SAN JUAN DE DIOS HOSPITAL, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. METROPOLITAN WATER DISTRICT, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

The question here to be determined is whether the San Juan de Dios
Hospital is entitled to free water service from the Metropolitan Water
District for the nurses home of the hospital, situated at No. 219,
Calle Real, Intramuros, Manila. The trial judge allowed a refund to the
hospital of P106.57 which it had paid under protest to the Metropolitan
Water District, and from this judgment the Attorney-General appealed.

For a considerable period of time before the American occupation of
the Philippines, there existed a water system for the City of Manila
known from the name of its founder as the Carriedo Water System. In the
will of Francisco Carriedo, which provided for the grant, it was
specified that water should be given free to the San Juan de Dios
Convent. Pursuant to this provision, during the successive developments
of the water system, the San Juan de Dios Hospital has been allowed
free water. The nurses home which was recently denied such service by
the Board of Directors of the Water District is located in a building
separate and apart from the main hospital, at a distance of between
thirteen and sixteen meters.

We do not quite grasp the purport of the first assignment of error
which challenges the right of the hospital to receive gratuitous water
service. The identity existing between the Sail Juan de Diog Convent
and the San Juan de Dios Hospital is tacitly admitted in the answer
presented by the Government, and in a ruling of the Attorney-General of
December 8, 1926. The Metropolitan Water District has become the
successor of the Carriedo Water System and the trustee of the Carriedo
legacy. The hospital has been permitted to receive free water for so
many years without objection, that it may fairly be said to have an
acquired right to the same. (Act No. 2832, sec. 8; Vasquez Vilas vs.
City of Manila [1911], 220 U. S., 345; 42 Phil., 953; Sagrada Orden de
Predicadores de la Provincia del Santisimo Rosario de Filipinas vs. Metropolitan Water District [1923], 44 Phil., 292.)

The remaining three errors which are assigned touch upon the real
issue in the case, which is as to the legal propriety of the nurses
home of the San Juan de Dios Hospital receiving free water from the
Water District.

A hospital is generally considered to be a charitable institution.
It is good public policy to encourage works of charity. What Carriedo
did in his will was to make a beneficent grant not to a hospital
thought of as a building, but to a hospital thought of as an
institution. The free water was for the good of the hospital in this
larger sense. Should the hospital be enlarged or rebuilt, the water
concession would continue just the same. But a hospital cannot function
without personnel. And such personnel must have a place to live, which
is the reason why a home devoted exclusively to the needs of the nurses
was founded. Free water for a nurses home as an adjunct to a hospital
is as beneficial to the charitable purposes of the hospital as is free
water for the hospital proper.

The decision of the trial judge, supported by a well reasoned brief
for the appellee, responds to the philanthropic purposes of Carriedo,
and his intention should not be thwarted or restricted by technical
judicial interpretation. The question is answered in the affirmative.

Judgment is affirmed, without costs.

Avanceña, C. J., Street, Villamor, Romualdez, and Villa-Real, JJ., concur.

Ostrand and Johns, JJ., dissent.