Villavicencio vs. Lukban, 39 Phil. 778 (1919) (Digest)

Expulsion (Art. 127, RPC)

Villavicencio vs. Lukban, 39 Phil. 778 (1919)

Facts:

The Mayor of the city of Manila, Justo Lukban, for the best of all reasons, to exterminate vice, ordered the segregated district for women of ill repute. Between October 16 and October 25, 1918, the women were kept confined to their houses in the district by the police. The city authorities quietly perfected arrangements with the Bureau of Labor for sending the women to Davao, as laborers; Mayor Justo Lukban, placed some 170 inmates aboard the steamers.

The vessels reached their destination at Davao on October 29. The women were landed and receipted for as laborers by Francisco Sales, provincial governor of Davao, and by Feliciano Ynigo and Rafael Castillo. The governor and the hacendero Ynigo, who appear as parties in the case, had no previous notification that the women were prostitutes who had been expelled from the city of Manila.

Issue:

Whether or not Mayor Lukban has the authority in expelling the prostitutes in his city (Manila) without due process of law

Held:

            No.

Ratio:

            The Mayor and the Chief of Police of Manila cannot force the prostitutes residing in that City to go to and live in Davao against their will, there being no law that authorizes them to do so. These women, despite their being in a sense, lepers of society, are nevertheless not chattels, but Filipino citizens, protected by the same constitutional guarantees as are other citizens.