ERMITA-MALATE HOTEL AND MOTEL OPERATORS ASSOCIATION, INC.

,
HOTEL DEL MAR INC. and GO CHIU, petitioners-appellees,
vs.
THE HONORABLE CITY MAYOR OF MANILA, respondent-appellant.

Facts:

I. On June 13, 1963, the Municipal Board of the City of Manila enacted
Ordinance No. 4760.
II. The ordinance seeks to regulate hotels and motels:
impose P6,000.00 fee per annum for first class motels and P4,500.00 for
second class motels; that the provision in the same section which would
require the owner, manager, keeper or duly authorized representative of a
hotel, motel, or lodging house to refrain from entertaining or accepting any
guest or customer or letting any room or other quarter to any person or
persons without his filling up the prescribed form xxxx
III. The lower court on July 6, 1963 issued a writ of preliminary injunction ordering
respondent Mayor to refrain from enforcing said Ordinance No. 4760.
IV. Petitioner: single out such features as the increased fees for motels and
hotels, the curtailment of the area of freedom to contract, and, in certain
particulars, its alleged vagueness.

Issue:
Won the regulations imposed on motels and hotels is a valid exercise of police
power. Yes
Ruling:

There is no question but that the challenged ordinance was precisely enacted to
minimize certain practices hurtful to public morals.

The scope of police power which has been properly characterized as the most
essential, insistent and the least limitable of powers,4 extending as it does "to all the
great public needs."

Police power is "that inherent and plenary power in the State which enables it to
prohibit all that is hurt full to the comfort, safety, and welfare of society.

The explanatory note of the Councilor Herminio Astorga included as annex to the
stipulation of facts, speaks of the 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 challenged ordinance then 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."

Moreover, the increase in the licensed fees was intended to discourage

"establishments of the kind from operating for purpose other than legal" and at the
same time, to increase "the income of the city government.

Police power, which, is the power to prescribe regulations to promote the health,
morals, peace, good order, safety and general welfare of the people. In view of the
requirements of due process, equal protection and other applicable constitutional
guaranties however, the exercise of such police power insofar as it may affect the life,
liberty or property of any person is subject to judicial inquiry.

Decision:

Wherefore, the judgment of the lower court is reversed and the injunction issued lifted
forthwith. With costs. on June 13, 1963, the Municipal Board of the City of Manila
enacted Ordinance No. 4760,