Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila

G.R. No. L-58445 April 27, 1989

ZAIDA G. RARO, petitioner,

vs.
EMPLOYEES' COMPENSATION COMMISSION and GOVERNMENT SERVICE INSURANCE
SYSTEM (Bureau of Mines and Geo-Sciences), respondents.

GUTIERREZ, JR., J.:

Jurisprudence on the compensability of cancer ailments has of late become a source of

confusion among the claimants and the government agencies enforcing the employees'
compensation law. The strongly lingering influence of the principles of 94 presumption of
compensability" and "aggravation" found in the defunct Workmen's Compensation Act but
expressly discarded under the present compensation scheme has led to conflict and
inconsistency in employees' compensation decisions.

The problem is attributable to the inherent difficulty in applying the new principle of "proof of
increased risk." There are two approaches to a solution in cases where it cannot be proved that
the risk of contracting an illness not listed as an occupational disease was increased by the
claimant's working conditions. The one espoused by the petitioner insists that if a claimant
cannot prove the necessary work connection because the causes of the disease are still
unknown, it must be presumed that working conditions increased the risk of contracting the
ailment. On the other hand, the respondents state that if there is no proof of the required work
connection, the disease is not compensable because the law says so.

The petitioner states that she was in perfect health when employed as a clerk by the Bureau of
Mines and Geo-Sciences at its Daet, Camarines Norte regional office on March 17, 1975. About
four years later, she began suffering from severe and recurrent headaches coupled with blurring
of vision. Forced to take sick leaves every now and then, she sought medical treatment in
Manila. She was then a Mining Recorder in the Bureau.

The petitioner was diagnosed at the Makati Medical Center to be suffering from brain tumor. By
that time, her memory, sense of time, vision, and reasoning power had been lost.

A claim for disability benefits filed by her husband with the Government Service Insurance
System (GSIS) was denied. A motion for reconsideration was similarly denied. An appeal to the
Employees' Compensation Commission resulted in the Commission's affirming the GSIS
decision.

The following issues are raised in this petition:

1. Whether brain tumor which causes are unknown but contracted during
employment is compensable under the present compensation laws.

1
 2. Whether the presumption of compensability is absolutely inapplicable under
the present compensation laws when a disease is not listed as occupational
disease. (p. 17, Rollo)

The key argument of the petitioner is based on the fact that medical science cannot, as yet,
positively identify the causes of various types of cancer. It is a disease that strikes people in
general. The nature of a person's employment appears to have no relevance. Cancer can strike
a lowly paid laborer or a highly paid executive or one who works on land, in water, or in the
bowels of the earth. It makes the difference whether the victim is employed or unemployed, a
white collar employee or a blue collar worker, a housekeeper, an urban dweller or a resident of
a rural area.

It is not also correct to say that all cancers are not compensable. The list of occupational
diseases prepared by the Commission includes some cancers as compensable, namely —

Occupational Diseases Nature of Employment

xxx xxx xxx xxx

16. Cancer of stomach and other Woodworkers, wood products lymphatic and
blood forming vessels; industry carpenters, nasal cavity and sinuses and
employees in pulp and paper mills and plywood mills.

17. Cancer of the lungs, liver Vinyl chloride workers, and brain plastic workers.

(Annex A, Amended Rules on Employees Compensation)

The petitioner questions the above listing. We see no arbitrariness in the Commission's allowing
vinyl chloride workers or plastic workers to be compensated for brain cancer. There are certain
cancers which are reasonably considered as strongly induced by specific causes. Heavy doses
of radiation as in Chernobyl, USSR, cigarette smoke over a long period for lung cancer, certain
chemicals for specific cancers, and asbestos dust, among others, are generally accepted as
increasing the risks of contracting specific cancers. What the law requires for others is proof.

The first thing that stands in the way of the petition is the law itself.

Presidential Decree No. 422, as amended, the Labor Code of the Philippines defines "sickness"
as follows:

ART. 167. Definition of Terms. — As used in this Title unless the context
indicates otherwise:

xxx xxx xxx

(1) Sickness means any illness definitely accepted as an occupational disease

listed by the Commission, or any illness caused by employment subject to proof
by the employee that the risk of contracting the same is by working conditions.
For this purpose, the Co on is empowered to determine and approve

2
 occupational and work- related illnesses that may be considered compensable
sable based on hazards of employment. (PD 1368, May 1, 1978).

Section 1 (b), Rule III of the Amended Rules on Employees Compensation clearly defines who
are entitled. It provides:

SECTION 1.

xxx xxx xxx

(b) For the sickness and the resulting disability or death to be compensable, the
sickness must be the result of an occupational disease under Annex A of these
rules with the conditions set therein satisfied; otherwise, proof must be shown
that the risk of contracting the disease is increase by the working conditions.
(Emphasis supplied)

The law, as it now stands requires the claimant to prove a positive thing – the illness was
caused by employment and the risk of contracting the disease is increased by the working
conditions. To say that since the proof is not available, therefore, the trust fund has the
obligation to pay is contrary to the legal requirement that proof must be adduced. The existence
of otherwise non-existent proof cannot be presumed .

In Navalta v. Government Service Insurance System (G.R. No. 46684, April 27, 1988) this Court
recognized the fact that cancer is a disease of still unknown origin which strikes; people in all
walks of life, employed or unemployed. Unless it be shown that a particular form of cancer is
caused by specific working conditions (e. g. chemical fumes, nuclear radiation, asbestos dust,
etc.) we cannot conclude that it was the employment which increased the risk of contracting the
disease .

To understand why the "Presumption of compensability" together with the host of decisions
interpreting the "arising out of and in the course of employment" provision of the defunct law has
been stricken from the present law, one has to go into the distinctions between the old
workmen's compensation law and the present scheme.

On January 1, 1975, the Workmen's Compensation Act was replaced by a novel scheme under
the new Labor Code. The new law discarded, among others, the concepts of "presumption of
compensability" and "aggravation" and substituted a system based on social security principles.
The present system is also administered by social insurance agencies — the Government
Service Insurance System and Social Security System — under the Employees' Compensation
Commission. The intent was to restore a sensible equilibrium between the employer's obligation
to pay workmen's compensation and the employee's right to receive reparation for work-
connected death or disability. (Sulit v. Employees' Compensation Commission, 98 SCRA 483
[1980]; Armena v. Employees' Compensation Commission, 122 SCRA 851 [1983]; Erese v.
Employees' Compensation Commission, 138 SCRA 192 [1985]; De Jesus v. Employees'
Compensation Commission, 142 SCRA 92 [1986]; Sarmiento v. Employees' Compensation
Commission, et al., GR No. 65680, May 11, 1988).

Instead of an adversarial contest by the worker or his family against the employer, we now have
a social insurance scheme where regular premiums are paid by employers to a trust fund and
claims are paid from the trust fund to those who can prove entitlement.

3
In Sarmiento v. Employees' Compensation Commission (supra), we affirmed the validity of the
new law by explaining the present system as follows:

We cannot give serious consideration to the petitioner's attack against the

constitutionality of the new law on employee's compensation. It must be noted
that the petitioner filed his claim under the provisions of this same law. It was
only when his claim was rejected that he now questions the constitutionality of
this law on appeal by certiorari.

The Court has recognized the validity of the present law and has granted and
rejected claims according to its provisions. We find in it no infringement of the
worker's constitutional rights.

xxx xxx xxx

The new law establishes a state insurance fund built up by the contributions of
employers based on the salaries of their employees. The injured worker does not
have to litigate his right to compensation. No employer opposes his claim There
is no notice of injury nor requirement of controversion. The sick worker simply
files a claim with a new neutral Employees' Compensation Commission which
then determines on the basis of the employee's supporting papers and medical
evidence whether or not compensation may be paid. The payment of benefits is
more prompt. The cost of administration is low. The amount of death benefits has
also been doubled.

On the other hand, the employer's duty is only to pay the regular monthly
premiums to the scheme. It does not look for insurance companies to meet
sudden demands for compensation payments or set up its own fund to meet
these contingencies. It does not have to defend itself from spuriously
documented or long past claims.

The new law applies the social security principle in the handling of workmen's
compensation. The Commission administers and settles claims from a fired
under its exclusive control. The employer does not intervene in the compensation
process and it has no control, as in the past, over payment of benefits. The open
ended Table of Occupational Diseases requires no proof of causation. A covered
claimant suffering from an occupational disease is automatically paid benefits.

Since there is no employer opposing or fighting a claim for compensation, the

rules on presumption of compensability and controversion cease to have
importance. The lopsided situation of an employer versus one employee, which
called for equalization through the various rules and concepts favoring the
claimant, is now absent.

xxx xxx xxx

The petitioner's challenge is really against the desirability of the new law. There
is no serious attempt to assail it on constitutional grounds.

4
 The wisdom of the present scheme of workmen's compensation is a matter that
should be addressed to the President and Congress, not to this Court. Whether
or not the former workmen's compensation program with its presumptions,
controversions, adversarial procedures, and levels of payment is preferable to
the present scheme must be decided by the political departments. The present
law was enacted in the belief that it better complies with the mandate on social
justice and is more advantageous to the greater number of working men and
women. Until Congress and the President decide to improve or amend the law,
our duty is to apply it. (at pp. 4, 5, and 6)

The non-adversarial nature of employees' compensation proceedings is crucial to an

understanding of the present scheme. There is a widespread misconception that the poor
employee is still arrayed against the might and power of his rich corporate employer. Hence, he
must be given all kinds of favorable presumptions. This is fallacious. It is now the trust fund and
not the employer which suffers if benefits are paid to claimants who are not entitled under the
law. The employer joins its employees in trying to have their claims approved. The employer is
spared the problem of proving a negative proposition that the disease was not caused by
employment. It is a government institution which protects the stability and integrity of the State
Insurance Fund against the payment of non-compensable claims. The employee, this time
assisted by his employer, is required to prove a positive proposition, that the risk of contracting
the is increased by working conditions.

