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VOL. 180, DECEMBER 21, 1989 533

Department of Education, Culture and Sports vs. San
Diego

*
G.R. No. 89572. December 21, 1989.

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, CULTURE AND

SPORTS (DECS) and DIRECTOR OF CENTER FOR
EDUCATIONAL MEASUREMENT, petitioners, vs.
ROBERTO REY C. SAN DIEGO and JUDGE TERESITA
DIZON-CAPULONG, in her capacity as Presiding Judge of
the Regional Trial Court of Valenzuela, Metro Manila,
Branch 172, respondents.

Constitutional Law; Police Power; Defined; Proper Exercise of;

Case at bar.—We see no reason why the rationale in the Tablarin
case cannot apply to the case at bar. The issue raised in both
cases is the academic preparation of the applicant. This may be
gauged at least initially by the admission test and, indeed with
more reliability, by the three-flunk rule. The latter cannot be
regarded any less valid than the former in the regulation of the
medical profession. There is no need to redefine here the police
power of the State. Suffice it to repeat that the power is validly
exercised if (a) the interests of the public generally, as
distinguished from those of a particular class, require the
interference of the State, and (b) the means employed are
reasonably necessary to the attainment of the object sought to be
accomplished and not unduly oppressive upon individuals.
Same; Same; Same; It is the right and responsibility of the
State to insure that the medical profession is not infiltrated by
incompetents to whom patients may unwarily entrust their lives
and health; Three flunk rule, intention of—In other words, the
proper exercise of the police power requires the concurrence of a
lawful subject and a lawful method. The subject of the challenged
regulation is certainly within the ambit of the police power. It is
the right and indeed the responsibility of the State to insure that
the medical profession is not infiltrated by incompetents to whom
patients may unwarily entrust their lives and health. The method
employed by the challenged regulation is not irrelevant to the
purpose of the law nor is it arbitrary or oppressive. The three-

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flunk rule is intended to insulate the medical schools and

ultimately the

________________

* EN BANC.

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534 SUPREME COURT REPORTS ANNOTATED

Department of Education, Culture and Sports us. San Diego

medical profession from the intrusion of those not qualified to be

doctors.
Same; Same; Same; Same; Same; While every person is
entitled to aspire to be a doctor, he does not have a constitutional
right to be a doctor.—While every person is entitled to aspire to be
a doctor, he does not have a constitutional right to be a doctor.
This is true of any other calling in which the public interest is
involved; and the closer the link, the longer the bridge to one’s
ambition. The State has the responsibility to harness its human
resources and to see to it that they are not dissipated or, no less
worse, not used at all. These resources must be applied in a
manner that will best promote the common good while also giving
the individual a sense of satisfaction.
Same; Same; Same; Same; Same; The contention that the
challenged rule violates the equal protection clause is not well-
taken; Reasons.—The contention that the challenged rule violates
the equal protection clause is not well-taken. A law does not have
to operate with equal force on all persons or things to be
conformable to Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution. There can
be no question that a substantial distinction exists between
medical students and other students who are not subjected to the
NMAT and the three-flunk rule. The medical profession directly
affects the very lives of the people, unlike other careers which, for
this reason, do not require more vigilant regulation. The
accountant, for example, while belonging to an equally
respectable profession, does not hold the same delicate
responsibility as that of the physician and so need not be similarly
treated. There would be unequal protection if some applicants
who have passed the tests are admitted and others who have also
qualified are denied entrance. In other words, what the equal
protection requires is equality among equals.

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12/31/2019 SUPREME COURT REPORTS ANNOTATED VOLUME 180

PETITION to review the decision of the Regional Trial

Court of Valenzuela, M.M., Br. 172. Dizon-Capulong, J.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the Court.

     Ramon M. Guevara for private respondent.

CRUZ, J.:

The issue before us is mediocrity. The question is whether

a person who has thrice failed the National Medical
Admission Test (NMAT) is entitled to take it again.

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VOL. 180, DECEMBER 21, 1989 535

Department of Education, Culture and Sports vs. San
Diego

The petitioner contends he may not, under its rule that—

h) A student shall be allowed only three (3) chances to take the

NMAT. After three (3) successive failures, a student shall not be
allowed to take the NMAT for the fourth time.

