Leovillo Agustin vs Romeo Edu

G.R. No. L-49112 – 177 Phil. 160 – 88 SCRA 195 – Political Law – Constitutional Law – Generally Accepted Principles of International Law – Police Power

Agustin is the owner of a Volkswagen Beetle Car. He is assailing the validity of Letter of Instruction No 229 which requires all motor vehicles to have early warning devices particularly to equip them with a pair of reflectorized triangular early warning devices. Agustin is arguing that this order is unconstitutional, harsh, cruel and unconscionable to the motoring public. Cars are already equipped with blinking lights which is already enough to provide warning to other motorists. And that the mandate to compel motorists to buy a set of reflectorized early warning devices is redundant and would only make manufacturers and dealers instant millionaires.

ISSUE: Whether or not the said is EO is valid.

HELD: Yes. Such early warning device requirement is not an expensive redundancy, nor oppressive, for car owners whose cars are already equipped with blinking-lights and other like features because: Being universal among the signatory countries to the said 1968 Vienna Conventions, and visible even under adverse conditions at a distance of at least 400 meters, any motorist from this country or from any part of the world, who sees a reflectorized rectangular early warning device installed on the roads, highways or expressways, will conclude, without thinking, that somewhere along the travelled portion of that road, highway, or expressway, there is a motor vehicle which is stationary, stalled or disabled which obstructs or endangers passing traffic. On the other hand, a motorist who sees any of the aforementioned other built-in warning devices or the petroleum lamps will not immediately get adequate advance warning because he will still think what that blinking light is all about. Is it an emergency vehicle? Is it a law enforcement car? Is it an ambulance? Such confusion or uncertainty in the mind of the motorist will thus increase, rather than decrease, the danger of collision.

On Police Power

LOI 229 was issued in the exercise of the police power. Police power is “nothing more or less than the powers of government inherent in every sovereignty.”  It is the state authority to enact legislation that may interfere with personal liberty or property in order to promote the general welfare. Persons and property could thus be subjected to all kinds of restraints and burdens in order to secure the general comfort, health and prosperity of the state. It is the greatest and most powerful attribute of government. It is the most essential, insistent, and at least illimitable power extending to all the great public needs. The police power is a dynamic agency, suitably vague and far from precisely defined, rooted in the conception that men in organizing the state and imposing upon its government limitations to safeguard constitutional rights did not intend thereby to enable an individual citizen or a group of citizens to obstruct unreasonably the enactment of such salutary measures calculated to insure communal peace, safety, good order, and welfare.

In this case, the general welfare sought was to promote safe transit upon, and avoid obstruction on roads and streets designated as national roads.

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