BACKGROUND ON THE BILL OF RIGHTS

CONCEPT AND ORIGIN

1.PBM Employees Org. vs. PBM Co., Inc. [51 SCRA 189 (1973)]

FACTS:

The petitioner Philippine Blooming Mills Employees Organization (PBMEO) is a legitimate labor
union composed of the employees of the respondent Philippine Blooming Mills Co., Inc., and
petitioners. Benjamin Pagcu and Rodulfo Munsod are officers and members of the petitioner
Union.

PBMEO decided to stage a mass demonstration in front of Malacañang in protest to express

their grievances against the alleged abuses of the Pasig Police. After learning about the
planned mass demonstration, Philippine Blooming Mills Inc. called for a meeting with the
leaders of the PBMEO. During the meeting, the planned demonstration was confirmed by the
union. But it was stressed out that the demonstration was not a strike against the company but
was in fact an exercise of the laborers’ inalienable constitutional right to freedom of expression,
freedom of speech, and freedom for the petition for redress of grievances.

The Management informed PBMEO that the demonstration is an inalienable right of the union
guaranteed by the Constitution but emphasized that any demonstration for that matter should
not unduly prejudice the normal operation of the Company. This was followed with a warning of
possible dismissal of workers should they push with the rally as it would constitute to illegal
strike and is a violation under the existing Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).

Because the petitioners and their members numbering about 400 proceeded with the
demonstration despite the pleas of the respondent Company that the first shift workers should
not be required to participate in the demonstration and that the workers in the second and third
shifts should be utilized for the demonstration from 6 A.M. to 2 P.M. on March 4, 1969, the
Respondent filed a charge against petitioners and other employees who composed the first
shift, charging them with a “violation for unfair labor practices under Section 4(a)-6 in relation to
Sections 13 and 14, as well as Section 15, all of Republic Act No. 875, and of the CBA providing
for ‘No Strike and No Lockout.’ “. Petitioners thereafter were held guilty by CIR for bargaining in
bad faith, hence this appeal.
ISSUE:

Whether or Not the petitioner’s right to freedom of speech and to peaceable assemble violated.

HELD:

Yes. While the Bill of Rights also protects property rights, the primacy of human rights over
property rights is recognized. Because these freedoms are “delicate and vulnerable, as well as
supremely precious in our society” and the “threat of sanctions may deter their exercise almost
as potently as the actual application of sanctions,” they “need breathing space to survive,”
permitting government regulation only “with narrow specificity.”

A constitutional or valid infringement of human rights requires a more stringent criterion, namely
existence of a grave and immediate danger of a substantive evil which the State has the right to
prevent. This is not present in the case. It was to the interest herein private respondent firm to
rally to the defense of, and take up the cudgels for, its employees, so that they can report to
work free from harassment, vexation or peril and as consequence perform more efficiently their
respective tasks enhance its productivity as well as profits.

Herein respondent employer did not even offer to intercede for its employees with the local
police. In seeking sanctuary behind their freedom of expression well as their right of assembly
and of the petition against alleged persecution of local officialdom, the employees and laborers
of PBM were fighting for their very survival, utilizing only the weapons afforded them by the
Constitution — the untrammeled enjoyment of their basic human rights. The pretension of their
employer that it would suffer loss or damage by reason of the absence of its employees from 6
o’clock in the morning to 2 o’clock in the afternoon, is a plea for the preservation merely of their
property rights.

The employees’ pathetic situation was a stark reality — abused, harassment and persecuted as
they believed they were by the peace officers of the municipality. As above intimated, the
condition in which the employees found themselves vis-a-vis the local police of Pasig, was a
matter that vitally affected their right to individual existence as well as that of their families.
Material loss can be repaired or adequately compensated. The debasement of the human being
broken in morale and brutalized in spirit-can never be fully evaluated in monetary terms.

