G.R. No. L-14639 Case Digest

G.R. No. L-14639, March 25, 1919

Zacarias Villavicencion, et al., petitioners

vs Justo Lukban, et al., respondents

Ponente: Malcolm

Facts:

The Lukban as mayor of Manila ordered the segregated district for women of ill repute be closed, for the purpose of exterminating vices in the city. The women were kept confined to their houses by the police while the city authorities made arrangements with the bureau of labor for sending the women to Davao as laborers. Later at midnight of October 25, the police, Anton Hohmann and the Mayor descended upon the houses and placed them aboard the steamers. The women were given no opportunity to collect their belongings and thought that they would be brought to the police station for an investigation. They have not been asked if they wish to depart from the region and neither been asked of their consent for the deportation.

Upon their arrival in Davao, the provincial governor of Davao had no previous notification that the women were prostitutes who had been expelled in the city of Manila. Then the relatives of the deportees presented an application for habeas corpus to the SC. The application alleged that the women were illegally deported by the order of Lukban. Lukban and Hohman admitted certain facts but prayed that the writ should not be granted because the petitioners were not proper parties to the case that it should have begun in Davao because the women are not in their custody now.

According to the fiscal attachment, the women were destined to be laborers at good salaries on the hacienda of Ynigo and governor sales. Fiscal also admitted that the deportation was without consent of the women.

Issue: Did the Mayor and the Chief of Police presume to act in deporting by duress these persons from Manila to another distant locality within the Philippine Islands?

Held:

What are the remedies of the unhappy victims of official oppression? The remedies of the citizen are three: (1) Civil action; (2) criminal action, and (3) habeas corpus.

Granted that habeas corpus is the proper remedy, respondents have raised three specific objections to its issuance in this instance. The fiscal has argued (l) that there is a defect in parties petitioners, (2) that the Supreme Court should not a assume jurisdiction, and (3) that the person in question are not restrained of their liberty by respondents. It was finally suggested that the jurisdiction of the Mayor and the chief of police of the city of Manila only extends to the city limits and that perforce they could not bring the women from Davao.

(1) The petitioners were relatives and friends of the deportees. The way the expulsion was conducted by the city officials made it impossible for the women to sign a petition for habeas corpus. It was consequently proper for the writ to be submitted by persons in their behalf.

(2) It is a general rule of good practice that, to avoid unnecessary expense and inconvenience, petitions for habeas corpus should be presented to the nearest judge of the court of first instance. But this is not a hard and fast rule. The writ of habeas corpus may be granted by the Supreme Court or any judge thereof enforceable anywhere in the Philippine Islands. Whether the writ shall be made returnable before the Supreme Court or before an inferior court rests in the discretion of the Supreme Court and is dependent on the particular circumstances. In this instance it was not shown that the Court of First Instance of Davao was in session or that the women had any means by which to advance their plea before that court.

(3) A prime specification of an application for a writ of habeas corpus is restraint of liberty. The essential object and purpose of the writ of habeas corpus is to inquire into all manner of involuntary restraint as distinguished from voluntary, and to relieve a person therefrom if such restraint is illegal. Any restraint which will preclude freedom of action is sufficient. The forcible taking of these women from Manila by officials of that city, who handed them over to other parties, who deposited them in a distant region, deprived these women of freedom of locomotion just as effectively as if they had been imprisoned.