Mayor Justo Lukban of Manila ordered the closure of the city's segregated district for sex workers and deported around 170 women to Davao, Mindanao without their consent. Relatives of the deported women filed a habeas corpus application, alleging illegal deportation. The court ruled that the mayor did not have the authority to forcibly deport private citizens outside city limits. It fined the mayor 100 pesos for contempt of court to balance enforcing respect for the judiciary and avoiding undue oppression.
Mayor Justo Lukban of Manila ordered the closure of the city's segregated district for sex workers and deported around 170 women to Davao, Mindanao without their consent. Relatives of the deported women filed a habeas corpus application, alleging illegal deportation. The court ruled that the mayor did not have the authority to forcibly deport private citizens outside city limits. It fined the mayor 100 pesos for contempt of court to balance enforcing respect for the judiciary and avoiding undue oppression.
Mayor Justo Lukban of Manila ordered the closure of the city's segregated district for sex workers and deported around 170 women to Davao, Mindanao without their consent. Relatives of the deported women filed a habeas corpus application, alleging illegal deportation. The court ruled that the mayor did not have the authority to forcibly deport private citizens outside city limits. It fined the mayor 100 pesos for contempt of court to balance enforcing respect for the judiciary and avoiding undue oppression.
Mayor Justo Lukban of Manila ordered the closure of the city's segregated district for sex workers and deported around 170 women to Davao, Mindanao without their consent. Relatives of the deported women filed a habeas corpus application, alleging illegal deportation. The court ruled that the mayor did not have the authority to forcibly deport private citizens outside city limits. It fined the mayor 100 pesos for contempt of court to balance enforcing respect for the judiciary and avoiding undue oppression.
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GARCIA, Danielle Philip
4th Year/AB-Political Science
G.R. No. L-14639 March 25, 1919
ZACARIAS VILLAVICENCIO, ET AL., petitioners,
vs. JUSTO LUKBAN, ET AL., respondents.
Alfonso Mendoza for petitioners.
City Fiscal Diaz for respondents.
PONENTE OF THE CASE: MALCOLM, J.
STATEMENT OF THE FACTS:
The Mayor of the city of Manila, Justo Lukban, for the best of all reasons, to exterminate vice, ordered the segregated district for women of ill repute, which had been permitted for a number of years in the city of Manila, closed. Between October 16 and October 25, 1918, the women were kept confined to their houses in the district by the police. Presumably, during this period, the city authorities quietly perfected arrangements with the Bureau of Labor for sending the women to Davao, Mindanao, as laborers; with some government office for the use of the coastguard cutters Corregidor and Negros, and with the Constabulary for a guard of soldiers. At any rate, about midnight of October 25, the police, acting pursuant to orders from the chief of police, Anton Hohmann and the Mayor of the city of Manila, Justo Lukban, descended upon the houses, hustled some 170 inmates into patrol wagons, and placed them aboard the steamers that awaited their arrival. The women were given no opportunity to collect their belongings, and apparently were under the impression that they were being taken to a police station for an investigation. They had no knowledge that they were destined for a life in Mindanao. They had not been asked if they wished to depart from that region and had neither directly nor indirectly given their consent to the deportation. Upon their arrival in Davao, the provincial governor of Davao had no previous notification that the women were prostitutes who had been expelled in the city of Manila. Then the relatives of the deportees presented an application for habeas corpus to the SC. The application alleged that the women were illegally deported by the order of Lukban. Lukban and Hohman admitted certain facts but prayed that the writ should not be granted because the petitioners were not proper parties to the case that it should have begun in Davao because the women are not in their custody now. STATEMENT OF ISSUE/S:
Whether or not Mayor Lukban was justified in taking the 170 women and bringing them to Mindanao
DECISION:
The court concluded the case by granting the parties aggrieved the sum of 400 pesos each, plus 100 pesos for nominal damage due to contempt of court. Reasoning further that if the chief executive of any municipality in the Philippines could forcibly and illegally take a private citizen and place him beyond the boundaries of the municipality, and then, when called upon to defend his official action, could calmly fold his hands and claim that the person was under no restraint and that he, the official, had no jurisdiction over this other municipality.
REASON FOR THE DECISION
The reason was based on the provisions of section 546 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which relates to the penalty for disobeying the writ, and in pursuance thereof to require respondent Lukban to forfeit to the parties aggrieved as much as P400 each, which would reach to many thousands of pesos, and in addition to deal with him as for a contempt. Some members of the court are inclined to this stern view. It would also be possible to find that since respondent Lukban did comply substantially with the second order of the court, he has purged his contempt of the first order. Some members of the court are inclined to this merciful view. Between the two extremes appears to lie the correct finding. The failure of respondent Lukban to obey the first mandate of the court tended to belittle and embarrass the administration of justice to such an extent that his later activity may be considered only as extenuating his conduct. A nominal fine will at once command such respect without being unduly oppressive such an amount is P100.