The social insurance aspect of the present law is the other important feature which distinguishes
it from the old and familiar system.

Employees' compensation is based on social security principles. All covered employers

throughout the country are required by law to contribute fixed and regular premiums or
contributions to a trust fund for their employees. Benefits are paid from this trust fund. At the
time the amount of contributions was being fixed, actuarial studies were undertaken. The
actuarially determined number of workers who would probably file claims within any given year
is important in insuring the stability of the said fund and making certain that the system can pay
benefits when due to all who are entitled and in the increased amounts fixed by law.

We have no actuarial expertise in this Court. If diseases not intended by the law to be
compensated are inadvertently or recklessly included, the integrity of the State Insurance Fund
is endangered. Compassion for the victims of diseases not covered by the law ignores the need
to show a greater concern for the trust fund to winch the tens of millions of workers and their
families look for compensation whenever covered accidents, salary and deaths occur. As earlier
stated, if increased contributions or premiums must be paid in order to give benefits to those
who are now excluded, it is Congress which should amend the law after proper actuarial
studies. This Court cannot engage in judicial legislation on such a complex subject with such far
reaching implications.

We trust that the public respondents and the Social Security System are continually evaluating
the actuarial soundness of the trust funds they administer. In this way, more types of cancers
and other excluded diseases may be included in the list of covered occupational diseases. Or
legislation may be recommended to Congress either increasing the contribution rates of
employers, increasing benefit payments, or making it easier to prove entitlement. We regret that
these are beyond the powers of this Court to accomplish.

5
For the guidance of the administrative agencies and practising lawyers concerned, this decision
expressly supersedes the decisions in Panotes v. Employees' Compensation Commission [128
SCRA 473 (1984)]; Mercado v. Employees' Compensation Commission [127 SCRA 664
(1984)]; Ovenson v. Employees' Compensation Commission [156 SCRA 21 (1987)]; Nemaria v.
Employees' Compensation Commission [155 SCRA 166 (1987)] and other cases with
conclusions different from those stated above.

WHEREFORE, the petition is hereby DISMISSED The questioned decision of the public
respondents is AFFIRMED.

SO ORDERED.

Fernan , C.J., Narvasa, Melencio-Herrera, Cruz, Feliciano, Gancayco, Padilla, Bidin, Cortes,
Griño-Aquino, Medialdea and Regalado, JJ., concur.

Separate Opinions

SARMIENTO, J., dissenting:

I do not think that the Labor Code intended to do away with the "presumption of compensability"
prevailing under the old Workmen's Compensation Act. It must be noted that as a social
legislation, the Code is fundamentally a measure intended to afford protection unto the working
class. If any protection should be given to labor, it is in workmen's compensation cases that
protection is a felt need.

The primacy that the majority would give to the integrity of the trust fund 'to which the tens of
millions of workers and their families look for compensation whenever covered accidents,
diseases, and deaths occur is 1 correct but, in my view, hardly the point. In granting the petitioner compensation, I do not
believe we would have dissipated substantially the State Insurance Fund, and considering the fact that the petitioner is a victim
herself.

It must likewise be noted that the petitioner is suffering from cancer (brain tumor), whose cause
medical science is yet to unravel. It would then be asking too much to make her prove that her
illness was caused by work or aggravated by it, when experts themselves are ignorant as to
what brings it about.

I do not believe, finally, that the question in a matter for legislation. Compassion, it is my view, is
reason enough.

PARAS, J., dissenting:

This is a petition for review on certiorari of the decision dated August 27, 1981 of respondent-
Employees' Compensation Commission (ECC) in ECC Case No. 1692 entitled "Zaida G. Raro
vs. Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), which dismissed the claim of petitioner

6
Zaida G. Raro for compensation benefits under Presidential Decree No. 626 as amended for
her ailment diagnosed as "brain tumor."

Petitioner assigns the following alleged errors:

First

THE SYSTEM AND THE COMMISSION ERRED IN HOLDING THAT BRAIN

TUMOR IS ALLEGEDLY NOT A LISTED OCCUPATIONAL DISEASE; HENCE,
PETITIONER IS REQUIRED TO PROVE BY SUBSTANTIAL EVIDENCE THAT
IT WAS CAUSED BY HER EMPLOYMENT.

Second

THE SYSTEM AND THE COMMISSION ERRED IN HOLDING THAT BRAIN

TUMOR WHICH CAUSE IS UNKNOWN CANNOT BE CAUSED BY THE
NATURE OF PETITIONER'S EMPLOYMENT.

Third

THE SYSTEM AND THE COMMISSION ERRED IN NOT CONSIDERING

BRAIN TUMOR AS A BORDERLINE CASE, HENCE COMPENSABLE.

Fourth

THE SYSTEM AND THE COMMISSION DISOBEYED THE STATUTORY

MANDATE THAT ALL DOUBTS SHALL BE RESOLVED IN FAVOR OF LABOR
AND IGNORED THE NATURE OF LABOR LAWS AS SOCIAL LEGISLATIONS.

The undisputed facts, summarized by the Office of the Solicitor-General, are as follows:

Petitioner was hired as clerk on March 17, 1975 by the Bureau of Mines and Geo-Sciences at
its office in Daet, Camarines Norte.

In the course of her employment, petitioner contracted an ailment which was diagnosed as brain
tumor. Petitioner stopped working because of said ailment.

On January 7, 1980, petitioner filed with respondent GSIS a claim for disability benefits under
P.D. 626, as amended.

On November 24, 1980, respondent GSIS denied petitioner's claim on the ground that brain
tumor was not an occupational disease. Respondent GSIS also denied petitioner's motion for
reconsideration.

On appeal, respondent ECC sustained the GSIS decision.

We find this petition impressed with merit.

7
While "brain tumor" is not expressly or specifically referred to as an occupational disease, and
while admittedly its precise causes are still unknown, We may say that the disease is akin to
"cancer of the brain" and should therefore be regarded as either compensable or a
borderline case. At any rate, the precise work of the petitioner at the Bureau of Mines and Geo-
Sciences consisted of the following:

As Mining Recorder II, to record and file mining instruments and documents in
the Mining Recorder's Section and to type correspondence and other documents
pertaining to the same action. (See petitioner's Brief, Rollo, p. 13).

It will readily be seen that her work required at times mental concentration. Whether this is
specifically causative of brain tumor is of course still unknown but doubts must generally be
resolved in favor whenever compensation for disease is concerned. It would certainly be absurd
to throw upon petitioner the burden of showing that her work either caused or aggravated the
disease, particularly when both the GSIS and ECC profess ignorance themselves of the causes
of the disease.

Nowhere is this truism more glaring than in cancer, the most dreaded of all diseases mankind
has ever known. Held the Supreme Court in the case of Acosta v. Employees' Compensation
Commission (L-55464, Nov. 12, 1981): "It is generally accepted that the exact origin of
practically all types of cancer is not yet determined. Scientists and medical experts are still in
the process of discovering the most effective cure for the malady. With this backdrop, one
should not expect ordinary persons to prove the real cause of the ailment of the deceased when
the experts themselves are still in the dark."

In a case like the present one, even medical experts have not determined its cause, and
therefore the duty to prove does not exist for it is absurd for the law to require an impossibility.
Thus in the case of 139 SCRA 270 citing Cristobal v. ECC, 103 SCRA 329, We ruled as follows:

While the presumption of compensability and the theory of aggravation espoused

under the Workmen's Compensation Act may have been abandoned under the
New Labor Code (the constitutionality of such abrogation may still be
challenged), it is significant that the liberality of the law in general still subsists.

... As agents charged by the law to implement social justice guaranteed and
secured by both 1935 and 1973 Constitutions, respondents should adopt a more
liberal attitude in deciding claims for compensability especially where there is
some basis in the facts for inferring a work connection, (103 SCRA 329, 336).

... Where however, the causes of an ailment are unknown to and or

undetermined even by medical science, the requirement of proof of any casual
link between the ailment and the working conditions petitions should be
liberalized so that those who have less in life will have more in law ... .

... The point is that it is grossly inequitable to require as a condition for an award
of compensation that the claimant demonstrate that his ailment – the cause or
origin of which is unknown to and undetermined even by medical science – was
in fact caused or the risk of contracting the same enhanced by his working
conditions. Plainly the condition would be an impossible one, specially
considering that said claimant is most probably not even conversant with the

8
 intricacies of medical science and the claimant invariably bereft of the material
resources to employ medical experts to demonstrate the connection between the
cause and the disease. Considering the liberal character of employment
compensation schemes, the impossible condition should be deemed as not
having been intended and/or imposed. (139 SCRA, pp. 275-276).

... As an employee, he had contributed to the funds of respondent for 34 years

until his forced retirement. In turn respondent should comply with its duty to give
him the fullest protection, relief and compensation benefits as guaranteed by law.
(Ibid., p. 277).

In the more recent case of Flaviano Nemaria, 1 Petitioner versus Employees' Compensation Commission and
Government Service Insurance System (Ministry of Education and Culture), Respondents, promulgated October 28, 1987 and
following the rule We enunciated in the Mercado case, We stated:

Thus the requirement that the disease was caused or aggravated by the
employment or work applies only to an illness where the cause can be
determined or proved. Where cause is unknown or cannot be ascertained, no
duty to prove the link exist For certainly, the law cannot demand an impossibility.

PREMISES CONSIDERED, it is my humble opinion that this petition should be GRANTED. The
decision of the respondent Employees Compensation Commission should be SET ASIDE and
another should be rendered ordering the respondents to pay the herein petitioner the full
amount of compensation under Presidential Decree No. 626 as amended.

Separate Opinions

SARMIENTO, J., dissenting:

I do not think that the Labor Code intended to do away with the "presumption of compensability"
prevailing under the old Workmen's Compensation Act. It must be noted that as a social
legislation, the Code is fundamentally a measure intended to afford protection unto the working
class. If any protection should be given to labor, it is in workmen's compensation cases that
protection is a felt need.

