Judie Lee M.

Tandog
FSM 31

MOST IMPORTANT DOCTRINES IN LABOR LAW

International and Philippine Labor Code
1. Police Power of the State in Labor Laws
(CASE: PHIL. ASSOCIATION OF SERVICE EXPORTERS INC. (PASEU) vs. HON. F.M.
DRILON et., al, G.R. No. 81958, 30, June 1998, EN Banc, Sarmiento, J.)
The concept of police power is well-established in this jurisdiction. It has been defined as the
“state authority to enact legislation that may interfere with personal liberty or property in order to
promote the general welfare.” As defined, it consists of an imposition of restraint upon liberty or
property, in order to foster the common good. It is not capable of an exact definition but has
been, purposely, veiled in general terms to underscore its all-comprehensive embrace. “Its scope,
ever-expanding to meet the exigencies of the times, even to anticipate the future where it could
be done, provides enough room for an efficient and flexible response to conditions and
circumstances thus assuring the greatest benefits.” It finds no specific Constitutional grant for the
plain reason that it does not owe its origin to the Charter. Along with the taxing power and
eminent domain, it is inborn in the very fact of statehood and sovereignty. It is a fundamental
attribute of government that has enabled it to perform the most vital functions of governance.
Marshall, to whom the expression has been credited, refers to it succinctly as the plenary power
of the State “to govern its citizens.” “The police power of the State … is a power coextensive
with self- protection, and it is not inaptly termed the “law of overwhelming necessity.” It may be
said to be that inherent and plenary power in the State which enables it to prohibit all things
hurtful to the comfort, safety, and welfare of society.” It constitutes an implied limitation on the
Bill of Rights. According to Fernando, it is “rooted in the conception that men in organizing the
state and imposing upon its government limitations to safeguard constitutional rights did not
intend thereby to enable an individual citizen or a group of citizens to obstruct unreasonably the
enactment of such salutary measures calculated to ensure communal peace, safety, good order,
and welfare.” Significantly, the Bill of Rights itself does not purport to be an absolute guaranty
of individual rights and liberties “Even liberty itself, the greatest of all rights, is not unrestricted
license to act according to one’s will.” It is subject to the far more overriding demands and
requirements of the greater number.
Philippine Association of Service Exporters vs. Hon. Franklin Drilon GR No. 81958 – June 30,
1988
FACTS: Philippine Association of Service Exporters, Inc. (PASEI), is a firm ”engaged
principally in the recruitment of Filipino workers, male and female, for overseas placement”.
They challenged the constitutionality of D.O. No. 1,1988 of the DOLE or the “Guidelines
Governing the Temporary Suspension of deployment of the Filipino Domestic and Household
Workers”. The petitioners claimed that the Order was did not apply to all Filipino workers but
only to domestic helpers and females with similar skills, that it is violate of the right to travel, it
was likewise an invalid exercise of the lawmaking power, police power being legislative, and not
executive, in character. The Solicitor General invoked that such was an exercise of the police
power of the Philippine State and that such was in the nature of a police power measure.
ISSUE: Whether or not the said Order is unconstitutional?
RULING: No. The Court ruled that the Department Order was a valid exercise of police power
and that there was no in due discrimination against the sexes given the unhappy plight that has
befallen the female labor force abroad, especially domestic servants, amid exploitative working
conditions marked by, in not a few cases, physical and personal abuse. The sordid tales of
maltreatment suffered by migrant Filipina workers, even rape and various forms of torture,
confirmed by testimonies of returning workers, are compelling motives for urgent Government
action. As precisely the caretaker of Constitutional rights, the Court is called upon to protect
victims of exploitation. In fulfilling that duty, the Court sustained the Government’s efforts.
Unquestionably, it is the avowed objective of Department Order No. 1to “enhance the protection
for Filipino female overseas workers” the SC has no quarrel that in the midst of the terrible
mistreatment Filipina workers have suffered abroad, a ban on deployment will be for their own
good and welfare. The basis of the Court in ruling with the respondent is the provision of Sec. 3,
Art. XIII of the Constitution which states, “The State shall afford full protection to labor, local
and overseas, organized and unorganized, and promote full employment and equality of
employment opportunities for all. “The Court explained the protection of labor as not merely not
signifying the promotion of employment alone, but that the promotion of such employment must
be above all, decent, just, and humane. The Government is duty-bound to ensure that our toiling
expatriates have adequate protection, personally and economically, while away from home.

