THE AGRICULTURAL CREDIT AND COOPERATIVE FINANCING ADMIN­ISTRATION (ACCFA), PETITIONER, VS. CONFEDERATION OF UNIONS IN GOVERNMENT CORPORATIONS AND OFFICES (CUGCO), ACCFA SUPERVIS…

CONCURRING OPINION

FERNANDO, J.:

The decision reached by this Court so ably given expression in the
opinion of Justice Makalintal, characterized with vigor, clarity and precision,
represents what for me is a clear tendency not to be necessarily bound by our
previous pronouncements on what activities partake of a nature that is
governmental.^[1]
Of even greater significance, there is a definite rejection of the
“constituent-ministrant” criterion of governmental functions, fol­lowed
in Bacani v. National Coconut Corporation.^[2]
That indeed is cause for gratification. For me at least, there is again full adherence to the basic philosophy
of the Constitution as to the ex­tensive and vast power lodged in our
government to cope with the social and economic problems that even now sorely
beset us. There is therefore full
concurrence on my part to the opinion of the Court, distinguished by its high
quality of juristic craftsmanship. I
feel however that the matter is of such vital importance that a separate
concurring opinion is not in­appropriate. It will also serve to give expression to my view, which is that of the
Court likewise, that our decision today does not pass upon the rights of labor
employed in instrumentalities of the state discharging governmental functions.

1. In the above Bacani decision, governmental functions are
classified into constituent and ministrant. “The former are those which constitute the very bonds of
society and are compulsory in nature; the latter are those that are undertaken
only by way of advancing the general interests of society, and are merely
optional. President Wilson enumerates
the consti­tuent functions as follows: (1) The keeping of order and providing for the protection of
persons and property from violence and robbery. (2) The fixing of the legal relations between man and wife and
between parents and children. (3) The
regulation of the holding, transmission, and interchange of property, and the
determination of its liabilities for debt or for crime. (4) The determination of contract rights
between individuals. (5) The definition
and punishment of crime. (6) The
administration of justice in civil cases. (7) The determination of the political duties, privileges, and
relations of citizens. (8) Dealings of
the state with foreign powers: the
preservation of the state from external danger or encroachment and the
advancement of its international interests.'”^[3]

The ministrant functions were then enumerated, followed by a
statement of the basis that would justify engaging in such activities. Thus: “The most important of the ministrant functions are: public works, public education, public
charity, health and safety regulations, and regulations of trade and
industry. The principles determining
whether or not a govern­ment shall exercise certain of these optional functions
are: (1) that a government should do
for the public welfare those things which private capital would not naturally
undertake and (2) that a government should do these things which by its very
nature it is better equipped to administer for the public welfare than is any
private individual or group of individuals.”^[4]

Reference is made in the Bacani decision to the first of the many
publications of Justice Malcolm on the Philippine govern­ment, which appeared
in 1916,^[5]
adopting the formulation of the then Professor, later President, Woodrow Wilson
of the United States, in a textbook on political science the first edition of
which was published in 1898. The Wilson
classification reflected the primacy of the dominant laissez faire
concept carried into the sphere of government.

A most spirited defense of such a view was given by former
President Hadley of Yale in a series of three lectures delivered at Oxford
University in 1914. According to
President Hadley: “I shall begin
with a proposition which may sound somewhat startling, but which I believe to
be literally true. The whole American
political and social system is based on industrial property right, far more
completely than has ever been the case in any European country. In every nation of Europe there has been a
certain amount of traditional opposition between the government and the
industrial classes. In the United
States no such tradition exists. In the
public law of European communities industrial freeholding is a comparatively
recent development. In the United
States, on the contrary, industrial freeholding is the foundation on which the
whole social order has been established and built up.”^[6]

