ALEJANDRO R. SANTOS, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. CATALINA DE ALVAREZ, CARLOS TANSECO, AND MANUEL ALVAREZ, DEFENDANTS AND APPELLANTS.

Alejandro R. Santos, plaintiff-appellee herein, filed a suit in ejectment for
the premises designated as No. 22, Altura Street, Sta. Mesa, Manila, occupied
since September 1942 by defendants-appellants, Catalina de Alvarez, Carlos
Tanseco, and Manuel Alvarez. Santos obtained judgment in his favor in the
municipal court of Manila, which was affirmed on appeal to the Court of First
Instance. This appeal is now from the judgment of the Court of First Instance
wherein defendants Alvarez et al. are ordered to vacate the premises, to pay the
plaintiff back rent from April 1, 1945, at the rate of P35 a month up to the
time the premises are vacated, and to pay the costs of the suit.

Section 2 of Republic Act No. 66, amending Commonwealth Act No. 689,
provides:

“In a suit for ejection or for the collection of rents due and payable by
virtue of a contract of lease of buildings destined solely for dwelling, not
being a room or rooms of an hotel, and lots, the fact that the rents are unjust
and unreasonable shall constitute a valid defense. Except as provided in section
twelve of this Act, no lessee or occupant shall be ejected in cases other
than for willful and deliberate nonpayment of rents or when the lessor has to
occupy the building leased.” (Italics ours.)

Under this provision, a lessee cannot be ejected even for non-payment of
rents, where such non-payment is not willful and deliberate and the lessor does
not need the property for himself and the lessee has never subleased it without
authority. In other words, a lessee who is unable to pay on time the agreed
rents because of poverty or of any other circumstance beyond his control cannot,
under the present law, be ejected from the leased property, if the other two
circumstances are not present. The purpose of the law is evidently to relieve
the present situation arising from the scarcity of housing facilities by
protecting particularly the thousands of impoverished people who in the war of
liberation lost their houses together with almost all their belongings and found
shelter in houses owned by others. By the very nature of its purpose, this
measure of social justice, which is temporary in character (four years), is
applicable to all lessees or occupants at the time the law was passed,
regardless of the dates of their contracts. Manifestly the law seeks to relieve
an existing condition affecting the life and happiness of the people, a
condition that is not less important because of its age. Indeed, a poor lessee
does not cease to be poor because his contract bears an earlier date than that
of the law. It is expressly ordained by said law that “no lessee or occupant
shall be ejected in cases other than for willful and deliberate non-payment of
rents,” a negative and all-inclusive expression which is mandatory and embraces
within its protection all lessees and occupants without distinction at the time
the law was passed. The only exceptions to the rule as above indicated are (1)
when the lessee or occupant subleased the property without the consent of the
lessor; (2) when there has been willful and deliberate non-payment of rents; or
(3) when the lessor has to occupy the building leased. Under the facts of the
instant case, the first and second exceptions cannot be invoked. As regards the
third, the lessor, according to his testimony reiterated in his brief, wishes to
secure the premises for his two sons or near relatives. But the exception
applies only when the lessor “has to occupy the building leased.” It does not
apply when the lessor needs the building for others. In other words, the need
contemplated by law is only the lessor’s need. His sons or near relatives are
not the lessors. The sons should live with their father if they are minors, and
if they are of age they are no longer dependents of their father. The near
relatives have no standing in the lease, hence their need cannot be
considered.

Moreover, there is the defendant’s allegation that plaintiff has other
properties which he has been leasing to others rather than to his two sons and
near relatives, which allegation is not denied and is indirectly admitted in
appellee’s brief.

In view of the foregoing, the judgment of the lower court is affirmed in so
far as it fixes the monthly rent for the premises in question at P35, and
reversed in so far as it orders defendants-appellants to vacate said premises
and to pay the costs. Plaintiff-appellee will pay the costs of this
suit.

Pablo, Bengzon, Hontiveros, and Tuason, JJ.,
concur.

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FERIA, J.:

I concur in the opinion of the majority.

