RAFFY RUIZ BULADO - CASE DIGEST

G.R. No. 158793      June 8, 2006
JAMES MIRASOL, RICHARD SANTIAGO, and LUZON MOTORCYCLISTS FEDERATION, INC.
vs.
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS AND HIGHWAYS and TOLL REGULATORY BOARD

FACTS:

Herein petitioners prayed for the issuance of a temporary restraining order and or preliminary injunction to prevent the enforcement of the total ban on motorcycles along the entire breadth of North and South Luzon Expressways and the Manila-Cavite (Coastal Road) Toll Expressway as  per Department of Public Works and Communications issuance of Administrative Order No.1 (AO 1, ), which, among others, prohibited motorcycles on limited access highways.

ISSUE: Whether AO 1 is a valid exercise of police power

RULING:

             YES. The use of public highways by motor vehicles is subject to regulation as an exercise of the police power of the state. Amongst all types of motorized transport, it is obvious, even to a child, that a motorcycle is quite different from a car, a bus or a truck. The most obvious and troubling difference would be that a two-wheeled vehicle is less stable and more easily overturned than a four-wheeled vehicle.

               The police power is far-reaching in scope and is the "most essential, insistent and illimitable" of all government powers. The tendency is to extend rather than to restrict the use of police power. The sole standard in measuring its exercise is reasonableness. What is "reasonable" is not subject to exact definition or scientific formulation. No all-embracing test of reasonableness exists, for its determination rests upon human judgment applied to the facts and circumstances of each particular case. The exercise of police power involves restriction, restriction being implicit in the power itself. Thus, the test of constitutionality of a police power measure is limited to an inquiry on whether the restriction imposed on constitutional rights is reasonable, and not whether it imposes a restriction on those rights. The yardstick has always been simply whether the government’s act is reasonable and not oppressive.

GR No. 183591,

Province of North Cotabato v. Republic

October 14, 2008

FACTS:

         The Government and the MILF were scheduled to sign a Memorandum of Agreement on the Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) aspect of the GRP-MILF Tripoli Agreement on Peace of 2001 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The GRP-MILF agreement is the result of a formal peace talks between the parties in Tripoli, Libya in 2001. The pertinent provisions in the MOA-AD provide for the establishment of an associative relationship between the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE) and the Central Government. It speaks of the relationship between the BJE and the Philippine government as associative, thus implying an international relationship and therefore suggesting an   autonomous state. Furthermore, under the MOA-AD, the GRP Peace Panel guarantees that necessary amendments to the Constitution and the laws will eventually be put in place.

ISSUE: Whether the MOA-AD is constitutional

RULING:

            

           No. The SC ruled that the MOA-AD cannot be reconciled with the present Constitution and laws. Not only its specific provisions but the very concept underlying them, namely, the associative relationship envisioned between the GRP and the BJE, are unconstitutional, for the concept presupposes that the associated entity is a state and implies that the same is on its way to independence. Moreover, as the clause is worded, it virtually guarantees that the necessary amendments to the Constitution and the laws will eventually be put in place. Neither the GRP Peace Panel nor the President herself is authorized to make such a guarantee. Upholding such an act would amount to authorizing a usurpation of the constituent powers vested only in Congress, a Constitutional Convention, or the people themselves through the process of initiative, for the only way that the Executive can ensure the outcome of the amendment process is through an undue influence or interference with that process. While the MOA-AD would not amount to an international agreement or unilateral declaration binding on the Philippines under international law, the respondents ‘ act of guaranteeing amendments is, by itself, already a constitutional violation that renders the MOA-AD fatally defective. The MOA-AD contains provisions which are repugnant to the Constitution and which will result in the virtual surrender of part of the Philippines’ territorial sovereignty.  Had the MOA-AD been signed by parties, would have bound the government to the creation of a separate Bangsamoro state having its own territory, government, civil institutions, and armed forces. The sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Philippines would have been compromised.