The view is widely accepted that such a fundamental postulate did
influence American court decisions on constitutional law. As was explicitly stated by Justice Cardozo,
speaking of that era: “Laissez
faire was not only a counsel of caution which statesmen would do well to
heed. It was a categorical imperative
which statesmen as well as judges, must obey.”^[7]
For a long time, legislation tending to reduce economic inequality foundered on
the rock that was the due process clause, enshrining as it did the liberty of
contract. To cite only one instance,
the limitation of employment in bakeries to sixty hours a week and ten hours a
day under a New York statute was stricken down for being tainted, with a due
process objection in Lochner v. New York.^[8]
It provoked one of the most vigorous dissents of Justice Holmes, who was
opposed to the view that the United States Constitution did embody laissez
faire. Thus: “General propositions do not decide
concrete cases. The decision will
depend on a judgment or intuition more subtle than any articulate major
premise. But I think that the
proposition just stated, if it is accepted, will carry us far toward the
end. Every opinion tends to become a
law. I think that the word ‘liberty, in
the 14th Amendment, is perverted when it is held to prevent the natural outcome
of a dominant opinion, unless it can be said that a rational and fair man
necessarily would admit that the statute proposed would infringe fundamental
principles as they have been understood by the traditions of our people and our
law. It does not need research to show
that no such sweeping condem­nation can be passed upon the statute before
us. A reasonable man might think it a
proper measure on the score of health. Men whom I certainly could not pronounce unreasonable would uphold it as
a first instalment of a general regulation of the hours of work. Whether in the latter aspect it would be open
to the charge of inequality I think it unnecessary to discuss.” It was not
until 1908, in Muller v. Oregon,^[9]
that the American Supreme Court held valid a ten-hour maximum for women workers
in laundries and not until 1917 in Bunting v. Oregon^[10]
that such a regulatory ten-hour law applied to men and women passed the
constitutional test.

Similarly, state legislation fixing minimum wages was deemed
offensive to the due process clause in a 1923 decision in Adkins v. Children’s
Hospital.^[11]
Only in 1937, in the leading case of West Coast Hotel v. Parrish,^[12]
was the Adkins case overruled and a minimum wage law New York statute
upheld. The same unsympathetic attitude
arising from the laissez faire concept was manifest in decisions
during such period, there being the finely-spun distinctions in the Wolff
Packing Co. v. Court of Industrial Relations^[13]
decision, as to when certain businesses could be classified as affected with
public interest to justify state regulation as to prices. After eleven years, in 1934, in Nebbia v.
New York,^[14]
the air of unreality was swept away by this explicit pronouncement from the
United States Supreme Court: “The
phrase ‘affected with a public interest’ can, in the nature of things, mean no
more than that an industry, for adequate reason, is subject to control for the
public good.”

It is thus apparent that until the administration of President
Roosevelt, the laissez faire principle resulted in the
contraction of the sphere where governmental entry was permissible. The object was to protect property even if
thereby the needs of the general public would be left unsatisfied. This was emphatically put forth in a work of
former Attorney General, later Justice, Jackson, citing an opinion of Judge Van
Orsdel. Thus: “It should be remembered that of the
three fundamental principles which underlie government, and for which
government exists, the protection of life, liberty, and property, the chief
of these is property * * *.”^[15]
The above excerpt from Judge Van Orsdel forms part of his opinion in Children’s
Hospital v. Adkins, when decided by the Circuit Court of Appeals.^[16]

Nonetheless, the social and economic forces at work in the United
States to which the new deal administration of President Roosevelt was most
responsive did occasion, as of 1937, greater receptivity by the American Supreme
Court to a philosophy less rigid in its obeisance to property rights. Earlier legislation deemed offensive to the laissez
faire concept had met a dismal fate. Their nullity during his first term could, more often than not, be
expected.^[17]

As a matter of fact, even earlier, in 1935, Professor Coker of
Yale, speaking as a historian, could already discern a contrary drift. Even then he could assert that the range of
governmental activity in the United States had indeed expanded. According to him: “Thus both liberals and conservatives approve wide and varied
governmental intervention; the latter condemning it, it is true, when the
former propose it, but endorsing it, after it has become a fixed part of the
status quo, as so beneficial in its effects that no more of it is needed. Our history for the last half-century shows
that each important governmental intervention we have adopted has been called
socialistic or communistic by contemporary conservatives, and has later been
approved by equally conservative men who now accept it both for its proved
benefits and for the worthy traditions it has come to represent. Both liberal and conservative supporters of
our large-scale business under private ownership advocate or concede the
amounts and kinds of governmental limitation and aid which they regard as neces­sary
to make the system work efficiently and humanely. Sooner or later, they are willing to have government intervene for
the purpose of preventing the system from being too oppressive to the masses of
the people, protecting it from its self-destructive errors, and coming to its
help in other ways when it appears not to be able to take care of itself.”^[18]

At any rate, by 1943, the United States was reconciled to laissez
faire having lost its dominance. In the language of Justice Jackson in the leading case of West Virginia
State Board of Education v. Barnette^[19]
“We must transplant these rights to a soil in which the laissez-faire
concept or principle of non­interference has withered at least as to economic
affairs, and social advancements are increasingly sought through closer
integration of society and through expanded and strengthened governmental
controls.”