I should have signed the said opinion, without writing this separate
concurring one, were it not for the dissenting opinion or opinions based on the
conclusion that Commonwealth Act No. 689, as amended by Republic Act No. 66, is
not applicable to the present case, for it can not be given a retroactive
effect, and the laws applicable are those in force at the time the complaint in
this case was filed with the justice of the peace before said Act went into
effect, that is, the pertinent provisions of the Civil Code, which conclusion is
wrong for the following reasons:

Section 2 of said Act No. 689 as amended provides:

“In a suit for ejection or for the collection pi rents due and payable by
virtue of a contract of lease of buildings destined solely for dwelling, not
being a room or rooms of an hotel, and lots, the fact that the rents are unjust
and unreasonable shall constitute a valid defense. Except as provided in section
twelve of this Act, no lessee or occupant shall be ejected in cases other
than for willful and deliberate nonpayment of rents or when the lessor has to
occupy the building leased.”

From the provisions above quoted, and taking into consideration the plain
purpose of the law, it appears that the latter is clearly intended to
temporarily supersede the provisions of the Civil Code on the matter, and to
make it applicable to all pending and future litigations. For it provides that,
“except as provided in section 12 of this Act, no lessee or occupant shall be
ejected in cases other than for willful and deliberate nonpayment of rents or
when the lessor has to occupy the building leased;” and a lessee or occupant can
only be judicially ejected after the judgment in an action of ejectment against
him has become final. Had the intention of the Legislature been otherwise, it
would have provided that “no action for ejectment shall be instituted against a
lessee or occupant except, etc.” And, besides, were it to apply prospectively or
only to futrue actions instituted after said Act became effective, the apparent
purpose of the law would not be fully accomplished, for it is of common or
judicial notice that there were many cases of ejection then pending originally
and on appeal in the courts at the time the law was enacted, and the scarcity of
housing facilities was more acute before than after the promulgation of said
Act.

From the provision of section 14 of said Act No. 689 as amended to the effect
that “this Act shall be enforced for a period of four years after its approval,”
it does not follow that said Act because of said provision can not have a
retrospective effect, for said period of four years is a mere limitation of the
prospective effect of the Act as an emergency legislation, but has no bearing on
the retrospective effect thereof.

“There is some conflict of opinion as to whether a case should be determined
according to the law in effect when the judgment was rendered in the lower
court, or according to the law in effect at the time the cause is disposed of by
the reviewing court, but both reason and the weight of authority point to the
view that the case must be determined in the light of the law as it exists at
the time of the decision by the appellate court, where the statute changing the
law is intended to be retroactive and apply to pending litigation, or is
retroactive in its effect; and this is true though it may result in the reversal
of a judgment which was correct at the time it was rendered by the trial court.
The general rule is, of course, subject to limitation where rights have been
acquired which may not be divested by legislative changes in the law. In other
words, while, as a general rule, the province of an appellate court is only to
inquire whether a judgment when rendered was erroneous or not, if, subsequently
to the judgment, and before the decision of the appellate court, a law
intervenes and positively changes the rules which govern, the law must be
obeyed, unless it is unconstitutional.” (3 American Jurisprudence, pp. 668,
669.)

It is elementary that all courts have inherent power to decide whether or not
a law is retrospective or of retroactive effect, because if they hold the
affirmative they merely declare what the law is or the intention of the
legislature in enacting it. It is, therefore, clearly erroneous the contention
in the dissenting opinion that this Court cannot give retroactive effect to Act
No. 689 without usurping a legislative function. Of course, the courts should
not construe the law as retrospective if such a construction would make it
unconstitutional. The only question therefore to be determined in this case,
although the dissenting opinion does not discuss it, is whether Act No. 689 is
violative of the Constitution.

Our Constitution does not in terms prohibit the enactment of retrospective
laws which do not impair the obligations of contract or deprive a person of
property without due process of law, that is, do not divest rights of property
and vested rights. It is obvious that the plaintiff and appellee in the present
case had not acquired any right vested by the judgment appealed from to have the
appellant ousted, because the judgment had not yet become final and was pending
appeal at the time said act was enacted; and it is also clear that the pertinent
provisions of the Civil Code having been temporarily repealed and superseded by
said Act, the case must be determined on the law as it stands at the time the
judgment of this Court is rendered, there being no saving clause excluding cases
pending at the time Act No. 689 from the effects of said Act.

