MAXIMO CALALANG vs A. D. WILLIAMS, ET AL.

G.R. No. 47800 December 2, 1940

Doctrine: Social Justice

LAUREL, J.:

Facts:

The National Traffic Commission (Chairman Williams), in its resolution of

July 17, 1940, resolved to recommend to the Director of the Public Works and
to the Secretary of Public Works and Communications that animal-
drawn vehicles be prohibited from passing along the following for a period of
one year from the date of the opening of the Colgante Bridge to traffic:

1) Rosario Street extending from Plaza Calderon de la Barca to Dasmarias

Street from 7:30Am to 12:30 pm and from 1:30 pm to 530 pm; and

2) along Rizal Avenue extending from the railroad crossing at Antipolo Street
to

Echague Street from 7 am to 11pm

The Chairman of the National Traffic Commission on July 18, 1940

recommended to the Director of Public Works with the approval of the
Secretary of Public Works the adoption of
thethemeasure proposed in the resolution aforementioned in pursuance of th
e provisions of theCommonwealth Act No. 548 which authorizes said Director
with the approval from the
Secretary of the Public Works and Communication to promulgate rules and re
gulations to regulate and control the use of and traffic on national roads.

On August 2, 1940, the Director recommended to the Secretary the approval

of the recommendations made by the Chairman of the National Traffic
Commission with modifications. The Secretary of Public Works approved the
recommendations on August 10,1940. The Mayor of Manila and the Acting
Chief of Police of Manila have enforced and caused to be enforced the rules
and regulation. As a consequence, all animal-drawn vehicles are not allowed
to pass and pick up passengers in the places above mentioned to the
detriment not only of their owners but of the riding public as well.

Issues:

1) Whether the rules and regulations promulgated by the respondents

pursuant to the provisions of Commonwealth Act NO. 548 constitute an
unlawful inference with legitimate business or trade and abridged the right to
personal liberty and freedom of locomotion?

2) Whether the rules and regulations complained of infringe upon the

constitutional precept regarding the promotion of social justice to insure the
well-being and economic security of all the people?

Held:

1) No. The promulgation of the Act aims to promote safe transit upon and
avoid obstructions on national roads in the interest and convenience of the
public. In enacting said law, the National Assembly was prompted by
considerations of public convenience and welfare. It was inspired by the
desire to relieve congestion of traffic, which is a menace to the public safety.
Public welfare lies at the bottom of the promulgation of the said law and 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 subject to all kinds of restraints and burdens in order to
secure the general comfort, health, and prosperity of the State. To this
fundamental aims of the government, the rights of the individual are
subordinated. Liberty is a blessing which should not be made to prevail over
authority because society will fall into anarchy. Neither should authority be
made to prevail over liberty because then the individual will fall into slavery.
The paradox lies in the fact that the apparent curtailment of liberty is
precisely the very means of insuring its preserving.

2) No. Social justice is neither communism, nor despotism, nor atomism, nor
anarchy, but the humanization of laws and the equalization of social and
economic forces by the State so that justice in its rational and objectively
secular conception may at least be approximated. Social justice means the
promotion of the welfare of all the people, the adoption by the Government
of measures calculated to insure economic stability of all the competent
elements of society, through the maintenance of a proper economic and
social equilibrium in the interrelations of the members of the community,
constitutionally, through the adoption of measures legally justifiable, or
extra-constitutionally, through the exercise of powers underlying the
existence of all governments on the time-honored principles of salus populi
estsuprema lex.

Social justice must be founded on the recognition of the necessity of interdependence among
divers and diverse units of a society and of the protection that should be equally and evenly
extended to all groups as a combined force in our social and economic life, consistent with the
fundamental and paramount objective of the state of promoting health, comfort and quiet of all
persons, and of bringing about the greatest good to the greatest number.

