G.R. No. L-1496. November 29, 1949
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE VS. CAYETANO DE BORJA, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.
TUASON, J.:
of Nueva Ecija overruling a motion to dismiss the complaint.
These proceedings were instituted by the Commonwealth
Government on June 19, 1939 to condemn a parcel of land with an area of 10,565
square meters situated in the poblacion of Gapan, Nueva Ecija, for the purpose
of subdivision and resale to its tenants or occupants. It is alleged that “por
varios años en el pasado y hasta el presente, han existido y existen conflictos
entre los inquilinos de este terreno y el demahdado, motivados por
desavenienclas sobre la propiedad y la posesion de las porciones de terrenos por
cada inquilino ocupadas; y es, por esto, que se hace necesaria la expropriacidn
de dicho terreno ordenada por su Excelencia, el Presidente de Filipinas.”
This case is analogous in all the important questions raised to
the case of, Guido vs. Rural Progress Administration,[1] G. R. No. L-2089, where in
the decision was promulgated on October 31, 1949. Whatever differences there are
militate in favor of the defendant. Here the land is more than 50% smaller than
the land involved in the other case; the greater part of the land is occupied by
stores and shops and is admittedly commercial; and many of the occupants for
whose benefit the expropriation is sought have properties of their own and are
well to do.
Following is the complete text of our decision in Guido vs.
Rural Progress Administration, ante, which controls and disposes of this
appeal.
‘This is a petition for prohibition to prevent the Rural
Progress Administration and Judge Oscar Castelo of the Court of First Instance
of Rizal from proceeding with the expropriation of petitioner Justa G. Guido’s
land, two adjoining lots, part commercial, with a combined area of 22,655 square
meters, situated in Maypajo, Caloocan, Rizal, just outside the north Manila
boundary, on the main street running from this city to the North. Four grounds
are adduced in support of the petition, to wit:
“(1) That the respondent RPA (Rural Progress Administration)
acted without jurisdiction or corporate power in filing the expropriation
complaint and has no authority to negotiate with the RFC a loan of P100,000 to
be used as part payment of the value of the land.“(2) That the land sought to be expropriated is commercial and
therefore excluded within the purview of the provisions of Act 539.“(3) That majority of the tenants have entered with the
petitioner valid contracts for lease, or option to buy at an agreed price, and
expropriation would impair those existing obligation of contract.“(4) That respondent Judge erred in fixing the provisional
value of the land at P118,780.00 only and in ordering its delivery to the
respondent RPA.”
‘We will take up only ground No. 2. Our conclusion on this
branch of the case will make superflous a decision on the other questions
raised.
‘Sections 1 and 2 of Commonwealth Act No. 539, copied verbatim,
are as follows:
“Section 1. The President of the Philippines is authorized to
acquire private lands or any interest therein, though purchase or expropriation,
and to subdivide the same into home lots or small farms for resale at reasonable
prices and under such conditions as he may fix to their bona fide
tenants or occupants or to private individuals who will work the lands
themselves and who are qualified to acquire and own lands in the
Philippines.“Section 2. The President may designate any department, bureau,
office, or instrumentality of the National Government, or he may organize a new
agency to carry out the objectives of this Act. For this purpose, the agency so
created or designated shall be considered a public
corporation.”
‘The National Assembly approved this enactment on the authority
of Section 4 of Article XIII of the Constitution which, copied verbatim, is as
follows:
“The Congress may authorize, upon payment of just compensation,
the expropriation of lands to be subdivided into small lots and conveyed at cost
to individuals.”
‘What lands does this provision have in view? Does it
comprehend all lands regardless of their location, nature and area? The answer
is to be found in the explanatory statement of Delegate Miguel Cuaderno, member
of the Constitutional Convention who was the author or sponsor of the
above-quoted provision. In his speech, which was entitled “Large Estates and
Trusts in Perpetuity” and is transcribed in full in Aruego’s “The Framing of the
Philippine Constitution”, Mr. Cuaderno said:
“There has been an impairment of public tranquility, and to be
sure a continuous impairment of it, because of the existence of these conflicts.