As heretofore stated, the primacy of human rights — freedom of expression, of peaceful

assembly and of petition for redress of grievances — over property rights has been sustained.
To regard the demonstration against police officers, not against the employer, as evidence of
bad faith in collective bargaining and hence a violation of the collective bargaining agreement
and a cause for the dismissal from employment of the demonstrating employees, stretches
unduly the compass of the collective bargaining agreement, is “a potent means of inhibiting
speech” and therefore inflicts a moral as well as a mortal wound on the constitutional
guarantees of free expression, of peaceful assembly and of the petition. Circulation is one of the
aspects of freedom of expression. If demonstrators are reduced by one-third, then by that much
the circulation of the Issue raised by the demonstration is diminished. The more participants, the
more persons can be apprised of the purpose of the rally. Moreover, the absence of one-third of
their members will be regarded as a substantial indication of disunity in their ranks which will
enervate their position and abet continued alleged police persecution.

Property and property rights can be lost thru prescription, but human rights are imprescriptible. If
human rights are extinguished by the passage of time, then the Bill of Rights is a useless
attempt to limit the power of government and ceases to be an efficacious shield against the
tyranny of officials, of majorities, of the influential and powerful, and of oligarchs — political,
economic or otherwise.

2) People vs. Marti (G.R. No. 81561, January 18, 1991)

FACTS:

Andre Marti, was charged with violation of RA 6425, otherwise known as the Dangerous Drugs
Act. Marti, with his common-law wife, went to Manila Packing and Export Forwarders to send
four (4) parcels of boxes alleged to contain books, cigars, and gloves for his friend Waltier Fierz
living in Zurich, Switzerland. The husband of attendant Anita Reyes, Mr. Job Reyes, opened the
boxes for inspection as part of the SOP before delivery to the Bureau of Customs. Reyes
discovered bundles allegedly containing gloves and felt dried leaves allegedly marijuana.

Reyes reported to the NBI and requested a laboratory examination of the samples he extracted
from the cellophane wrapper. The Narcotics Section of the NBI submitted the dried leaves to the
Forensic Chemistry Section for laboratory examination. It turned out that the dried leaves were
marijuana flowering tops as certified by the forensic chemist

The trial court convicted Marti for violation of Section 21 (b), Article IV in relation to Section 4,
Article 11 and Section 2 (e) (i), Article 1 of Republic Act 6425, as amended, otherwise known as
the Dangerous Drugs Act.

In his appeal, Marti argues the evidence subject of the imputed offense had been obtained in
violation of his constitutional rights against unreasonable search and seizure and privacy of
communication (Sec. 2 and 3, Art. III, 1987 Constitution) and therefore argues that the same
should be held inadmissible in evidence.

ISSUE:

Whether or not the Bill of rights may be invoked against the acts of a private individual.

RULING:

It may only be invoked against the acts of the State. In the absence of governmental
interference, the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution cannot be invoked against the State.
The Bill of Rights governs the relationship between the individual and the state. Its concern is
not the relation between individuals, between a private individual and other individuals. Thus, it
could only be invoked against the State to whom the restraint against arbitrary and
unreasonable exercise of power is imposed.

In the absence of governmental interference, the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution cannot
be invoked against the State. As this Court held in Villanueva v. Querubin (48 SCRA 345 [1972]:

“This constitutional right (against unreasonable search and seizure)refers to the immunity of
one’s person, whether citizen or alien, from interference by government, included in which is
hisresidence, his papers, and other possessions. Xxx

“xxx There, the state, however powerful, does not as such have the access except under the
circumstances above noted, for in the traditional formulation, his house, however humble, is his
castle. Thus is outlawed any unwarranted intrusion by government, which is called upon to
refrain from any invasion of his dwelling and to respect the privacies of his life. xxx” (Cf.
Schermerber v.California, 384 US 757 [1966] and Boyd v. United States, 116 US616 [1886];
Italics supplied).

