BILL OF RIGHTS

General Principles:

1. Police Power- that inherent and plenary power in the State which enables it to prohibit all that is
hurtful to the comfort, safety, and welfare of society.
*It is lodged primarily in the National Legislature. It cannot be exercised by any group or body of
individuals not possessing legislative power. It may however delegate this power to the
President and administrative boards as well as the lawmaking bodies of municipal corporations
or LGU’s. Once delegated, the agents can exercise only such legislative powers as are conferred
on them by the national lawmaking body.
2. Due Process is satisfied if the following conditions are present:
a. There must be a court or tribunal clothed with judicial power to hear and determine the
matter before it;
b. jurisdiction must be acquired over the person of the defendant or over the property which is
the subject of the proceeding;
c. the defendant must be given an opportunity to be heard; and
d. judgment must be rendered upon lawful hearing.
*The heart of substantive due process is the requirement of reasonableness or absence of
exercise of arbitrary power.
3. Void-for-vagueness Doctrine- 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 publication, violates the first essential of due process of law.

*It is repugnant to the Constitution in two aspects:

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

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

*Words of a statute will be interpreted in their natural, plain and ordinary acceptation and
signification, unless it is evident that the legislature intended a technical or special legal
meaning to those words.

4. Overbreadth Doctrine (void for overbreadth)- it offends the constitutional principle that a
governmental purpose to control or prevent activities constitutionally subject to state
regulations may not be achieved by means which sweep unnecessarily broadly and thereby
invade the area of protected freedoms.