In our foklore the oppression and exploitation of thfe tenants are vividly
referred to; their sufferings at the hand of the landlords are emotionally
pictured in our drama; and even in the native movies and talkies of today, this
theme of economic slavery has been touched upon. In official documents these
same conflicts are narrated and exhaustively explained as a threat to social
order and stability.“But we should go to Rizal for inspiration and illumination in
this problem of the conflicts between landlords and tenants. The national hero
and his family were persecuted because of these same conflicts in Calamba, and
Rizal himself met a martyr’s death because of his espousal of the cause of the
tenant class, because he would not close his eyes to oppression and persecution
with his own people as victims.“I ask you, gentlemen of the Convention, knowing this as you do
and feeling deeply as you must feel a regret over the immolation of the hero’s
life, would you not write in the Constitution the provision on large estates and
trusts in perpetuity, so that you would be the very instrument of Providence to
complete the labors of Rizal to insure domestic tranquility for the masses of
our people?“If we are to be true to our trust, if it is our purpose in
drafting our constitution to insure domestic tranquility and to provide for the
wellbeing of our people, we cannot, we must not fail to prohibit the ownership
of large estates, to make it the duty of the government to break up existing
large estates, and to provide for their acquisition by purchase or through
expropriation and sale to their occupants, as has been provided in the
Constitutions of Mexico and Jugoslavia.”
‘No amendment was offered and there was no debate. According to
Dean Aruego, Mr. Cuaderno’s resolution was readily and totally approved by the
Convention, Mr. Cuaderno’s speech therefore may be taken as embodying the
intention of the framers of the organic law, and Act No. 539 should be construed
in a manner consonant with that intention. It is to be presumed that the
National Assembly did not intend to go beyond the constitutional scope of its
powers.
‘There are indeed powerful considerations, aside from the
intrinsic meaning of Section4 of Article XIII of the Constitution, for
interpreting Act No. 539 in a restrictive sense. Carried to extremes, this Act
would be subversive of the Philippine political and social structure. It woulc
be in derogation of individual rights and the time-honored constitutional
guarantee that no private property shall be taken for private use without due
process of law. The protection against deprivation of property without due
process of law and against the taking of private property for public use without
Just compensation occupies the forefront positions (paragraphs 1 and 2) in the
Bill of Rights (Article III). The taking of private property for private use
relieves the owner of his property without due process of law; and the
prohibition that “private property should not be taken for public use without
just compensation” (Section 1 [par. 2], Article III, of the Constitution)
forbids by necessary implication the appropriation of private property for
private uses (29 C.J.S. 819.) It has been truly said that the assertion of the
right on the part of the legislature to take the property of one citizen and
transfer it to another, even for a full compensaition, when the public interest
is not promoted thereby, is claiming a despotic power, and one inconsistent with
every just principle and fundamental maxim of a free government. (29 C.J.S.
820.)
‘Hand in hand with the announced principle, herein invoked,
that “the promotion of social justice to insure the well-being and economic
security of all the people should be the concern of the state,” is a
declaration, with which the former should be reconciled, that “the Philippines
is a Republican state” created to secure to the Filipino people “the blessings
of Independence under a regime of justice, liberty and democracy.” Democracy, as
a way of life enshrined in the Constitution, embraces as its necessary
components freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, and freedom in the
pursuit of happiness. Along with these freedoms are Included economic freedom
and freedom of enterprise within reasonable bounds and under proper control. In
paving the way for the breaking up of existing large estates, trusts in
perpetuity, feudalism, and their concomitant evils, the Constitution did not
propose to destroy or undermine property rights, or to advocate equal
distribution of wealth, or to authorize the taking of what is in excess of one’s
personal needs and the giving of it to another. Evincing much concern for the
protection of property, the Constitution distinctly recognizes the preferred
position which real estate has occupied in law for ages. Property is bound up
with every aspect of social life in a democracy as democracy is conceived in the
Constitution. The Constitution realizes the indispensable role which property,
owned in reasonable quantities and used legitimately, plays in the stimulation
to economic effort and the formation and growth of a solid social middle class
that is said to be the bulwark of democracy and the backbone of every
progressive and happy country.
‘The promotion of social justice ordained by the Constitution
does not supply paramount basis for untrammeled expropriation of private land by
the Rural Progress Administration or any other government instrumentality.