But even assuming that the appellee had a property or vested right to recover
the possession of the property leased by him to the appellant at the expiration
of the term of the lease, “No rule in constitutional law is better settled than
the principle that all property is held subject to the right of the state
reasonably to regulate its use under the police power in order to secure
the general safety, public welfare, public convenience and general prosperity,
and the peace, good order and morals of the community” (11 Am. Jur., section
268). Act No. 689 as amended was enacted under the emergency police power of the
state.

The police power to a large extent rests on the maxim “sic utere tuo ut
alienum non laedas.” Another principle involved in the police power is expressed
by the well-known maxim, “salus populi est suprema lex.” It has been said that
this maxim is the foundation principle of all civil government and that for ages
it has been a ruling principle of jurisprudence. “A specific application of the
doctrine that the police power is based on public necessity finds its
application in statutes which have been passed at different occasions during
emergencies to cope with the unusual exigencies arising. The general rule that
while emergency does not create power, increase granted power, or remove or
diminish the restrictions imposed upon power granted or reserved, emergency may
furnish the occasion for the exercise of power applies with full force and
effect to police measures. Thus, a limit in time to tide over a passing trouble
may justify a law that could not be upheld as a permanent change. It must be
considered, however, that an emergency does not automatically lift all
constitutional restraints and that a law depending upon the existence of an
emergency or other certain state of facts to uphold it may cease to operate if
the emergency ceases or the facts change, even though it was valid when passed.”
(11 Am. Jur., p. 979.)

Before concluding, it may not be amiss to say that it is purely academic and
a superfluity to dissent from an obiter in the majority opinion, as one of the
dissenters does, because an obiter is not an opinion of the court but of the
writer of the decision. Besides, the dissent is without any foundation of facts,
inasmuch as the majority does not state that failure to pay at all but inability
to pay in time, the rents because of poverty or any other circumstances
beyond the lessee’s control, does not constitute a cause of action for ejecting
a lessee under Act No. 689, as amended.

PARAS and BRIONES, JJ.:

We concur in the
above concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Feria.

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PERFECTO, J.:

Plaintiff testified that defendant Catalina de Alvarez rented his house at 22
Altura street, at the beginning, in 1941. In March, 1942, she left the house and
went to live at the National Development Company. In September, 1942, she came
to occupy the house again. Plaintiff agreed to accept defendant Catalina de
Alvarez as tenant, because her family was composed of only about six persons.
The other two defendants were living in another place. Plaintiff needs the house
very badly because “I have two sons whose houses were burned during this war.
Besides I have near relatives who want to live also downstairs.” And defendant
“Manuel Alvarez, insulted me and was about to fight me.” When plaintiff came
back in February, 1945, from their evacuation place “I told them that I needed
the ground floor immediately as there was no more need for shelter and that my
two sons and near relatives would live in the house, but because they had a few
belongings deposited therein, they did not like to vacate the premises. So on
April 2, I sent her a formal note that they must leave the house in thirty
days.” Copy of the note has been presented as Exhibit A. Defendant sent
plaintiff Exhibit B-1, in which it is stated: “Mr. Santos: Excuse me for not
having removed my things downstairs, because we are still looking for a place
where to move to, and as soon as we get a place I will let you know.—Sgd. C. de
Alvarez.” Defendants are misusing the house. The Bureau of Health ordered
plaintiff to repair the floor of the kitchen which has been leaking. “I had it
repaired, Your Honor, but after ten days it leaked again and it was worse,
because they had been beating clothes when washing same. Aside from that, in the
kitchen, in front of the stove, they split firewood.” Exhibits C and C-1 are the
orders issued by Emilio Ejercito, Sanitary Engineer of Manila for plaintiff to
make the repairs. Defendants “have torn down the partitions below” and the
decorations in the sala. The lumber they used for making shelter has not been
returned. Some are missing.

Mario Santos testified that he is the one who delivered to defendant Catalina
de Alvarez, plaintiffs’s letter of April 2, 1945. “As my father instructed me, I
pasted one of the two copies at the door downstairs. Everybody can see it.”

Lim Puan, occupant of the ground floor of the house, testified that he has
complained to the plaintiff because the kitchen of the upper floor was leaking.
Plaintiff had it repaired but one or two weeks thereafter there was leakage
again. “There were broken parts.”