The primacy that the majority would give to the integrity of the trust fund 'to which the tens of
millions of workers and their families look for compensation whenever covered accidents,
diseases, and deaths occur is 1 correct but, in my view, hardly the point. In granting the petitioner compensation, I do not
believe we would have dissipated substantially the State Insurance Fund, and considering the fact that the petitioner is a victim
herself.

It must likewise be noted that the petitioner is suffering from cancer (brain tumor), whose cause
medical science is yet to unravel. It would then be asking too much to make her prove that her
illness was caused by work or aggravated by it, when experts themselves are ignorant as to
what brings it about.

I do not believe, finally, that the question in a matter for legislation. Compassion, it is my view, is
reason enough.

9
PARAS, J., dissenting:

This is a petition for review on certiorari of the decision dated August 27, 1981 of respondent-
Employees' Compensation Commission (ECC) in ECC Case No. 1692 entitled "Zaida G. Raro
vs. Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), which dismissed the claim of petitioner
Zaida G. Raro for compensation benefits under Presidential Decree No. 626 as amended for
her ailment diagnosed as "brain tumor."

Petitioner assigns the following alleged errors:

First

THE SYSTEM AND THE COMMISSION ERRED IN HOLDING THAT BRAIN

TUMOR IS ALLEGEDLY NOT A LISTED OCCUPATIONAL DISEASE; HENCE,
PETITIONER IS REQUIRED TO PROVE BY SUBSTANTIAL EVIDENCE THAT
IT WAS CAUSED BY HER EMPLOYMENT.

Second

THE SYSTEM AND THE COMMISSION ERRED IN HOLDING THAT BRAIN

TUMOR WHICH CAUSE IS UNKNOWN CANNOT BE CAUSED BY THE
NATURE OF PETITIONER'S EMPLOYMENT.

Third

THE SYSTEM AND THE COMMISSION ERRED IN NOT CONSIDERING

BRAIN TUMOR AS A BORDERLINE CASE, HENCE COMPENSABLE.

Fourth

THE SYSTEM AND THE COMMISSION DISOBEYED THE STATUTORY

MANDATE THAT ALL DOUBTS SHALL BE RESOLVED IN FAVOR OF LABOR
AND IGNORED THE NATURE OF LABOR LAWS AS SOCIAL LEGISLATIONS.

The undisputed facts, summarized by the Office of the Solicitor-General, are as follows:

Petitioner was hired as clerk on March 17, 1975 by the Bureau of Mines and Geo-Sciences at
its office in Daet, Camarines Norte.

In the course of her employment, petitioner contracted an ailment which was diagnosed as brain
tumor. Petitioner stopped working because of said ailment.

On January 7, 1980, petitioner filed with respondent GSIS a claim for disability benefits under
P.D. 626, as amended.

10
On November 24, 1980, respondent GSIS denied petitioner's claim on the ground that brain
tumor was not an occupational disease. Respondent GSIS also denied petitioner's motion for
reconsideration.

On appeal, respondent ECC sustained the GSIS decision.

We find this petition impressed with merit.

While "brain tumor" is not expressly or specifically referred to as an occupational disease, and
while admittedly its precise causes are still unknown, We may say that the disease is akin to
"cancer of the brain" and should therefore be regarded as either compensable or a
borderline case. At any rate, the precise work of the petitioner at the Bureau of Mines and Geo-
Sciences consisted of the following:

As Mining Recorder II, to record and file mining instruments and documents in
the Mining Recorder's Section and to type correspondence and other documents
pertaining to the same action. (See petitioner's Brief, Rollo, p. 13).

It will readily be seen that her work required at times mental concentration. Whether this is
specifically causative of brain tumor is of course still unknown but doubts must generally be
resolved in favor whenever compensation for disease is concerned. It would certainly be absurd
to throw upon petitioner the burden of showing that her work either caused or aggravated the
disease, particularly when both the GSIS and ECC profess ignorance themselves of the causes
of the disease.

Nowhere is this truism more glaring than in cancer, the most dreaded of all diseases mankind
has ever known. Held the Supreme Court in the case of Acosta v. Employees' Compensation
Commission (L-55464, Nov. 12, 1981): "It is generally accepted that the exact origin of
practically all types of cancer is not yet determined. Scientists and medical experts are still in
the process of discovering the most effective cure for the malady. With this backdrop, one
should not expect ordinary persons to prove the real cause of the ailment of the deceased when
the experts themselves are still in the dark."

In a case like the present one, even medical experts have not determined its cause, and
therefore the duty to prove does not exist for it is absurd for the law to require an impossibility.
Thus in the case of 139 SCRA 270 citing Cristobal v. ECC, 103 SCRA 329, We ruled as follows:

While the presumption of compensability and the theory of aggravation espoused

under the Workmen's Compensation Act may have been abandoned under the
New Labor Code (the constitutionality of such abrogation may still be
challenged), it is significant that the liberality of the law in general still subsists.

... As agents charged by the law to implement social justice guaranteed and
secured by both 1935 and 1973 Constitutions, respondents should adopt a more
liberal attitude in deciding claims for compensability especially where there is
some basis in the facts for inferring a work connection, (103 SCRA 329, 336).

... Where however, the causes of an ailment are unknown to and or

undetermined even by medical science, the requirement of proof of any casual

11
 link between the ailment and the working conditions petitions should be
liberalized so that those who have less in life will have more in law ... .

... The point is that it is grossly inequitable to require as a condition for an award
of compensation that the claimant demonstrate that his ailment – the cause or
origin of which is unknown to and undetermined even by medical science – was
in fact caused or the risk of contracting the same enhanced by his working
conditions. Plainly the condition would be an impossible one, specially
considering that said claimant is most probably not even conversant with the
intricacies of medical science and the claimant invariably bereft of the material
resources to employ medical experts to demonstrate the connection between the
cause and the disease. Considering the liberal character of employment
compensation schemes, the impossible condition should be deemed as not
having been intended and/or imposed. (139 SCRA, pp. 275-276).

... As an employee, he had contributed to the funds of respondent for 34 years

until his forced retirement. In turn respondent should comply with its duty to give
him the fullest protection, relief and compensation benefits as guaranteed by law.
(Ibid., p. 277).

In the more recent case of Flaviano Nemaria, 1 Petitioner versus Employees' Compensation Commission and
Government Service Insurance System (Ministry of Education and Culture), Respondents, promulgated October 28, 1987 and
following the rule We enunciated in the Mercado case, We stated:

Thus the requirement that the disease was caused or aggravated by the
employment or work applies only to an illness where the cause can be
determined or proved. Where cause is unknown or cannot be ascertained, no
duty to prove the link exist For certainly, the law cannot demand an impossibility.

PREMISES CONSIDERED, it is my humble opinion that this petition should be GRANTED. The
decision of the respondent Employees Compensation Commission should be SET ASIDE and
another should be rendered ordering the respondents to pay the herein petitioner the full
amount of compensation under Presidential Decree No. 626 as amended.

12
 Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila

SECOND DIVISION

G.R. No. L-56191 May 27, 1986

JESUS DE JESUS, petitioner,

vs.
EMPLOYEES' COMPENSATION COMMISSION, GOVERNMENT SERVICE INSURANCE
SYSTEM (Philippine National Railways), respondents.

GUTIERREZ, JR., J.:

This is a petition to review the decision of the Employees' Compensation Commission which
affirmed the decision of the Government Service Insurance System denying the claim for
death benefits under Presidential Decree No. 626, of petitioner Jesus de Jesus, surviving
spouse of the late Ester P. de Jesus.

On April 13, 1945, Ester P. de Jesus was employed by the Philippine National Railways
(PNR) as a telephone operator assigned at its San Fernando, Pampanga railway station.
She was transferred in 1964 to the switchboard 'of the PNR Hospital at Caloocan City. De
Jesus worked every other day during the night shift, for continuous periods of 16 hours
starting from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. of the following day.

From November 10, 1978 to April 5, 1979, she was hospitalized four times at the PNR
hospital. Her attending physician, Dr. Juan Pineda, Chief of Clinics, PNR hospital,
diagnozed her ailments as chronic pyelonephritis, diabetes mellitus, anemia and modular
pulmonary metastases which is also known as lung cancer.

According to Dr. Pineda, the ailments of Mrs. de Jesus started sometime in August, 1978
when she experienced progressive loss of weight and sudden loss of appetite accompanied
by body weakness and easy fatigability with no other accompanying signs and symptoms
except frequent urination. Despite medications, no improvement was noted and she soon
complained of non-productive cough and mild lumbar pains. On December 8, 1978, after
more than 33 years of service and at the age of 55 years she applied for retirement under
Commonwealth Act 186, as amended by Republic Act 1616 and Republic Act 4968 which
was approved effective March 1, 1979. Retirement benefits were thereafter given under
Retirement Gratuity No. 65520. Ester P. de Jesus died of her ailments on June 20, 1979.
Petitioner Jesus de Jesus, the deceased's husband, filed a claim for death benefits under
P.D. 626, as amended, on August 17, 1979. The claim was denied by the Government
Service Insurance System (GSIS) on the ground that the deceased's ailments were not
occupational diseases under the Labor Code. According to the GSIS

13
 Diabetes mellitus is a hereditary disorder of carbohydrate metabolism due to
inadequate production of insulin by the pancreas. Contributing factors for its
occurrence are obesity, excessive consumption of sugar and fat disorders of
endocrine glands and most important, hereditary. Symptoms include
excessive thirst and urination, itching, hunger, weakness and loss of weight.

Anemia is a condition in which the normal amount of red blood cans is

reduced. This may be a complication of the above diseases.

Chronic pyelonephritis is a slowly progressive infection in the renal pelvis and

parenchyma frequently bilateral. It is associated with some obstructive lesions
such as kidney stones and structural abnormalities in the renal tract.

Moreover, there is also no showing that your position as telephone operator

in the Philippine National Railways, Manila, had increased the risks of
contracting said ailments.

