"The sporting idea of fair play"

As held by the Supreme Court (SC) in Secretary of Justice v. Lantion (379 Phil. 165, 2000), "the due process clauses in the American and Philippine Constitutions are not only worded in exactly identical language and terminology, but more importantly, they are alike in what their respective Supreme Courts have expounded as the spirit with which the provisions are informed and impressed, the elasticity in their interpretation, their dynamic and resilient character which make them capable of meeting every modern problem, and their having been designed from earliest time to the present to meet the exigencies of an undefined and expanding future. The requirements of due process are interpreted in both the United States and the Philippines as not denying to the law the capacity for progress and improvement.

Toward this effect and in order to avoid the confines of a legal straitjacket, the courts instead prefer to have the meaning of the due process clause 'gradually ascertained by the process of inclusion and exclusion in the course of the decisions of cases as they arise' (Twining vs. New Jersey, 211 U.S. 78). Capsulized, it refers to "the embodiment of the sporting idea of fair play" (Ermita-Malate Hotel and Motel Owner's Association vs. City Mayor of Manila, 20 SCRA 849 [1967]). It relates to certain immutable principles of justice which inhere in the very idea of free government (Holden vs. Hardy, 169 U.S. 366).