Defendant Catalina de Alvarez testified that she has been occupying the
premises since August 15, 1941. When she moved to the house her co-defendants
Manuel Alvarez and Carlos Tanseco, her son and son-in-law, respectively, went
with her. She does not know of any repairs that had been made in the house by
plaintiff. “There was nothing to repair there. The floor of the kitchen and the
toilet are made of tile and one of the partitions is of wood. Naturally because
of water it became decayed and then exposed and then it caused some leakage.
What the plaintiff did was to cover it with tar.” As to the allegation in the
complaint that she had failed to pay the rents from April, 1945, she said: “I
was paying the rent but he did not receive it because he wanted to drive us
away. When I came from the place of evacuation that was the time he requested us
to pay P100 rent for the house.” At first she was paying P30 monthly rent. In
April she sent P35. “I made repairs in the walls by putting nails.”

Manuel Alvarez testified that he has been living with his mother at 22 Altura
since 1941 after the great fire in Tondo. “Did you ever pay rents to your
mother?” “Certainly.” The witness denies any misuse of the house. “In fact we
had some repairs made in the house. The floors that were out of order, the
electrical wiring, and we improved the furnace of the house kitchen.”

Testifying on rebuttal, plaintiff belied defendant Catalina de Alvarez’
testimony as to his trying to increase the rent of the house to P100 a
month.

This case was initiated almost two years ago with the complaint filed with
the municipal court on June 21, 1945. On July 5, 1945, defendants filed their
answer. After due trial, on the same day, Judge Nable rendered decision ordering
defendants to vacate the premises and to pay rents from April 1945, at the rate
of P30 a month, until they had completely vacated the premises.

Defendants appealed on July 13, 1945, filing the answer with the Court of
First Instance of Manila on August 11, 1945. On August 21, 1945, plaintiff moved
for reassignment of the case to another branch so that it may be “terminated
with ease and dispatch.” On August 28, the motion was granted. On August 29,
defendants moved to reconsider the order granting the reassignment. After due
trial, on November 10, 1945, Judge Alfonso Felix, now Justice of the Court of
Appeals, rendered decision ordering defendants to vacate the premises and to pay
the rents from April, 1945, at the rate of P35 a month, up to the time they
actually vacate the premises.

On December 19, 1945, defendants appealed again. After more than six months,
the case was set for hearing in the Supreme Court on August 30, 1946. On the
same day it was submitted for our decision.

Notwithstanding the fact that this is a simple case of ejectment, we failed
to decide it until the Court of Appeals was recreated, when it was transmitted
to it for decision. The case was again set for hearing by the Court of Appeals,
and counsel for both parties called attention to the fact that the case had
already been argued upon and submitted for decision in the Supreme Court and
should for that reason be decided by the same in view of the provisions of
section 3 of Republic Act No. 52. On January 10, 1947, the Court of Appeals
remanded the case to this Court.

After deliberation, a majority of this Court decided to reverse the decision
of the Court of First Instance of Manila in so far as it orders defendants to
vacate the premises and to pay the costs. Plaintiff-appellee is sentenced to pay
the costs.

We dissent from that decision. In our opinion, the lower court’s decision,
being well founded on law and on the facts proved by the evidence on record,
should be affirmed in toto.

The majority’s decision is premised on a wrong application of Commonwealth
Act No. 689, as amended by Republic Act No. 66. The error consists mainly in
giving to said act a retroactive effect not provided in it nor intended by
Congress. Commonwealth Act No. 689 came into effect on October 15, 1945. Section
14 thereof provides: “This Act shall be enforced for a period of two years after
its approval.”

This provision dispels any doubt as to the time of the enforceability of said
act. Aside from the elemental rule of legal hermeneutics that no retroactive
effect shall be given to an act, unless so expressly provided therein, the last
quoted provision constitutes an express prohibition against giving retroactive
effect to the act in question. If section 14 of Commonwealth Act No. 689 should
offer any doubt as to the purpose of its authors forbidding any retroactive
effect and of limiting its period of enforceability, the period to begin from
October 15, 1945, the date of its approval, that purpose is reiterated by
section 1 of Republic Act No. 66, when it amended section 14 of Commonwealth Act
No. 689 to read as follows: “This Act shall be enforced for a period of four
years after its approval.”

