MOISES S. AMPIL, PETITIONER, VS. THE PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION, RESPONDENT.

An original action for certiorari to review an order of the Public Service Commission.

Petitioner is the operator of one auto-calesa in the City of Manila
and filed an application with the Public Service Commission to increase
its equipment by thirty additional auto-calesas. The commission granted
the request for additional equipment under certain conditions, one of
which limited the number of persons to five, including the driver, or
three passengers should the petitioner desire to have both a driver and
a conductor on each auto-calesa. Petitioner being dissatisfied with
this condition asked for a reconsideration, which the Public Service
Commission refused to grant. Thereupon petitioner brings this action
and asks us to declare that the commission exceeded its jurisdiction in
limiting the number of passengers below the capacity of the
auto-calesas.

In the decision of this court in G. R. No. 39647^[1]
which confirmed the order of the Public Service Commission approving
the application of petitioner-predecessor to operate an auto-calesa in
the City of Manila, it is said:

“Here we have a method of transportation which, it
is said, will benefit the masses without endangering the investments of
other public utilities, and if this be true, this method of
transportation should be encouraged, leaving it to the future to
determine if corrective measures should be taken to avoid cut-throat
competition.”

Subsequent to that expression and on the complaints of existing
transportation facilities in the City of Manila, the Public Service
Commission had public hearings and investigated the operations of
auto-calesas in the City of Manila, and last Fall the Public Service
Commission determined that unless the number of passengers that an
auto-calesa should be allowed to carry was limited below its actual
capacity, it would engage in ruinous competition with existing
transportation in such a manner as to make such competition contrary to
law. The Public Service Commission therefore determined, rather than to
refuse all additional applications for auto-calesas, that the number of
persons that they would be permitted to carry would be limited so that
they would not become jitneys engaged in unlawful competition but would
be used as a cheap form of transportation that would normally compete
with horse-drawn calesas.

When this petitioner filed his application for thirty additional
auto-calesas, the commission had determined that auto-calesas could not
legally be permitted to operate with a carrying capacity of seven or
eight passengers, as such would be a direct incentive to operate
illegally, and that it would only be lawful to grant such permission
under conditions that would impel them to operate within proper bounds.

While under the Motor Vehicle Act the Bureau of Public Works is
authorized to fix the capacity of motor vehicles, the primary purpose
of that authorization is to fix the fees that were to be charged for
the registration of the motor vehicles. The limiting of the capacity of
auto-calesas by the Public Service Commission is for a distinct and
different purpose. If it has no such power, in view of the experience
of the last year, no application for auto-calesas could lawfully be
granted.

Therefore, it is obvious that petitioner in asking us to eliminate
a condition of his license and still permit him to retain his license
is asking for something that we cannot grant.

Petitioner is at liberty to accept the limitation or not to accept
the permission to operate. He can limit the number of passengers by
placing a conductor as well as a motorman on his auto-calesas, but if
he does so, under existing orders he can carry only three passengers
instead of four, which he can do provided he does not care to employ a
conductor.

Where in a given set of facts the commission is authorized to grant
a certificate of public convenience and necessity under certain
limitations, which limitations are based on experience and are not
merely arbitrary, this court will not interfere to eliminate such
conditions and permit, under a limited certificate, unlimited
operations which the commission, after hearing, has determined would be
unlawful.

The petition for certiorari is therefore denied, with costs against petitioner. So ordered.

Malcolm, Villa-Real, Imperial, and Goddard, JJ., concur.

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^[1] Manila Electric Co. vs. Balagtas, 58 Phil., 429.