Agustin vs. Edu, in his capacity as Land Transportation Commissioner

Facts:

The validity of a Letter of Instruction providing for an early warning device for motor vehicles as well as the implementing rules and regulations in Administrative Order No.1 issued by the Land and Transportation Commission is assailed in this prohibition proceeding as being violative of the constitutional guarantee of due process and, insofar as the rules and regulations for its implementation are concerned, for transgressing the fundamental principle of non-delegation of legislative power. The Letter of Instruction is stigmatized by petitioner, who is possessed of the requisite standing, as being arbitrary and oppressive. Considering the allegations contained, a temporary restraining order was issued and respondents were required to answer. Then an answer from the respondents in paragraphs X and XI(including its subparagraphs 1,2,3,4) of petition to the effect that Letter of Instruction as well as Land Transportation Commission Administrative order No. 1 and its Memorandum Circular No. 32 violates the constitutional provisions on due process of law, equal protection of law and undue delegation of police power, and that the same are likewise oppressive, arbitrary, confiscatory, one-sided, onerous, immoral, unreasonable and illegal, the truth being that said allegation are without legal and factual basis.

Issues:


1. Whether or not the petition be dismissed.

2. Whether or not the Letter of Instruction No. 229 requiring the installation of early warning devices to vehicles repugnant to the due process clause?

3. Does Letter of Instruction No. 229, as amended, violates the provisions and delegation of police power?

4. Whether or not the “early-warning device” requirement on vehicles an expensive redundancy?

5. Does the letter of Instruction compel the car owners to purchase the prescribed early warning device?

Rulings:

1. The petition must be dismissed. The petition itself quoted these two whereas clauses of the assailed Letter of Instruction: “, the hazards posed by such obstruction to traffic have been recognized by international bodies concerned with traffic safety, the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road signs and Signals and the United Nations Organization; , the said Vienna Convention which was ratified by the Philippine government under P.D, no. 207, recommended the enactment of local legislation for the installation of road safety signs and devices;” It cannot be disputed then that this Declaration of Principle found in the Constitution possesses relevance: “ The Philippine adopts the generally accepted principles of international law as part of the la of the land, ****.” The 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals is impressed with such a character. It is not for this country to repudiate commitment to which it had pledged its word. The concept of Pacta sunt servanda stands in a way of such an attitude, which is, moreover, at war the principle of international morality

2. Letter of Instruction NO.229 requiring the installation of early warning devices to vehicles are not repugnant to the due process clause. Conjectural claims of petitioner as to number o nighttime vehicular collisions cannot be a basis for setting aside of law that was promulgated after a careful study by the Executive Department.

3. The Letter of Instruction was valid exercise of Police Power and implementing rules and regulations of respondent not susceptible to the charge that there was unlawful delegation of legislative power. Justice laurel, in the first leading decision, Calalang vs. Williams, identified police power with state authority to enact legislation that may interfere with personal liberty or property in order to promote the general welfare. Persons and property could thus be subjected to all kinds of restraints and burdens in order to secure the general comfort, health and prosperity of the state. The police power is thus a dynamic agency, suitably vague and far precisely defined, rooted in the conception that men in organizing the state and imposing upon its government limitations to safeguard constitutional rights did not intend thereby to enable an individual citizen or a group of citizens to obstruct unreasonably the enactment of such salutary measures calculated to insure communal peace, safety, good order, and welfare.

4. Such early warning device requirement is not an expensive redundancy, nor oppressive, for car owners whose cars are already equipped with 1.) blinking lights in the fore and aft of said motor vehicles 2.) battery-powered blinking lights inside motor vehicles 3.) built-in reflectorized tapes on front and near bumpers of motor vehicles 4.) well-lighted two petroleum lamps.

5. There is nothing in Letter of Instruction which compels the car owners to purchase the prescribed early warning device. Vehicle owners can produce the device themselves with a little ingenuity.