Neither this Court nor any court in the world may give retroactive effect to
Commonwealth Act No. 689, prior to its approval on October 15, 1945, without
usurping the legislative function entrusted by the Constitution to Congress, and
without unconstitutionally extending backwards the two-year period originally
provided or the four-year time mentioned in Republic Act No. 66.

Whether plaintiff is entitled or not to the remedy sought in his complaint,
that is a question that must be decided under the laws existing and in effect at
the time the complaint was filed on June 21, 1945, about four months before the
approval of Commonwealth Act No. 689. The lease contract between the parties
being from month to month, under article 1581 of the Civil Code, the one
existing and applicable at the time of the filing of the complaint, plaintiff
was entitled to terminate the lease at any month, and, according to article 1565
of the Civil Code, without any demand, and this Supreme Court has decided so in
a long line of decisions rendered since 1945 and even after October 15, 1945,
the date that Commonwealth Act No. 689 began to take effect. (Estrella and
Estrella vs. Sangalang, 76 Phil., 108; Domingo Vda. de Buhay vs.
Cobarrubias, 76 Phil., 213; Roque vs. Cavestani de los Santos, No. L-218,
August 8, 1946; De Guzman vs. Moreno, No. L-257, October 2, 1946; Ramirez
vs. Reyes, 77 Phil., 1030; Licauco vs. Reyes Estaniel, No. L-215,
February 28, 1947; Inquimboy and Pelay vs. Juachon, No. L-197, March 14,
1947; Philippine Sugar Estates Development Co. vs. Prudencio, 76 Phil.,
111; article 1581, Civil Code.)

The injustice committed to plaintiff by the retroactive effect given to
Commonwealth Act No. 689 is aggravated by the fact that he is made to suffer the
effects of a law which was approved only on October 18, 1946, after one year and
four months of litigation. Plaintiff is the victim of a second grade retroactive
effect not authorized either by law or by the Constitution to be given. The
majority apply section 2 of Commonwealth Act No. 689 as amended by section 1 of
Republic Act No. 66. The right of plaintiff to eject defendants is denied him
because he has not shown that he “has to occupy the building leased.” This
provision was enacted only on October 18, 1946, when Republic Act No. 66 was
approved. Then the majority gives it a retroactive effect as if the provision
was enacted at the time Commonwealth Act No. 689 was approved on October 15,
1945. After this first grade retroactive effect, the majority gives it another
backward jump, so that the clutches of the provision may strangle plaintiff’s
complaint filed since June 21, 1945.

In infringing the sphere of legislative functions, the majority may claim
that they are inspired by the same generous feeling of helping tenants that
induced Congress to enact Commonwealth Act No. 689. About section 2 thereof, as
amended by Republic Act No. 66, they say:

“The purpose of the law is evidently to relieve the present situation arising
from the scarcity of housing facilities by protecting particularly the thousands
of impoverished people who in the war of liberation lost their houses together
with almost all their belongings and found shelter in houses owned by
others.”

We are no less concerned about the lot of tenants. In our long years of
practice of the law, we have defended tenants in many hundreds of cases. As a
newspaperman and as a political leader, we have worked long and hard to improve
their conditions. We have steadfastly campaigned for the acquisition by the
government of big landed estates and large urban tracts of land to give tenants
facilities to own small lots and to cease paying rents. We have that idea
incorporated in the platforms of the Democrata Party and other political parties
in which we had militated. As member of the Constitutional Convention, we helped
for the inclusion in the fundamental law the provision giving the legislative
department power to “authorize, upon payment of just compensation, the
expropriation of lands to be divided into small lots and conveyed at cost to
individuals.” (Section 4, Article XIII.) We ourselves have been a tenant for
many years. But we do not believe that our ideas as to how we can help tenants
should be made to prevail as law in contravention of existing laws, or that they
give us a green light to the extent of even usurping the legislative functions
of Congress, or subverting the traditional moral values of our people.