EXPROPRIATION: EXPROPRIATOR AS ABSOLUTE OWNER

DE GUZMAN V. COURT OF APPEALS

504 SCRA 238

FACTS:
- Petitioners Froilan De Guzman, Angel Marcelo and Nicasio Magbitang were among the tenants
of a parcel of land.
- Respondent Municipality of Baliuag, Bulacan (municipality) sought the expropriation of the land
before the now defunct Court of Agrarian Relations.
- During the pendency of the expropriation proceedings, the municipality and petitioners entered
into a compromise agreement, whereby petitioners irrevocably withdrew their opposition to the
expropriation of the land in consideration of the payment of a disturbance compensation of
P25,000.00 per hectare or P2.50 per square meter. Petitioners also waived all claims and
demands against the municipality.
- The Court of Agrarian Relations approved said compromise agreement in its decisions dated 16
April 1979 and 9 August 1979.
- It can be gathered that the municipality eventually acquired ownership of the land through
expropriation but allowed petitioners to continue cultivating their lots pending the construction of
the Baliuag Wholesale Complex Market.
- Despite the lapse of several years, construction of the market did not push through. This
prompted petitioners, who had continually occupied and cultivated the land, to file in 1996 a
petition with the Municipal Agrarian Reform Office (MARO) of Baliuag, praying that the land be
placed under the Operation Land Transfer (OLT) in accordance with Presidential Decree (P.D.)
No. 27.
- The Regional Director of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) issued an order granting the
petition and declaring the land as covered by OLT.
- The municipality elevated the matter to the DAR Secretary who, in his Order dated 8 August
1997, reversed the Order of 6 January 1997 of the Regional Director.
- Petitioners, aggrieved this time, filed an appeal with the Office of the President. On 1 July 1999,
Executive Secretary Ronaldo B. Zamora, by authority of the President, dismissed petitioners
appeal and affirmed the order of the DAR Secretary.
- The Court of Appeals rendered the assailed Decision, dismissing petitioners appeal.
 - Thus, the instant petition.

ISSUES:
- Whether or not the subject land can be reclassified to agricultural after the purpose of its
conversion to a non-agricultural land had not materialized.

HELD/RATIO:
- No. That the subject land had been reclassified from agricultural to non-agricultural is not
disputed. The records reveal that as early as 1980, the municipality had passed a zoning ordinance
which identified the subject land as the site of the wholesale market complex.
- After the municipality acquired ownership over the land through expropriation and passed the
ordinance converting said land into a commercial area, any transaction entered into by the
municipality involving the land was governed by the applicable civil law in relation to laws on
local government. At this point, agrarian laws no longer governed the relationship between
petitioners and the municipality. While it was not established whether the relationship between
petitioners and the municipality was that of a lessor and lessee or that of an employer and laborer,
as the supposed written agreement was not offered in evidence, the fact remains that the subject
land had already been identified as commercial in the zoning ordinance.
- Certainly, petitioners occupation of the land, made possible as it was by the tolerance of the
municipality, was subject to its peremptory right to terminate. As absolute owner of the land, the
municipality is entitled to devote the land for purposes it deems appropriate.
- The mere fact of cultivating an agricultural land does not ipso jure vest ownership right in favor
of the tiller.

ASSO. OF SMALL LANDOWNERS VS. SEC. OF DAR [175 SCRA 343; G.R. NO. L-78742;
14 JUL 1989]

Friday, January 30, 2009 Posted by Coffeeholic Writes

Labels: Case Digests, Political Law

Facts: Several petitions are the root of the case:

a. A petition alleging the constitutionality of PD No. 27, EO 228 and 229 and RA 6657. Subjects
of the petition are a 9-hectare and 5 hectare Riceland worked by four tenants. Tenants were
declared full owners by EO 228 as qualified farmers under PD 27. The petitioners now contend
that President Aquino usurped the legislatures power.
b. A petition by landowners and sugarplanters in Victorias Mill Negros Occidental against
Proclamation 131 and EO 229. Proclamation 131 is the creation of Agrarian Reform Fund with
initial fund of P50Billion.

c. A petition by owners of land which was placed by the DAR under the coverage of Operation
Land Transfer.

d. A petition invoking the right of retention under PD 27 to owners of rice and corn lands not
exceeding seven hectares.

