Case Digest: Ichong vs. Hernandez, No. L-7995, May 31, 1957

 Equal Protection of the Laws | Constitutional Law


Facts:

Republic Act No. 1180 (An Act to Regulate the Retail Business) in effect nationalizes the retail trade business.

The main provisions of the Act are:

(1) a prohibition against persons, not citizens of the Philippines, and against associations, partnerships, or corporations the capital of which are not wholly owned by citizens of the Philippines, from engaging directly or indirectly in the retail trade;

(2) an exception from the above prohibition in favor of aliens actually engaged in said business on May15, 1954, who are allowed to continue to engage there in, unless their licenses are forfeited in accordance with the law, until their death or voluntary retirement in case of natural persons, and for ten years after the approval of the Act or until the expiration of term in case of juridical persons;

(3) an exception there from in favor of citizens and juridical entities of the United States;

(4) a provision for the forfeiture of licenses (to engage in the retail business) for violation of the laws on nationalization, economic control weights and measures and labor and other laws relating to trade, commerce and industry;

(5) a prohibition against the establishment or opening by aliens actually engaged in the retail business of additional stores or branches of retail business;

(6) a provision requiring aliens actually engaged in the retail business to present for registration with the proper authorities a verified statement concerning their businesses, giving, among other matters, the nature of the business, their assets and liabilities and their offices and principal offices of juridical entities; and

(7) a provision allowing the heirs of aliens now engaged in the retail business who die, to continue such business for a period of six months for purposes of liquidation.


Issue: 

WoN Republic Act No. 1180 is unconstitutional as it denies to alien residents the equal protection of the laws and deprives them of their liberty and property without due process of law.


Held:

The equal protection of the law clause is against undue favor and individual or class privilege, as well as hostile discrimination or the oppression of inequality. It is not intended to prohibit legislation, which is limited either in the object to which it is directed or by territory within which it is to operate. It does not demand absolute equality among residents.

The law in question is deemed absolutely necessary to bring about the desired legislative objective, i.e., to free national economy from alien control and dominance.

Since the Court finds that the classification is actual, real and reasonable, and all persons of one class are treated alike, and as it cannot be said that the classification is patently unreasonable and unfounded, it is in duty bound to declare that the legislature acted within its legitimate prerogative and it cannot declare that the act transcends the limit of equal protection established by the Constitution. The legislative power admits of a wide scope of discretion, and a law can be violative of the constitutional limitation only when the classification is without reasonable basis.


Ratio:

1. The equal protection clause does not take from the state the power to classify in the adoption of police laws, but admits of the exercise of the wide scope of discretion in that regard, and avoids what is done only when it is without any reasonable basis, and therefore is purely arbitrary.

2. A classification having some reasonable basis does not offend against that clause merely because it is not made with mathematical nicety, or because in practice it results in some inequality.

3. When the classification in such a law is called in question, if any state of facts reasonably can be conceived that would sustain it, the existence of that state of facts at the time the law was enacted must be assumed.

4. One who assails the classification in such a law must carry the burden of showing that it does not rest upon any reasonable basis, but is essentially arbitrary.


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