2. The influence exerted by American constitutional doctrines
unavoidable when the Philippines was still under American rule notwithstanding,
an influence that has not altogether vanished even after independence, the laissez
faire principle never found full acceptance in this jurisdiction, even
during the period of its full flowering in the United States. Moreover, to erase any doubts, the
Constitutional Convention saw to it that our fundamental law embodies a policy
of the responsibility thrust on government to cope with social and economic
problems and an earnest and sincere commitment to the promotion of the general
welfare through state action. It would
thus follow that the force of any legal objection to regulatory measures
adversely affecting property rights or to statutes organizing public
corporations that may engage in compe­tition with private enterprise has been
blunted. Unless there be a clear
showing of any invasion of rights guaranteed by the Constitution, their
validity is a foregone conclusion. No
fear need be entertained that thereby spheres hitherto deemed outside
government domain have been encroached upon. With our explicit disavowal of the “constituent-ministrant”
test, the ghost of the laissez faire concept no longer stalks the
juridical stage.

As early as 1919, in the leading case of Rubi v. Provincial Board
of Mindoro,^[20]
Justice Malcolm already had occasion to affirm: “The doctrines of laissez faire and of
unrestricted freedom of the individual, as axioms of economic and political
theory, are of the past. The modern
period has shown a wide­spread belief in the amplest possible demonstration of
govern­mental activity. The Courts
unfortunately have sometimes seemed to trail after the other two branches of
the Government in this progressive march.”

It was to be expected then that when he spoke for the Court in
Government of the Philippine Islands v. Springer,^[21]
a 1927 decision, he found nothing objectionable in the government itself
organizing and investing public funds in such corporations as the National Coal
Co., the Phil. National Bank, the National Petroleum Co., the National
Development Co., the National Cement Co. and the National Iron Co. There was not even a hint that thereby the laissez
faire concept was not honored at all. It is true that Justice Malcolm concurred with the majority in People v.
Pomar,^[22]
a 1924 opinion, which held invalid under the due process clause a provision
providing for maternity leave with pay thirty days before and thirty days after
confinement. It could be that he had no
other choice as the Philippines was then under the United States, and only
recently the year before, the above-cited case of Adkins v. Children’s
Hospital,^[23]
in line with the laissez faire principle, did hold that a statute
providing for minimum wages was constitutionally infirm on the same ground.

Our Constitution which took effect in 1935, upon the inauguration
of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, erased whatever doubts there might be
on that score. Its philosophy is
antithetical to the laissez faire concept. Delegate, later President, Manuel Roxas, one
of the leading members of the Constitutional Convention, in answer precisely to
an objection of Delegate Jose Reyes of Sorsogon, who noted the “vast
extensions in the sphere of governmental functions” and the “almost
unlimited power to interfere in the affairs of industry and agriculture as well
as to compete with existing business” as “reflections of the
fascination exerted by [the then] current tendencies” in other
jurisdictions,^[24]
spoke thus: “My answer is that
this constitution has a definite and well defined philosophy, not only
political but social and economic. A
constitution that in 1776 or in 1789 was sufficient in the United States,
considering the problems they had at that time, may not now be sufficient with
the growing and ever-widening complexities of social and economic problems and
relations. If the United States of
America were to call a constitutional convention today to draft a constitution
for the United States, does any one doubt that in the provisions of that
constitution there will be found definite declarations of policy as to economic
tendencies; that there will be matters which are neces­sary in accordance with
the experience of the American people during these years when vast
organizations of capital and trade have succeeded to a certain degree to
control the life and destiny of the American people? If in this constitution the gentleman will find declarations of
economic policy, they are there because they are necessary to safeguard the
interests and welfare of the Filipino people because we believe that the days
have come when in self-defense, a nation may provide in its constitution those
safeguards, the patrimony, the freedom to grow, the freedom to develop national
aspirations and national interests, not to be hampered by the arti­ficial
boundaries which a constitutional provision automatically imposes.”^[25]