In Bureau v. McDowell (256 US 465(1921), 41 S Ct. 574; 65 L.Ed. 1048), the Court there in
construing the right against unreasonable searches and seizures declared that:

“(t)he Fourth Amendment gives protection against unlawful searches and seizures, and as
shown in previous cases, its protection applies to governmental action. Its origin and history
clearly show that it was intended as a restraint upon the activities of sovereign authority, and
was not intended to be a limitation upon other than governmental agencies: as against such
authority it was the purpose of the Fourth Amendment to secure the citizen in the right of
unmolested occupation of his dwelling and the possession of his property, subject to the right of
seizure by process duly served.”

3) Gamboa vs. Teves (G.R. No. 176579 (June 28, 2011)

 4) West Virginia State Board of Education vs. Barnette (319 US 624, 638)

FACTS:

In 1942, the West Virginia Board of Education required public schools to include salutes to the
flag by teachers and students as a mandatory part of school activities. The Board provided a
detailed definition of what the salute should look like: keeping the right hand raised with
upturned palm in a stiff-arm salute while the individual recited the pledge of allegiance. Students
who refused to obey this requirement were subject to expulsion as part of school rules against
insubordination and would not be readmitted until they complied. As a result, the children and
their families could be charged with a crime based on the child's unlawful absence from school,
which could expose parents to jail time.

The children in a family of Jehovah's Witnesses refused to perform the salute and were sent
home from school each day for non-compliance. This was based on their core spiritual belief
that the laws of God rise above any laws of a secular government. Like other children who
refused to salute the flag, however, they were threatened with reform schools used for criminally
active children, and their parents faced prosecutions for causing juvenile delinquency.

RULING:

To sustain the compulsory flag salute we are required to say that a Bill of Rights which guards
the individual’s right to speak his own mind, left it open to public authorities to compel him to
utter what is not in his mind. . . .

The question which underlies the flag salute controversy is whether such a ceremony so
touching matters of opinion and political attitude may be imposed upon the individual by official
authority under powers committed to any political organization under our Constitution. . . .

To enforce those rights today is not to choose weak government over strong government. It is
only to adhere as a means of strength to individual freedom of mind in preference to officially
disciplined uniformity for which history indicates a disappointing and disastrous end. . . .

The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of
political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish
them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to
free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may
not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections. . . . We set up
government by consent of the governed, and the Bill of Rights denies those in power any legal
opportunity to coerce that consent. Authority here is to be controlled by public opinion, not public
opinion by authority. . . .
We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to
exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. When they
are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the price is not too great.
But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere
shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the
heart of the existing order.

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can
prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or
force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which
permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.

We think the action of the local authorities in compelling the flag salute and pledge transcends
constitutional limitations on their power and invades the sphere of intellect and spirit which it is
the purpose of the First Amendment to our Constitution to reserve from all official control.

Excerpt: Concurrence, Justices Hugo Black and William O. Douglas

No well-ordered society can leave to the individuals an absolute right to make final decisions,
unassailable by the State, as to everything they will or will not do. The First Amendment does
not go so far. Religious faiths, honestly held, do not free individuals from responsibility to
conduct themselves obediently to laws which are either imperatively necessary to protect
society as a whole from grave and pressingly imminent dangers or which, without any general
prohibition, merely regulate time, place or manner of religious activity. . . . [W]e cannot say that
a failure, because of religious scruples, to assume a particular physical position and to repeat
the words of a patriotic formula creates a grave danger to the nation. Such a statutory exaction
is a form of test oath, and the test oath has always been abhorrent in the United States. . . .

Love of country must spring from willing hearts and free minds, inspired by a fair administration
of wise laws enacted by the people’s elected representatives within the bounds of express
constitutional prohibitions. These laws must, to be consistent with the First Amendment, permit
the widest toleration of conflicting viewpoints consistent with a society of free men. . . .

Excerpt: Concurrence, Justice Frank Murphy

[T]here is before us the right of freedom to believe, freedom to worship one’s Maker according
to the dictates of one’s conscience, a right which the Constitution specifically shelters.
Reflection has convinced me that as a judge I have no loftier duty or responsibility than to
uphold that spiritual freedom to its farthest reaches.

