Ermita-Malate Hotel and Motel Operators v. City of Manila G.R. No. L-24693 [Case Digest]

 

Ermita-Malate Hotel and Motel Operators v. City of Manila

G.R. No. L-24693

Facts:

            The City of Manila enacted an Ordinance No. 4760 to require the owner, manager, keeper or duly authorized representative of a hotel, motel, or lodging house to refrain from entertaining or accepting any guest or customer or letting any room or other quarter to any person or persons without his filling up the prescribed form in a lobby open to public view at all times and in his presence.

            The Ermita-Malate Hotel Operators question the constitutionality of the said ordinance on the ground that it is violative of due process clause of the Bill of Rights.

 

Issue:

            Whether or not Ordinance No. 4760 of the City of Manila is violative of the due process clause.

 

Held:

            No.

 

Ratio:

            This particular manifestation of a police power measure being specifically aimed to safeguard public morals is immune from such imputation of nullity resting purely on conjecture and unsupported by anything of substance. To hold otherwise would be to unduly restrict and narrow the scope of police power which has been properly characterized as the most essential, insistent and the least limitable of powers, extending as it does "to all the great public needs."