Agustin v.

Edu, 88 SCRA 195 (1979)

6/15/2020

0 COMMENTS
 

ISSUE:  Whether or not the assailed Letter of Instruction is invalid and violated constitutional
guarantees of due process. 

FACTS:  This is a petition questioning the validity of a Letter of Instruction providing for an early
warning device mandatory for motor vehicles. It is assailed in this prohibition proceeding as being
violative to the constitutional guarantee of due process in as far as the rules and regulations for its
implementation are concerned. 

DECISION:  No, the LOI is valid. 

RATIO DECIDENDI:  The assailed Letter of Instruction was a valid exercise of police power and
there was no unlawful delegation of legislative power on the part of the respondent. As identified,
police power is a state authority to enact legislation that may interfere personal liberty or property in
order to promote the general welfare. In this case, the particular exercise of police power was clearly
intended to promote public safety. In addition, the UN and the Vienna Convention, both ratified by the
Philippine Government recommended the enactment of local legislation for the installation of road
safety signs and devices. The Constitution provides that the Philippines adopts the generally
accepted principles of international law as part of the law of the land. It is not for this country to
repudiate a commitment to which it had pledged its word.  

[CASE DIGEST] Agustin v. Edu (G.R. No. L-49112)

February 2, 1979 | 88 SCRA 195

Leovillo C. Agustin, petitioner

Hon. Romeo Edu (Land Transportation Commissioner), Hon. Juan Ponce-Enrile (Minister of National Defense), Hon.
Alfredo Juinio (Minister of Public Works, Transportation and Communications), and Hon. Baltazar Aquino (Minister of
Public Highways), respondents

FACTS:

On December 2, 1974, President Ferdinand Marcos issued Letter of Instruction (LOI) No. 229, which required all motor
vehicles to secure early warning devices (EWD) consisting of a pair of triangular, collapsible, reflectorized plates in red
and yellow to be purchased from the Land Transportation Commission. The purposes of this LOI were to prevent
accidents caused by vehicular obstructions and to adhere to the road safety standards outlined in the 1968 Vienna
Convention on Road Signs and Signals, which the Philippines had ratified as per PD No. 207.

LOI No. 229 was later amended by LOI No. 479 issued on November 15, 1976. Unlike before where owners of motor
vehicles were required to purchase the reflectorized plates from the Land Transportation Commission, LOI No. 479 now
made it possible for said owners to buy early warning devices anywhere so long as they adhere to the standards
prescribed by the Land Transportation Commissioner.

President Marcos issued a six-month suspension of said LOI, after which he issued another LOI lifting its suspension. On
August 29, 1978, Land Transportation Commissioner Romeo Edu issued Memorandum Circular No. 32, which contained
LTC Administrative Order No. 1 or the rules and regulations in the implementation of LOI No. 229 as amended.
Leovilo Agustin, a private citizen and owner of a Volkswagen Beetle Car, filed a petition before the SC, assailing the
constitutionality of both LOI No. 229 as amended and LTC Administrative Order No. 1. Among others, Agustin claimed
that LOI No. 229 was violative of the provisions and delegation of police power, an oppressive, unreasonable, arbitrary,
confiscatory, and unconstitutional order that was contrary to the precepts of the New Society. Pending its final
resolution, the Court issued a temporary restraining order preventing agencies concerned from implementing both LOI
No. 229 as amended and LTC Administrative Order No. 1.

ISSUE:

Whether or not LOI No. 229 as amended violated the constitutional provision on undue delegation of power.

HELD:

No, the Court ruled that LOI No. 229 as amended falls within the State's police power, and President Marcos' issuance
of the same was clearly an exercise of such power. The intent of the law can be clearly seen in the WHEREASes of the
assailed LOI (to prevent accidents, safeguard the safety of the public, and adhere to the State's commitment to public
international law). The Court later went on a lengthy discourse in defining what police power is:

 "Nothing more or less than the powers of government inherent in every sovereignty." (Chief Justice Taney, US
Supreme Court Chief Justice, 1847)
 "The State authority to enact legislation that may interfere with personal liberty or property in order to
promote the general welfare. Persons and property could thus be subjected to all kinds of restraints and burdens in
order to achieve the general comfort, health, and prosperity of the State." (Calalang v. Williams)
 "The power to prescribe regulations to promote the health, morals, education, good order or safety, and
general welfare of the people." (Primicias v. Fugoso)
 "Inherent and plenary power in the State which enables it to all things hurtful to the comfort, safety, and
welfare of society." (Justice Malcolm)
 "The totality of legislative power." (Morfe v. Mutuc)
 "A dynamic agency, suitably vague and far from precisely defined, rooted in the conception that men in
organizing the state and imposing upon its government limitations to safeguard constitutional rights did not intend
thereby to enable an individual citizen or a group of citizens to obstruct unreasonably the enactment of such salutary
measures calculated to communal peace, safety, good order, and welfare."