This decision was affirmed on review by the Employees' Compensation Commission on

January 15, 1981.

Hence, the instant petition.

Since the ailments of the deceased, as found by her attending physician, manifested
themselves in 1978 or beyond January 1, 1975, the law governing the petitioner's claim is
the New Labor Code (Art. 208, P.D. 442, as amended).

Under Article 167 (L) of the New Labor Code and Section I (b), Rule III of the Amended
Rules on Employees' Compensation, for the sickness and the resulting disability or death to
be compensable, the sickness must be the result of an occupational disease listed under
Annex "A" of the Rules with the conditions set therein satisfied; otherwise, proof must be
shown that the risk of contracting the disease is increased by the working conditions.

In this case, it is the petitioner's contention that the condition of the deceased's work
increased the risk of her contracting the diseases which caused her death.

After a careful examination of the case, we find the petitioner's claim without merit. The
petitioner has failed to prove by competent evidence that the risk of contracting said
diseases was indeed increased by the working conditions concomitant with the deceased's
employment.

In affirming the GSIS' decision, the respondent Employees' Compensation Commission

cited the following medical discussions to negate causal relation of the deceased's work to
her ailments.

Nodular pulmonary metastases' is a phenomenon which results from infection

with tumor emboli carried by the peripheral veins. Sarcomas,
hypernephromas, melanomas and tumors of the breast, thyroid, and
pancreas seem to find the lung an especially favorable site for the growth of

14
metastases. On x-ray, nodular pulmonary metastases may appear as a
solitary 'cannonball' nodule, multiple nodules, or military dissemination known
as lymphangitis carcinomatosis. Dyspnea and pleuritic pain are the cardinal
symptoms of lung metastases. (Reference: Harrison, T.R. Principles of
Internal Medicine, McGraw Hill N.Y.: 5th Edition, 1966, pp. 945-946). On the
other hand, 'anemia' is a condition in which the amount of blood in the body is
decrease From a practical standpoint, the term means a reduction in the
number of and the amount of hemoglobin per unit of blood. The Medical
Division of this Commission discusses the etiologic classification of - as
follows: '(1) loss of blood, (2) deficiency of factors in is; (3) excessive
construction of red corpuscles; (a) Congenital -or hereditary, (b) Acquired; (1)
infection (2) chronic diseases; (3) plumbism following irradiation, drug
sensitivity; (4) endocrine deficiencies; (5) myelophthisic anemia; (6)
hypersplenism (7) Idiopathic bone marrow failure; (c) miscellaneous
hypersideremic anemias. Reference: Harrison, T.R.: Principles of Internal
Medicine;McGraw Hill N.Y. 5th edition, 1966, p. 153.'

The decedent's other aliments, namely: diabetes mellitus and chronic

pyelonephritis are likewise not traceable to her employment and employment
conditions. 'Diabetes mellitus', according to medical science is:

A hereditary or developmental disorder of carbohydrate metabolism due to an

absolute or relative insufficiency of the action of insulin appearing at any age
as hyperglycemia, glycosuria, polyuria, polydipsia, polyphagia, pruritus
weakness and weight loss. Etiology and incidence: Insufficient insulin action
from causes still unknown is responsible for most cases of diabetes mellitus.
Decreased effectiveness of insulin, which may or may not be associated with
the presence of antagonist to insulin, is probably of greater etiologic
importance than is an inadequate production of insulin by the B-cells of the
islets of Langerhans.

Although the exact cause of diabetes has not been found, some contributory
factors are recognized. Hereditary is important, since there is a familiar
history of diabetes in as many as 50% of cases. Obesity has been indicted.
Disorders of endocrine glands other than the pancreas may be associated
with the development of diabetes mellitus. Infection is a common precursor to
the appearance or exacerbation of the disease, probably making a latent
diabetes manifest. Pancreatitis, pancreatic tumors and hemochromatosis are
responsible for occasional cases of diabetes. In certain persons who may be
more susceptible to the eventual development of diabetes (e.g. strong
positive family history) the use of certain drugs may be associated with the
appearance of overt diseases. Such drugs include adrenocortical steroids
and thiazide diuretics.

Reference: Lyght, C.E.: The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and

Therapy, M.S.D.; N.J. llth ed., 1966,. pp- 325-326.

15
 Chronic pyelonephritis refers to a slowly progressing infection in the renal
pelvis and parenchyma frequently bilateral The condition may have its origin
in an acute pyelonephritis in childhood, especially in females, or during
pregnancy. In males, it is usually associated with some obstructive lesion,
such as renal calculi or prostatic hypertrophy. The common etiologic agent is
the colon bacillus, P. vulgaris, or a related organism. Less frequently, one of
the gram-positive cocci may be responsible. Reference: C.E. Lyght: The
Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, M.S., N.J. 1lth ed., p. 255.

On the other hand, the petitioner alleges that the deceased's continuous night shift duties
coupled with the offensive odor of some medicine and dirty linens that were dumped
regularly near her office, afflicted her weakening lungs and induced the development of lung
cancer and anemia.

To bolster his claim, he submits a clinical history of the deceased and a letter certification
both prepared by Dr. Juan Pineda, who was the attending physician of the deceased,

We regret to note, however, that the allegations have not been substantiated by the
petitioner. While this court has always maintained that the strict rules of evidence are not
applicable in claims for compensation (Neri v. Employees' Compensation Commission, 127
SCRA 672), the basic rule that a mere allegation is not evidence (Topweld Manufacturing,
Inc. v. Court of Appeals, et al., G.R. No. 44944, August 9, 1985; Lagasca v. de Vera, 79
Phil. 376) should not be disregarded.

As to the medical view of Dr. Pineda, his endorsement that the deceased's working
condition "contributed immeasurably to the insidious development of her lung lesion" and
that her 11 unusual and prolonged working hours finally sapped her strength leading to
physical exhaustion" which, together with diabetes and anemia, provided a "groundwork for
pulmonary metastases" (Rollo, p. 16), implies aggravation of the disease rather than its
direct causation.

We are, therefore, powerless under the law to reject the respondents' view that the
diseases which the deceased suffered are not caused by employment. As the medical
authorities reveal, those ailments are common to all mankind whether employed or
unemployed, and if employed, irregardless of the nature of the employment.

Under the old Workmen's Compensation Act, as amended, which provided for the concepts
of "presumption of compensability" and "aggravation" it was possible to stretch the work
related nature of an ailment beyond seemingly rational limits.

In this case, however, there is no dispute that the governing law is the New Labor Code,
which according to settled jurisprudence (Sulit v. Employees' Compensation Commission,
98 SCRA 483; Armena v. Employees' Compensation Commission, 122 SCRA 851; Felipe
U. Erese v. Employees' Compensation Commission, GSIS, Metro Manila, G.R. No. L45662,
August 20, 1985), discarded the aforesaid concepts to restore a sensible equilibrium
between the employer's obligation to pay workmen's compensation and the employee's
rights to receive reparation for work-connected death or disability.

16
The new law establishes a state insurance fund built up by the contributions of employers
based on the salaries of their employees. The injured worker does not have to litigate his
right to compensation. No employer opposes his claim. There is no notice of injury nor
requirement of controversion. The sick worker simply files a claim with a new neutral
Employees' Compensation Commission which then determines on the basis of the
employee's supporting papers and medical evidence whether or not compensation may be
paid. The payment of benefits is more prompt. The cost of administration is low. The
amount of death benefits has also been doubled.

On the other hand, the employer's duty is only to pay the regular monthly premiums to the
scheme. It does not look for insurance companies to meet sudden demands for
compensation payments or set up its own funds to meet these contingencies. It does not
have to defend itself from spuriously documented or long past claims.

The new law applies the social security principle in the handling of workmen's
compensation. The Commission administers and settles claims from a fund under its
exclusive control. The employer does not intervene in the compensation process and it has
no control, as in the past, over payment of benefits. The open ended Table of Occupational
Diseases requires no proof of causation. A covered claimant suffering from an occupational
disease is automatically paid benefits.

Since there is no employer opposing or fighting a claim for compensation, the rules on
presumption of compensability and controversion cease to have importance. The lopsided
situation of an employer versus one employee, which called for equalization through the
various rules and concepts favoring the claimant, is now absent.

The Employees Compensation and State Insurance Fund was established after actuarial
studies and on the basis of the provisions of the new law. I commiserate with the claimant
but compassion should be for all beneficiaries and not specific claimants. If we endanger
the stability and liquidity of the Fund through orders compelling payment of benefits where
the law never intended such benefits to be paid, we are not compassionate. We endanger
the scheme.

WHEREFORE, we hold that the decision appealed from should be, as it is, hereby
AFFIRMED.

SO ORDERED.

17
 EN BANC

[G.R. No. L-27588. April 28, 1969.]

LUZON STEVEDORING CORPORATION, Petitioner, v. WORKMEN’S

COMPENSATION COMMISSION and ROSARIO VDA. DE
ROSANO, Respondents.

H . San Luis and L. V . Simbulan for Petitioner.

Juan R. Moreno for respondent Rosario Vda. de Rosano.

Villavieja, Villanueva & Ocampo for respondent Workmen’s Compensation

Commission.

SYLLABUS

1. LABOR AND SOCIAL LEGISLATION; WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION ACT;

EMPLOYER-EMPLOYEE RELATIONSHIP; EVIDENCE SHOWING ITS EXISTENCE IN
INSTANT CASE. — The existence of employer-employee relationship in instant case
is shown by the following: Firstly, while the petitioner company failed to submit any
evidence that the work rendered by the deceased was purely casual, it has been
established that prior to the stabbing incident the deceased, with other stevedores,
was in the pier prepared to do hauling jobs for the petitioner, which work, it cannot
be denied, is connected with petitioner’s business. And there is unrebutted
testimony that the deceased had been doing stevedoring work for said petitioner for
15 years. Secondly, even assuming petitioner’s allegation to be true, that the
deceased was a union member, and that it was the union that furnished laborers
and stevedores when required by petitioner company, presumably with the latter
delivering the stevedoring charges directly to the union for distribution to the
individual laborers, these facts did not make the union an independent contractor
whose intervention relieved the said company of liability for the death of a laborer,
specially where no contractor’s bond was required for the union’s performance of its
undertaking.

