A privilege, not a right

Is a driver’s license a property right? Can the MMDA confiscate a driver’s license? Can the MMDA exercise police power? These are some of the questions answered in this case of Dante, a lawyer whose driver’s license was confiscated by the MMDA for parking illegally after being issued a traffic violation receipt (TVR).

As a result of these actions by the MMDA, Dante went to court questioning RA 7924 which declared "Metropolitan Manila" as a "special development and administrative region" and placed the administration of the "metro wide" basic services affecting the region under a "development authority" referred to as the MMDA. Dante said that Section 5(f) of RA 7924 granting the MMDA the power to fix, collect and impose fines and penalties for traffic violations gives it unbridled discretion to deprive erring motorists of their licenses, pre-empting a judicial determination of the validity of the deprivation, thereby violating the due process clause of the Constitution. He also contended that the provision violates the constitutional prohibition against undue delegation of legislative authority allowing as it does the MMDA to fix and impose unspecified – and therefore unlimited – fines and other penalties on the erring motorists. He further alleged that he suffered and continues to suffer great and irreparable damage because of the deprivation of his license and thus asked the Court for a preliminary mandatory injunction ordering the MMDA to return his license.

The Regional Trial Court (RTC) granted the preliminary mandatory injunction and ordered MMDA to return Dante’s license. Then after trial it ruled in Dante’s favor declaring that the summary confiscation of a driver’s license without first giving the driver an opportunity to be heard by the non-filing in Court of the proper complaint for the supposed violation, deprives him of a property right (driver’s license) without due process; hence it is unconstitutional.

MMDA questioned this ruling of the trial court by filing a petition for review on certiorari before the Supreme Court. But before MMDA’s petition could be decided, MMDA issued a circular where traffic enforcers may no longer confiscate driver’s licenses as a matter of course in cases of traffic violation. Instead erring motorists are issued Metropolitan Traffic Ticket (MTT) which can be paid at any Metrobank Branch.

So, by the implementation of said circular, the SC said that the need to decide the case in so far as enjoining MMDA from confiscating driver’s licenses is concerned, has been rendered moot and academic.

But the SC likewise ruled that MMDA is not precluded from re-implementing any scheme that would entail confiscating driver’s license under the following observations and guidelines.

1. A license to operate a motor vehicle is not a property right but a privilege granted by the State, which may be suspended or revoked by the State in the exercise of its police power, in the interest of public safety and welfare, subject to the procedural due process. Since motor vehicles are instruments of potential danger, their registration and licensing of their operators have been required almost from their first appearance in highways and thoroughfares of the State for the general welfare;

2. R.A. 7924 does not grant the MMDA with police power, let alone legislative power. All its functions are administrative in nature. Even the Metro Manila Council has not been delegated any legislative power to enact ordinances, approve resolutions and appropriate funds for the general welfare of the inhabitants of Metro Manila. MMDA is created only for the purpose of laying down policies, coordinating with various national government agencies, people’s organizations, NGOs and the private sector for the efficient and expeditious delivery of basic services in the vast metropolitan area. Police power as an inherent attribute of sovereignty is the power vested by the Constitution in the legislature to make, ordain, and establish all manner of wholesome laws, statutes and ordinances, with or without penalties, not repugnant to the Constitution for the good and welfare of the country and its subjects.

3. Section 5(f) of R.A. 7924 did not grant the MMDA the power to confiscate and suspend or revoke driver’s licenses without the need of any other legislative enactment. Such is an unauthorized exercise of police power. It is only where there is a traffic law or regulation validly enacted by the legislature or those agencies to whom legislative powers have been delegated, like the local government units, that MMDA is not precluded – and in fact duty bound – to confiscate and suspend or revoke driver’s licenses in the exercise of its mandate of transport and traffic management, as well as the administration and implementation of all traffic enforcement operations, traffic engineering services and traffic education programs. MMDA is a development authority which may enforce but not enact ordinance. Section 5(f) only grants MMDA the duty to enforce existing traffic rules and regulations. The efforts of MMDA to untangle the increasingly traffic-snarled roads of Metro Manila are laudable but it must be authorized by a valid law or ordinance, or regulation arising from a legitimate source (MMDA vs. Garin, G.R. 130230, April 15, 2005. 456 SCRA 176).

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