SECTION 6, Philippines Constitution- The

liberty of abode and of changing the same

within the limits prescribed by law shall not
be impaired upon lawful order of the court.
Neither shall the right to travel be impaired
except in the interest of national security,
public safety or public health, as may be
provided by law.
\VLLAVICENCIO VS. LUKBAN

Justo Lukban, mayor of Manila, ordered the district of ill-repute women closed.
One hundred and seventy women were deported to Davao without their
knowledge and consent. The women were received as laborers in a banana
plantation. Some of the women were able to escape and return to Manila. The
attorney for the relatives and friends of a considerable number of the deportees
presented an application for habeas corpus to the Supreme Court

nder the American constitutional system, liberty of abode is a principle so deeply

imbedded in jurisprudence and considered so elementary in nature as not even to require
a constitutional sanction.

1) Whether or not the respondents had authority to deport the women to

Davao; 
The respondents may not be permitted to restrain a fellow citizen of her liberty
by forcing her to change her domicile and to avow the act with impunity in the
courts. The great writ of liberty may not be easily evaded. No one of the defense
offered constituted a legitimate bar to the granting of the writ of habeas
corpus.The supreme court upheld the right of filipino citizens to freedom of domicile or the
Liberty of abode. "Ours is a government of laws and not of men."
Manglapus

The right to return to one's country is not among the rights specifically guaranteed in the
Bill of Rights, which treats only of the liberty of abode and the right to travel, but it is our
well-considered view that the right to return may be considered, as a generally accepted
principle of international law and, under our Constitution, is part of the law of the land
[Art. II, Sec. 2 of the Constitution.] However, it is distinct and separate from the right to
travel and enjoys a different protection under the International Covenant of Civil and
Political Rights, i.e., against being "arbitrarily deprived" thereof [Art. 12 (4).]
What we are saying in effect is that the request or demand of the Marcoses to be allowed
to return to the Philippines cannot be considered in the light solely of the constitutional
provisions guaranteeing liberty of abode and the right to travel, subject to certain
exceptions, or of case law which clearly never contemplated situations even remotely
similar to the present one. It must be treated as a matter that is appropriately addressed
to those residual unstated powers of the President which are implicit in and correlative to
the paramount duty residing in that office to safeguard and protect general welfare. In
that context, such request or demand should submit to the exercise of a broader
discretion on the part of the President to determine whether it must be granted or
denied.hether or not, in the exercise of the powers granted by the Constitution, the President may
prohibit the Marcoses from returning to the Philippines.

ruling