The right of freedom of thought and of religion as guaranteed by the Constitution against State
action includes both the right to speak freely and the right to refrain from speaking at all, except
in so far as essential operations of government may require it for the preservation of an orderly
society . . . . Official compulsion to affirm what is contrary to one’s religious beliefs is the
antithesis of freedom of worship . . . .
It is in that freedom and the example of persuasion, not in force and compulsion, that the real
unity of America lies. . . .

Excerpt: Dissent, Justice Felix Frankfurter

One who belongs to the most vilified and persecuted minority in history is not likely to be
insensible to the freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution. Were my purely personal attitude
relevant I should whole-heartedly associate myself with the general libertarian views in the
Court’s opinion, representing as they do the thought and action of a lifetime. But as judges we
are neither Jew nor Gentile, neither Catholic nor agnostic. We owe equal attachment to the
Constitution and are equally bound by our judicial obligations whether we derive our citizenship
from the earliest or the latest immigrants to these shores. As a member of this Court I am not
justified in writing my private notions of policy into the Constitution, no matter how deeply I may
cherish them or how mischievous I may deem their disregard. The duty of a judge who must
decide which of two claims before the Court shall prevail, that of a State to enact and enforce
laws within its general competence or that of an individual to refuse obedience because of the
demands of his conscience, is not that of the ordinary person. It can never be emphasized too
much that one’s own opinion about the wisdom or evil of a law should be excluded altogether
when one is doing one’s duty on the bench. The only opinion of our own even looking in that
direction that is material is our opinion whether legislators could in reason have enacted such a
law. In the light of all the circumstances, including the history of this question in this Court, it
would require more daring than I possess to deny that reasonable legislators could have taken
the action which is before us for review. Most unwillingly, therefore, I must differ from my
brethren with regard to legislation like this. I cannot bring my mind to believe that the ‘liberty’
secured by the Due Process Clause gives this Court authority to deny to the State of West
Virginia the attainment of that which we all recognize as a legitimate legislative end, namely, the
promotion of good citizenship, by employment of the means here chosen. . . .

The constitutional protection of religious freedom terminated disabilities, it did not create new
privileges. It gave religious equality, not civil immunity. Its essence is freedom from conformity to
religious dogma, not freedom from conformity to law because of religious dogma. Religious
loyalties may be exercised without hindrance from the state, not the state may not exercise that
which except by leave of religious loyalties is within the domain of temporal power. Otherwise
each individual could set up his own censor against obedience to laws conscientiously deemed
for the public good by those whose business it is to make laws.

The prohibition against any religious establishment by the government placed denominations on
an equal footing—it assured freedom from support by the government to any mode of worship
and the freedom of individuals to support any mode of worship. Any person may therefore
believe or disbelieve what he pleases. He may practice what he will in his own house of worship
or publicly within the limits of public order. But the lawmaking authority is not circumscribed by
the variety of religious beliefs, otherwise the constitutional guaranty would be not a protection of
the free exercise of religion but a denial of the exercise of legislation.

The essence of the religious freedom guaranteed by our Constitution is therefore this: no
religion shall either receive the state’s support or incur its hostility. Religion is outside the sphere
of political government. This does not mean that all matters on which religious organizations or
beliefs may pronounce are outside the sphere of government. Were this so, instead of the
separation of church and state, there would be the subordination of the state on any matter
deemed within the sovereignty of the religious conscience. . . .

The subjection of dissidents to the general requirement of saluting the flag, as a measure
conducive to the training of children in good citizenship, is very far from being the first instance
of exacting obedience to general laws that have offended deep religious scruples. Compulsory
vaccination, food inspection regulations, the obligation to bear arms, testimonial duties,
compulsory medical treatment—these are but illustrations of conduct that has often been
compelled in the enforcement of legislation of general applicability even though the religious
consciences of particular individuals rebelled at the exaction.

