Ermita-Malate Hotel and Motel Operators vs.

City of Manila, July 31, 1967

FACTS:

1. The petition for prohibition against Ordinance No. 4760 was filed on July 5, 1963 by the
petitioners, Ermita-Malate Hotel and Motel Operators Association, one of its members, Hotel
del Mar, Inc., and a certain Go Chiu, against the respondent Mayor of the City of Manila.
2. The following are the assertions assailing the challenged ordinance as unconstitutional and void
for being unreasonable and violative of due process:
i. Increase in license fees (P6,000 for first-class; P4,500 for second class motels)
ii. Require the hotels to accept guests only after filling up the prescribed form open to
public view at all times (specifying personal details therein)
iii. Require maintenance of facilities such as telephone, restaurant or laundry
iv. Prohibit a person less than 18 years old from being accepted in such hotels, motels,
lodging houses, tavern or common inn unless accompanied by parents or a lawful
guardian
v. Prohibit to lease any room or portion thereof more than twice every 24 hours
vi. Subsequent conviction would cause automatic cancellation of license
3. 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.
4. Respondent’s defense: the challenged ordinance bears a reasonable relation to a proper
purpose, which is to curb immorality, a valid and proper exercise of the police power;
presumption of the validity of the challenged ordinance, the burden of showing its lack of
conformity to the Constitution resting on the party who assails it
5. The lower court observed: It does appear obvious then that without any evidence submitted by
the parties, the decision passed upon the alleged infirmity on constitutional grounds of the
challenged ordinance, dismissing as is undoubtedly right and proper the untenable objection on
the alleged lack of authority of the City of Manila to regulate motels, and came to the conclusion
that "the challenged Ordinance No. 4760 of the City of Manila, would be unconstitutional and,
therefore, null and void." It made permanent the preliminary injunction issued against
respondent Mayor and his agents "to restrain him from enforcing the ordinance in question."

ISSUE:

Whether or not the ordinance violates the due process requirement of the Constitution

RULING:

No, there is no violation of the constitutional due process and the ordinance enjoys the presumption of
constitutionality absent any irregularity on its face. The mantle of protection associated with the due
process guaranty does not cover petitioners. This particular manifestation of a police power measure
being specifically aimed to safeguard public morals is immune from such imputation of nullity resting
purely on conjecture and unsupported by anything of substance.
 6. There is no question but that the challenged ordinance was precisely enacted to minimize
certain practices hurtful to public morals. In view of the alarming increase in the rate of
prostitution, adultery and fornication in Manila traceable in great part to the existence of
motels, 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 license
fees was intended to discourage "establishments of the kind from operating for purpose other
than legal.”
7. What then is the standard of due process which must exist both as a procedural and as
substantive requisite to free the challenged ordinance, or any government action for that
matter, from the imputation of legal infirmity? It is responsiveness to the supremacy of reason,
obedience to the dictates of justice. To satisfy the due process requirement, official action, to
paraphrase Cardozo, must not outrun the bounds of reasons and result in sheer oppression.
8. In imposing licenses for revenue, it has been explicitly held in one case that "much discretion is
given to municipal corporations in determining the amount.”
9. Nor does the restriction on the freedom to contract, insofar as the challenged ordinance makes
it unlawful for the owner, manager, keeper or duly authorized representative of any hotel,
motel, lodging house, tavern, common inn or the like, to lease or rent any room or portion
thereof more than twice every 24 hours. Again, such a limitation cannot be viewed as a
transgression against the command of due process. It is neither unreasonable nor arbitrary.
Precisely it was intended to curb the opportunity for the immoral or illegitimate use to which
such premises could be, and, according to the explanatory note, are being devoted.

DISPOSITIVE:

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