The novel provisions of the Charter prescribing private sector participation, especially in the field of economic activity, come, indeed, no more as responses to State monopoly of economic forces which has unfairly kept individual initiative from the economic processes and has held back competitiveness in the market. The Constitution does not bar, however, the Government from undertaking its own initiatives, especially in the domain of public service, and neither does it repudiate its primacy as chief economic caretaker of the nation.

"xxx.

There is no merit in this petition.

The duty of the State is preeminently "to serve . . . the people, 9 and so also, to "promote a just and dynamic social order . . . through policies that provide adequate social services. . . . and an improved quality of life for all. 10

The objectives of government, as expressed in the Charter, are, among other things, "a more equitable distribution of opportunities, income, and wealth . . . [and] a sustained increase in the amount of goods and services produced by the nation for the benefit of the people . . . "11 With respect in particular to property, the Constitution decrees:

Sec. 6. The use of property bears a social function, and all economic agents shall contribute to the common good. Individuals and private groups, including corporations, cooperatives, and similar collective organizations, shall have the right to own, establish, and operate economic enterprises, subject to the duty of the State to promote distributive justice and to intervene when the common good so demands. 12

There can hardly be any valid argument against providing for public corresponding, free of charge. It is compatible with State aims to serve the people under the Constitution, and certainly, amid these hard times, the State can do no less.

The petitioners can not legitimately rely on the provisions of Section 20, of Article II, of the Constitution, to defeat the act complained of. The mandate "recogni[zing] the indispensable role of the private sector" is no more than an acknowledgment of the importance of private initiative in building the nation. However, it is not a call for official abdication of duty to citizenry.

The novel provisions of the Charter prescribing private sector participation, especially in the field of economic activity, 13 come, indeed, no more as responses to State monopoly of economic forces which has unfairly kept individual initiative from the economic processes and has held back competitiveness in the market. The Constitution does not bar, however, the Government from undertaking its own initiatives, especially in the domain of public service, and neither does it repudiate its primacy as chief economic caretaker of the nation.

The principle of laissez faire has long been denied validity in this jurisdiction. In 1969, the Court promulgated Agricultural Credit and Cooperative Financing Administration v. Confederation of Unions in Government Corporations and offices, 14 where it was held:

x x x x x x x x x

... The areas which used to be left to private enterprise and initiative and which the government was called upon to enter optionally and only because it was better equipped to administer for the public welfare than in any private individual or group of individuals," continue to lose their well-defined boundaries and to be absorbed within activities that the government must undertake in its sovereign capacity if it is to meet the increasing social challenges of the times. Here as almost everywhere else the tendency is undoubtedly towards a greater socialization of economic forces. Here of course this development was envisioned, indeed adopted as a national policy, by the Constitution itself in its declaration of principle concerning the promotion of social justice. 15

The requirements of social justice and the necessity for a redistribution of the national wealth and economic opportunity find in fact a greater emphasis in the 1987 Constitution, notwithstanding the novel concepts inscribed there. 16 And two decades after this Court wrote it, ACCFAs message remains the same and its lesson holds true as ever.

The Court is not of the thinking that the act complained of is equivalent to a taking without just compensation. Albeit we have held that "[w]here the owner is deprived of the ordinary and beneficial use of his property or of its value by its being diverted to public use, there is taking within the constitutional sense, 17 it does not seem to us that the Department of Transportation and Communication, by providing for free public correspondence, is guilty of an uncompensated taking. Rather, the Government merely built a bridge that made the boat obsolete, although not entirely useless. Certainly, the owner of the boat can not charge the builder of the bridge for lost income. And certainly, the Government has all the right to build the bridge.

Xxx."


EN BANC
G.R. No. 86953, November 6, 1990.

MARINE RADIO COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION OF THE PHILIPPINES, INC. (MARCAPI), ROBERTO GAYA, DAVID ZAFRA and SEGUNDO P. LUSTRE, JR., petitioners,

vs.

HON. RAINERIO O. REYES, in his capacity as Secretary of the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC), HON. JOSE LUIS ALCUAZ, as Commissioner of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), and HON. ROSAURO SIBAL, as Chief of the Telecommunications Office (TELOF) of DOTC, respondents.

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