FACTS:Quezon City enacted an ordinance entitled “ORDINANCE
REGULATING THE ESTABLISHMENT, MAINTENANCE AND
OPERATION OF PRIVATE MEMORIAL TYPE CEMETERY OR BURIAL GROUND WITHIN THE
JURISDICTION OF QUEZON CITY AND PROVIDING PENALTIES FOR THE VIOLATION THEREOF”. The law basically
provides that at least six (6) percent of the total area of the
memorial park cemetery shall be set aside for charity burial of deceased persons who are paupers and have been residents of Quezon City
for at least 5 years prior to their death, to be
determined by competent City Authorities. QC justified the law by invoking police power.
ISSUE: Whether or not the ordinance is valid.
HELD: The SC held the
law as an invalid exercise of police power. There is no reasonable relation between
the setting aside of at least six (6) percent of the total area of all private
cemeteries for charity burial grounds of deceased paupers and the promotion of health, morals, good order, safety, or the general welfare of
the people. The ordinance is actually a taking without compensationof a
certain area from a private cemetery to benefit paupers who are charges of the
municipal corporation. Instead of building or
maintaining a public cemetery
for this purpose, the city passes the burden to private cemeteries.
The
power to regulate does not include the power to prohibit (People vs. Esguerra,
81 PhiL 33, Vega vs. Municipal Board of
Iloilo, L-6765, May 12, 1954; 39 N.J. Law, 70, Mich. 396). A fortiori, the
power to regulate does not include the power to confiscate. The ordinance in
question not only confiscates but also prohibits the operation of a memorial
park cemetery, because under Section 13 of said ordinance, ‘Violation of
the provision thereof is punishable with a fine and/or imprisonment and that
upon conviction thereof the permit to
operate and maintain a private cemetery shall be revoked or cancelled.’ The
confiscatory clause and the penal provision in effect deter one from operating
a memorial park cemetery. Neither can the ordinance in question be justified
under sub- section “t”, Section 12 of Republic Act 537 which
authorizes the City Council to-
‘prohibit the burial of the dead within the center of population
of the city and provide for their burial in such proper place and in such
manner as the council may determine, subject to the provisions of the general
law regulating burial grounds andcemeteries and governing funerals and
disposal of the dead.’ (Sub-sec. (t), Sec. 12, Rep. Act No. 537).
There
is nothing in the above provision which authorizes confiscation or as
euphemistically termed by the respondents, ‘donation’.
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