2. ID.; ID.; ID.; ID.; INDIRECT EMPLOYMENT DOES NOT RELIEVE EMPLOYER OF
LIABILITY. — The union in instant case was no more than an agent of the company
and whose function is merely to save the latter from the necessity of dealing with
individual laborers. And in this kind of indirect employment, it has been repeatedly

18
held, the employer is not reeved of liability under the Workmen’s Compensation
Law.

3. ID.; ID.; ID.; ID.; COMPENSABILITY OF EMPLOYEE’S DEATH IN INSTANT CASE.

— Where from the sequence of events that took place on November 30, 1964
involving the deceased Pastor Rosano, it is evident that the cause of his fatal
stabbing can be traced to their disagreement over the possession of a platform that
was used in their work for petitioner; that although the altercation started in the
morning the same was resumed when they returned in the afternoon and carried on
when Valdez left, lay in wait near the deceased’s house, and there met and stabbed
the latter when he alighted from the jeep, the employer is not exempt from liability
under the Workmen’s Compensation Law because the cause of death arose outside
of the company premises whereas the quarrel happened at the water-front, at Pier
9.

4. ID.; ID.; ID.; ID.; REASON. — For an injury to be compensable it is not

necessary that the cause therefor shall take place within the place of employment.
If a workman is acting within the scope of his employment, his protection "in the
course of" the employment usually continues, regardless of the place of injury.
Jurisprudence is to the effect that injuries sustained by an employee while in the
course of his employment, as the result of an assault upon his person by another
employee, or by a third person, no question of the injured employee’s own
culpability being involved, is compensable where from the evidence presented, a
rational mind is able to trace the injury to a cause set in motion by the nature of
the employment or some condition, obligation or incident therein, and not by some
other agency.

5. ID.; ID.; ID.; ID.; DEFENSE OF PRESCRIPTION DOES NOT LIE IN INSTANT
CASE. — As regards the defense of prescription raised by petitioner, it is true that
the formal demand for compensation for the death of Pastor Rosano on 30
November 1964, was made by the defendant widow and minor children only on
March 1, 1965; or beyond the 3-month period provided for in Section 24 of the
Workmen’s Compensation Act. But we are not impressed by petitioner’s disclaimer
that it had no knowledge of the stabbing incident prior to its notification by the
Regional Office of the filing of the claim. It may be pointed out that law does not
speak of "formal notice" by the employer of the accident; it specified only
"knowledge of the accident." cralaw virtua1aw library

6. ID.; ID.; ID.; ID.; REQUIREMENT OF GIVING NOTICE OF INJURY AND FILING OF
CLAIM WITHIN PRESCRIBED PERIOD IS NON-JURISDICTIONAL. — The rule is now
well-settled that the requirement (for claimants) of giving of notice of injury and
filing of claim within the prescribed period is non-jurisdictional and does not
constitute a bar to compensation proceedings if the employer, who had knowledge
of the accident, failed to controvert the claimant’s right to compensation pursuant
to Section 45 of the law. For such failure of the employer to controvert the claim
constitutes a waiver (or forfeiture by law) of its right to question the validity and
reasonableness of the claim and precludes the setting up of all non-jurisdictional
defenses, such as non-compensability of injuries prescription, and the like.

19
 DECISION

REYES, J.B.L., Actg. C.J.:

Petition filed by the Luzon Stevedoring Corporation for review of the decision of the
Workmen’s Compensation Commission (in R04 WC Case No. 3941), ordering it to
pay claimants Rosario Vda. de Rosano, minors Rebecca, Edgardo and Baltazar, all
surnamed Rosano, death compensation benefits, burial expenses and attorney’s
fees for the death of Pastor Rosano; as well as of the resolution of the Workmen’s
Compensation Commission en banc denying petitioner’s motion for reconsideration
of the aforesaid decision.

As found by the Acting Referee of the Department of Labor, supported by the

evidence on record, the facts of the case are as follows: chanrob1es virtual 1aw library

At about 6 o’clock in the morning of 30 November 1964, stevedore Pastor Rosano

went to Pier 9, Manila, to await the arrival of a barge of herein petitioner
corporation, scheduled to dock at 9 o’clock in the morning. While thus waiting for
the vessel, Rosano had a heated verbal argument with one Benjamin Valdez,
another stevedore engaged by petitioner corporation, over the possession of a
platform used in the loading and unloading of cargoes taken into or out of the
watercraft. Rosano was able to get it. As the barge did not arrive as scheduled,
Rosano went home for lunch. When he returned at about 1 o’clock in the afternoon,
he found the platform again in the possession of Valdez. Rosano’s demand for
delivery to him of said platform precipitated another argument which almost ended
in fist fight. Valdez finally gave up the platform, but not before he had uttered
threats against the life of Rosano. Later, informed that the barge they were waiting
for definitely was not arriving, Rosano, with two companions, boarded a passenger
jeep bound for Tondo. When he got off from the jeep near his house, he was met
by Valdez, who whipped out a knife and stabbed him. Rosano fell to the ground. He
was immediately brought to the hospital, where he expired at 2:30 in the afternoon
of that same day, 30 November 1964 (Exhibit C).

On 1 March 1965, the widow, Rosario Vda. de Rosano, for herself and on behalf of
her 3 minor children, filed with the Department of Labor a formal claim for death
compensation benefits against petitioner Luzon Stevedoring Corporation for the
death of her husband, Pastor Rosano. The company answered, denying the
allegations of the complaint and raisin, the defense of prescription, in that the claim
was filed beyond the 3-month period from the death of Rosano, as provided in the
Workmen’s Compensation Law.

On 15 September 1965, after due hearing, the Acting Referee rendered judgment,
ordering the company to pay to the claimants death compensation benefits in the
sum of P6,000.00; P200.00 as reimbursement for burial expenses; P200.00, as
attorney’s fees; and P61.00 as fees payable to the office. The award was based on

20
the finding that Rosano was an employee of the company and that death arose out
of his said employment. The defense of prescription was rejected, it appearing that
the company had failed to controvert the claimants’ right to compensation within
the period prescribed in Section 45 of Act 3428. The company appealed to the
Workmen’s Compensation Commission, which affirmed the decision of the Referee.
And when its motion for reconsideration of said decision was denied by the
Commission en banc, the company filed the present petition for review, assigning
as alleged errors committed by the Commission its finding on the existence of
employee-employer relationship between the petitioner and the deceased and the
ruling that the right to demand compensation benefits has not prescribed.

The contention that there existed no employer-employee relationship between

petitioner and the late Pastor Rosano is premised on the allegation that the latter
was a "gang boss" working with the petitioner on an "on and off" basis; that Rosano
worked for petitioner when so assigned by the union, of which he was a member;
that, if at all, the employer-employee relationship existed only whenever the
deceased rendered actual service for the petitioner. Since on 30 November 1964
Rosano was not able to work (because the barge did not arrive), then, according to
petitioner, he was not an employee when he (Rosano) met his death.

There is no merit to this contention. In the first place, while petitioner company
failed to submit any evidence that the work rendered by the deceased was purely
casual, 1 it has been established that prior to the stabbing incident the deceased,
with other stevedores, was in the pier prepared to do hauling jobs for the
petitioner, which work, it can not be denied, is connected with petitioner’s business.
And there is unrebutted testimony that the deceased had been doing stevedoring
work for said petitioner for 15 years. 2 Secondly, even assuming petitioner’s
allegations to be true, that the deceased was a union member, and that it was the
union that furnished laborers and stevedores when required by petitioner company,
presumably with the latter delivering the stevedoring charges directly to the union
for distribution to the individual laborers, these facts did not make the union an
independent contractor whose intervention relieved the said company of liability for
the death of a laborer, specially where no contractor’s bond was required for the
union’s performance of its undertaking. 3 The union here was no more than an
agent of the company and whose function is merely to save the latter from the
necessity of dealing with individual laborers. And in this kind of indirect
employment, it has been repeatedly held, the employer is not relieved of liability
under the Workmen’s Compensation law. 4

It is next claimed for the petitioner that even if he were an employee, Rosano’s
death is not compensable because it came when he was outside of the company
premises and not at work.

We do not agree with the appellant. From the proved sequence of events that took
place on 30 November 1964, involving the deceased Pastor Rosano, it is evident
that the cause of his fatal stabbing by Benjamin Valdez (who was thereafter
accused and convicted) can be traced to their disagreement over the possession of
a platform that was to be used in their work for petitioner; that although the

21
altercation started in the morning the same was resumed when they returned in the
afternoon and carried on when Valdez left, lay in wait near Rosano’s house, and
there met and stabbed the latter when he alighted from the jeep. Neither can it be
said that the employer is exempt from liability under the Workmen’s Compensation
Law because the cause of death arose outside of the company premises, 5 whereas
the quarrel happened at the waterfront, at Pier 9.

For an injury to be compensable, it is not necessary that the cause therefor shall
take place within the place of employment. If a workman is acting within the scope
of his employment, his protection "in the course of" the employment usually
continues, regardless of the place of injury. 6 Thus, in one case, 7 an employee
went to the house of the employer across the warehouse where he worked to get a
drink of water; that there, while trying to drive away a puppy that he saw eating
fish in the employer’s kitchen, he was bitten in the hand, as a result of which he
later died of hydrophobia. The death of the employee was held compensable, on the
ground that his trip to the kitchen was occasioned by the employer’s fault in not
providing adequate drinking water at the warehouse. In the present case, it cannot
be disputed that it is inherent in the stevedoring work for the petitioner that the
laborers, like the deceased, stay in the pier and wait for the docking of petitioner’s
vessels.