Delegate Roxas continued further: “The government is the creature of the people and the
government exercises its powers and functions in accordance with the will and
purposes of the people. That is the first
principle, the most important one under­lying this document. Second, the government established in this
document is, in its form, in our opinion, the most adapted to prevailing
conditions, circumstances and the political outlook of the Filipino people. Rizal said, ‘Every people has the kind of
government that they deserve.’ That is just another form of ex­pressing the
principle in politics enunciated by the French philo­sophers when they said: ‘Every people has the right to establish the
form of government which they believe is most conducive to their welfare and
their liberty.’ Why have we preferred the government that is established in
this draft? Because it is the
government with which we are familiar. It is the form of govern­ment fundamentally such as it exists today;
because it is the only kind of government that our people understand; it is the
kind of government we have found to be in consonance with our experience, with
the necessary modification, capable of permitting a fair play of social forces
and allowing the people to conduct the affairs of that government.”^[26]

One of the most prominent delegates, a leading intellectual,
former President Rafael Palma of the University of the Philippines, stressed as
a fundamental principle in the draft of the Constitution the limitation on the
right to property. He pointed out that
the then prevailing view allowed the accumulation of wealth in one family down
to the last remote descendant, resulting in a grave dis­equilibrium and
bringing in its wake extreme misery side by side with conspicuous luxury. He did invite attention to the few
millionaires at one extreme with the vast masses of Filipinos deprived of the
neces­sities of life at the other. He
asked the Convention whether the Filipino people could long remain indifferent
to such a deplorable situation. For him
to speak of a democracy under such circumstances would be nothing but an
illusion. He would thus emphasize the
urgent need to remedy the grave social injustice that had produced such
widespread impoverish­ment, thus recognizing the vital role of government in
this sphere.^[27]

Another delegate, Tomas Confesor of Iloilo, was quite emphatic in
his assertion for the need of a social justice pro­vision which is a departure
from the laissez faire principle. Thus: “Take the case
of the tenancy system in the Philippines. You have a tenant. There are
hundred of thousands of tenants working day in and day out, cultivating the
fields of their land­lords. He puts all
his time, all his energy, the labor and the assistance of his wife and
children, in cultivating a piece of ground for his landlord but when the time
comes for the partition of the products of his toil what happens? If he produces 25 cavanes of rice, he
gets only perhaps five and the twenty goes to the landlord. Now can he go to court? Has he a chance to go to court in order to
secure his just share of the products of his toil? No. Under our present
regime of law, under our present regime of justice, you do not give that to the
poor tenant. Gentlemen, you go to the
Cagayan Valley and see the condition under which those poor farmers are being
exploited day in and day out. Can they
go to court under our present regime of justice, of liberty, or democracy? The other day, workmen were shot by the police
just because they wanted to increase or they desired that their wages be
increased from thirty centavos a day to forty or fifty centavos. Is it necessary to spill human blood just to
secure an increase of ten centavos in the daily wages of an ordinary laborer? And yet under our present regime of social
justice, liberty and democracy, these things are happening; these things, I
say, are happening. Are those people
getting any justice? No. They cannot get justice now from our
courts. For this reason, I say it is
neces­sary that we insert ‘social justice’ here and that social justice must be
established by law. Proper legal
provisions, proper legal faci­lities must be provided in order that there be a
regime not of justice alone, because we have that now and we are seeing the
oppression arising from such a regime. Consequently, we must emphasize the term ‘social justice’.”^[28]

Delegate Ventenilla of Pangasinan reflected the attitude of the
Convention as to why laissez faire was no longer acceptable. After speaking of times having changed, he
proceeded: “Since then new
problems have arisen. The spiritual
mission of government has descended to the level of the material. Then its function was prima­rily to soothe
the aching spirit. Now, it appears, it
must also appease hunger. Now that we
may read history backwards, we know for instance, that the old theory of ‘laissez
faire’ has degenerated into ‘big business affairs’ which are gradually
devouring the rights of the people – the same rights intended to be guarded and
protected by the system of constitutional guaranties. Oh, if the Fathers were now alive to see the changes that the
centuries have wrought in our life! They might contemplate the sad spectacle of
organized exploitation greedily devouring the previous rights of the
individual. They might also behold the
gradual disintegration of society, the fast disappearance of the bourgois – the
middle class, the backbone of the nation – and the consequent drifting of the
classes toward the opposite extremes – the very rich and the very poor.”^[29]

