G.R. No. 28491 September 29, 1928 TOMAS MONTEVERDE, plaintiff-appellant, vs. SEBASTIAN T. GENEROSO, Provincial Governor of Davao, ET AL., defendants-appellees

Nuisances are of two classes: Nuisances per se and per accidens. As to the first, since they affect the immediate safety of persons and property, they may be summarily abated under the undefined law of necessity. But if the nuisance be of the second class, even the municipal authorities, under their power to declare and abate nuisances, would not have the right to compel the abatement of a particular thing or act as a nuisance without reasonable notice to the person alleged to be maintaining or doing the same of the time and place of hearing before a tribunal authorized to decide whether such a thing or act does in law constitute a nuisance. Such in effect was the holding in Iloilo Ice and Cold Storage Co. vs. Municipal Council of Iloilo ([1913], 24 Phil., 471), applied here, it is self-evident that a dam or a fishery constructed in a navigable stream is not a nuisance per se. Of course, a dam or a fishpond may be found to be a nuisance where it endangers or impairs the health or depreciates property by causing water to become stagnant. The public health may be conserved but conserved only in a legal manner. Due process of law must be observed before the citizens' property or personal rights or liberty can be interfered with. Conceding without deciding that article 24 of the Law of Waters is in force, we reiterate that it can only be made use of by conforming to the provisions of the organic law.