The private respondent insists he can, on constitutional

grounds.
But first the facts.
The private respondent is a graduate of the University
of the East with a degree of Bachelor of Science in Zoology.
The petitioner claims that he 1took the NMAT three times
and flunked it as many times. When he applied to take it
again, the petitioner rejected his application on the basis of
the aforesaid rule. He then went to the Regional Trial
Court of Valenzuela, Metro Manila, to compel his
admission to the test.
In his original petition for mandamus, he first invoked
his constitutional rights to academic freedom and quality
education. By agreement of the parties, the private
respondent was allowed to take the NMAT scheduled 2
on
April 16, 1989, subject to the outcome of his petition. In an
amended petition filed with leave of court, he squarely
challenged the constitutionality of MECS Order No. 12,
Series of 1972, containing the above-cited rule. The
additional grounds raised were due process and equal
protection.
After hearing, the respondent judge rendered a decision
on July 4, 1989, declaring the challenged order invalid and
granting the petition. Judge Teresita Dizon-Capulong held
that the petitioner had been deprived of his right to pursue
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a medical education
3
through an arbitrary exercise of the
police power.
We cannot sustain the respondent judge. Her decision
must be reversed. 4
In Tablarin v. Gutierrez. this Court upheld the
constitution-

_______________

1 A check with the Department of Education showed that the private

respondent had actually taken and flunked four tests already and was
applying to take a fifth examination.
2 He also failed this fifth test.
3 Rollo, pp. 26-34.
4 152 SCRA 730.

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Department of Education, Culture and Sports vs. San
Diego

ality of the NMAT as a measure intended to limit the

admission to medical schools only to those who have
initially proved their competence and preparation for a
medical education. Justice Florentino P. Feliciano declared
for a unanimous Court:

Perhaps the only issue that needs some consideration is whether

there is some reasonable relation between the prescribing of
passing the NMAT as a condition for admission to medical school
on the one hand, and the securing of the health and safety of the
general community, on the other hand. This question is perhaps
most usefully approached by recalling that the regulation
ofthepratice of medicine in all its branches has long been
recognized as a reasonable method of protecting the health and
safety of the public. That the power to regulate and control the
practice of medicine includes the power to regulate admission to
the ranks of those authorized to practice medicine, is also well
recognized. Thus, legislation and administrative regulations
requiring those who wish to practice medicine first to take and
pass medical board examinations have long ago been recognized
as valid exercises of governmental power. Similarly, the
establishment of minimum medical educational requirements—
i.e, the completion of prescribed courses in a recognized medical
school—for admission to the medical profession, has also been
sustained as a legitimate exercise of the regulatory authority of
the state. What we have before us in the instant case is closely

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related: the regulation of access to medical schools. MECS Order

No. 52, s. 1985, as noted earlier, articulates the rationale of
regulation of this type: the improvement of the professional and
technical quality of the graduates of medical schools, by
upgrading the quality of those admitted to the student body of the
medical schools. That upgrading is sought by selectivity in the
process of admission, selectivity consisting, among other things, of
limiting admission to those who exhibit in the required degree the
aptitude for medical studies and eventually for medical practice.
The need to maintain, and the difficulties of maintaining, high
standards in our professional schools in general, and medical
schools in particular, in the current state of our social and
economic development, are widely known.
We believe that the government is entitled to prescribe an
admission test like the NMAT as a means of achieving its stated
objective of “upgrading the selection of applicants into [our]
medical schools” and of “improving] the quality of medical
education in the country.” Given the widespread use today of such
admission tests in, for instance, medical schools in the United
States of America (the Medical College Admission Test [MCAT])
and quite probably, in other countries with far more developed
educational resources than our own, and taking into

537

VOL. 180, DECEMBER 21, 1989 537

Department of Education, Culture and Sports vs. San Diego

account the failure or inability of the petitioners to even attempt

to prove otherwise, we are entitled to hold that the NMAT is
reasonably related to the securing of the ultimate end of
legislation and regulation in this area. That end, it is useful to
recall, is the protection of the public from the potentially deadly
effects of incompetence and ignorance in those who would
undertake to treat our bodies and minds for disease or trauma.

However, the respondent judge agreed with the petitioner

that the said case was not applicable. Her reason was that
it upheld only the requirement for the admission test and
said nothing about the so-called “three-flunk rule.”
We see no reason why the rationale in the Tablarin case
cannot apply to the case at bar. The issue raised in both
cases is the academic preparation of the applicant. This
may be gauged at least initially by the admission test and,
indeed with more reliability, by the three-flunk rule. The
latter cannot be regarded any less valid than the former in
the regulation of the medical profession.

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There is no need to redefine here the police power of the

State. Suffice it to repeat that the power is validly
exercised if (a) the interests of the public generally, as
distinguished from those of a particular class, require the
interference of the State, and (b) the means employed are
reasonably necessary to the attainment of the object sought
to be accomplished
5
and not unduly oppressive upon
individuals.
In other words, the proper exercise of the police power
requires the concurrence of a lawful subject and a lawful
method.
The subject of the challenged regulation is certainly
within the ambit of the police power. It is the right and
indeed the responsibility of the State to insure that the
medical profession is not infiltrated by incompetents to
whom patients may unwarily entrust their lives and
health.
The method employed by the challenged regulation is
not irrelevant to the purpose of the law nor is it arbitrary
or oppressive. The three-flunk rule is intended to insulate
the medical schools and ultimately the medical profession
from the intrusion of those not qualified to be doctors.

