Ynot vs. IAC (G.R. No. 74457)

Facts:

In 1980 President Marcos amended Executive Order No. 626-A which orders that no carabao and carabeef shall be transported from one province to another; such violation shall be subject to confiscation and forfeiture by the government, to be distributed to charitable institutions and other similar institutions as the Chairman of the National Meat Inspection Commission may see fit for the carabeef and to deserving farmers through dispersal as the Director of Animal Industry may see fit in the case of the carabaos.

On January 13, 1984, Petitioner’s 6 carabaos were confiscated by the police station commander of Barotac Nuevo, Iloilo for having been transported from Masbate to Iloilo in violation of EO 626-A. He issued a writ for replevin, challenging the constitutionality of said EO. The trial court sustained the confiscation of the animals and declined to rule on the validity of the law on the ground that it lacked authority to do so. Its decision was affirmed by the IAC.Hence, this petition for review filed by Petitioner.

Issue:

Whether or not the said Executive Order is unconstitutional.

Held:

SC ruled that while there is a lawful subject, there was no lawful method. The EO imposes on the absolute ban not on the slaughter of carabaos but on their movement, providing that no carabao and carabeef should be transported from one province to another the purpose of which is to protect the community from the loss of the services of such animals by their slaughter. SC said that the reasonable connection between the means employed and the purpose sought to be achieved by the questioned measure is missing. They cannot see how the prohibition of the inter-provincial transport of carabaos can prevent their indiscriminate slaughter considering that they can be killed anywhere.

The EO is also unconstitutional as there was outright confiscation of carabaos without according the owner the right to be heard before a competent and impartial court. There certainly was no reason why the offense prohibited by the EO should not have been proved first in a court of justice, with the accused being accorded all the rights safeguarded to him under the Constitution. The EO is penal in nature, the violation should have been pronounced not by the police only but by a court of justice, which alone would have had the authority to impose the prescribed penalty, and only after trial and conviction of the accused. 

Wherefore, the EO is unconstitutional.