Furthermore, jurisprudence is to the effect that injuries sustained by an employee

while in the course of his employment, as the result of an assault upon his person
by another employee, or by a third person, no question of the injured employee’s
own culpability being involved, is compensable where from the evidence presented,
a rational mind is able to trace the injury to a cause set in motion by the nature of
the employment, or some condition, obligation or incident therein, and not by some
other agency. 8

"The rule as stated by the Connecticut Supreme Court is that . . . when the
employee is assaulted while he is defending his employer, or his employer’s
interests, or when the assault was incidental to some duly of his employment, the
injuries he suffers in consequence of the assault with, as a rule, arise out of the
employment. He will then be serving his employer’s ends and not of his own.
(Jacquemin v. Turner and Seymour Manufacturing Co., Conn., 103 A. 115;
Goldhirsch v. American Character Doll Co., 135 Misc. 817, 238 N.Y. 519)"

Similarly, in Appleford v. Kimmel, 296 NW. 861, it appearing that a theater

employee’s job required him to handle disturbances in the theater; that several
patrons were ordered by him to leave the theater because of disturbances they
were causing; and that after the theater closed the employee started for home and
was subjected to injurious assault by those he had previously ordered to leave; the
court held that the evidence sustained the finding that the employee’s injury arose
out of, and in the course of, the employment.

In the leading case of Field v. Charmette Knitted Fabric Co., 245 N.Y. 138, where a
superintendent was injured on the sidewalk by workmen with whom he had
quarreled in the mill, the late Justice Cardozo (then of the New York Supreme

22
Court) declared the injury compensable, reasoning that the quarrel outside of the
mill was merely a continuation or extension of the quarrel begun within; that
continuity of the case had been so combined with continuity in time and space "that
the quarrel from origin to ending must be taken to be one." cralaw virtua1aw library

The rationale applies to the case at bar, where the facts, shown by the evidence
found by the referee and affirmed by the Commission, are that Rosano had been
assaulted by the man with whom he had quarreled barely a half hour after leaving
the place of work where the quarrel occurred, in connection with the possession of
the platform to be used in unloading cargo, without any independent agency or
cause for the assault being shown. As pointed out by Larson (Workmen’s
Compensation Law, Vol. I, Section 29.21) —

"since the ultimate test applied by Judge Cardozo was whether ‘the quarrel from
origin to ending must be taken to be one’ it should make no difference how widely
separated the assault was from the employment in time and space if it remained an
inherent part of an employment incident." cralaw virtua1aw library

Other cases applying the same principle are collated in Schneider Workmen’s
Compensation, Perm. Ed., Vol. 6, page 131, et seq.

As regards the defense of prescription raised by petitioner, it is true that the formal
demand for compensation for the death of Pastor Rosano on 30 November 1964
was made by the dependent widow and minor children only on 1 March 1965, or
beyond the 3-month period provided for in Section 24 of the Workmen’s
Compensation Act. But we are not impressed by petitioner’s disclaimer that it had
no knowledge of the stabbing incident prior to its notification by the Regional Office
of the filing of the claim. It may be pointed out that the law does not speak of
"formal notice" by the employer of the accident; it specifies only "knowledge of the
accident." For petitioner to say that it had no actual knowledge of the stabbing
incident on 30 November 1964 would run counter to the ordinary course of human
behavior. An employer could scarcely have been spared the news of the killing of
one of its laborers by another laborer, especially where the cause therefor started
in the place where the laborers gather and work. When the widow went to the
company premises to demand compensation for the death of her husband a week
after his burial, she was able to talk to an unknown employee inside the compound,
who told her that she could not get anything because the death of her husband did
not occur in the company premises. Far from showing lack of knowledge by the
employer, this fact constitutes sufficient indication that the death of Rosano was
already a matter of common knowledge in petitioner’s office that even an allegedly
unidentified employee could advance the exact defense that the employer later set
up in the case.

The fact remains that petitioner failed to controvert in due time the right of the
claimants to compensation, as required by Section 45 of Act 3428. And the rule is
now well-settled that the requirements (for claimants) of giving of notice of injury
and filing of claim within the prescribed period is non-jurisdictional and does not
constitute a bar to compensation proceedings if the employer, who had knowledge

23
of the accident, failed to controvert the claimant’s right to compensation pursuant
to Section 45 of the law. 9 For such failure of the employer to controvert the claim
constitutes a waiver (or a forfeiture by law) of its right to question the validity and
reasonableness of the claim and precludes the setting up of all non- jurisdictional
defenses, such as non-compensability of injuries, prescription, and the like. 10

WHEREFORE, finding no error in the appealed decision of the Workmen’s

Compensation Commission and its resolution en banc, the petition for review is
hereby dismissed, with costs against the petitioner.

24
 Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila

SECOND DIVISION

G.R. No. 81327 December 4, 1989

CRISPINA VANO, petitioner,

vs.
GOVERNMENT SERVICE INSURANCE SYSTEM, (Bureau of Posts) and
EMPLOYEES' COMPENSATION COMMISSION, respondents.

Severino B. Estonina for petitioner.

The Government Corporate Counsel for GSIS.

PARAS, J.:

The only issue in this case is whether or not the death of petitioner's husband, Filomeno
Vano is compensable under the Employees' Compensation Law.

Filomeno Vano was a letter carrier of the Bureau of Posts in Tagbilaran City. On July
31, 1983, a Sunday, at around 3:30 p.m. Vano was driving his motorcycle with his son
as backrider allegedly on his way to his station in Tagbilaran for his work the following
day, Monday. As they were approaching Hinawanan Badge in Loay, Bohol, the
motorcycle skidded, causing its passengers to be thrown overboard. Vano's head hit the
bridge's railing which rendered him unconscious. He was taken to the Engelwood
Hospital where he was declared dead on arrival due to severe hemorrhage.

Vano's widow, Crispina Vano, filed a death benefit claim under PD 626, as amended,
with the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS). On April 6, 1984, the GSIS
denied the claim, citing the following reason:

It appears on record that your husband was on his way to his station when
he died in a vehicular accident he figured in a Sunday, July 31, 1983.

Obviously, the accident occurred outside of his time and place of work;
neither was he performing official duties at the time of its occurrence.
Accordingly, the conditions for compensability in accordance with the law
have not been satisfied, to wit:

1. that the employee must have been injured at the place

where his work requires him to be;

25
 2. that the employee must have been performing his official
functions; and

3. if the injury is sustained elsewhere, the employee must

have been executing an order for his employer. (p. 22, Rollo)

Crispina Vano's requests for reconsideration were denied by the GSIS, consequently,
the case was elevated to the Employees' Compensation Commission (ECC) for
appropriate review under ECC Case No. 2658.

In a Decision dated October 13, 1987, the ECC affirmed the decision denying the claim
of Crispina Vano because:

Under the Employees' Compensation law, injuries resulting from accidents

while an employee is going to and from the place of work is not
compensable. Some exceptions, however, are: when the injury is
sustained at a place proximate to the work-place, when the employee
meets the accident while riding in a company vehicle and when he is on
special errand for his employer. (Section 1, Rule III of the Amended Rules
of Employees' Compensation)

We note that the case at bar does not fall under any of the foregoing
exceptions. In fact, the subject employee's accident happened on a
Sunday, a non-working day. In the light of the foregoing, we cannot but
affirm respondent's denial of the claim. (pp. 13-15, Rollo; p. 2, Decision,
ECC Case No. 2658)

The petitioner then came to this Court on a petition for review on certiorari. She alleges
that since her husband was precisely commuting from his hometown to Tagbilaran City,
where he would report for duty as letter carrier the following day, when he met the
accident, then his consequent death should be compensated.

The respondent Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) reiterates its views and
contends that the present provision of law on employment injury is different from that
provided in the old Workmen's Compensation Act and is "categorical in that the injury
must have been sustained at work while at the workplace or elsewhere while executing
an order from the employer." (Rollo, p. 69)

For its part, the respondent Employees' Compensation Commission stood firm in
asserting that the death of Filomeno Vano is not the result of an employment accident
as contemplated by law hence petitioner is clearly not entitled to her claim for death
benefits.

The case of Vda. de Torbela vs. Employees' Compensation Commission (96 SCRA
260, 263, 264) supports petitioner's contention of compensability. In the said case, this
Court held:

26
 It is a fact that Jose P. Torbela, Sr. died on March 3, 1975 at about 5:45
o'clock in the morning due to injuries sustained by him in a vehicular
accident while he was on his way to school from Bacolod City, where he
lived, to Hinigaran, Negros Occidental where the school of which he was
the principal was located and that at the time of the accident he had in his
possession official papers he allegedly worked on in his residence on the
eve of his death.

The claim is compensable. When an employee is accidentally injured at a

point reasonably proximate to the place of work, while he is going to and
from his work, such injury is deemed to have arisen out of and in the
course of his employment.

The same ruling was reiterated in the more recent case of Alano vs.
Employees' Compensation Commission (158 SCRA, 669, 672):

In this case, it is not disputed that the deceased died while going to her
place of work. She was at the place where, as the petitioner puts it, her job
necessarily required her to be if she was to reach her place of work on
time. There was nothing private or personal about the school principal's
being at the place of the accident. She was there because her
employment required her to be there.

We see no reason to deviate from the foregoing rulings. Like the deceased in these two
(2) aforementioned cases, it was established that petitioner's husband the case at bar
was on his way to his place of work when he met the accident. His death, therefore, is
compensable under the law as an employment accident.

WHEREFORE, the decision appealed from is hereby SET ASIDE and the Government
Service Insurance System is ordered to pay petitioner the sum of Twelve Thousand
Pesos (P12,000.00)) as death benefit and the sum of One Thousand Two Hundred
Pesos (P1,200.00) as attorney's fees.

SO ORDERED.