The spirit of helpfulness among near relatives is one of the oldest and most
outstanding moral traits of our people. From North to South, from East to West,
no matter to what province we may go, we will find that spirit blooming in
almost every home, from the proudest to the humblest, as one of the most
beautiful flowers of our race. That spirit is even more pronounced between
parents and children. It is common to see grown up children, even those rearing
their own families, continuing to enjoy the shelter of a common roof with their
parents. If under the same roof there is not enough space, parents are always
ready to help their children obtain a convenient one. No one should be,
therefore, surprised that plaintiff should seek to oust defendants in order to
give shelter to two sons, whose houses were burned during the battle of
liberation. There is no doubt in our mind that plaintiff’s children are entitled
to preference over mere strangers. Agreeing with the proposition that the spirit
of Commonwealth Act No. 689 and Republic Act No. 66, is to help the less
fortunate at the sacrifice of the more fortunate ones, which it is presumed to
be the relative positions between tenants and house owners, in the impossibility
of giving help to all the less fortunate, it is necessary to establish a
distinction between preferential cases and those which are not Among two less
fortunates claiming opportunity to occupy the same house, there should not be
any question that the children of the owner are entitled to preference over
strangers.

We are not trying to put in issue the wisdom or unwisdom of the thought that
Commonwealth Act No. 689, as amended by Republic Act No. 66, should have a
retroactive effect so as to apply to lease contracts entered into and litigated
in court before its enactment, but it is definitely unwise for this Supreme
Court to legislate, when that power is lodged by the Constitution in Congress.
Of course, there should not be any disagreement that we may fill certain gaps in
the law, and even correct inconsistencies, but such we can do only on matters
which are conclusively within the scope of the law we are interpreting and
applying. We cannot do that on a ground not covered by such a law. Our action
must be limited within the specific space and time which are comprehended within
the provisions of said law. We cannot go further without invading a field
belonging to others, the one under the exclusive jurisdiction of the legislative
department.

By giving a retroactive effect to Commonwealth Act No. 689, without said
effect being authorized by the same act, is tantamount to enacting said law for
the period prior to its enactment. By such action this Supreme Court is
impinging a ground not belonging to it. Such an encroachment of legislative
functions is violative of the Constitution.

The majority’s action in this case, after the dissented decisions in Vera
vs. Avelino (77 Phil., 192), and in Mabanag vs. Lopez Vito (p. 1,
ante), offers a judicial paradox which is hard to explain. While in the
last two cases, the Supreme Court has been made to fail to perform its elemental
duty of adjudging two important litigations, in which clear violations of the
Constitution were in issue, adopting for the sake of the alleged principle of
separation of powers the so-called hands-off policy, which is a euphemistic name
for the psychological feeling produced by a primitive taboo, in this case there
is a showing of an amazing boldness, through which this Tribunal assumes a
legislative function, by extending and enlarging the two-year and four-year
periods, respectively, provided by Commonwealth Act No. 689 and Republic Act No.
66, within which the provisions of the former are limited to take effect, the
limitation having been adopted in view of the fact that said laws, enacted to
face a situation of emergency, are of temporary nature. To defeat plaintiff’s
right of action, approved under the applicable laws at the time it was brought
to courts, this Tribunal has to assume the double role of Congress and Supreme
Court. That it has to assume the powers of two departments, the legislative and
judicial, in order to wield the axe under which the right of action of plaintiff
is to be executed, such a right of action must be too tough to be dealt
with.

The pronouncements in the majority opinion to the effect that Commonwealth
Act No. 689 is a measure of social justice, that it is intended to relieve an
existing condition affecting the life and happiness of the people, and that a
poor lessee does not cease to be poor because his contract is older than the
law, have no bearing at all with the fundamental question involved in this
Court’s exercising of a legislative function belonging to Congress. Not because
we may agree with the social ends intended by the authors of the measure, are we
justified to broaden its scope, to amend or supplement it, or to change its
prospective character by making it retroactive. Our agreeing with the
congressional objective is no reason why the Supreme Court should enact legal
provisions not enacted by Congress. Such arrogation is violative of the
fundamental law.

We are not to end this opinion without recording our dissent with the obiter
in the majority opinion, in construing the law in question, to the effect that a
lessee who is unable to pay the agreed rents because of poverty or of any other
circumstance beyond his control cannot be ejected. Can the owner be compelled,
either by legislation or by judicial interpretation, to practice charity? How
about the constitutional guarantee protecting property? Does the pronouncement
not decide in effect an expropriation of the owner’s possession to be
gratuitously given to a tenant?

