FACTS:
The Municipal Board of Ormoc City passed Ordinance No. 4 imposing a tax “on any and all products of centrifugal sugar milled at the Ormoc Sugar Company, Inc.”
ISSUE(S):
Whether or not Ordinance No. 4 is unconstitutional for being violative of the equal protection clause.
HELD:
YES. The ordinance taxes only centrifugal sugar produced and exported by petitioner sugar company and none other. Even if later a similar company is set up, it cannot be subject to the tax because the ordinance expressly points only to Ormoc City Sugar Company, Inc. as the entity to be levied upon.
Decision appealed from is REVERSED. Defendant-appellees are ordered to refund the tax paid under protest.
