The appellants seek to reverse the decision of Hon. Emilio Rilloraza, Judge of the Rizal Court of First In stance, dismissing their amended complaint in which they prayed for an order requiring defendants to allow them to work as laborers in the Pasay City Market. They alleged that

(a) they were Chinese citizens honorably discharged veterans of World War II;

(b) they were laborers in the public market of Pasay;

(c) defendants ordered them to stop working there banning May 1962, because of Republic Act No. 37 and the Department of Finance Circular No. 32;

(d) this Act and Circular are inapplicable to them; and

(e) anyway, both violate their constitutional rights, and are void.

The defendants, who are officers of the City of Pasay cited in addition to the above-mentioned legal provisions, the Municipal Ordinance No. 33, series of 1948, which partly provides:

"Section 23, Lessee to personally administer his stall. Any per son who had been awarded the light to lease a market stall in accordance with the provisions hereof shall occupy, administer and be present personally at this stall or stalls, booth or booths; Provided, That upon application filed with and duly approved by the City Treasurer, any stallholder leasing stalls under this Ordi nance may be authorized to employ helpers; Provided, however. That the granting of authority to employ not more than two (.2) helpers for every stallholder shall be subject to the express condi tion that the helpers shall be citizens of the Philippines or of the United States." (Italics ours.)

Both sides agreed that a decision be rendered on the pleadings, and Judge Demetrio Encarnacion rendered judgment for plaintiffs.

However, defendants requested for a new trial and or reconsideration. And then thirty-two Filipino stall holders of Pasay market moved to intervene, in an effort to bolster the stand of the city officials. And asserting that they "had reasons to believe that the plaintiffs in this case (Chinese) are, in truth, not helpers but capitalists of the Filipino stallholders employing them", theythe intervenorsseconded the petition for new trial.

In due course, the motions to reconsider and to inter vene were granted. Thereafter, Judge Rilloraza denied the petition, intimating that these Chinese instead of being mere laborers in the stalls, were Chinese capitalists employing Filipinos who posed as stallholders, and up holding the validity of the law and rules under which the defendant city officials had allegedly acted.

The plaintiffs brought the matter to the Court of Ap peals, but that Court, by resolution, forwarded the record to Us because,

"Appellants, assign four errors allegedly committed by the lower court but they may be boiled down to the sole question of whether Section 23 of said Ordinance No. 33 of the Municipal Board of Pasay is legal or not. The Section reads in part:

(already copied here before)

Appellants contend that this Section of the Ordimance is unconsti tutional and therefore null and void (I) because it is discrimina tory against the aliens concerned who would be deprived of their opportunity to earn a livelihood and violates the constitutional guarantees against denial to any person of the equal protection, of the law and deprivation of life, liberty and property without due process of law; and (2) because it was beyond the power of the Municipal Board of Pasay City to enact the ordinance iai so far as it prohibits aliens to work as helpers of public market stall holders."

Republic Act No. 37 decreed that citizens of the Philip pines shall have preference in the lease of public market-stalls. There is now no question about the validity of this law (Co Chiong vs. Cuaderno, 83 Phil., 242; 46 Off. Gaz. 4833; Desalgado vs. Fuente, 48 Off. Gaz. 94.) Its policy is to nationalize public markets and to restrict the intervention of aliens therein. Having this in mind, and the lower court's finding that petitioners herein, while claiming to be mere helpers or salesmen of Filipino stall holders in the Pasay market "in truth and in fact, are the capitalists of those Filipino stallholders" [p. 72, Record on Appeal] ^[1], it is our impression at a glance that said court made no mistake in refusing to interfere with the city officials' stand, which precisely aligned with the policies of Republic Act No. 37 ^[2]. Plaintiffs through the injunc tion, would be "enjoying" the "preference" for Filipino stallholders notwithstanding their condition of aliens. Hence the protest of the intervenors.

Indeed, after the passage of Republic Act No. 1180 in June 1954, nationalizing retail trade in the Philippines, and reserving to Filipino citizens the right to engage therein ^[3]market stallholders are usually retailershere in Chinese petitioners may no longer claim the right to operate market-stalls in the Pasay market in the guise of laborers or salesmen therein.^[4]

Wherefore, the judgment will be affirmed, and the writ of preliminary injunction heretofore issued (by the Court of Appeals) is hereby dissolved. Costs against plaintiffs.

Bautista Angelo, Concepcion, Reyes, J.B.L., Barrera, Dizon, Regala, Makalintal, Bengzon, J.P., Zaldivar and Sanchez, JJ., concur.

Judgment affiemed.

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^[1] The petitioners made no attempt to dispute this factual finding. They chose to concentrate their arguments on the allegedly oppres sive and discriminatory character of the Pasay ordinance.

^[2] And impeded violations of the Anti-Dummy Law (Republic Act 134).

^[3] This law is constitutional and valid. (Ichong vs. Hernandez, 101 Phil., 1155; People vs. Yu Bao, 55 Off. Gaz., 3298.)

^[4] They may not claim the privilege reserved for those "actually engaged" in retail trade in May 1954 (sec. 1, Republic Act No. 1180) because they asserted they were mere "laborers".