2.
ERMITA-MALATE HOTEL AND MOTEL, petitioners-appellees,
vs.
THE HON. CITY MAYOR OF MANILA, respondent-appellant.
VICTOR ALABANZA, intervenor-appellee.
G.R. No. L-24693
July 31, 1967
FERNANDO, J.:
FACTS:
Against the respondent Mayor of the City of Manila, who was sued in his official capacity as such charged with
the general power and duty to enforce ordinances of the City of Manila and to issue the necessary orders for
the execution and enforcing them, the petitioners Ermita-Malate Hotel and Motel Operators Association and
one of its members, Hotel del Mar Inc., filed a petition for prohibition against Ordinance No. 4760.
It was asserted that the petitioner non-stock corporation is committed to the promotion and protection of the
interests of its eighteen members who run hotels and motels, which are regarded as legitimate businesses that
have been granted the necessary licenses by both local and federal authorities and pay taxes on time. It was
said that on June 13, 1963, the Municipal Board of the City of Manila passed Ordinance No. 4760, which Vice-
Mayor Herminio Astorga, who was serving as acting City Mayor at the time, approved on June 14. Next, a
detailed explanation of the purported complaints against the ordinance followed. The argument that the new
Manila City Charter and all other laws lack any mention of motels led to the claim that the Municipal Board of
the City of Manila lacks the authority to adopt laws governing motels was made. Additionally, it is stipulated
that these hotels, motels, and lodging establishments' spaces and amenities would be open for inspection
either the city mayor, the police chief, or their duly appointed representatives may view it.
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.
ISSUE: WON the ordinance is a valid exercise of police power of the State
RULING: YES
The statute here questioned deals with a subject clearly within the scope of the police power. We are
asked to declare it void on the ground that the specific method of regulation prescribed is unreasonable and
hence deprives the plaintiff of due process of law. As underlying questions of fact may condition the
constitutionality of legislation of this character, the resumption of constitutionality must prevail in the absence of
some factual foundation of record for overthrowing the statute." No such factual foundation being laid in the
present case, the lower court deciding the matter on the pleadings and the stipulation of facts, the presumption
of validity must prevail and the judgment against the ordinance set aside.
Nor may petitioners assert with plausibility that on its face the ordinance is fatally defective as being repugnant
to the due process clause of the Constitution. 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. To hold otherwise would be to unduly
restrict and narrow 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."5 It would be, to paraphrase another leading decision, to destroy the very purpose of the state if it could
be deprived or allowed itself to be deprived of its competence to promote public health, public morals, public
safety and the genera welfare.6 Negatively put, 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. 7
There is no question but that the challenged ordinance was precisely enacted to minimize certain
practices hurtful to public morals. 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." It would appear therefore that the
stipulation of facts, far from sustaining any attack against the validity of the ordinance, argues eloquently for it.
No man can do exactly as he pleases. Every man must renounce unbridled license. The right of the individual
is necessarily subject to reasonable restraint by general law for the common good x x x 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."28
Wherefore, the judgment of the lower court is reversed and the injunction issued lifted forthwith. With costs.