Shortly after the establishment of the Commonwealth, the then
Justice Jose P. Laurel, himself one of the foremost delegates of the
Constitutional Convention, in a concurring opinion, later quoted with approval
in the leading case of Antamok Goldfields Mining Co. v. Court of Industrial
Relations,^[30]
decided in 1940, explained clearly the need for the repudiation of the laissez
faire doctrine. Thus: “It should be observed at the outset
that our Constitution was adopted in the midst of surging unrest and
dissatisfaction resulting from economic and social distress which was
threatening the stability of governments the world over. Alive to the social and economic forces at
work, the framers of our Constitution boldly met the problems and difficulties
which faced them and endeavored to crystalize, with more or less fidelity, the
political, social and economic pro­positions of their age, and this they did,
with the consciousness that the political and philosophical aphorism of their
generation will, in the language of a great jurist, ‘be doubted by the next and
perhaps entirely discarded by the third. * * * Embodying the spirit of the present epoch, general
provisions were inserted in the Constitution which are intended to bring about
the needed social and economic equilibrium between component elements of
society through the application of what may be termed as the justitia communis
advocated by Grotius and Leibnitz many years ago to be secured through the
counterbalancing of economic and social forces and opportunities which should
be regulated, if not controlled, by the State or placed, as it were, in custodia
societatis. ‘The pro­motion of
social justice to insure the well-being and economic security of all the
people’ was thus inserted as vital principle in our Constitution. * * *.”^[31]
In the course of such concurring opinion and after noting the changes that have
taken place stressing that the policy of laissez faire had indeed
given way to the assumption by the government of the right to intervene
although qualified by the phrase “to some extent”, he made clear that
the doctrine in People v. Pomar no longer retain “its virtuality as a
living principle.”^[32]

3. It must be made clear that the objection to the
“constituent-ministrant” classification of governmental functions is
not to its formulation as such. From
the stand­point of law as logic, it is not without merit. It has neatness and symmetry. There are hardly any loose ends. It has the virtue of clarity. It may be said in its favor likewise that it
reflects all-too-faithfully the laissez faire notion that govern­ment
cannot extend its operation outside the maintenance of peace and order,
protection against external security, and the administration of justice, with
private rights, especially so in the case of property, being safeguarded and a
hint that the general welfare is not to be entirely ignored.

It must not be lost sight of though that logic and jural symmetry
while undoubtedly desirable are not the prime consideration. This is especially so in the field of public
law. What was said by Holmes, almost
nine decades ago, carry greater conviction now. “The life of the law has not been logic; it has been
experience. The felt necessities of the
time, the prevalent moral and political theories, intuitions of public policy
avowed or unconscious, even the prejudices which judges share with their
fellow-men, have had a good deal more to do than the syllogism in determining
the rules by which men should be governed.”^[33]
Then too, there was the warning of Geny cited by Cardozo that undue stress or
logic may result in confining the entire system of positive law, “within a
limited number of logical categories, predetermined in essence, immovable in
basis, governed by inflexible dogmas,” thus rendering it incapable of
responding to the ever varied and changing exigencies of life.^[34]

It is cause enough for concern if the objection to the Bacani
decision were to be premised on the score alone that perhaps there was fidelity
to the requirements of logic and jural symmetry carried to excess. What appears to me much more deplorable is
that it did fail to recognize that there was a repudiation of the laissez
faire concept in the Constitution. As was set forth in the preceding pages, the Constitution is
distinguished precisely by a contrary philosophy. The regime of liberty if provided for, with the realization that
under the then prevalent social and economic conditions, it may be attained
only through a government with its sphere of activity ranging far and wide, not
excluding matters hitherto left to the operation of free enterprise. As rightfully stressed in our decision today
in line with what was earlier expressed by Justice Laurel, the government that
we have established has as a fundamental principle the promotion of social
justice.^[35]
The same jurist gave it a comprehensive and enduring definition as “the
promotion of the welfare of all the people, the adoption by the government of
measures calculated to insure economic stability of all the component elements
of society, through the maintenance of a proper economic and social equilibrium
in the inter-relations of the members of the community, consti­tutionally,
through the adoption of measures legally justifiable, or extra-constitutionally,
through the exercise of powers under­lying the existence of all governments in
the time-honored principle of salus populi est suprema
lex.”^[36]

There is thus from the same distinguished pen, this time writing
for the Court, a reiteration of the view of the laissez faire
doctrine being repugnant to the fundamental law. It must be added though that the reference to
extra-constitutional measures being allowable must be understood in the sense
that there is no infringement of specific constitutional guarantees. Otherwise, the judiciary will be hard put to
sustain their validity if challenged in an appropriate legal proceeding.