_______________

5 US vs. Toribio, 15 Phil. 85; Fabie v. City of Manila, 21 Phil. 486; Ynot
v. Intermediate Appellate Court, 148 SCRA 659.

538

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Department of Education, Culture and Sports vs. San
Diego

While every person is entitled to aspire to be a doctor, he

does not have a constitutional right to be a doctor. This is
true of any other calling in which the public interest is
involved; and the closer the link, the longer the bridge to
one’s ambition. The State has the responsibility to harness
its human resources and to see to it that they are not
dissipated or, no less worse, not used at all. These
resources must be applied in a manner that will best
promote the common good while also giving the individual
a sense of satisfaction.
A person cannot insist on being a physician if he will be
a menace to his patients. If one who wants to be a lawyer
may prove better as a plumber, he should be so advised and
adviced. Of course, he may not be forced to be a plumber,
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but on the other hand he may not force his entry into the
bar. By the same token, a student who has demonstrated
promise as a pianist cannot be shunted aside to take a
course in nursing, however appropriate this career may be
for others.
The right to quality education invoked by the private
respondent is not absolute. The Constitution also provides
that “every citizen has the right to choose a profession or
course of study, subject to fair, reasonable
6
and equitable
admission and academic requirements.”
The private respondent must yield to the challenged rule
and give way to those better prepared. Where even those
who have qualified may still not be accommodated in our
already crowded medical schools, there is all the more
reason to bar those who, like him, have been tested and
found wanting.
The contention that the challenged rule violates the
equal protection clause is not well-taken. A law does not
have to operate with equal force on all persons or things to
be conformable to Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution.
There can be no question that a substantial distinction
exists between medical students and other students who
are not subjected to the NMAT and the three-flunk rule.
The medical profession directly affects the very lives of the
people, unlike other careers which, for this reason, do not
require more vigilant regulation. The accountant, for
example, while belonging to an equally respectable
profession, does not hold the same delicate

________________

6 Article XIV, Section 5(3).

539

VOL. 180, DECEMBER 21, 1989 539

Department of Education, Culture and Sports vs. San
Diego

responsibility as that of the physician and so need not be

similarly treated.
There would be unequal protection if some applicants
who have passed the tests are admitted and others who
have also qualified are denied entrance. In other words,
what the equal protection requires is equality among
equals.
The Court feels that it is not enough to simply invoke
the right to quality education as a guarantee of the
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Constitution: one must show that he is entitled to it

because of his preparation and promise. The 7
private
respondent has failed the NMAT five times. While his
persistence is noteworthy, to say the least, it is certainly
misplaced, like a hopeless love.
No depreciation is intended or made against the private
respondent. It is stressed that a person who does not
qualify in the NMAT is not an absolute incompetent unfit
for any work or occupation. The only inference is that he is
a probably better, not for the medical profession, but for
another calling that has not excited his interest.
In the former, he may be a bungler or at least lackluster;
in the latter, he is more likely to succeed and may even be
outstanding. It is for the appropriate calling that he is
entitled to quality education for the full harnessing of his
potentials and the sharpening of his latent talents toward
what may even be a brilliant future.
We cannot have a society of square pegs in round holes,
of dentists who should never have left the farm and
engineers who should have studied banking and teachers
who could be better as merchants.
It is time indeed that the State took decisive steps to
regulate and enrich our system of education by directing
the student to the course for which he is best suited as
determined by initial tests and evaluations. Otherwise, we
may be “swamped with mediocrity,” in the words of Justice
Holmes, not because we are lacking in intelligence but
because we are a nation of misfits.
WHEREFORE, the petition is GRANTED. The decision
of the respondent court dated January 13, 1989, is
REVERSED, with costs against the private respondent. It
is so ordered.

________________

7 Footnote Nos. 1 & 2.

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540 SUPREME COURT REPORTS ANNOTATED

Katigbak vs. Solicitor General

          Fernan (C.J.), Narvasa, Melencio-Herrera,

Gutierrez, Jr., Paras, Feliciano, Gancayco, Padilla, Bidin,
Sarmiento, Cortés, Griño-Aquino, Medialdea and Regalado,
JJ., concur.

Petition granted. Decision reversed.

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Notes.—No disciplinary action may be imposed on

students without abiding by the requirements of due
process. (Guzman vs. National University, 142 SCRA 699.)
A school cannot refuse to re-enroll a student it believes
guilty of acts inimical to the school, without first
conducting an investigation. (Guzman vs. National
University, 142 SCRA 699.)

——o0o——

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