3. Tests to Determine Validity of Governmental Regulation

Limitations:

• Validity of granting statute: completeness and sufficient standard tests
• Constitutional protections: due process, equal protection and notice
• Reasonableness
• Notice
• Statutory requirements for regulations

Tests used to determine validity of the exercise of Police Power

To invoke the exercise of police power as the rationale for the enactment of an ordinance and to free it from the imputation of constitutional infirmity, two tests have been used:

• The rational relationship test - there must be a concurrence of a lawful subject and lawful method.
• The strict scrutiny test - under the strict scrutiny test, the focus is on the presence of compelling, rather than substantial governmental interest and on the absence of less restrictive means for achieving that interest. (Fernando v. St. Scholastica's College, G.R. No. 161107, 2013).

An ordinance extending burial assistance of P500 to a bereaved family whose gross income does not exceed P2,000 a month, has been upheld by the court as a valid exercise of police power. (Binay v. Domingo, G.R. 92389, 1991).

Ordinances regulating waste removal carry a strong presumption of validity. Necessarily, LGUs are statutorily sanctioned to impose and collect such reasonable fees and charges for services rendered. (Ferrer v. Bautista, G.R. 210551, 2015).

A preliminary injunction must preserve rights pending final adjudication and must not decide the merits or controverted facts. (City of Iloilo v. Judge Honrado, G.R. 160399, 2015).

For local government infrastructure projects, Regional Trial Courts may issue provisional injunctive reliefs against government infrastructure projects only when:

• There are compelling and substantial constitutional violations;
• There clearly exists a right in esse;
• There is a need to prevent grave and irreparable injuries;
• There is a demonstrable urgency to the issuance of the injunctive relief; and
• When there are public interest at stake in restraining or enjoining the project while the action is pending that far outweighs:
• The inconvenience or costs to the part to whom the project is awarded and
• The public benefits that will result from the completion of the project. The time periods for the validity of temporary restraining orders issued by trial courts should be strictly followed. No preliminary injunction should issue unless the evidence to support the injunctive relief is clear and convincing. (Dynamic Builders and Construction Co., Inc. v. Presbitero, G.R. 174201, 2015).

A municipality is a real party-in-interest and an indispensable party that stands to be directly affected by any judicial resolution on the case assailing the validity of the loan, considering that: (a) the contracting parties to the loans are the bank and the municipality; and (b) the municipality owns the public plaza as well as the improvements constructed thereon, and must therefore be impleaded in the case. (Land Bank v. Cacayuran, G.R. 191667, 2015).

Liabilities arising from construction contracts of LGUs do not partake of loans or forbearance of money but are in the nature of contracts of service. Hence, the rate of legal interest imposable on the liability to pay for the service is 6% per annum. (WT Construction, Inc. v. The Province of Cebu, GR 208984, 2015).

A person is the real party-in-interest to assail the constitutionality and legality of the ordinances because he is a registered co-owner of the residential property in the city and that he paid property tax which already included the SHT and the garbage fee. He has substantial right to seek a refund of the payments he made and to stop future imposition. While he is a lone petitioner, his cause of action to challenge the validity of the subject ordinances is substantial and of paramount interest to similarly situated property owners in the city. (Ferrer v.· Bautista, G.R. 210551, 2015).

The Barangay Assembly cannot exercise any police power. Under Section 398 of the LGC, it may recommend to the sangguniang barangay the adoption of measures for the welfare of the barangay and the city or municipality concerned, decide on the adoption of initiative as a legal process, and hear and pass upon the sangguniang barangay’s semestral report concerning its activities and finances.

Also, the Liga ng mga Barangay cannot exercise legislative powers. It is not a local government unit and its primary purpose is to determine representation of the liga in the sanggunian, to ventilate, articulate and crystallize issues affecting barangay government administration, and to secure solutions for them through proper and legal means. (Onon v. Fernandez, G.R. No. 139813, October 28, 2002).

Eminent Domain and Taxation

TESTS TO DETERMINE THE VALIDITY OF GOVERNMENTAL REGULATION

Concept

The balancing of interests test is used as a standard when courts need to balance conflicting social values and individual interests, and requires a conscious and detailed consideration of the interplay of interests observable in a given type of situation. (Chavez v. Gonzales, G.R. No. 168338, Feb. 15, 2008)

Republic Act 4880 among other things prohibits the too early nomination of political candidates and limits the period for partisan political activity. Its purpose is to prevent the debasement of the political process. In determining the validity of the law, free speech as a social value must be weighed against the political process as a social value. (Gonzales v. COMELEC, G.R. No. L-27833, April 18, 1969)

The dangerous tendency rule and the clear and present danger rule were evolved in the context of prosecution for seditious speech. They are thus couched in terms of degree of evil and proximity of the evil. But not all evils easily lend themselves, like sedition to measurement of proximity and degree. For legislation therefore whose object is not the prevention of evil measurable in terms of proximity and degree, another test had to be evolved. The balancing of interests serves this purpose. It is used, for instance, for commercial speech. (People v. Perez, G.R. No. L-21049, Dec. 22, 1923; Bernas, The 1987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines, 2009)

Test

The test is what men of common intelligence would understand would be words likely to cause an average addressee to fight. (Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, March 9, 1942)

Tests Applied to Seditious Words

• Clear and Present Danger Test

A political party applied for a permit to hold a public meeting in Manila. The Mayor refused to grant permit. The refusal of the Mayor to grant permit for the holding of a public meeting was predicated upon fear that in view of the bitterness of the speeches expected from the minority men who were fresh from a political defeat and were smarting with charges of fraud against those in power, there might be breach of the peace and of public order. The Court ruled that the danger apprehended was not imminent and the evil to be prevented was not a serious one. Thus, the Mayor was ordered by the Supreme Court in mandamus proceedings to issue a permit. (Primicias v. Fugoso, G.R. No. L-1800, Jan. 27, 1948)

• Dangerous Tendency Test

Citizen Perez made this remark at a political discussion at a town municipio: “and the Filipinos, like myself, must use bolos for cutting off Wood’s head for having recommended a bad thing for the Philippines.” The court held that criticism, no matter how severe, on the Executive, the Legislature, and the Judiciary, is within the range of liberty of speech, unless the intention and effect be seditious. In this case, the Court found a seditious tendency which could easily produce disaffection among the people and a state of feeling incompatible with a disposition to remain loyal to the Government and obedient to the laws. (People v. Perez, G.R. No. L-21049, Dec. 22, 1923)