Social justice does not champion division of property or equality of economic
status; what it and the Constitution do guaranty are equality of opportunity,
equality of political rights, equality before the law, equality between values
given and received, and equitable sharing of the social and material goods on
the basis of efforts exerted in their production. As applied to metropolitan
centers, especially Manila, in relation to housing problems, it is a command to
devise, among other social measurest trays and means for the elimination of
slums, shambles, shacks, and houses that are dilapitated, overcrowded, without
ventilation, light and sanitation facilities, and for the construction in their
place of decent dwellings for the poor and the destitute. As will presently be
shown, condemnation of blighted urban areas bears direct relation to public
safety, health, and/or morals, and is legal.
‘In reality, Section 4 of Article XIII of the Constitution is
in harmony with the Bill of Rights. Without that provision the right of eminent
domain, inherent in the government, may be exercised to acquire large tracts of
land as a means reasonably calculated to solve serious economic and social
problem. As Mr. Aruego says “the primary reason” for Mr. Cuaderno’s
recommendation was merely “to remove all doubts as to the power of the
government to expropriate the then existing landed estates to be distributed at
cost to the tenant-dwellers thereof in the event that in the future it would
seem such expropriation necessary to the solution of agrarian problems
therein.”
‘In a broad sense, expropriation of large estates, trusts in
perpetuity, and land that embraces a whole town, or a large section of a town or
city, bears direct relation to the public welfare. The size of the land
expropriated, the large number of people benefitted, and the extent of social
and economic reform secured by the condemnation, clothes the expropriation with
public Interest and public use. The expropriation in such eases tends to abolish
economic slavery, feudalistic practices, endless conflicts between landlords and
tenants, and other evils inimical to community prosperity and contentment and
public peace and order. Although courts are not in agreement as to the tests to
be applied in determining whether the use is public or not, some go so far In
the direction of a liberal construction as to hold that public use is synonymous
with public benefit, public utility, or public advantage, and to authorize the
exercise of the power of eminent domain to promote such public benefit, etc.,
especially where the interests involved are of considerable magnitude. (29
C.J.S. 823, 824. See also People of Puerto Rico vs. Eastern Sugar Associates et
al., 156 Fed. [2nd] 316.) In some instances, slumsites have been acquired by
condemnation. The highest court of New York State has ruled that slum clearance
and erection of houses for low income families were public purposes for which
New York City Housing authorities could exercise the power of condemnation. And
this decision was followed by similar ones in other states. The underlying
reasons for these decisions are that the destruction of congested areas and
insanitary dwellings diminishes the potentialities of epidemics, crime and
waste, prevents the spread of crime and diseases to unaffected areas, enhances
the physical and moral value of the surrounding communities, and promotes the
safety and welfare of the public in general. (Murray et al. vs. La Guardia, 52
N.E. [2nd] 919; Weizner v. Stichman, 64 N.Y.S. [2nd] 50.) But it will be noted
that in all these cases and others of similar nature extensive areas were
involved and numerous people and the general public benefitted by the action
taken.
‘The condemnation of a small property in behalf of 10, 20 or 50
persons and their families does not inure to the benefit of the public to a
degree sufficient to give the use public character. The expropriation
proceedings at bar have been instituted for the economic relief of a few
families devoid of any consideration of public health, public peace and order,
or other public advantage. What is proposed to be done is to take plaintiff’s
property, which for all we know she acquired by sweat and sacrifice for her and
her family’s security, and sell it at cost to a few lessees who refuse to pay
the stipulated rent or leave the premises.
‘No fixed line of demarcation between what taking is for public
use and what is not can be made; each case has to be judged according to its
peculiar circumstances. It suffices to say for the purpose of this decision that
the case under consideration is far wanting in those elements which make for
public convenience or public use. It is patterned upon an ideology far removed
from that consecrated in our system of government and embraced by the majority
of the citizens of this country. If upheld, this case would open the gates to
more oppressive expropriations. If this expropriation be constitutional, we see
no reason why a 10-, 15-, or 25-hectare farm land might not be expropriated and
subdivided, and sold to those who want to own a portion of it. To make the
analogy closer, we find me reason why the Rural Progress Administration could
mot take by condemnation an urban let containing an area of 1,000 or 2,000
square meters for subdivision into tiny lots for resale to its occupants or
those who want to build thereon.’
The appealed order is reversed and the complaint is dismissed
without special findings as to costs.
Moran, C.J., Paras, Bengzon, Padilla, Montemayor, and Torres, JJ., concur.
Reyes, J., concurs in the result.
[1] 84 Phil., 847.