G.R. No. L-20209 May 19, 1966
TAN TIONG ENG alias KUONG LEONG, ET AL., plaintiffs and appellants, vs. THE HON. CITY MAYOR, PASAY CITY, ET AL., defendants and appellees.

FACTS

The appellants, Chinese citizens who were honorably discharged veterans of World War II, were laborers in the public market of Pasay. The defendants, officers of Pasay City, ordered them to stop working there beginning May 1962, citing Republic Act No. 37 , Department of Finance Circular No. 32, and Municipal Ordinance No. 33, series of 1948. Section 23 of this ordinance provided that stallholders could be authorized to employ helpers, subject to the condition that such helpers be citizens of the Philippines or the United States. The appellants filed a complaint, alleging these legal provisions were inapplicable to them and violated their constitutional rights. The trial court initially ruled for the plaintiffs. However, upon motion for reconsideration and the intervention of thirty-two Filipino stallholders who asserted that the Chinese appellants were, in truth, not helpers but the capitalists of the Filipino stallholders employing them, the trial court granted the motions and subsequently dismissed the amended complaint. The trial court upheld the validity of the law and rules, intimating that the Chinese were capitalists employing Filipinos as dummy stallholders.

ISSUE

Whether Section 23 of Pasay City Municipal Ordinance No. 33, series of 1948, which prohibits aliens from working as helpers of public market stallholders, is constitutional and valid.

RULING

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the lower court, upholding the validity of the ordinance. The Court ruled that the ordinance was aligned with the national policy to nationalize public markets and restrict alien intervention therein, as embodied in Republic Act No. 37 (giving preference to Filipino citizens in the lease of public market stalls) and Republic Act No. 1180 (nationalizing the retail trade). The Court noted the lower court’s factual finding, which the petitioners did not dispute, that the Chinese appellants were in truth the capitalists of the Filipino stallholders, not mere helpers. Consequently, allowing them to continue working as helpers would enable them to enjoy the preference reserved for Filipino stallholders, contrary to law and potentially in violation of the Anti-Dummy Law. The ordinance, therefore, did not constitute an unconstitutional deprivation of livelihood but was a valid exercise of police power in line with nationalization policies. The writ of preliminary injunction issued by the Court of Appeals was dissolved.