The Supreme
Court held that a State is a community of persons, more or less numerous,
permanently occupying a definite portion of territory, independent of external
control, and possessing a government to which a great body of inhabitants
renders habitual obedience. (CIR vs. Campos Rueda, 42 SCRA 23)
The
elements of the State are the following:
1. People are the inhabitants (electors or
citizens), of the State. As to the number of people living within the state; as
long it is capable of self-sufficiency and self-defense of both sexes for
perpetuity.
2. Territory is a fixed portion of the surface of
the earth inhabited by the people of the State.
3. Government is the agency or instrumentality
through which the will of the State is formulated, expressed, and realized. The Government
of the Philippines refers to the corporate governmental entity through which
the functions of the government are exercised throughout the Philippines,
including, save as the contrary appears from the context, the various arms
through which political authority is made effective in the Philippines, whether
pertaining to the autonomous regions, the provincial, city, municipal or
barangay subdivisions or other forms of local government.
4. Sovereignty is the supreme and uncontrollable
power inherent in a State by which that State is governed. Moreover, it is
the right to exercise the functions of a State to the exclusion of any other
State.