G.R.
No. L-57424 December 18, 1987
ROBIDANTE
L. KABILING, PRUDENCIO C. CARBON, POLICARPIO S. SEGUI RAFAEL C. CARBON, ANTONIO
C. BOLASOC, LOLITA C. CASTRO, SOTERO S. FERRER, PERFECTO C. MAMAAT, VICENTE M.
MORTERA, et. al., petitioners,
vs.
THE
NATIONAL HOUSING AUTHORITY AND THE REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, respondents.
R E S O L U T I O N
Facts:
Petitioners' are among the
landowners whose title to their respective lots have already been transferred
to respondent NHA pursuant to the provisions of P.D. No. 1808. Wherein said
petitioners assailed the constitutionality of P.D . No. 1808. Alleging that
said P.D . No. 1808 deprives them of
their property without due process of law and without just compensation and of
their right to protection of the laws. They further alleged that their
properties are not the proper subject of expropriation by the government.
Issue/s:
1.
Is P.D. No. 1808 unconstitutional due to the
deprivation of due process and just compensation?
Ruling:
The petitioners' challenge
to the constitutionality of P.D. No. 1808 cannot be sustained. The objective of the decree, namely, to resolve
the land tenure problem in the Agno-Leveriza area to allow the implementation
of the comprehensive development plans for this depressed community, provides
the justification for the exercise of the police power of the State. The police
power of the State has been described as "the most essential, insistent
and illimitable of powers. It is a power inherent in the State, plenary,
"suitably vague and far from precisely defined, rooted in the conception
that man in organizing the state and imposing upon the government limitations
to safeguard constitutional rights did not intend thereby to enable individual
citizens or group of citizens to obstruct unreasonably the enactment of such
salutary measure to ensure communal peace, safety, good order and welfare.
Petitioners also cannot
complain that they are being deprived of their property without due process of
law and just compensation since Sec. 3 of P.D. No. 1808 provides for just
compensation to lot owners who have fully paid their obligations to the City of
Manila under their respective contracts before the issuance of the decree, and while
including petitioners Robidante L. Kabiling, et al. to those have not yet
claimed the compensation for their respective lots.
The motion for
reconsideration was DENIED.
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