The regime of liberty contemplated in the Constitution with
social justice as a fundamental principle to reinforce the pledge in the preamble
of promoting the general welfare reflects traditional concepts of a democratic
polity infused with an aware­ness of the vital and pressing need for the
government to assume a much more active and vigorous role in the conduct of
public affairs. The framers of our
fundamental law were as one in their strongly-held belief that thereby the
grave and serious infirmity then confronting our body-politic, on the whole
still with us now, of great inequality of wealth and mass poverty, with the
great bulk of our people ill-clad, ill-housed, ill-fed, could be remedied. Nothing else than communal effort, massive
in extent and earnestly engaged in, would suffice.

To paraphrase Laski, with the necessary modification in line with
such worthy constitutional ends, we look upon the state as an organization to
promote the happiness of individuals, its authority as a power bound by
subordination to that purpose, liberty while to be viewed negatively as absence
of restraint impressed with a positive aspect as well to assure individual
self-fulfillment in the attainment of which greater responsibility is thrust on
government; and rights as boundary marks defining areas outside its domain.^[37]
From which it would follow as Laski so aptly stated that it is the individual’s
“happiness and not its well-being [that is] the criterion by which its
behavior [is] to be judged. His
interests, and not its power, set the limits to the authority it [is] entitled
to exercise.”^[38]
We have under such a test enlarged its field of competence.

4. With the decision reached by us today, the government is freed
from the compulsion exerted by the Bacani doctrine of the
“constituent-ministrant” test as a criterion for the type of activity
in which it may engage. Its
constricting effect is consigned to oblivion. No doubts or misgivings need assail us that governmental efforts to
promote the public weal, whether through regulatory legislation of vast scope
and amplitude or through the undertaking of business activities, would have to
face a searching and rigorous scrutiny. It is clear that their legitimacy cannot be challenged on the ground
alone of their being offensive to the implications of the laissez faire
concept. Unless there be a repugnancy
then to the limitations expressly set forth in the Constitution to protect
individual rights, the government enjoys a much wider latitude of action as to
the means it chooses to cope with grave social and economic problems that
urgently press for solution. For me, at
least, that is to manifest deference to the philosophy of our fundamental
law. Hence my full concurrence, as
announced at the outset.

5.  The opinion of Justice
Makalintal contains this footnote: “It
must be stated, however, that we do not here decide the question-not at issue
in this case of whether or not a labor organization composed of employees
discharging governmental functions, which is allowed under the legal provision
just quoted, provided such organization does not impose the obligation to
strike or to join in strike, may petition for a certification election and
compel the employer to bargain collectively with it for purposes other than to
secure changes or conditions in the terms and conditions of employment.”

With such an affirmation as to the scope of our decision, there
being no holding on the vexing question of the effects on the rights of labor
in view of the conclusion reached that the function engaged in is governmental
in character, I am in full agreement. The answer to such a vital query must await another day.

^[1]
National Coal Co. v. Collector, 46 Phil. 583 (1924); Govt. of P.I. v.
Springer, 50 Phil. 259 (1927); Govt. of P.I. v. China Banking Corp., 54
Phil. 845 (1930.); Associacion Cooperativa de Credito Agricola de Miagao v.
Monteclaro, 74 Phil. 281 (1943); Abad Santos v. Auditor General, 79
Phil. 190 (1947); National Airports Corp. v. Teodoro, 91 Phil. 203
(1952); GSIS v. Castillo, 98 Phil. 876 (1956); Price Stabilization
Corp., 102 Phil. 515 (1957); Boy Scouts of Phil. v. Araos, 102 Phil.
1080 (1958); Naric Worker’s Union v. Alvendia, 107 Phil. 404 (1960);
GSIS Employees Asso. v. Alvendia, L-15614, May 30, 1960; National Dev.
Co. v. Tobias, 7 SCRA 692 (1963); SSS Employees Asso. v. Soriano,
7 SCRA 1016 (1963); PAL Employees’ Asso. v. Phil. Airlines, Inc., 11
SCRA 387 (1964); Nawasa v. NWSA Consolidated Unions, 11 SCRA 766 (1964);
Phil. Mfg. Co. v. Manila Port Service, 16 SCRA 95 (1966) and Phil.
Postal Savings Bank v. Court, 21 SCRA 1330 (1967).

