SALVADOR VILLACORTA

FIRST DIVISION

G.R. No. L-31249 August 19, 1986
SALVADOR VILLACORTA as City Engineer of Dagupan City, and JUAN S. CAGUIOA as Register of Deeds of Dagupan City, petitioners,
vs.
GREGORIO BERNARDO and HON. MACARIO OFILADA as Judge of the Court of First Instance of Pangasinan respondents.
Victor T. Llamas, Jr. for respondents.

CRUZ, J.:

This is a petition for certiorari against a decision of the Court of First Instance of Pangasinan annulling an ordinance adopted by the municipal board of Dagupan City.

The ordinance reads in full as follows:

ORDINANCE 22

AN ORDINANCE REGULATING SUBDIVISION PLANS OVER PARCELS OF LAND IN THE CITY OF DAGUPAN.

Be it ordained by the Municipal Board of Dagupan City in session assembled:

Section 1. Every proposed subdivision plan over any lot in the City of Dagupan, shalt before the same is submitted for approval and/or verification by the Bureau of Lands and/or the Land Registration Commission, be previously submitted to the City Engineer of the City who shall see to it that no encroachment is made on any portion of the public domain, that the zoning ordinance and all other pertinent rules and regulations are observed.

Section 2. As service fee thereof, an amount equivalent to P0.30 per square meter of every lot resulting or win result from such subdivision shall be charged by the City Engineer's Office.

Section 3. It shall be unlawful for the Register of Deeds of Dagupan City to allow the registration of a subdivision plan unless there is prior written certification issued by the City Engineer that such plan has already been submitted to his office and that the same is in order.

Section 4. Any violation of this ordinance shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two hundred (P200.00) pesos or imprisonment not exceeding six (6) months or both in the discretion of the judge.

Section 5. This ordinance shall take effect immediately upon approval.

In declaring the said ordinance null and void, the court a quo declared:

From the above-recited requirements, there is no showing that would justify the enactment of the questioned ordinance. Section 1 of said ordinance clearly conflicts with Section 44 of Act 496, because the latter law does not require subdivision plans to be submitted to the City Engineer before the same is submitted for approval to and verification by the General Land Registration Office or by the Director of Lands as provided for in Section 58 of said Act. Section 2 of the same ordinance also contravenes the provisions of Section 44 of Act 496, the latter being silent on a service fee of PO.03 per square meter of every lot subject of such subdivision application; Section 3 of the ordinance in question also conflicts with Section 44 of Act 496, because the latter law does not mention of a certification to be made by the City Engineer before the Register of Deeds allows registration of the subdivision plan; and the last section of said ordinance imposes a penalty for its violation, which Section 44 of Act 496 does not impose. In other words, Ordinance 22 of the City of Dagupan imposes upon a subdivision owner additional conditions.

xxx xxx xxx

The Court takes note of the laudable purpose of the ordinance in bringing to a halt the surreptitious registration of lands belonging to the government. But as already intimidated above, the powers of the board in enacting such a laudable ordinance cannot be held valid when it shall impede the exercise of rights granted in a general law and/or make a general law subordinated to a local ordinance.

We affirm.

To sustain the ordinance would be to open the floodgates to other ordinances amending and so violating national laws in the guise of implementing them. Thus, ordinances could be passed imposing additional requirements for the issuance of marriage licenses, to prevent bigamy; the registration of vehicles, to minimize carnaping; the execution of contracts, to forestall fraud; the validation of passports, to deter imposture; the exercise of freedom of speech, to reduce disorder; and so on. The list is endless, but the means, even if the end be valid, would be ultra vires.

So many excesses are attempted in the name of the police power that it is time, we feel, for a brief admonition.

Regulation is a fact of life in any well-ordered community. As society becomes more and more complex, the police power becomes correspondingly ubiquitous. This has to be so for the individual must subordinate his interests to the common good, on the time honored justification of Salus populi est suprema lex.

In this prolix age, practically everything a person does and owns affects the public interest directly or at least vicariously, unavoidably drawing him within the embrace of the police power. Increasingly, he is hemmed in by all manner of statutory, administrative and municipal requirements and restrictions that he may find officious and even oppressive.

It is necessary to stress that unless the creeping interference of the government in essentially private matters is moderated, it is likely to destroy that prized and peculiar virtue of the free society: individualism.

Every member of society, while paying proper deference to the general welfare, must not be deprived of the right to be left alone or, in the Idiom of the day, "to do his thing." As long as he does not prejudice others, his freedom as an individual must not be unduly curtailed.

We therefore urge that proper care attend the exercise of the police power lest it deteriorate into an unreasonable intrusion into the purely private affairs of the individual. The so-called "general welfare" is too amorphous and convenient an excuse for official arbitrariness.

Let it always be remembered that in the truly democratic state, protecting the rights of the individual is as important as, if not more so than, protecting the rights of the public.

This advice is especially addressed to the local governments which exercise the police power only by virtue of a valid delegation from the national legislature under the general welfare clause. In the instant case, Ordinance No. 22 suffers from the additional defect of violating this authority for legislation in contravention of the national law by adding to its requirements.

WHEREFORE, the decision of the lower court annulling the challenged ordinance is AFFIRMED, without any pronouncement as to costs.

SO ORDERED.

Yap (Chairman), Narvasa, Melencio-Herrera and Paras, JJ., concur.