2. The State’s POLICE POWER

Police power is the right to protect the country and its population from threats to the public
health and safety. The term “police power” predates the development of organized police forces,
which did not develop until the postcolonial period. In the colonial period, police power was
used to control nuisances, such as tanneries that fouled the air and water in towns, to prevent the
sale of bad food, and to quarantine persons who were infected with communicable diseases.
Many of the colonies had active boards of health to administer the police power. This was one of
the main governmental functions in the colonial period. Under the Constitution, the states
retained much of their police power but share the right to regulate health and safety issues with
the federal government. Examples of the federal use of the police power are food and drug
regulations, environmental preservation laws, and workplace safety laws. The states have
companion laws in most of these areas, plus local public health enforcement such as restaurant
inspections, communicable disease control, and drinking water sanitation. In most cases, the
states share jurisdiction with the federal government and the courts will enforce whichever is the
more strict law. State and local public health laws are exercises of the police power. The
application of police power has traditionally implied a capacity to (1) promote the public health,
morals, or safety, and the general well-being of the community; (2) enact and enforce laws for
the promotion of the general welfare; (3) regulate private rights in the public interest; and (4)
extend measures to all great public needs

3. The nature of Police Power

Police power is the plenary power vested in the legislature to make, ordain, and establish
wholesome and reasonable laws, statutes and ordinances, not repugnant to the Constitution, for
the good and welfare of the people. This power to prescribe regulations to promote the health,
morals, education, good order or safety, and general welfare of the people flows from the
recognition that salus populi est suprema lex – the welfare of the people is the supreme law.
While police power rests primarily with the legislature, such power may be delegated, as it is in
fact increasingly being delegated. By virtue of a valid delegation, the power may be exercised by
the President and administrative boards as well as by the lawmaking bodies of municipal
corporations or local governments under an express delegation by the Local Government Code
of 1991. (MMDA, et al. v. Viron Trans. Co., Inc., supra.).

A. When is the exercise of Police Power considered reasonable

When police power is exercised, there is no just compensation to the citizen who loses his
private property. When eminent domain is exercised, there must be just compensation. Thus, the
Court must distinguish and clarify taking in police power and taking in eminent domain.
Government officials cannot just invoke police power when the act constitutes eminent domain.
In People v. Pomar, the Court acknowledged that “by reason of the constant growth of public
opinion in a developing civilization, the term ‘police power’ has never been, and we do not
believe can be, clearly and definitely defined and circumscribed. “The Court stated that the
“definition of the police power of the State must depend upon the particular law and the
particular facts to which it is to be applied.” 7 However, it was considered even then that police
power, when applied to taking 1of property without compensation, refers to property that is
destroyed PR placed outside the commerce of man. The Court declared in Pomar: It is believed
and confidently asserted that no case can be found, in civilized society and well-organized
governments, where individuals have been deprived of their property, under the police power of
the state, without compensation, except in cases where the property in question was used for the
purpose of violating some law legally adopted, or constitutes a nuisance. Among such cases may
be mentioned: Apparatus used in counterfeiting the money of the state; firearms illegally
possessed; opium possessed in violation of law; apparatus used for gambling in violation of law;
buildings and property used for the purpose of violating laws prohibiting the manufacture and
sale of intoxicating liquors; and all cases in which the property itself has become a nuisance and
dangerous and detrimental to the public health, morals and general welfare of the state. In all of
such cases, and in many more which might be cited, the destruction of the property is permitted
in the exercise of the police power of the state. But it must first be established that such property
was used as the instrument for the violation of a valid existing law.

B. The 2 elements of reasonableness un the exercise of Police Power

The proper exercise of the police power requires compliance with the following requisites:

 [1] The interests of the public generally, as distinguished from those of a particular class,
require the interference by the State; and

 [2] The means employed are reasonably necessary for the attainment of the object sought
and not unduly oppressive upon individuals.

