City Government of Quezon City Vs Ericta

CITY GOVERNMENT OF QUEZON CITY and CITY COUNCIL OF
QUEZON CITY, petitioners,
vs.
HON. JUDGE VICENTE G. ERICTA as Judge of the Court of First
Instance of Rizal, Quezon City, Branch XVIII; HIMLAYANG
PILIPINO, INC., respondents.
The Quezon City ordinance which required commercial cemetery

owners to reserve 6% of burial lots for paupers in the City was held
to be an invalid exercise of the police power, but was, instead, an
exercise of the power of eminent domain which would make the City
liable to pay the owners just compensation.
Facts:
Section 9 of Ordinance No. 6118, S-64 provides that at least 6% of the total
area of the memorial park cemetery shall be set aside for the charity burial
of deceased persons who are paupers and have been residents of Quezon
City for at least 5 years prior to their death. As such, the Quezon City
engineer required the respondent, Himlayang Pilipino Inc, to stop any
further selling and/or transaction of memorial park lots in Quezon City
where the owners thereof have failed to donate the required 6% space
intended for paupers burial.
The then Court of First Instance and its judge, Hon. Ericta, declared Section
9 of Ordinance No. 6118, S-64 null and void.
Petitioners argued that the taking of the respondent’s property is a valid

and reasonable exercise of police power and that the land is taken for a
public use as it is intended for the burial ground of paupers. They further
argued that the Quezon City Council is authorized under its charter, in the
exercise of local police power, ” to make such further ordinances and
resolutions not repugnant to law as may be necessary to carry into effect
and discharge the powers and duties conferred by this Act and such as it
shall deem necessary and proper to provide for the health and safety,
promote the prosperity, improve the morals, peace, good order, comfort and
convenience of the city and the inhabitants thereof, and for the protection
of property therein.”
On the otherhand, respondent Himlayang Pilipino, Inc. contended that the

taking or confiscation of property was obvious because the questioned
ordinance permanently restricts the use of the property such that it cannot
be used for any reasonable purpose and deprives the owner of all beneficial
use of his property.
Issue:
Whether or not Section 9 of the ordinance in question a valid exercise of the
police power?
Held:
No. The Sec. 9 of the ordinance is not a valid exercise of the police power.
The Quezon City ordinance which required commercial cemetery

owners to reserve 6% of burial lots for paupers in the City was held
to be an invalid exercise of the police power, but was, instead, an
exercise of the power of eminent domain which would make the City
liable to pay the owners just compensation.
Occupying the forefront in the bill of rights is the provision which states
that ‘no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due
process of law’ (Art. Ill, Section 1 subparagraph 1, Constitution). On the
other hand, there are three inherent powers of government by which the
state interferes with the property rights, namely-. (1) police power, (2)
eminent domain, (3) taxation. These are said to exist independently of the
Constitution as necessary attributes of sovereignty.
An examination of the Charter of Quezon City (Rep. Act No. 537), does not
reveal any provision that would justify the ordinance in question except the
provision granting police power to the City. Section 9 cannot be justified
under the power granted to Quezon City to tax, fix the license fee, and
regulate such other business, trades, and occupation as may be established
or practised in the City. The power to regulate does not include the
power to prohibit or confiscate. The ordinance in question not only
confiscates but also prohibits the operation of a memorial park
cemetery.
Police power is defined by Freund as ‘the power of promoting the public

welfare by restraining and regulating the use of liberty and property’. It is
usually exerted in order to merely regulate the use and enjoyment of
property of the owner. If he is deprived of his property outright, it is not
taken for public use but rather to destroy in order to promote the general
welfare. In police power, the owner does not recover from the government
for injury sustained in consequence thereof.
Under the provisions of municipal charters which are known as the general
welfare clauses, a city, by virtue of its police power, may adopt ordinances
to the peace, safety, health, morals and the best and highest interest
s of the municipality. It is a well-settled principle, growing out of the nature

of well-ordered and society, that every holder of property, however absolute
and may be his title, holds it under the implied liability that his use of it
shall not be injurious to the equal enjoyment of others having an equal right
to the enjoyment of their property, nor injurious to the rights of the
community. A property in the state is held subject to its general regulations,
which are necessary to the common good and general welfare. Rights of
property, like all other social and conventional rights, are subject to such
reasonable limitations in their enjoyment as shall prevent them from being
injurious, and to such reasonable restraints and regulations, established by
law, as the legislature, under the governing and controlling power vested in
them by the constitution, may think necessary and expedient. The state,
under the police power, is possessed with plenary power to deal with all
matters relating to the general health, morals, and safety of the people, so
long as it does not contravene any positive inhibition of the organic law and
providing that such power is not exercised in such a manner as to justify the
interference of the courts to prevent positive wrong and oppression.
However, in the case at hand, there is no reasonable relation between the

setting aside of at least six (6) percent of the total area of an private
cemeteries for charity burial grounds of deceased paupers and the
promotion of health, morals, good order, safety, or the general welfare of
the people. The ordinance is actually a taking without compensation of a
certain area from a private cemetery to benefit paupers who are charges of
the municipal corporation. Instead of building or maintaining a public
cemetery for this purpose, the city passes the burden to private cemeteries.
The expropriation without compensation of a portion of private cemeteries

is not covered by Section 12(t) of Republic Act 537, the Revised Charter of
Quezon City which empowers the city council to prohibit the burial of the
dead within the center of population of the city and to provide for their
burial in a proper place subject to the provisions of general law regulating
burial grounds and cemeteries. When the Local Government Code, Batas
Pambansa Blg. 337 provides in Section 177 (q) that a Sangguniang
panlungsod may “provide for the burial of the dead in such place and in
such manner as prescribed by law or ordinance” it simply authorizes the
city to provide its own city owned land or to buy or expropriate private
properties to construct public cemeteries. This has been the law and
practise in the past. It continues to the present. Expropriation, however,
requires payment of just compensation. The questioned ordinance is
different from laws and regulations requiring owners of subdivisions to set
aside certain areas for streets, parks, playgrounds, and other public
facilities from the land they sell to buyers of subdivision lots. The
necessities of public safety, health, and convenience are very clear from
said requirements which are intended to insure the development of
communities with salubrious and wholesome environments. The
beneficiaries of the regulation, in turn, are made to pay by the subdivision
developer when individual lots are sold to home-owners.
WHEREFORE, the petition for review is hereby DISMISSED. The decision
of the respondent court is affirmed.

City Government of Quezon City Vs Ericta

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CITY GOVERNMENT OF QUEZON CITY and CITY COUNCIL OF

The Quezon City ordinance which required commercial cemetery

Petitioners argued that the taking of the respondent’s property is a valid

On the otherhand, respondent Himlayang Pilipino, Inc. contended that the

The Quezon City ordinance which required commercial cemetery

Police power is defined by Freund as ‘the power of promoting the public

s of the municipality. It is a well-settled principle, growing out of the nature

However, in the case at hand, there is no reasonable relation between the

The expropriation without compensation of a portion of private cemeteries

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