Issue: Whether or Not the aforementioned EOs, PD, and RA were constitutional.

Held: The promulgation of PD 27 by President Marcos was valid in exercise of Police power and
eminent domain.

The power of President Aquino to promulgate Proc. 131 and EO 228 and 229 was authorized
under Sec. 6 of the Transitory Provisions of the 1987 Constitution. Therefore it is a valid exercise
of Police Power and Eminent Domain.
RA 6657 is likewise valid. The carrying out of the regulation under CARP becomes necessary to
deprive owners of whatever lands they may own in excess of the maximum area allowed, there is
definitely a taking under the power of eminent domain for which payment of just compensation
is imperative. The taking contemplated is not a mere limitation of the use of the land. What is
required is the surrender of the title and the physical possession of said excess and all beneficial
rights accruing to the owner in favour of the farmer.

A statute may be sustained under the police power only if there is concurrence of the lawful
subject and the method.

Subject and purpose of the Agrarian Reform Law is valid, however what is to be determined is
the method employed to achieve it.

175 SCRA 343 Political Law Constitutional Law Bill of Rights Equal Protection
Valid Classification

Eminent Domain Just Compensation

These are four consolidated cases questioning the constitutionality of the Comprehensive
Agrarian Reform Act (R.A. No. 6657 and related laws i.e., Agrarian Land Reform Code or
R.A. No. 3844).

Brief background: Article XIII of the Constitution on Social Justice and Human Rights
includes a call for the adoption by the State of an agrarian reform program. The State shall,
by law, undertake an agrarian reform program founded on the right of farmers and regular
farmworkers, who are landless, to own directly or collectively the lands they till or, in the
case of other farmworkers, to receive a just share of the fruits thereof. RA 3844 was
enacted in 1963. P.D. No. 27 was promulgated in 1972 to provide for the compulsory
acquisition of private lands for distribution among tenant-farmers and to specify maximum
retention limits for landowners. In 1987, President Corazon Aquino issued E.O. No. 228,
declaring full land ownership in favor of the beneficiaries of PD 27 and providing for the
valuation of still unvalued lands covered by the decree as well as the manner of their
payment. In 1987, P.P. No. 131, instituting a comprehensive agrarian reform program
(CARP) was enacted; later, E.O. No. 229, providing the mechanics for its (PP131s)
implementation, was also enacted. Afterwhich is the enactment of R.A. No. 6657,
Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law in 1988. This law, while considerably changing the
earlier mentioned enactments, nevertheless gives them suppletory effect insofar as they are
not inconsistent with its provisions.

[Two of the consolidated cases are discussed below]

G.R. No. 78742: (Association of Small Landowners vs Secretary)

The Association of Small Landowners in the Philippines, Inc. sought exception from the land
distribution scheme provided for in R.A. 6657. The Association is comprised of landowners
of ricelands and cornlands whose landholdings do not exceed 7 hectares. They invoke that
since their landholdings are less than 7 hectares, they should not be forced to distribute
their land to their tenants under R.A. 6657 for they themselves have shown willingness to till
their own land. In short, they want to be exempted from agrarian reform program because
they claim to belong to a different class.

G.R. No. 79777: (Manaay vs Juico)

Nicolas Manaay questioned the validity of the agrarian reform laws (PD 27, EO 228, and
229) on the ground that these laws already valuated their lands for the agrarian reform
program and that the specific amount must be determined by the Department of Agrarian
Reform (DAR). Manaay averred that this violated the principle in eminent domain which
provides that only courts can determine just compensation. This, for Manaay, also violated
due process for under the constitution, no property shall be taken for public use without just
compensation.

Manaay also questioned the provision which states that landowners may be paid for their
land in bonds and not necessarily in cash. Manaay averred that just compensation has
always been in the form of money and not in bonds.

