RIGHT TO PROPERTY

THE act of COMELEC in seeking to restrain petitioners from posting the tarpaulin in THEIR OWN PRIVATE PROPERTY is an impermissible encroachment on the RIGHT TO PROPERTY. -


"RIGHT TO PROPERTY

Other than the right to freedom of expression and the meaningful exercise of the right to suffrage, the present case also involves one’s right to property.

Respondents argue that it is the right of the state to prevent the circumvention of regulations relating to election propaganda by applying such regulations to private individuals. Certainly, any provision or regulation can be circumvented. But we are not confronted with this possibility. Respondents agree that the tarpaulin in question belongs to petitioners. Respondents have also agreed, during the oral arguments, that petitioners were neither commissioned nor paid by any candidate or political party to post the material on their walls.

Even though the tarpaulin is readily seen by the public, the tarpaulin remains the private property of petitioners. Their right to use their property is likewise protected by the Constitution.

In Philippine Communications Satellite Corporation v. Alcuaz:

Any regulation, therefore, which operates as an effective confiscation of private property or constitutes an arbitrary or unreasonable infringement of property rights is void, because it is repugnant to the constitutional guaranties of due process and equal protection of the laws. (Citation omitted)

This court in Adiong held that a restriction that regulates where decals and stickers should be posted is "so broad that it encompasses even the citizen’s private property." Consequently, it violates Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution which provides thatno person shall be deprived of his property without due process of law. This court explained:

Property is more than the mere thing which a person owns, it includes the right to acquire, use, and dispose of it; and the Constitution, in the 14th Amendment, protects these essential attributes.

Property is more than the mere thing which a person owns. It is elementary that it includes the right to acquire, use, and dispose of it. The Constitution protects these essential attributes of property. Holden v. Hardy, 169 U.S. 366, 391, 41 L. ed. 780, 790, 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 383. Property consists of the free use, enjoyment, and disposal of a person’s acquisitions without control or diminution save by the law of the land. 1 Cooley’s Bl. Com. 127. (Buchanan v. Warley 245 US 60 [1917])

This court ruled that the regulation in Adiong violates private property rights:

The right to property may be subject to a greater degree of regulation but when this right is joined by a "liberty" interest, the burden of justification on the part of the Government must be exceptionally convincing and irrefutable. The burden is not met in this case.

Section 11 of Rep. Act 6646 is so encompassing and invasive that it prohibits the posting or display of election propaganda in any place, whether public or private, except inthe common poster areas sanctioned by COMELEC. This means that a private person cannot post his own crudely prepared personal poster on his own front dooror on a post in his yard. While the COMELEC will certainly never require the absurd, there are no limits to what overzealous and partisan police officers, armed with a copy of the statute or regulation, may do. Respondents ordered petitioners, who are private citizens, to remove the tarpaulin from their own property. The absurdity of the situation is in itself an indication of the unconstitutionality of COMELEC’s interpretation of its powers.

Freedom of expression can be intimately related with the right to property. There may be no expression when there is no place where the expression may be made. COMELEC’s infringement upon petitioners’ property rights as in the present case also reaches out to infringement on their fundamental right to speech.

Respondents have not demonstrated thatthe present state interest they seek to promote justifies the intrusion into petitioners’ property rights. Election laws and regulations must be reasonable. It must also acknowledge a private individual’s right to exercise property rights. Otherwise, the due process clause will be violated.

COMELEC Resolution No. 9615 and the Fair Election Act intend to prevent the posting of election propaganda in private property without the consent of the owners of such private property. COMELEC has incorrectly implemented these regulations. Consistent with our ruling in Adiong, we find that the act of the respondents in seeking to restrain petitioners from posting the tarpaulin in their own private property is an impermissible encroachments on the right to property."


Read:

THE DIOCESE OF BACOLOD, REPRESENTED BY THE MOST REV. BISHOP VICENTE M. NAVARRA and THE BISHOP HIMSELF IN HIS PERSONAL CAPACITY, Petitioners,

vs.

COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS AND THE ELECTION OFFICER OF BACOLOD CITY, ATTY. MAVIL V. MAJARUCON, Respondents.

EN BANC, G.R. No. 205728, January 21, 2015

https://lawphil.net/judjuris/juri2015/jan2015/gr_205728_2015.html