VIUDA DE
TAN TOCO vs. MUN. COUNCIL OF ILOILO
G.R. No. L-24950, March 25, 1926, 49 Phil.
52
FACTS:
The widow of Tan Toco sued the Municipality of Iloilo for
the amount of P42,966.40 representing the purchase price of a strip of land
which was taken by the Municipality to widen a public street. When the
municipality was unable to pay the judgment, the widow obtained a writ of
execution by virtue of which the sheriff attached two auto trucks used for
street sprinkling, one police patrol automobile, two police stations, and two
markets, including the lots on which they had been constructed. The provincial
fiscal filed a motion praying that the attachment on the said
property be dissolved as being illegal and violative of the rights of the
defendant municipality. CFI granted the motion. Hence this appeal.
ISSUE:
Whether or not the property levied upon
is exempt from execution
HELD:
No. Movable
and immovable property of a municipality, necessary for governmental purpose,
may not be attached and sold for the payment of a judgment against the
municipality. The supreme reason for
this rule is the character of the public use to which such kind of property is
devoted. The necessity for government service justifies that the
property of public of the municipality be exempt from execution just as it is
necessary to exempt certain property of private individuals in accordance with
section 452 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
Even the municipal
income, according to the above quoted authorities, is exempt from levy
and execution. In volume 1, page 467, Municipal Corporations by Dillon we
find that:
Municipal
corporations are instituted by the supreme authority of a state for the public
good. They exercise, by delegation from the legislature, a portion of the
sovereign power. The main object of their creation is to act as administrative
agencies for the state, and to provide for the police and local government of
certain designated civil divisions of its territory. To this end they are
invested with certain governmental powers and charged with civil, political,
and municipal duties. To enable them beneficially to exercise these powers and
discharge these duties, they are clothed with the authority to raise revenues,
chiefly by taxation, and subordinately by other modes as by licenses, fines,
and penalties. The revenue of the public corporation is the essential means by
which it is enabled to perform its appointed work. Deprived of its regular and
adequate supply of revenue, such a corporation is practically destroyed and the
ends of its erection thwarted. Based upon considerations of this character, it
is the settled doctrine of the law that only the public property but also the
taxes and public revenues of such corporations cannot be seized under execution
against them, either in the treasury or when in transit to it. Judgments
rendered for taxes, and the proceeds of such judgments in the hands of officers
of the law, are not subject to execution unless so declared by statute. The
doctrine of the inviolability of the public revenues by the creditor is
maintained, although the corporation is in debt, and has no means of payment
but the taxes which it is authorized to collect.
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