disposition of assets belonging to the National
Government or any of its subdivisions, agencies or instrumentalities of Government owned or controlled
corporations or their subsidiaries; (d) by obtaining, receiving or accepting directly or indirectly any
shares of stock, equity or any other form of interest or participation including the promise of future
employment in any business enterprise or undertaking; (e) by establishing agricultural, industrial or
commercial monopolies or other combinations and/or implementation of decrees and orders intended
to benefit particular persons or special interests; or (f) by taking advantage of official position, authority,
relationship, connection or influence to unjustly enrich himself or themselves at the expense and to the
damage and prejudice of the Filipino people and the Republic of the Philippines; and

3. That the aggregate amount or total value of the ill-gotten wealth amassed, accumulated or acquired is
at least P50 ,00,000.00.

-that the void for vagueness doctrine and the "overbreadth doctrine" do not apply to criminal cases in
general but only to cases involving speech.

-The void-for-vagueness doctrine states that "a statute which either forbids or requires the doing of an
act in terms so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning

and differ as to its application, violates the first essential of due process of law."
- The overbreadth doctrine, on the other hand, decrees that "a governmental purpose may not be
achieved by means which sweep unnecessarily broadly and thereby invade the area of protected
freedoms."

-A facial challenge is allowed to be made to a vague statute and to one which is overbroad because of
possible "chilling effect" upon protected speech. The theory is that "[w]hen statutes regulate or
proscribe speech and no readily apparent construction suggests itself as a vehicle for rehabilitating the
statutes in a single prosecution, the transcendent value to all society of constitutionally

protected expression is deemed to justify allowing attacks on overly broad statutes with no requirement
that the person making the attack demonstrate that his own conduct could not be regulated by a
statute drawn with narrow specificity.' The possible harm to society in permitting some unprotected
speech to go unpunished is outweighed by the possibility that the protected speech of others may be
deterred and perceived grievances left to fester because of possible inhibitory effects of overly broad
statutes.

Equal protection

-"legal equality or, as it is usually put, the equality of all persons before the law.

-People v. Cayat summarized early jurisprudence on equal protection thus:It is an established principle
of constitutional law that the guaranty of the equal protection of the laws is not violated by a legislation
based on reasonable classification. And the classification, to be reasonable, (1) must rest on substantial
distinctions; (2) must be germane to the purpose of the law; (3) must not be limited to existing
conditions only; and (4) must apply equally to all members of the same class.

-For determining the reasonableness of classification, later jurisprudence has developed three kinds of
test depending on the subject matter involved.

1.The most demanding is the strict scrutiny test which requires the government to show that the
challenged classification serves a compelling state interest and that the classification is necessary to
serve that interest. This case is used in cases involving classifications based on race, national origin,
religion, alienage, denial of the right to vote, interstate migration, access to courts and other rights
recognized as fundamental.

2. Next is the intermediate or middle-tier scrutiny test which requires government to show that the
challenged classification serves an important state interest and that the classification is at least
substantially related to serving that interest. This is applied to suspect classifications like gender or
illegitimacy.

3. The most liberal is the minimum or rational basis scrutiny according to which government need only
show that the challenged classification is rationally related to serving a legitimate state interest. This is
the traditional rationality test and it applies to all subjects other than those listed above.
-Thus when R.A. No. 7227 was challenged as violative of equal protection because it granted tax and
duty incentives only to businesses and residents within the "secured area" of the Subic Special Economic
Zone and denied them to those who lived within the Zone but outside such "fenced-in" territory, the
Court justified the classification saying that the Constitution does not require absolute equality among
residents. The real concern of R.A. No. 7227 was to convert the lands formerly occupied by the US
military bases into economic or industrial areas. In furtherance of such objective, Congress deemed it
necessary to extend economic incentives to attract and encourage investors, both

local and foreign.

-International School Alliance of Educators v. Quisumbing:n however, the practice of the International
School of giving higher salary for foreign hires than Filipinos of equal rank was declared unconstitutional.
The Court argued that the principle of "equal pay for equal work.

-The Constitution thus, as a general rule, places the civil rights of aliens on an equal footing with those of
citizens. Their political rights, however, do not enjoy the same protection.

Equal protection and laws of local application.

-The equal protection clause does not require territorial uniformity of laws. Zoning ordinances are a
clear example of how the constitution allows different treatment of different places. However, there is a
limit to allowable territorial lack of uniformity.

-People v. Vera gives an example of such limit. It shows also how the equal protection clause can be
violated not necessarily by actual denial of equality but by creating a system that can foster inequality.
The case involved Act No. 2221, otherwise known as the Probation Act, which empowered Provincial
Boards to appropriate salaries of probation officers for the maintenance of the probation system in their

respective provinces. The Supreme Court said that such delegation of legislative power to the local law
making bodies, leaving to them the option to support or not to support a probation system, could result
in gross inequalities among the various provinces and thus, in effect, permit denial of equal protection.
"We see no difference between a law which denies equal protection and a law which permits such
denial," the Court asserted. The law, the Court added, even permitted denial of equal protection to
inhabitants of the same province in that the Provincial Board might appropriate money to support the
system in one year and refuse to do the same in another year.

-It should also be noted that while the power of local governments to enact local laws necessarily results
in absence of national uniformity of laws, the local laws themselves must also equally apply to all those
coming within their jurisdiction.

Equal protection and the political process

-Next followed the challenge to the rule that residents of Mandaue City, a supposedly oppositionist city,
should be excluded from voting in provincial elections. To the argument that residents of similarly
situated cities were allowed to vote in provincial elections, the Court said in Ceniza v. COMELEC that
this was a "matter of legislative discretion" and that equal protection would be violated only if groups
within the same city were allowed to vote while others were not.

Equal protection and land reform

-is clear from JM. Tuason that the power of eminent domain can be used by the government as an
instrument for the effectuation of land reform. Land reform, however, to the extent that it seeks to
diffuse enjoyment of land, cannot be used as an argument for nullifying classification based on alienage.

Equality in the criminal process

-The Constitution itself, in Article III, Section 11, which will be discussed below, ordains that "[f]ree
access to the courts and quasi-judicial bodies and adequate legal assistance shall not be denied to any
person by reason of poverty."

-Equal protection and women, etc.