White Light
Corporation vs. City of Manila
Facts:
City of Manila passes an Ordinance preventing hotels,
motels, lodging houses, pension houses and similar establishments offer ing
shorttime admission as well as pro-rated or
wash up rates for abbreviated stays.
Petitioners allege, among others, that the Ordinance
deprives their customers the Constitutional guaranty to the right of due
process.
Held:
The purpose of the
guaranty is to prevent arbitrary governmental encroachment against the life,
liberty and property of individuals. The due process guaranty serves as a protection against
arbitrary regulation or seizure. Even corporations and partnerships
are protected by
the guaranty insofar as their property is concerned.
The due process guaranty
has traditionally been interpreted as imposing two related but distinct
restrictions on government, "procedural due process" and "substantive
due process." Procedural due process refers to the procedures that the
government must follow
before it deprives a person of life, liberty, or property. Procedural due
process concerns itself with government action adhering to
the established process when it makes an intrusion into the private sphere.
Substantive due process
completes the protection envisioned by the due process clause. It inquires
whether the government has sufficient justification for depriving a person of life,
liberty, or property.
Even as the
implementation of moral norms remains an indispensable complement to
governance, that prerogative is hardly absol ute, especially
in the face of the norms of due process of liberty. And while the tension may
often be left to the courts to relie ve, it is possible
for the government to avoid the constitutional conflict by employing more
judicious, less drastic means to promote morality.
Petition was granted by the Court and held the Ordinance
unconstitutional.
