Professional Documents
Culture Documents
– Litany of weapons which a person may implore or assert to resist or defeat any
abuse or misuse of governmental power.
– It is primarily directed against the abuses of the government in the exercise of
the massive powers it has at its command, particularly police power, eminent
domain and taxation.
– It is protection against the state.
– It governs the relationship between the state and the individual.
– Its concern is not the relation between the individuals, between a private
individual and other individuals, but rather, it declares some forbidden zones in
the private sphere inaccessible to any power holder.
– It restrains the government from invading into the life, liberty and property of
persons.
– It is the catalogue of rights that monumentalizes the maxim “ours is a
government of laws and not of men.”
Who are entitled to the protection against unreasonable search and seizure?
➢ The Court held that it is available to all persons, including aliens, whether accused of a crime or
not.
What is a warrant of arrest? Search?
➢ Arrest is the taking of a person into custody in order that he may be bound to answer for the
commission of an offense.
Search Warrant?
➢ Search warrant is an order in writing issued in the name of the People of the Philippines, signed
by a judge directed to a peace officer, commanding him to search for personal property described
therein and bring it before the court.
When is a warrantless arrest lawful?
In the following instances, a warrantless arrest may lawfully be made by a peace officer or a private
person:
➢ When in his presence, the person to be arrested has committed, is actually committing or is
attempting to commit an offense.
➢ When an offense has in fact just been committed and he has personal knowledge of facts
indicating that the person to be arrested has committed it; and
➢ When the person to be arrested is a prisoner who has escaped from a penal establishment or
place where he is serving final judgment or temporarily confined while his case is pending or has
escaped while being transferred from one confinement to another.
Are illegally secured evidences admissible in court? Like illegally secured searches and seizures, the
Constitution ordains the inadmissibility of any evidence obtained in violation of this right for any
purpose in any proceeding.
When may the privacy of communication and correspondence be validly violated?
upon lawful order of the court.
when public safety or order requires otherwise as prescribed by law.
Right of Petition
– The right of petition is the right of a person or group to apply without fear of penalty, to the appropriate
branch of government for the redress of grievances.
– The right of assembly and petition is a necessary consequence of republican institution and the
complement of the right of free speech.
1) Police Power
2) Eminent Domain
3) Taxation.
What is the capital purpose of the three stately powers?
➢ The exercise of these powers “would indicate not a polarization but a mingling” of the three powers to
achieve their capital purpose of forwarding and upgrading the quality of life of the people.
What is the capital purpose of the three stately powers?
➢ In other words, the three powers may be employed simultaneously, coordinately and complimenting
each other whenever necessary rather than alternately or separately to enable government to
actualize its goals.
➢ The inherent powers of the State are enduring and co-terminus with the life of the State itself.
The three powers have a common denominator:
➢ They all underlie the Constitution and rest upon necessity because there can be no effective
government without them.
➢ They exist independently of the Constitution as a necessary attribute of sovereignty.
➢ They are as enduring and indestructible as the State itself.
➢ They constitute the three methods by which the State interferes with private rights.
➢ Each presupposes an equivalent compensation:
* Police Power – through the maintenance of healthy, clean and orderly society.
* Eminent Domain – just compensation.
* Taxation – protection and benefits extended by the government.
➢ They are all legislative in character.
The three powers differ in the following:
➢ In the nature of compensation:
Police Power is intangible.
Eminent Domain and Taxation are more concrete.
In eminent domain, full and just compensation of the property taken.
In taxation, the protection and improvements extended by the government for the commonwealth.
➢ As to the nature of property taken:
Police power involves destruction or confiscation of property which are noxious;
in Eminent Domain and Taxation, the property taken is for public purpose or use.
➢ Police Power and Taxation are inherently exercisable only by the government while Eminent Domain
may be exercised by private entities upon valid delegation.
➢ Police Power regulates both liberty and property while Eminent Domain and Taxation are addressed to
property rights only.
