1. VILLAVICENCIO VS.

LUKBAN 39 PHIL 778

FACTS: On the midnight of October 25, 1918, the respondents, Manila City Mayor Justo Lukban and chief of police
Anton Hohmann, acting pursuant to orders, forced 170 women of ill-repute aboard steamers bound for Davao,
against their will and without prior notice. These women were kept confined for working in houses of prostitution in
Gardenia Street. Upon reaching Davao, they were landed and received as laborers by Davao provincial governor
Francisco Sales, and by Feliciano Ynigo and Rafael Castillo. The governor and Ynigo, also respondents in this case,
were not informed that these women were prostitutes who had been expelled from Manila.

Relatives and friends of majority of these deported women, through their attorney, presented an application for
habeas corpus to a member of the Supreme Court. The application included all of the women who were sent away
from Manila to Davao. However, the respondents claimed that the writ should not be granted because the petitioners
were not the proper parties to file the application.

ISSUE: W/N respondent City Mayor Lukban had the authority to deport these women to another distant locality.

HELD: NO. The Manila City Mayor does not have the right to force the women to change their domicile from one
locality to another against their will. These women, despite their being in a sense leper of society , are
nevertheless not chattels but Philippine citizens protected by the same constitutional guaranties as are other citizens
to change their domicile from Manila to another locality. These women have been deprived of their liberty by being
exiled to Davao without even being given the opportunity to collect their belongings or without even consenting to
being transported to Mindanao.