Law is concerned with external behavior and not with the inner life of man. It rests in large
measure upon compulsion. Socrates lives in history partly because he gave his life for the
conviction that duty of obedience to secular law does not presuppose consent to its enactment
or belief in its virtue. . . .

One’s conception of the Constitution cannot be severed from one’s conception of a judge’s
function in applying it. The Court has no reason for existence if it merely reflects the pressures
of the day. Our system is built on the faith that men set apart for this special function, freed from
the influences of immediacy and form the deflections of worldly ambition, will become able to
take a view of longer range than the period of responsibility entrusted to Congress and
legislatures. We are dealing with matters as to which legislators and voters have conflicting
views. Are we as judges to impose our strong convictions on where wisdom lies? That which
three years ago had seemed to five successive Courts to lie within permissible areas of
legislation is now outlawed by the deciding shift of opinion of two Justices. What reason is there
to believe that they or their successors may not have another view a few years hence? Is that
which was deemed to be of so fundamental a nature as to be written into the Constitution to
endure for all times to be the sport of shifting winds of doctrine? . . .

Of course patriotism cannot be enforced by the flag salute. But neither can the liberal spirit be
enforced by judicial invalidation of illiberal legislation. Our constant preoccupation with the
constitutionality of legislation rather than with its wisdom tends to preoccupation of the American
mind with a false value. The tendency of focusing attention on constitutionality is to make
constitutionality synonymous with wisdom, to regard a law as all right if it is constitutional. Such
an attitude is a great enemy of liberalism. Particularly in legislation affecting freedom of thought
and freedom of speech much which should offend a free-spirited society is constitutional.
Reliance for the most precious interests of civilization, therefore, must be found outside of their
vindication in courts of law. Only a persistent positive translation of the faith of a free society into
the convictions and habits and actions of a community is the ultimate reliance against unabated
temptations to fetter the human spirit.

-----------------------------------------------------
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette was a U.S. Supreme Court case decided on
June 14, 1943. In this case the court ruled that compelling students to salute the U.S. flag was
unconstitutional. It found that such a requirement violated their freedom of speech and religion.

The Supreme Court had addressed a similar issue in an earlier case, Minersville School District
v. Gobitis, in 1940. In that case, a school district in Pennsylvania had expelled two students for
refusing to salute the flag because of their religion. The students were Jehovah’s Witnesses,
who believe that saluting a flag (of any country) is an act of false worship. The Supreme Court
ruled 8 to 1 in favor of the school district.

In the wake of the Gobitis decision, West Virginia enacted a rule in 1942 that required students
to salute the U.S. flag. Walter Barnette, a Jehovah’s Witness in West Virginia, sued in U.S.
district court. He won, and the court issued an order, called an injunction, preventing the state
from enforcing the rule. The state school board appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In a 6-to-3 decision the court overturned the Gobitis ruling. The majority opinion was written by
Justice Robert H. Jackson, who had voted with the majority in Gobitis. The Gobitis decision had
focused primarily on claims of freedom of religion protections in the U.S. Constitution’s First
Amendment. The Barnette ruling invoked both freedom of religion and an individual’s freedom of
speech.

The court held that freedom of speech included the right not to be forced to speak against one’s
will. Jackson’s opinion underscored the rights of minorities against the tyranny of the majority: “If
there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can
prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or
force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” And, attempting to capture the
essence of the Bill of Rights protections, Jackson wrote:

The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of
political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials, and to establish
them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to
free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may
not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.

HIERARCHY OF RIGHTS

5) PBM Employees Org. vs. PBM Co., Inc. 51 SCRA 189 (1973)

ISSUE:

Whether the dismissal of PBMEO officers from their employment constituted a violation of their
constitutional right to freedom of expression, assembly, and petition. -- YES.
HELD:

The Supreme Court held that PBMEO needed even the first and regular shift workers for the
demonstration as their complete presence in the mass demonstration would generate the
maximum sympathy for the validity of their cause and immediate action on the part of
corresponding agencies.