^[2]
100 Phil. 468 (1956).

^[3]
Ibid, p. 472.

^[4]
Ibid.

^[5]
Malcolm, The Government of Philippine Islands.

^[6]
The Constitutional Position of the Property Owner in 2 Selected Essays on
Constitutional Law, p. 2 (1938).

^[7]
Cardozo, The Nature of Judicial Process, p. 77 (1921).

^[8]
98 US 45 (1905).

^[9]
208 US 412.

^[10]
243 US 426.

^[11]
261 US 525. Again there was a vigorous
dissent from Holmes.

^[12]
300 US 379.

^[13]
262 US 522.

^[14]
291 US 502.

^[15]
Jackson, Struggle for Judicial Supremacy, p. 74, (1941).

^[16]
284 Fed. 613 (1922).

^[17]
As was stated in the above work of Jackson: “But in just three years, beginning with the October 1933
term, the Court refused to recognize the power of Congress in twelve
cases. Five of these twelve decisions
occurred during a single year: that is,
the October 1935 term; four of the five, by a sharply divided court.”
Jackson, op. cit. p. 41.

^[18]
2 Selected Essays on Constitutional Law, op. cit., p. 27.

^[19]
319 US 624.

^[20]
39 Phil. 660, 717-718.

^[21]
50 Phil. 259.

^[22]
46 Phil. 440.

^[23]
261 US 525.

^[24]
III Proceedings of the Philippine Constitutional Convention, Laurel ed., pp.
173-174 (1966).

^[25]
Ibid, pp. 177-178.

^[26]
Ibid, p. 178.

^[27]
Cf. Ibid, pp. 227-228. To quote
from Delegate Palma: “Uno de los
principios constitucionales es el referente a la limitacion de la propiedad
individual. Por que se va a limitar la
adquisicion de la propiedad? Ese es
otro de los prejuicios y preocupaciones que tenemos nosotros, cuando en
realidad el mundo esta sufiendo actualmente por causa de las teorias antiguas
sobre la propiedad. Ya he dicho aqui, o
no se si en otra parte, que la nocion actual sobre propiedad es la vinculacion
perpetua de todos los bienes que se pueden acumular por una familia, hasta el
ultimo de sus mas remotos descendientes, ha producido ese enorme desnivel de
riqueza que se nota en todas partes del mundo, la extrema miseria al lado del
extremo lujo. Una docena de enormes
millonarios, al lado de millones y millones de seres desprovistos de lo mas
elemental y rudi­mentario, para satisfacer las necesidades ordinarias. Y que? Vamos a permanecer indiferentes antes que ante nues­tra propia
situacion? Hablamos tanto de democracia, de prosperidad para el gran numero
hacemos algo a favor de ese gran numero que constituye la fuerza de la nacion? No vamos siquiera a dedicar un momento de
nuestra atencion a la gran injusticia social que supone el resultado de una ex­trema
miseria y de un lujo extremo? Fue Henry
George el primero que llamo la atencion del mundo sobre este problema. Toda la bendicion de nuestra civilizacion,
las enormes con­quistas que el mundo ha realizado en el orden cientifico, han
tendido solamente a producir la felicidad de unos pocos y la miseria de las
grandes muchedumbres. Creo que este
problema es digno de atencion en todas partes del mundo, y a menos que nosotros
pongamos las medidas que han de atajar los peligros del futuro, nuestra
sociedad estara siempre sujeta a las alarmas que puedan producir las
muchedumbres hambrientas y deseosas de su propio bienestar.”

^[28]
Ibid, pp. 293-294.

^[29]
Ibid, I, Laurel ed., pp. 471-472.

^[30]
70 Phil. 340.

^[31]
Ibid, pp. 356-357.

^[32]
Ibid, p. 360.

^[33]
Holmes, The Common Law, p. 1 (1881).

^[34]
Cardozo, op. cit., p. 47.

^[35]
Art. II, Sec. 5, Constitution.

^[36]
Calalang v. Williams, 70 Phil. 726 734-735 (1940).

^[37]
Laski, The State in Theory and Practice, p. 35 (1935).

^[38]
Ibid, at p. 36.