27
 Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila

EN BANC

G.R. No. L-35741 December 20, 1932

VICTORIA TALLER VIUDA DE NAVA, plaintiff-appellant,

vs.
YNCHAUSTI STEAMSHIP CO., defendant-appellee.

Acting Provincial Fiscal Debuque for appellant.

A. de Aboitiz Pinaga for appellee.
De Witt, Perkins & Brady as amicus curiae.

STREET, J.:

This action was instituted in the Court of First Instance of Iloilo by Victoria Taller Vda. de
Nava, for the purpose of recovering the sum of P1,00.92 from the Ynchausti Steamship
Co., it being alleged that said amount is due to the plaintiff under the Workmen's
Compensation Act, No. 3428 of the Philippine Legislature, by reason of the death of her
husband in the course of his duty, while serving as helmsman (timonel) on the
interisland steamer Vizcaya, under the circumstances stated in the complaint. Upon
hearing the cause the trial court absolved the defendant from the complaint, and the
plaintiff appealed.

The case was submitted upon an agreed statement of facts from which it appears that
the Ynchausti Steamship Co. is engaged in the business of operating vessels in the
coastwise and interisland trade, and on April 2, 1930, the steamer Vizcaya, one of its
vessels, was being maneuvered in the mouth of the Iloilo River, at Iloilo. At this time
Valentin Nava held the position of helmsman (timonel) on said boat, receiving a monthly
compensation of P35. In connection with moving the boat Nava, in charge of other
members of the crew, was engaged in hauling in the ship's cable and in coiling the
cable on the deck of the boat preparatory to passing it down a hatchway and bestowing
it in its proper place in the vessel. While thus engaged Nava found the space which they
required for coiling the cable partly occupied by a folding bed belonging to one of the
third-class passengers. Nava asked whose bed it was, and Dalmacio Villanueva, one of
the passengers, answered that he was the owner of the bed. Thereupon Nava said that
he (Nava) would push it to another place because it interfered with the work. Suiting the
action to the word, he pushed the bed with his foot towards the other side of the ship.
This act aroused the anger of the owner of the bed, and hot words were exchanged, in
the course of which Villanueva, using one of the wooden bars of the bed, gave Nava a

28
jab in the pit of the stomach. Under the impact of this blow Nava leaned back, and at
this moment Vicente Villanueva, a brother of Dalmacio Villanueva, ran up to Nava and
stabbed him with a fan knife just above the left nipple. The blade penetrated Nava's
heart and he died almost instantly. For the crime of homicide thus committed Vicente
Villanueva was later sentenced to imprisonment for fourteen years, eight months and
one day, reclusion temporal, with accessories, and was required to indemnify the family
of the deceased in the amount of P1,000, with costs. The deceased left a wife and
seven children, and this action for compensation was instituted by the widow, under Act
No. 3428 of the Philippine Legislature, as amended.

The answer of the defendant raises several questions all of which were decided in favor
of the plaintiff by the trial court with the exception of the most vital one which will chiefly
engage our attention in the course of this opinion. But as the defendant relies in its brief
upon the various points decided against it in the appealed decision, it is advisable to
notice these points as preliminary to the discussion of what we consider to be the main
question.

Among other things, it is insisted that the death of Valentin Nava was not an accident
within the meaning of the Workmen's Compensation Act, No. 3428. Under section 2 of
Act No. 3428, as it stood when this incident occurred, compensation is demandable for
"a personal injury from any accident due to and in the pursuance of the employment".
By the word "accident" as here used it is intended to indicate that the act causing the
injury shall be casual, in the sense of being unforeseen, and one for which the injured
party is not legally responsible. Now, in the case before us, the death of Valentin Nava,
was not, at least as regards the perpetrator of the deed, any accident whatever. The
death was caused by the criminal and intentional act of Vicente Villanueva. But an act
may be an accident as regards one person or from one point of view and not an
accident as regards another person and from another point of view. This homicide was
not attributable to the act of deceased himself and was not capable of being foreseen as
a likely consequence of the discharge of his duties. The trial court therefore correctly
held that the death of Nava was due an accident within the meaning of section 2 of Act
No. 3428.

Again, it is insisted that Nava was not an "industrial employee", within the meaning of
the Workmen's Compensation Act, inasmuch as he was employed as a helmsman
(timonel) and his duties were not of an industrial nature. This contention takes too
narrow a view of the meaning of the phrase "industrial employee" as used in the Act
cited. As helmsman on the boat Nava was charged with the performance of duties
connected with piloting of the boat and controlling its movements when in motion.
Duties of this character are clearly of an industrial nature, since they are concerned with
effecting the ends and purposes of industry. The definition of "industrial employment",
as given in subsection (d) of section 39, Act No. 3428, covers all employment or work at
a trade, occupation or profession exercised by an employer for the purpose of gain,
subject only to the limitation of yearly gross income. Nava was therefore an industrial
employee and entitled to compensation under the Act, provided the other circumstances

29
attendant upon the accident which caused his death were of such nature as to bring him
within the purview of the Act.

It is further insisted that Act No. 3428, as amended, does not cover the case of an
employee upon a coastwise vessel. In this connection attention is directed to the fact
that, under section 38, Act No. 3428 extends to the cases of "employees engaged in the
interisland trade"; and it was only by Act No. 3812 (section 12) that the provision was
amended so as to include employees engaged in the "coastwise and interisland trade".
From this it is supposed that the case in question does not fall under section 38 of Act
No. 3428. The question is in our opinion without merit. In the first place, the word
"interisland", as originally used in section 38, was apparently used in a broad sense, to
include all shipping in and among the islands, in vessels of Philippine registration, and it
is not limited to shipping from a port of one island to a port of another island. The
expression "the coastwise and" was therefore of clarifying a possible ambiguity and to
bring the phraseology of the Act more into harmony with the technical terms commonly
used in the Customs laws and regulations. Even supposing, therefore, that
the Vizcaya was only engaged in the carrying of trade between different ports of the
same island — a fact which does not appear — the "accident" with which we are here
concerned should be considered within the purview of the law. It is not apparent that the
meaning of the law was changed in any essential feature by this amendment.

Still, again, it is insisted that the case does not come under Act No. 3428 for the reason
that it does not appear that the defendant had a gross income during the year
immediately preceding the one during which the accident occurred of not less than
P40,000. But we note that in the agreed statement of facts it is stated that during the
last twelve months anterior to the month of April of 1930, the defendant had a gross
income of more than P40,000 as a result of its business. This was evidently intended to
cover the requirement expressed in subsection (d) of section 39 of Act No. 3428, and
although the stipulation does not technically cover the gross earning for the full calendar
year anterior to the calendar year in which the accident occurred, we are of the opinion
that the trial judge committed no error in interpreting the stipulation in that sense.

Finally, it is supposed that the circumstance that the criminal court imposed the civil
obligation on Vicente Villanueva to indemnify the family of the deceased in the amount
of one thousand pesos makes it improper to allow additional compensation in this case.
As the trial court properly held, the suggestion is without merit. In the first place, it does
not appear that the criminal indemnity has been paid and, in the second place, that
obligation is wholly distinct from the obligation imposed by the Workmen's
Compensation Act and the latter is in no sense subsidiary to the former. lawphil.net

This brings us to consider the most important question in the case, namely, whether the
death of Valentin Nava occurred in the course of his employment, or was the result of
the nature of such employment. In this connection we quote section 2 of Act No. 3428,
which runs as follows:

30
 SEC. 2. Grounds for compensation. — When any employee receives a personal
injury from any accident due to and in the pursuance of the employment, or
contracts any illness directly caused by such employment or the result of the
nature of such employment, his employer shall pay compensation in the sums
and to the persons hereinafter specified.

This provision was amended by section 1 of Act No. 3812 so as to read as follows:

SEC. 2. Grounds for compensation. — When any employee receives a personal

injury from any accident arising out of and in the course of the employment, or
contracts any illness directly caused by such employment, or the result of the
nature of such employment, his employer shall pay compensation in the sums
and to the persons hereinafter specified.

This last provision, having been enacted since the death of Valentin Nava, is not directly
applicable to the case before us, but it may properly be quoted for purposes of
comparison and interpretation. Fixing our attention then more particularly upon section 2
of Act No. 3428, it is quite clear that the death of Valentin Nava was not due to any
illness directly caused by his employment or the result of the nature of such
employment. We are of the opinion, however, that it occurred in the course of his
employment and "in pursuance of the employment", as this expression is used in the
provision cited. The attorneys for the appellee presents a narrow view of Nava's
employment and insists that, inasmuch as he was employed as helmsman, he was
acting within the scope of his duties only when his hand was on the helm of the vessel
and he was engaged in actually guiding its motions. We are of the opinion that his
duties should be considered as having greater latitude. It is true that the term indicative
of his employment was that of helmsman, but we think that his duties should be
considered as comprehending acts done by him in helping to guide the ship. In
maneuvering a vessel, in entering and leaving ports, it is necessary for the ship's
officers in charge of the motions of the vessel to avail themselves of cables; and the
taking in of a cable and the coiling of it upon the deck are acts properly incident to
controlling the motion of the vessel. It results that, when Nava found that one of the
third-class passengers had placed his bed on the deck in a position where it was in his
way, he acted within the scope of his duty when he pushed the bed back; and when the
fatal assault was made upon him because of that act, it must be considered that his
death resulted from an act done in the line of his duty.

At this juncture it may be well to give a few words of explanation concerning the
verbiage of section 2 of Act No. 3428 and of the amendment effected in this section by
Act No. 3812, and particularly in the substitution, in the latter Act, of the expression
"arising out of and in the course of the employment" for the expression "due and to in
the pursuance of the employment" used in Act No. 3428. Upon this point we note that
Act No. 3428 was adopted by the Philippine Legislature in Spanish, and the original of
the section is taken from the statutes of the Territory of Hawaii (section 3604, Chapter
209 of the Revised Laws of Hawaii, 1925). Our English version here is the official
translation into English of the Spanish version as adopted by the Philippine Legislature.