The company’s contention that it would suffer loss by reason of the absence of the employees
from 6 AM – 2 PM is a plea for the preservation of merely their property rights. The appropriate
penalty that could have been imposed by the company – if it deserves any penalty at all –
should have been simply to charge the one-day absence of the workers against their vacation or
sick leaves.

While the Bill of Rights protects property rights, human rights such as freedom of expression,
assembly, and petition, is supreme over property rights. Infringement on human right requires a
more stringent criterion for validation, as compared to impairment of property rights.

The rights of free expression, free assembly and petition, are not only civil rights but also
political rights essential to man's enjoyment of his life, to his happiness and to his full and
complete fulfillment. Thru these freedoms the citizens can participate not merely in the periodic
establishment of the government through their suffrage but also in the administration of public
affairs as well as in the discipline of abusive public officer.

The superiority of these freedoms over property rights is underscored by the fact that a mere
reasonable or rational relation between the means employed by the law and its object or
purpose that the law is neither arbitrary nor discriminatory nor oppressive would suffice to
validate a law which restricts or impairs property rights. On the other hand, a constitutional or
valid infringement of human rights requires a more stringent criterion, namely existence of a
grave and immediate danger of a substantive evil which the State has the right to prevent.

6) Ermita-Malate Hotel and Motel Operators Association, Inc. vs. City of Manila (G.R. No.
L- 24693, July 31

FACTS:

Petitioners Ermita-Malate Hotel and Motel Operators Association with one of its members, Hotel
del Mar Inc., and Go Chiu, the president and general manager of the second petitioner, filed a
petition for prohibition against Ordinance No. 4760 against the respondent Mayor of the City of
Manila who was sued in his capacity as such charged with the general power and duty to
enforce ordinances of the City of Manila and to give the necessary orders for the execution and
enforcement of such ordinances.

It was alleged that the petitioner non-stock corporation is dedicated to the promotion and
protection of the interest of its eighteen members operating hotels and motels, characterized as
legitimate businesses duly licensed by both national and city authorities and regularly paying
taxes.

It was alleged that on June 13, 1963, the Municipal Board of the City of Manila enacted
Ordinance No. 4760, approved on June 14, 1963 by the then acting City Mayor, Vice-Mayor
Herminio Astorga. After which the alleged grievances against the ordinance were set forth in
detail. There was the assertion of its being beyond the powers of the Municipal Board of the City
of Manila to enact insofar as it regulate motels, on the ground that in the revised charter of the
City of Manila or in any other law, no reference is made to motels. It also being provided that the
premises and facilities of such hotels, motels and lodging houses would be open for inspection
either by the City Mayor, or the Chief of Police, or their duly authorized representatives. The
lower court on July 6, 1963 issued a writ of preliminary injunction ordering respondent Mayor to
refrain from enforcing said Ordinance No. 4760 from and after July 8, 1963.

Held:

Yes.

The ordinance was enacted to minimize certain practices hurtful to public morals.

It was made as there is observed an alarming increase in the rate of prostitution, adultery and
fornication in Manila traceable in great part to the existence of motels, which provide a
necessary atmosphere for clandestine entry, presence and exit and thus become the ideal
haven for prostitutes and thrill seekers.

The ordinance proposes to check the clandestine harboring of transients and guests of these
establishments by requiring these transients and guests to fill up a registration form, prepared
for the purpose, in a lobby open to public view at all times, and by introducing several other
amendatory provisions calculated to shatter the privacy that characterizes the registration of
transients and guests

Furthermore, the right of the individual is necessarily subject to reasonable restraint by general
law for the common good. The liberty of the citizen may be restrained in the interest of the
public health, or of the public order and safety, or otherwise within the proper scope of the police
power.

The State in order to promote the general welfare may interfere with personal liberty, with
property, and with business and occupations. Persons and property may be subjected to all
kinds of restraints and burdens, in order to secure the general comfort health, and prosperity of
the state

Wherefore, the judgment of the lower court is reversed and the injunction issued lifted forthwith.