The phrase “willful and deliberate non-payment of rents” in the provision of
the law that “no lessee or occupant shall be ejected in cases other than for
willful and deliberate nonpayment of rents or when the lessor has to occupy the
building leased,” if the validity of the provision is to be upheld, should be
construed to refer only to cases of involuntary delay in the payment of rents,
but never to create a legal exemption from the obligation of paying rents in
favor of a class of tenants, no matter how numerous they may be, who, on account
of their financial situation, are unable to pay rents, as is erroneously
maintained by the majority.

We do not believe that Congress had ever intended to grant to tenants unable
to pay rents free houses or lodging at the expense of the owners. We do not
believe that Congress had ever purported to expropriate, without any
compensation, the private property of house owners in order to give free shelter
to economically hard-pressed tenants. The authors of Commonwealth Act No. 689
and Republic Act No. 66 have never had the intention of flagrantly violating the
constitutional guarantees that “no person shall be deprived of property without
due process of law,” that “private property shall not be taken for public use
without just compensation,” and that no person “shall be denied the equal
protection of the laws.”

Of course, there is nothing to impede Congress from adopting the policy of
providing houses, built or acquired at the expense of public funds, to shelter
all the inhabitants who cannot afford to pay rents. Before the last war, our
government built, with funds provided by the National Assembly, tenement houses
for the poor. Congress may provide funds for the erection of so many tenement
houses as may be needed and even provide for their free occupancy by the poor.
Such thing has not been provided either in Commonwealth Act No. 689 or in
Republic Act No. 66. May this Supreme Court supply the omission by inserting in
said acts, through judicial interpretation, the provision that house owners
shall not charge or collect any rent from tenants who are unable to pay it?

Such is the effect of the obiter in, the majority opinion to which we are
objecting. The theory of the obiter is flagrantly violative of express
provisions of the Constitution and will lead to evil results of unsuspected
magnitude. The financial inability of tenants to pay rents is not a fact that
can easily be proved. With the exception of the small minority whose incomes are
large enough to be concealed, it will always be possible for tenants to claim
their inability to pay rents, and house owners will have a hard time to
challenge the claim. There is no doubt that they will succeed only in a very few
cases.

The theory will be a stimulus to the bad faith of unscrupulous tenants. No
matter how big, commodious or even sumptuous the house may be, or how high its
reasonable rent, under the theory we are discussing, if the tenant alleges that
he is unable to pay the rent, and his allegation is not disproved, he cannot be
disturbed by any ejectment proceedings. We may imagine the case of a house with
a reasonable rent of P1,000 or more per month. The tenant has been able to pay
the rent for many years. But now his income has been reduced that he cannot pay
the same rent anymore. According to the majority, the tenant shall be allowed to
remain in the house without paying anything, even if its rent should be the only
means of support of the owner and his family, and deprivation thereof would
cause them incalculable sufferings of all nature.

The theory is a wanton attack against the elemental right of property, as
Proudhon could do no better. It is one of the worst forms of communistic system,
because it has the effect of using private property not for the common benefit
of all the people but for that of a privileged class, a thing diametrically
antagonistic to the humanitarian ideal of theoretical communism. It is a
flagrant violation of the principle of equality which is an essential element in
a democracy and is the common denominator of all processes, methods, and systems
leading to the attainment of justice. That principle is the one at the bottom of
the golden rule enunciated two thousand years ago in the Sermon on the Mount,
the rule upon which human society can be held secure as its strongest pillar and
without which peace and happiness and enlightened and progressive civilization
are unattainable. Justice Holmes said: “The degree of civilization which a
people has reached, no doubt, is marked by their anxiety to do as they would be
done by.”

For all the foregoing, we dissent from the majority decision and
vote to affirm in toto the lower court’s decision.

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HILADO, J.:

For substantially the same reasons supporting
my dissent in Moya vs. Barton (45 Off. Gaz., 237), I dissent from the
majority decision in this case. In my opinion the judgment appealed from should
be affirmed.

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PADILLA, J.:

I dissent. The facts of this case are
similar to those in Kalaw Ledesma vs. Pictain (45 Off. Gaz., 683, 697);
and for the very same grounds and reasons set forth in my opinion in that case,
especially that neither Commonwealth Act No. 689 nor Republic Act No. 66 should
be given retroactive effect, I vote for the affirmance of the judgment appealed
from.