C. Section 16, AR. 10022 of the LABOR CODE

REPUBLIC ACT No. 10022 AN ACT AMENDING REPUBLIC ACT NO. 8042,
OTHERWISE KNOWN AS THE MIGRANT WORKERS AND OVERSEAS FILIPINOS
ACT OF 1995, AS AMENDED, FURTHER IMPROVING THE STANDARD OF
PROTECTION AND PROMOTION OF THE WELFARE OF MIGRANT WORKERS,
THEIR FAMILIES AND OVERSEAS FILIPINOS IN DISTRESS, AND FOR OTHER
PURPOSES
Section 16. Under Section 23 of Republic Act No. 8042, as amended, add new paragraphs © and
(d) with their corresponding subparagraphs to read as follows:
“C. Department of Health. – The Department of Health (DOH) shall regulate the activities and
operations of all clinics which conduct medical, physical, optical, dental, psychological and other
similar examinations, hereinafter referred to as health examinations, on Filipino migrant workers
as requirement for their overseas employment. Pursuant to this, the DOH shall ensure that:
“(c.1) The fees for the health examinations are regulated, regularly monitored and duly published
to ensure that the said fees are reasonable and not exorbitant;
“(c.2) The Filipino migrant worker shall only be required to undergo health examinations when
there is reasonable certainty that he or she will be hired and deployed to the jobsite and only
those health examinations which are absolutely necessary for the type of job applied for or those
specifically required by the foreign employer shall be conducted;
“(c.3) No group or groups of medical clinics shall have a monopoly of exclusively conducting
health examinations on migrant workers for certain receiving countries;
“(c.4) Every Filipino migrant worker shall have the freedom to choose any of the DOH-
accredited or DOH-operated clinics that will conduct his/her health examinations and that his or
her rights as a patient are respected. The decking practice, which requires an overseas Filipino
worker to go first to an office for registration and then farmed out to a medical clinic located
elsewhere, shall not be allowed;
(c.5) Within a period of three (3) years from the effectivity of this Act, all DOH regional and/or
provincial hospitals shall establish and operate clinics that can be serve the health examination
requirements of Filipino migrant workers to provide them easy access to such clinics all over the
country and lessen their transportation and lodging expenses and
“(c.6) All DOH-accredited medical clinics, including the DOH-operated clinics, conducting
health examinations for Filipino migrant workers shall observe the same standard operating
procedures and shall comply with internationally-accepted standards in their operations to
conform with the requirements of receiving countries or of foreign employers/principals. “Any
Foreign employer who does not honor the results of valid health examinations conducted by a
DOH-accredited or DOH-operated clinic shall be temporarily disqualified from the participating
in the overseas employment program, pursuant to POEA rules and regulations. “In case an
overseas Filipino worker is found to be not medically fit upon his/her immediate arrival in the
country of destination, the medical clinic that conducted the health examination/s of such
overseas Filipino worker shall pay for his or her repatriation back to the Philippines and the cost
of deployment of such worker.
“Any government official or employee who violates any provision of this subsection shall be
removed or dismissed from service with disqualification to hold any appointive public office for
five (5) years. Such penalty is without prejudice to any other liability which he or she may have
incurred under existing laws, rules or regulations.
(d) Local Government Units. – In the fight against illegal recruitment, the local government units
(LGUs), in partnership with the POEA, other concerned government agencies, and non-
government organizations advocating the rights and welfare of overseas Filipino workers, shall
take a proactive stance by being primarily responsible for the dissemination of information to
their constituents on all aspects of overseas employment. To carry out this task, the following
shall be undertaken by the LGUs:
“(d.1) Provide a venue for the POEA, other concerned government agencies and non-government
organizations to conduct PEOS to their constituents on a regular basis;
“(d.2) Establish overseas Filipino worker help desk or kiosk in their localities with the objective
of providing current information to their constituents on all the processes aspects of overseas
employment. Such desk or kiosk shall, as be linked to the database of all concerned government
agencies, particularly the POEA for its updated lists of overseas job orders and licensed
recruitment agencies in good standing.”