Maximo Calalang v A.D. Williams G.R. No. 47800. December 2, 1940.

Facts: In July 17, 1940 the National Traffic Commission recommended to the Director of Public Works and to
the Secretary of Public Works and Communications that animal-drawn vehicles be prohibited from passing
along Rosario Street extending from Plaza Calderon de la Barca to Dasmarinas Street from 7:30 AM to 12:30
PM and from 1:30 PM to 5:30 PM; and along Rizal Avenue extending from the railroad crossing at Antipolo
Street to Echague Street from 7 AM to 11 PM; in one year from the date of opening of the Colgante Bridge to
traffic.

The Director of Public Works recommended to the Secretary of Public Works and Communications that the
closing of Rizal Avenue to traffic of animal-drawn vehicles be limited to the portion extending from the
railroad crossing at Antipolo Street to Azcarraga Street during the same hours as indicated for a period of one
year from the date of opening of the Colgante Bridge to traffic.

Issue: Whether CA 548 is unconstitutional because it constitutes undue delegation of legislative power and
infringes upon constitutional precept regarding the promotion of social justice to ensure the well-being and
economic security of all people;

Whether there is unlawful interference with legitimate business or trade and abridging of the right to
personal liberty and freedom of locomotion.

Held: The writ of prohibition prayed for is hereby DENIED.

Ratio: According to Judge Ranney: "The true distinction therefore is between the delegation of power to make
the law, which necessarily involves discretion as to its execution to be exercised under and in pursuance of
the law. The first cannot be done to the latter no valid objection can be made.

The Legislature cannot delegate a power to make law, but it can make a law to delegate a power to
determine some fact or state of things upon which the law makes or intends to make, its action depend. To
deny this would stop the wheels of the government.

By consideration of public convenience and welfare the National Assembly enacted CA 548. Persons may
be subjected to all kinds of restraints and burdens in order to secure the general comfort, health and
prosperity of the State. The citizen should achieve the required balance of liberty and authority in his mind
through education and personal discipline so that there may be established the resultant equilibrium, which
means peace and order and happiness for all.

The State has exercised its Police Power in this case.

Facts:

The National Traffic Commission, in its resolution of July 17, 1940, resolved to recommend to the Director of
the Public Works and to the Secretary of Public Works and Communications that animal-
drawn vehicles be prohibited from passing along the following for a period of one year from the date of the
opening of the Colgante Bridge to traffic:

1) Rosario Street extending from Plaza Calderon de la Barca to Dasmariñas

Street from 7:30Am to 12:30 pm and from 1:30 pm to 530 pm; and

2) along Rizal Avenue extending from the railroad crossing at Antipolo Street to

Echague Street from 7 am to 11pm

The Chairman of the National Traffic Commission on July 18, 1940 recommended to the Director of Public
Works with the approval of the Secretary of Public Works the adoption of
thethemeasure proposed in the resolution aforementioned in pursuance of the provisions of theCommonweal
th Act No. 548 which authorizes said Director with the approval from the
Secretary of the Public Works and Communication to promulgate rules and regulations to regulate and
control the use of and traffic on national roads.

On August 2, 1940, the Director recommended to the Secretary the approval of the recommendations made
by the Chairman of the National Traffic Commission with modifications. The Secretary of Public Works
approved the recommendations on August 10,1940. The Mayor of Manila and the Acting Chief of Police of
Manila have enforced and caused to be enforced the rules and regulation. As a consequence, all animal-drawn
vehicles are not allowed to pass and pick up passengers in the places above mentioned to the detriment not
only of their owners but of the riding public as well.

Issues:
1) Whether the rules and regulations promulgated by the respondents pursuant to the provisions of
Commonwealth Act NO. 548 constitute an unlawful inference with legitimate business or trade and abridged
the right to personal liberty and freedom of locomotion?

2) Whether the rules and regulations complained of infringe upon the constitutional precept regarding
the promotion of social justice to insure the well-being and economic security of all the people?

Held:
1) No. The promulgation of the Act aims to promote safe transit upon and avoid obstructions on national
roads in the interest and convenience of the public. In enacting said law, the National Assembly was
prompted by considerations of public convenience and welfare. It was inspired by the desire to relieve
congestion of traffic, which is a menace to the public safety. Public welfare lies at the bottom of the
promulgation of the said law and the state in order to promote the general welfare may interfere with
personal liberty, with property, and with business and occupations. Persons and property may be subject to
all kinds of restraints and burdens in order to secure the general comfort, health, and prosperity of the State.
The fundamental aims of the government, the rights of the individual are subordinated. Liberty is a blessing
which should not be made to prevail over authority because society will fall into anarchy. Neither should
authority be made to prevail over liberty because then the individual will fall into slavery. The paradox lies in
the fact that the apparent curtailment of liberty is precisely the very means of insuring its preserving.

2) No. Social justice is “neither communism, nor despotism, nor atomism, nor anarchy,” but the humanization
of laws and the equalization of social and economic forces by the State so that justice in its rational and
objectively secular conception may at least be approximated. Social justice means the promotion of the
welfare of all the people, the adoption by the Government of measures calculated to insure economic stability
of all the competent elements of society, through the maintenance of a proper economic and social
equilibrium in the interrelations of the members of the community, constitutionally, through the adoption of
measures legally justifiable, or extra-constitutionally, through the exercise of powers underlying the existence
of all governments on the time-honored principles of salus populi estsuprema lex.

Social justice must be founded on the recognition of the necessity of interdependence among divers and
diverse units of a society and of the protection that should be equally and evenly extended to all groups as a
combined force in our social and economic life, consistent with the fundamental and paramount objective of
the state of promoting health, comfort and quiet of all persons, and of bringing about “the greatest good to the
greatest number.”