ACCFA V ACCFA Supervisors Association Digest
ACCFA V ACCFA Supervisors Association Digest
ACCFA V ACCFA Supervisors Association Digest
Facts:
Yes. The ACA is a government office or agency engaged in governmental, not proprietary
functions. These functions may not be strictly what President Wilson described as “constituent”
(as distinguished from “ministrant”), such as those relating to the maintenance of peace and the
prevention of crime, those regulating property and property rights, those relating to the
administration of justice and the determination of political duties of citizens, and those relating
to national defense and foreign relations. The growing complexities of modern society, however,
have rendered this traditional classification of the functions of government quite unrealistic, not
to say obsolete. Here as almost everywhere else the tendency is undoubtedly towards a greater
socialization of economic forces.
The regime of liberty if provided for, with the realization that under the then prevalent social and
economic conditions, it may be attained only through a government with its sphere of activity
ranging far and wide, not excluding matters hitherto left to the operation of free enterprise (Free
Enterprise concept). As rightfully stressed in our decision today in line with what was earlier
expressed by Justice Laurel, the government that we have established has as a fundamental
principle the promotion of social justice. The same jurist gave it a comprehensive and enduring
definition as "the promotion of the welfare of all the people, the adoption by the government of
measures calculated to insure economic stability of all the component elements of society,
through the maintenance of a proper economic and social equilibrium in the interrelations of the
members of the community, constitutionally, through the adoption of measures legally justifiable,
or extra-constitutionally, through the exercise of powers underlying the existence of all
governments in the time-honored principle of salus populi est suprema lex." (Welfare State
concept)