THE STATE

State – A community of persons, more or less numerous, permanently occupying a definite

portion of territory, independent of external control, and possessing a government to which a
great body of inhabitants render habitual obedience.
The States are the repositories of legitimated authority over peoples and territories. It is only in
terms of state powers, prerogatives, jurisdictional limits and law-making capabilities that
territorial limits and jurisdiction, responsibility for official actions, and a host of other questions
of co-existence between nations can be determined. It is by virtue of their law-making power
and monopoly that states enter into bilateral and multilateral compacts, that wars can be
started and terminated, that individuals can be punished or extradited.
STATE V. NATION
State – Is a legal or juristic concept.
Nation – an ethnic or racial concept.
ELEMENTS OF STATEHOOD
People – A community of persons sufficient in number and capable of maintaining the
continued existence of the community and held together by a common bond of law. It is of no
legal consequence if they possess diverse racial, cultural, or economic interests.
Territory – A definite territory, consisting of land and waters and the air space above them and
the submarine areas below them, is another essential element of the modern state. And as
Restatement (Third) on the Foreign Relations Law of the United States explain: “An entity may
satisfy the territorial requirement for statehood even if its boundaries have not been finally
settled, if one or more of its boundaries are disputed, or if some of its territory is claimed by
another state. An entity does not necessarily cease to be a state even if all its territory has been
occupied by a foreign power or if it has otherwise lost control of its territory temporarily.
NOTE: PHILIPPINE TERRITORIAL WATERS SPAN UP TO:
- 200 NAUTICAL MILES – EXCLUSIVE ECONOMIC ZONE
- 24 NAUTICAL MILES CONTIGUOUS ZONE
- 12 NAUTICAL MILES TERRITORIAL SEA
UNCLOS – UNCONVENTIONAL LAW OF THE SEA
Government – The institution or aggregate of institutions by which an independent society
makes and carries out those rules of action which are necessary to enable men to live in a social
state, or which are imposed upon the people forming that society by those who possess the
power or authority of prescribing them.
Section 2 of the Revised Administrative Code (1917) defined the “Government of the Republic
of the Philippines” thus:
The Government of the Philippine Islands is a term which refers to the corporate governmental
entity through which the functions of government are exercised throughout the Philippine
Islands, including, save as the contrary appears from the context, the various arms through
which political authority is made effective in said Islands, whether pertaining to the central
Government or to the provincial or municipal branches or other form local government.
Sovereignty – Supreme and uncontrollable power inherent in a state by which the state is
governed; a final essential element of statehood according to the Montevideo Convention is
capacity to conduct international relations. An entity is not a state unless it has competence,
within its own constitutional system, to conduct international relations with other states, as
well as the political, technical and financial capabilities to do so. An entity that has the capacity
to conduct foreign relations does not cease to be a state because it voluntarily turns over to
another state control of its foreign relations, as in the ‘protectorates’ of the period of
colonialism, the case of Liechtenstein, or the ‘associated states’ of today. States do not cease to
be states because they have agreed not to engage in certain international activities or have
delegated authority to do so to a ‘supernational’ entity, e.g., the European Communities.
Clearly a state does not cease to be a state if it joins a common market.
TYPES OF GOVERNMENT
As to the existence or absence of title and/or control/legitimacy:
De jure – Has a rightful title but no power or control, either because the same has been
withdrawn from it or because it has not yet actually entered into exercise thereof; established
by authority of legitimate sovereign.
De facto – actually exercises power of control but without legal title; merely, is one established
in defiance of the legitimate sovereign.
De facto proper – government that gets possession and control of, or usurps, by force or by the
voice of the majority, the rightful legal government and maintains itself against the will of the
latter.
De facto government of paramount force – Established and maintained by military forces who
invade and occupy a territory of the enemy in the course of war.
Independent government – Established by the inhabitants of the country who rise in
insurrection against the parent state, such as the government of the Southern Confederacy in
revolt against the Union during the war of secession.
As to concentration of powers in a governmental branch:
Presidential – There is separation of executive in legislative powers.
Parliamentary – There is fusion of executive and legislative powers in parliament, although the
actual exercise of executive powers is vested in a Prime Minister who is chosen by, and
accountable to, Parliament.
As to centralization of control:
Unitary – One in which the control of national and local affairs is exercised by the central or
national government; single, centralized government, exercising powers over both the internal
and external affairs of the State.
Federal – One in which the powers of the government are divided between two sets of organs,
one for the national affairs and the other for local affairs, each organ being supreme within its
own sphere; consists of autonomous local government units merged into a single state, with
national government exercising a limited degree of power over the domestic affairs but
generally full discretion of the external affairs of the State.
TYPES OF SOVEREIGNTY
Legal Sovereignty – The power to issue commands.
Political Sovereignty – The power behind the legal sovereign or the sum total of all the
influences which lie behind the law.
Internal Sovereignty – The power to control a State’s domestic affairs.
External Sovereignty – The power to direct the State’s relations with other States.
CHARACTERISTICS
- PERMANENT
- EXCLUSIVE
- COMPREHENSIVE
- INDIVISIBLE
- INALIEANABLE
- IMPRESCRIBTIBLE
- ABSOLUTE
POWERS OF THE STATE
Police Power - Power of the State to promote public welfare by restraining and regulating the
use of liberty and property.
Eminent Domain – “Understood to be the ultimate right of the sovereign power to appropriate,
not only the public but the private property of all citizens within the territorial sovereignty to
public purpose.” So wrote Justice Story in the leading case of Charles River Bridge v. Warren
Bridge. It is a power inherent in sovereignty. Hence, it is a power which need not be granted by
any fundamental law. “In other words,” says a 1919 Philippine decision, “The provisions now
generally found in modern constitutions of civilized countries to the effect that private property
shall not be taken for public use without compensation have their origin in the recognition of a
necessity for restraining the sovereign and protecting the individual.”
Taxation – The power of tax, like police power and the power of eminent domain, is the
inherent power of government. “That the taxing power is of vital importance; that it is essential
to the existence of government; are truths which it cannot be necessary to re-affirm.” Hence,
the power need not be granted by the Constitution. Section 28, in fact, is not a grant of power
but an enumeration of limits on the inherent and otherwise almost unlimited power.