ARTS.

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If distinction must be stressed at all, it is simply in the sense that labor laws
are social legislation but not all social legislations are labor laws. In other words,
in relation to each other, social legislation as a concept is broader, labor laws
narrower.
3. SOCIAL JUSTICE AS THE AIM
The aim and the reason and, therefore, the justification of labor laws is
social justice.
Social justice, according to Dr. Jose P. Laurel in Calalang vs. Williams, 70 Phil.
726 [1940], 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 component elements of society through the
maintenance of 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
principle of salus populi est suprema lex.”
In essence, social justice is both a juridical principle and a societal goal.
As a juridical principle, it prescribes equality of the people, rich or poor, before
the law. As a goal, it means the attainment of decent quality of life of the masses
through humane productive efforts. The process and the goal are inseparable
because one is the synergistic cause and effect of the other — legal equality opens
opportunities that strengthen equality which creates more opportunities. The
pursuit of social justice does not require making the rich poor but, by lawful
process, making the rich share with the government the aim to realize social
justice.
This perception proceeds from a forthright pronouncement by our
Supreme Court way back in 1949:
Social justice does not champion division of property or equality of
economic status; what it and the Constitution do guaranty are equality of
opportunity, equality of political rights, equality before the law, equality
between values given and received, and equitable sharing of the social and
material goods on the basis of efforts exerted in their production. (Guido
vs. Rural Progress Administration, L-2089, October 31, 1949)
The 1987 Constitution, formulated by the 1986 Constitutional Commission
and ratified by the people on February 2, 1987, gives fundamental significance
to social justice. The Declaration of State Policies provides that “the State shall
promote a just and dynamic social order that will ensure the prosperity and

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