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Carlos Superdrug - GR 166494 June 29, 2007 (Pol. PWR)
Carlos Superdrug - GR 166494 June 29, 2007 (Pol. PWR)
*
G.R. No. 166494. June 29, 2007.
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* EN BANC.
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AZCUNA, J.:
1
This is a petition for Prohibition with Prayer for
Preliminary Injunction assailing the constitutionality
2
of
Section 4(a) of Republic Act (R.A.) No. 9257, otherwise
known as the “Ex-panded Senior Citizens Act of 2003.”
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Nation Building, Grant Benefits and Special Privileges and for other
Purposes.”
3 Otherwise known as the Senior Citizens Act.
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4 Emphasis supplied.
5 Section 4. Discounts from Establishments.—The grant of twenty
percent (20%) discount on all prices of goods and services offered to the
general public regardless of the amount purchased from all
establishments, irrespective of classification, relative to the utilization of
services for the exclusive use of senior citizen in the following:
...
d) DRUG STORES, HOSPITAL PHARMACIES, MEDICAL AND
OPTICAL CLINICS AND SIMILAR ESTABLISHMENTS DISPENSING
MEDICINES.—The discount for purchases of drugs/medicines shall be
subject to the Guidelines to be issued by the Bureau of Food and Drugs,
Department of Health (BFAD-DOH), in coordination with the Philippine
Health Insurance Corporation (PHILHEALTH).
6 Section 9. Medical and Dental Services in Private Facilities.—The
senior citizen shall be granted twenty percent (20%) discount on medical
and dental services and diagnostic and laboratory fees such as but not
limited to x-ray, computerized tomography scans and blood tests,
including professional fees of attending doctors in all private hospitals and
medical facilities, in accordance with the rules and regulations to be
issued by the Department of Health, in coordination with the Philippine
Health Insurance Corporation.
7 Section 10. Air and Transportation Privileges.—At least twenty
percent (20%) discount in fare for domestic air, and sea travel based on
the actual fare, including the promotional fare, advance booking and
similar discounted fare shall be granted for the exclusive use and
enjoyment of senior citizens.
8 Section 11. Public Land Transportation Privileges.—Twenty percent
(20%) discount in public railways, including LRT, MRT,
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“1) The difference between the Tax Credit (under the Old Senior
Citizens Act) and Tax Deduction (under the Expanded Senior
Citizens Act).
1.1. The provision of Section 4 of R.A. No. 7432 (the old Senior Citizens
Act) grants twenty percent (20%) discount from all establishments
relative to the utilization of transportation services, hotels and similar
lodging establishment, restaurants and recreation centers and purchase
of medicines anywhere in the country, the costs of which may be claimed
by the private establishments concerned as tax credit.
Effectively, a tax credit is a peso-for-peso deduction from a taxpayer’s
tax liability due to the government of the amount of discounts such
establishment has granted to a senior citizen. The establishment recovers
the full amount of discount given to a senior citizen and hence, the
government shoulders 100% of the discounts granted.
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PNR, Skyways and fares in buses (PUB), jeepneys (PUJ), taxi and
shuttle services (AUV) shall be granted for the exclusive use and
enjoyment of senior citizens.
9 Rollo, p. 57.
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Tax Tax
Deduction Credit
Gross Sales xxxxxx xxxxxx
Less : Cost of goods sold xxxxx xxxxx
Net Sales xxxxxx xxxxxx
Less: Operating Expenses:
Tax Deduction on x x x x --
Discounts
Other deductions: xxxx xxxx
Net Taxable Income xxxxx xxxxx
Tax Due xxx xxx
Less: Tax Credit -- xx
Net Tax Due – xx
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the family to take care of its elderly members while the State may
design programs of social security for them. In addition to this,
Section 10 in the Declaration of Principles and State Policies
provides: “The State shall provide social justice in all phases of
national development.” Further, Article XIII, Section 11, provides:
“The State shall adopt an integrated and comprehensive approach
to health development which shall endeavor to make essential
goods, health and other social services available to all the people
at affordable cost. There shall be priority for the needs of the
underprivileged sick, elderly, disabled, women and children.”
Consonant with these constitutional principles the following are
the declared policies of this Act:
...
(f) To recognize the important role of the private sector
in the improvement of the welfare 21
of senior citizens and to
actively seek their partnership.”
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21 Emphasis supplied.
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tions and 22
circumstances, thus assuring the greatest
benefits. Accordingly, it has been described as “the most
essential, insistent and the least limitable of powers, 23
extending as it does to all the great public needs.” It is
“[t]he power vested in the legislature by the constitution to
make, ordain, and establish all manner of wholesome and
reasonable laws, statutes, and ordinances, either with
penalties or without, not repugnant to the constitution, as
they shall judge to be for the good and welfare 24
of the
commonwealth, and of the subjects of the same.”
For this reason, when the conditions so demand as
determined by the legislature, property rights must bow to
the primacy of police power because property rights,
though 25sheltered by due process, must yield to general
welfare.
Police power as an attribute to promote the common
good would be diluted considerably if on the mere plea of
petitioners that they will suffer loss of earnings and
capital, the questioned provision is invalidated. Moreover,
in the absence of evidence demonstrating the alleged
confiscatory effect of the provision in question, there is no
basis for its nullification in view of the 26
presumption of
validity which every law has in its favor.
Given these, it is incorrect for petitioners to insist that
the grant of the senior citizen discount is unduly oppressive
to their business, because petitioners have not taken time
to
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27 The person who impugns the validity of a statute must have personal
interest in the case such that he has sustained, or will sustain, direct
injury as a result of its enforcement (People v. Vera, 65 Phil. 56 [1937]).
28 Rollo, p. 11.
29 Section 27(E)(4) of the National Internal Revenue Code (NIRC)
provides that for purposes of applying the minimum corporate income tax
on domestic corporations, the term ‘gross income’ shall mean gross sales
less sales returns, discounts and allowances and cost of goods sold. For a
trading or merchandising concern, ‘cost of goods sold’ shall include the
invoice cost of the goods sold, plus import duties, freight in transporting
the goods to the place where
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the goods are actually sold including insurance while the goods are in
transit.
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30 By the “general police power of the State, persons and property are
subjected to all kinds of restraints and burdens, in order to secure the
general comfort, health, and prosperity of the State; of the perfect right in
the legislature to do which, no question ever was, or, upon acknowledged
and general principles, ever can be made, so far as natural persons are
concerned.” (U.S. v. Toribio, supra note 24, at pp. 98-99, citing Thorpe v.
Rutland & Burlington R.R. Co. (27 Vt., 140, 149).
31 Subject to the determination of the courts as to what is a proper
exercise of police power using the due process clause and the equal
protection clause as yardsticks, the State may interfere wherever the public
interests demand it, and in this particular a large discretion is necessarily
vested in the legislature to determine, not only what interests of the public
require, but what measures are necessary for the protection of such
interests (U.S. v. Toribio, supra note 24, at p. 98, citing Lawton v. Steele,
152 U.S. 133,136; Barbier v. Connoly, 113 U.S. 27; Kidd v. Pearson, 128
U.S. 1).
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SO ORDERED.
Petition dismissed.
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