ISSUE:

1. Whether or not there was a violation of the equal protection clause.

2. Whether or not there is a violation of due process.

3. Whether or not just compensation, under the agrarian reform program, must be in terms
of cash.

HELD:

1. No. The Association had not shown any proof that they belong to a different class exempt
from the agrarian reform program. Under the law, classification has been defined as the
grouping of persons or things similar to each other in certain particulars and different from
each other in these same particulars. To be valid, it must conform to the following
requirements:

(1) it must be based on substantial distinctions;

(2) it must be germane to the purposes of the law;

(3) it must not be limited to existing conditions only; and

(4) it must apply equally to all the members of the class.

Equal protection simply means that all persons or things similarly situated must be treated
alike both as to the rights conferred and the liabilities imposed. The Association have not
shown that they belong to a different class and entitled to a different treatment. The
argument that not only landowners but also owners of other properties must be made to
share the burden of implementing land reform must be rejected. There is a substantial
distinction between these two classes of owners that is clearly visible except to those who
will not see. There is no need to elaborate on this matter. In any event, the Congress is
allowed a wide leeway in providing for a valid classification. Its decision is accorded
recognition and respect by the courts of justice except only where its discretion is abused to
the detriment of the Bill of Rights. In the contrary, it appears that Congress is right in
classifying small landowners as part of the agrarian reform program.

2. No. It is true that the determination of just compensation is a power lodged in the courts.
However, there is no law which prohibits administrative bodies like the DAR from
determining just compensation. In fact, just compensation can be that amount agreed upon
by the landowner and the government even without judicial intervention so long as both
parties agree. The DAR can determine just compensation through appraisers and if the
landowner agrees, then judicial intervention is not needed. What is contemplated by law
however is that, the just compensation determined by an administrative body is merely
preliminary. If the landowner does not agree with the finding of just compensation by an
administrative body, then it can go to court and the determination of the latter shall be the
final determination. This is even so provided by RA 6657:

Section 16 (f): Any party who disagrees with the decision may bring the matter to the court
of proper jurisdiction for final determination of just compensation.

3. No. Money as [sole] payment for just compensation is merely a concept in traditional
exercise of eminent domain. The agrarian reform program is a revolutionary exercise of
eminent domain. The program will require billions of pesos in funds if all compensation have
to be made in cash if everything is in cash, then the government will not have sufficient
money hence, bonds, and other securities, i.e., shares of stocks, may be used for just
compensation.

Facts: Several petitions are the root of the case:

a. A petition alleging the constitutionality of PD No. 27, EO 228 and 229 and RA
6657. Subjects of the petition are a 9-hectare and 5 hectare Riceland worked by
four tenants. Tenants were declared full owners by EO 228 as qualified farmers
under PD 27. The petitioners now contend that President Aquino usurped the
legislatures power.

b. A petition by landowners and sugarplanters in Victorias Mill Negros

Occidental against Proclamation 131 and EO 229. Proclamation 131 is the
creation of Agrarian Reform Fund with initial fund of P50Billion.

c. A petition by owners of land which was placed by the DAR under the coverage
of Operation Land Transfer.

d. A petition invoking the right of retention under PD 27 to owners of rice and

corn lands not exceeding seven hectares.

Issue: Whether or Not the aforementioned EOs, PD, and RA were

constitutional.

Held: The promulgation of PD 27 by President Marcos was valid in exercise of

Police power and eminent domain.

The power of President Aquino to promulgate Proc. 131 and EO 228 and 229
was authorized under Sec. 6 of the Transitory Provisions of the 1987
Constitution. Therefore it is a valid exercise of Police Power and Eminent
Domain.

RA 6657 is likewise valid. The carrying out of the regulation under CARP
becomes necessary to deprive owners of whatever lands they may own in
excess of the maximum area allowed, there is definitely a taking under the
power of eminent domain for which payment of just compensation is imperative.
The taking contemplated is not a mere limitation of the use of the land. What is
required is the surrender of the title and the physical possession of said excess
and all beneficial rights accruing to the owner in favour of the farmer.

A statute may be sustained under the police power only if there is concurrence
of the lawful subject and the method.

Subject and purpose of the Agrarian Reform Law is valid, however what is to be
determined is the method employed to achieve it.