G.R. No. 47800 – 70 Phil. 726 – Political Law – Constitutional Law – Powers of the State – Police Power; Valid Exercise – Social Justice
In July 1940, upon the recommendation of officials of Manila and Chairman A.D. Williams of the National Traffic Commission, the Secretary of Public Works (Eulogio Rodriguez) prohibited kalesas (horse-drawn carriages) from certain roads in Manila.
The authority of Sec. Rodriguez to issue the prohibition is based on Sec. 1 of Commonwealth Act No. 548 which provides in part: “that to promote safe transit upon, and avoid obstructions on, roads and streets, the Secretary of Public Works shall promulgate the necessary rules and regulations to regulate and control the use of and traffic on such roads and streets. Such roads may be temporarily closed to any or all classes of traffic whenever necessary or advisable in the public convenience and interest, or for a specified period.”
Maximo Calalang questioned the validity of the prohibition. He raised the following:
ISSUES:
1. That Section 1 of CA 548 is an undue delegation for it confers legislative power to the Secretary of Public Works as it provide discretion on the Secretary to determine what roads to close and which traffic to prohibit; and
2. That It violates the social justice clause of the constitution as it prohibits other road users from using a public infrastructure, it interferes with business, personal liberty, and freedom of locomotion.
HELD:
1. There is no undue delegation of legislative power. Due to changing times, the principle of “subordinate legislation” is already a trend practically in all modern governments. With the growing complexity of modern life, the multiplication of the subjects of governmental regulations, and the increased difficulty of administering the laws, the rigidity of the theory of separation of governmental powers has, to a large extent, been relaxed by permitting the delegation of greater powers by the legislative and vesting a larger amount of discretion in administrative and executive officials, not only in the execution of the laws, but also in the promulgation of certain rules and regulations calculated to promote public interest.
In this case, the determination of road closure and road use, its regulation, in view of its condition and the requirements of public convenience and interest, is an administrative function and not a legislative function.
The Legislature cannot delegate its power to make the law; but it can make a law to delegate a power to determine some fact or state of things upon which the law makes, or intends to make, its own action depend. To deny this would be to stop the wheels of government.
2. CA 548 and the prohibition of kalesas are a valid exercise of police power. The purpose is to decongest traffic which is for the public welfare. The promotion of the general welfare may interfere with personal liberty, with property, and with business and occupations. Persons and property may be subjected to all kinds of restraints and burdens, in order to secure the general comfort, health, and prosperity.
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 principle of salus populi est suprema lex.
