VILLAVICENCIO vs. LUKBAN, ET AL.

,
March 25, 1919
39 Phil 778
By: Nor-hidaya M. Mangontawar

FACTS: City Mayor Justo Lukban, taking the initiative to exterminate

prostitutes from the City of Manila, with the aid of the Police, forcibly deprived
one hundred seventy women of their liberty and without their consent, placed
them aboard steamers and delivered them to Davao as laborers of certain
public officials and private individuals.

ISSUE: WON Justo Lukban and the other persons accused are criminally
liable

RULING: Yes.The Mayor and the Chief of Police are criminally liable as they
have no authority to presume the act of deporting by duress these persons
from Manila to another distant locality within the Philippine Islands.

The Court held that “No official, no matter how high, is above the law.” The
courts are the forum whose function is to safeguard individual liberty and to
punish official transgressors. These women despite their being in a sense
lepers of society are nevertheless not chattels but Philippine citizens protected
by the same constitutional guaranties as are other citizens. Philippine penal law
specifically punishes any public officer who, not being expressly authorized by
law or regulation, compels any person to change his residence.