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    Compania General de Tabacos v. Board of Public Utility, 34 Phil. 136 (1916)

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    KRISANTA DE GUZMAN
    1) Compania General de Tabacos de Filipinas, a Spanish corporation operating as a common carrier in the Philippines, challenged an order from the Board of Public Utility Commissioners requiring it to submit detailed annual reports. 2) The issue was whether requiring such reports was a constitutional exercise of legislative or administrative power. 3) The Supreme Court ruled the provision delegating this requirement to the Board was invalid, as it provided no rules or guidelines for the Board to follow and left everything to its unrestrained judgment.

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    Compania General de Tabacos v. Board of Public Utility, 34 Phil. 136 (1916)

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    KRISANTA DE GUZMAN
    160 views2 pages
    1) Compania General de Tabacos de Filipinas, a Spanish corporation operating as a common carrier in the Philippines, challenged an order from the Board of Public Utility Commissioners requiring it to submit detailed annual reports. 2) The issue was whether requiring such reports was a constitutional exercise of legislative or administrative power. 3) The Supreme Court ruled the provision delegating this requirement to the Board was invalid, as it provided no rules or guidelines for the Board to follow and left everything to its unrestrained judgment.

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    1) Compania General de Tabacos de Filipinas, a Spanish corporation operating as a common carrier in the Philippines, challenged an order from the Board of Public Utility Commissioners requiring it to submit detailed annual reports. 2) The issue was whether requiring such reports was a constitutional exercise of legislative or administrative power. 3) The Supreme Court ruled the provision delegating this requirement to the Board was invalid, as it provided no rules or guidelines for the Board to follow and left everything to its unrestrained judgment.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    160 views2 pages

    Compania General de Tabacos v. Board of Public Utility, 34 Phil. 136 (1916)

    Uploaded by

    KRISANTA DE GUZMAN
    1) Compania General de Tabacos de Filipinas, a Spanish corporation operating as a common carrier in the Philippines, challenged an order from the Board of Public Utility Commissioners requiring it to submit detailed annual reports. 2) The issue was whether requiring such reports was a constitutional exercise of legislative or administrative power. 3) The Supreme Court ruled the provision delegating this requirement to the Board was invalid, as it provided no rules or guidelines for the Board to follow and left everything to its unrestrained judgment.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 2

    JOHN ABNER S.

    GAREZA

    CASE DIGEST

    COMPANIA GENERAL DE TABACOS DE FILIPINAS vs. THE BOARD OF PUBLIC UTILITY COMMISSIONERS
    (1916) G.R. L-11216

    FACTS:

    COMPANIA GENERAL DE TABACOS DE FILIPINAS is a foreign corporation organized under the laws of Spain
    and engaged in business in the Philippine Islands as a common carrier of passengers and merchandise by
    water: On June 7, 1915, the Board of Public Utility Commissioners issued and caused to be served an order
    to show cause why they should not be required to present detailed annual reports respecting its finances
    and operations.

    COMPANIA GENERAL DE TABACOS DE FILIPINAS denied the authority of the board to require the report
    asked for the ground that the provision of Act No. 2307 relied on by board as authority for such
    requirement was, if construed as conferring such power, is invalid as constituting an unlawful attempt on
    the part of the Legislature to delegate legislative power to the board.

    ISSUE:

    1. Is it constitutionally required that COMPANIA GENERAL DE TABACOS DE FILIPINAS should pass


    and submit a detailed report to the Board of Public Utility Commissioners of the Philippine
    Islands?
    2. Is the power to require the detailed report strictly legislative, or administrative, or merely relates
    to the execution of the law?

    RULING:

    The order appealed from is set aside and the cause is returned to the Board of Public Utility
    Commissioners with instructions to dismiss the proceeding.

    The section of Act No. 2307 under which the Board of Public Utility Commissioners relies for its authority,
    so far as pertinent to the case at hand, reads as follows:

    Sec. 16. The Board shall have power, after hearing, upon notice, by order in writing, to require every public
    utility as herein defined: (e) To furnish annually a detailed report of finances and operations, in such form
    and containing such matters as the Board may from time to time by order prescribe.

    The provision does not declare, or set out, or indicate what information the State requires, what is
    valuable to it, what it needs in order to impose correct and just taxation, supervision or control, or the
    facts which the State must have in order to deal justly and equitably with such public utilities and to
    require them to deal justly and equitably with the State. The Legislature seems simply to have authorized
    the Board of Public Utility Commissioners to require what information the board wants. It would seem
    that the Legislature, by the provision in question, delegated to the Board of Public Utility Commissioners
    all of its powers over a given subject-matter in a manner almost absolute, and without laying down a rule
    or even making a suggestion by which that power is to be directed, guided or applied.
    The Supreme Court held that there was no delegation of legislative power, it said:

    The Congress may not delegate its purely legislative powers to a commission, but, having laid down the
    general rules of action under which a commission shall proceed, it may require of that commission the
    application of such rules to particular situation and the investigation of facts, with a view to making orders
    in a particular matter within the rules laid down by the Congress.

    In the case at bar the provision complained of does not law down the general rules of action under which
    the commission shall proceed. nor does it itself prescribe in detail what those reports shall contain.
    Practically everything is left to the judgment and discretion of the Board of Public Utility Commissioners,
    which is unrestrained as to when it shall act, why it shall act, how it shall act, to what extent it shall act,
    or what it shall act upon.

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