Police Power
Police Power is the most dominant of the three powers of government. It is the sovereign power to promote
the general welfare. Police Power is the interference by the State on the entire gamut of human life --- from
conception to death, a destination unknown and unraveled as yet.
Characterize Police Power
➢ Protection to all great public needs which is the most demanding most pervasive and the least
limitable of the three powers of the State.
➢ The law of overwhelming necessity.
➢ The most essential, insistent and illimitable which enables the State to prohibit all hurtful things to the
comfort, safety and welfare of society.
• It is a power emanating from or conferred by the Constitution but inherent in a State, plenary,
suitably vague and far from precisely being defined, rooted in the conception that men in
organizing the State and and imposing upon the government limitations to safeguard constitutional
rights did not intend thereby to obstruct unreasonably the enactment of such salutary measures to
ensure communal peace, safety, good order and welfare.
What is the basis of Police Power?
➢ Police Power is based on the Latin maxim:
1. SALUS POPULI SUPREMA EST LEX (the welfare of the people is the supreme law) and
2. SIC UTERE TUO UT ALIENUM NON LAEDAS (so use your own as not to injure others).
➢ Police Power calls for the subordination of individual interests to the interest of the greater number of
people.
What and who are subject to Police Power?
➢ Police Power being the plenary, absolute and comprehensive power vested upon the legislature to
enact, ordain, make and establish wholesome and reasonable laws, subject all persons and property
including occupation to its most pervasive scope. Even personal liberty may be interfered with for the
realm of Police Power is to guard against the abuse of individual liberty.
Who may exercise Police Power?
➢ The exercise of police power is principally lodged in the Congress of the Philippines under its complete
and omnibus power to enact laws, restricted only to the Constitution. However, pursuant to a valid
delegation of authority from Congress, the President and local government units may exercise such
powers.
➢ The Local Government Code of 1991 explicitly grants to the local government units the power to enact
laws that will promote the welfare of the people.
The Power of Eminent Domain
➢ Like Police Power, Eminent Domain is inherent in every State. Any provision of the Constitution on
the matter merely serves to restrict its exercise in order to protect the individual against whose
property the power is sought to be enforced.
Who may exercise the power of Eminent Domain?
➢ The power of Eminent Domain is essentially a legislative prerogative but Congress may validly
delegate the same to other governmental agencies or even to private entities whose services are
geared to meet essential needs, unless prescribed by the Constitution.
What property may be expropriated?
➢ The scope of Eminent Domain is broad enough to include all kinds of private property. Real and
personal property, except money and rights in action, may be taken by expropriation. The franchise of
a corporation may be taken by Eminent Domain.
➢ The owner can not claim that such an act is an impairment of the obligations of contract and therefore,
illegal. Condemnation proceedings do not impair the contract, do not break the obligation, but
appropriate it for public use.
What is meant by public use?
➢ The traditional concept of public use means anything that has strict benefit to the public. These
conventional concept of public use as relating to the construction of public buildings, plazas, schools,
schoolhouses, streets, bridges and the like, is an antiquarian view and antagonistic to the challenge of
development and growth.
• May church properties be expropriated without assaulting the Doctrine of Separation of Church
and State?
➢ Yes. The Power of Eminent Domain which is designed to promote the common good and welfare is
more superior that the principle of Separation of Church and State.
When is there compensable taking?
➢ When the following conditions concur:
– The expropriator must enter a private property.
– The entry must be for more than a momentary period.
– The entry must be under warrant or color of legal authority.
– The property must be devoted to public use or otherwise informally appropriated or injuriously
affected.
– The utilization of the property for public use ousts or divests the owner and deprives him of beneficial
enjoyment of the property.
What is just compensation?
➢ It means a fair and full equivalent for the loss sustained from the act of expropriation. This fair and full
equivalent is the market value of the property taken, plus the consequential damages, but minus the
consequential benefits, if any, provided the consequential benefits shall not exceed the consequential
damages.