31
In the Hawaiian law the expression used in the part of the statute here under
consideration is "arising out of and in the course of such employment". These words,
after passing through the Spanish version, and upon being turned back into English,
appeared as "due to and in the pursuance of the employment". It follows that the
expression found in the amendatory provision (section 1 of Act No. 3812) is merely a
reversion to the English wording of the Hawaiian statute, which corresponds, we may
add, to the wording commonly used in the American statutes. It is clear therefore that
the amendment introduced by the last named Act was merely intended to bring the
English version of our statute into verbal conformity with the Hawaiian and other
American laws. No change whatever in the meaning of the provision was intended to be
effected by said amendment.

The attorneys for the appellee have called our attention to some American decisions,
which, it is insisted, support the conclusion of the trial court that the homicide which
resulted in the death of Valentin Nava was not an accident due to and in the pursuance
of his employment, as this expression runs in section 2 of Act No. 3428. The cases
most emphatically urged upon us in this connection by the appellee are State of
Minnesota ex rel. School Dist. No. 1, in Itasca County vs. District Court (140 Minn., 470;
15 A. L. R., 579), and Schmoll vs. Weisbrod & Hess Brewing Co. (89 N. J. L., 150; 97
Atl., 732). In the first of these cases the facts were as follows:

The school district employed a young woman to teach in the Round Lake school, some
35 miles from Deer River in Itasca County and 25 miles from Black Duck in Beltrami
County, these two places being the nearest railway points. The country was densely
wooded and sparsely settled. The school was a one-room school and fifteen pupils
attended. The nearest house was a half mile away, and the boarding house was a mile
or a mile and a quarter. On the morning of September 20, 1916, an unknown man
asked for food at the boarding place of the teacher. On the evening of that day, when
her work at the school was finished, she started for her boarding house, taking a short
cut through the woods. She had some papers which she intended to correct at home in
the evening, and a book to study. As she was on her way, and when just off the school
grounds, she was criminally assaulted by this for the gratification of his passions, and as
part of the transaction he shot her, destroying the sight of her left eye. She filed a claim
for compensation against the school district, under the Compensation Act, which
required an employer to pay compensation "in every case of personal injury or death of
his employee, caused by accident, arising out of and in the course of the employment".
The District Court for Itasca County awarded the compensation prayed for, and the
School District brought an action for certiorari in the Supreme Court of Minnesota,
claiming that the injury suffered by the employee did not arise out of and in the course
of the employment. The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the lower court, and
held that the injury for which compensation had been awarded by the district court did
not arise out of the employment.

In the second case it appeared that the deceased was a route foreman in the employ of
the respondent. His duties were to look after the various beer delivery routes and see
that they were properly conducted, and on Saturdays he had a beer delivery where he

32
delivered beer and collected the moneys therefor. On the 19th day of December, 1914,
on a Saturday night, at about 8 o'clock, the deceased made a delivery of beer at some
dwelling house in Atlantic City leaving his wagon in the street, a little distance away, and
while returning to his wagon he was assaulted and shot by some person unknown. The
deceased mounted his wagon and returned to brewery and accounted to his employer
for the moneys intrusted to and collected by him and then went to a hospital where he,
ten days later, died from the effects of the gunshot wound.

In the first of these cases it is quite evident that there was no causal relation between
the service which the plaintiff as a teacher, had rendered and the assault which was
committed upon her. In the second case the motive of the assault was evidently
robbery, and there was no direct connection between the work done by the victim of the
robbery and the assault. If it had appeared, in the first case, that the teacher had been
attacked while in the act of properly disciplining one of her pupils, and because of that
fact, it would, we think, have been held that the injury had been incurred in the course of
her employment. The second case brings us perhaps into more debatable ground, but
the casual relation between the performance of duty and the assault was not as
manifest as in the case now before us. The following decisions, gleaned from American
jurisprudence, shed further light upon the situation before us:

In In re Wooley vs. Minneapolis Equipment Co. and Globe Indemnity Co. (157 Minn.,
428; 196 N. W. 477), where a salesman was shot and killed in a street brawl brought on
by himself and for his own purposes, even though he was engaged in his employee's
business just before the fracas, and intended to resume it afterwards, the court held that
the injury did not arise out of the employment.

In Scholtzhauer vs. C. & L. Lunch Co. (233 N. Y., 12; 134 N. E., 701), it was held that
the injury did not arise out of the employment, where a waitress in a restaurant was shot
by a negro dish-washer because she had declined an invitation to out with him and had
stated that she would not go out with a negro.

In the case now in hand it seems clear to us that the plaintiff is entitled to the
compensation demanded and no question has been made as to the amount thereof.

The judgment appealed from will therefore be reversed, and the plaintiff will recover of
the defendant the sum of P1,000.92, with interest from the date of the filing of the
complaint and with costs. So ordered.

33
 Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila

EN BANC

G.R. No. L-47360 November 28, 1940

BOHOL LAND TRANSPORTATION CO., recurrente y apelante,

vs.
FERMINA VIUDA DE MADANGUIT Y OTROS, recurridos y apelados.

Sres. Alvear y Agrava en representacion de la recurrente.

D. Antonio Logarta y D. Cecilio I. Lim en representacion de los recurridos.

HORRILLENO, J.:

Este es un recurso de certiorari promotivao por la Bohol Land Transportaion Co. contra
Fermina Viuda de Mandaguit, la recurrida, en el que pide se revoque la decision del
Tribunal de Apelaciones, promulgada el 28 de febrero de 1940, la cual, copiada
literalmente, dice asi:.

Driving the passenger truck No. 77 of the defendant transportation company,

Ramon Madanguit left Tagbilaran, Bohol, on his regular trip to barrio Catigbian of
another municipality in the afternoon of May 17, 1937. On the road he overtook
and passed another truck of the defendant, and in doing so he fell but collided
with Ciriaco Dalmao (then riding a bicycle in the opposite direction),practically
ditching him. Dalmao immediately turned around and pursued Madanguit's truck,
which a few minutes later had to park in front of the house of Attorney Celestino
Gallares, because some pedestrian signaled to get aboard. Taking advantage of
the stop, Madanguit went to the Lourdes Drug Store across the street to wash his
hands which had become dirty when he cleaned the truck. In the meantime,
Ciriaco Dalmao arrived, went into the drug store, and, without much ado, knifed
Madanguit to death. Dalmao was prosecuted and having pleaded guilty was
sentenced accordingly.

Subsequently, the heirs of Madanguit filed this action for compensation under Act
No. 3428, as amended, in the Court of First Instance of Bohol, and obtained
judgment for the total sum of P1,507.58, to be paid in the manner directed. The
defendant appealed, questioning not the amount of compensation nor the
manner of payment thereof, but the right of the plaintiff to be compensated, and
submitting the proposition: First, that the death did not arise out of Madanguit's
employment and in the course thereof; and, second that compensation is not due
because the death occurred on the account of Madanguit's notorious negligence,
or intention to inflict injury upon Dalmao.

34
We are of the opinion that under the facts stated at the beginning of this decision,
the death of Madanguit arose out, and in the course of his employment. It
appears that because while driving the defendant's truck he offended Dalmao,
the latter stabbed and killed him.

But the defendant maintains that there is no competent proof regarding Dalmao's
motive, maintaining that the declaration in open court of the widow of Madanguit,
who merely repeated Dalmao's testimony in the criminal case against him for
murder is hearsay and incompetent evidence. But hearsay evidence regarding
the motive or intention of a person is admissible, as an exception to the hearsay
rule. (See Wigmore on Evidence, par. 1729, et seq.: and also notes to its
Supplement.) And view of the fact that the declarations of Dalmao were made
under the sanction of an oath, and the defendant itself presented Exhibit 9
(testimony of some witness in the criminal case against Dalmao), which
corroborates the widow's testimony, we cannot say that there is not enough
evidence about the motive impelling Dalmao's murderous hand.

At any rate, the declaration of the widow at pages 22 to 25 of the transcript of the
stenographic notes were not objected to as hearsay, and for all purposes are in
the record entitled to some value. (Diaz vs. U.S., 223 U.S. 442.).

Nevertheless, let us suppose, that proof of Dalmao's resentment is insufficient.

Then Madanguit's injury does not appear to have arisen out of his employment;
yet it being undeniable that he was killed 'in the course of his employment' (see
Jackson vs. Dairyman's Creamery, 162 S.E., 359; Oklahoma Gas and Electric
Co. vs. Sartonio, 12 Pac. [2nd] 221, his family is entitled to compensation under
the decision of the Supreme Court in Pollisco vs. Basilan Lumber Co., G.R.
39721, Oct 23, 1993 (Philippine Cases on Workmen's Compensation by Butalid,
p.7)

Referring to the second point, the accident did not arise out of his employment,
which was that of operating the machine and fixing it when it was out of
commission, inasmuch as said accident did not occur while he was engaged in
said work and as a consequence thereof.

"But that the accident occurred in the course of his employment there can
be no doubt, for the reason that, being an employee of the firm and while
riding in the wagon furnished by the company to bring then home within
the concession after their work, plaintiff was within the radius of action and
under the control of the defendant company." (Pollisco vs. Basilan Lumber
Co., supra ).

In Bellosillo vs. City of Manila (G.R. No. 34522, November 9, 1931,

Butalid, supra, p. 16), a workman employed on a public street temporarily left his
work and crossed the street, he was run over by an automobile and killed. The

35
 Supreme Court gave him compensation under Act 3428, holding that the injury
was caused by an accident due to, and in pursuance of, his employment.

It should be noted in this connection that in constructing this specific provision of

the Workmen's compensation law, the tendency is towards liberality in favor
whenever an employee suffers injury in the course of his employment, a
reasonable factual presumption, is that the hurt arose out of the employment.

The defendant attempted to establish the fact that Madanguit owed Dalmao
about P3.50; that on May 17, just a few minutes before the killing, Dalmao
stopped Madanguit and asked for payment, that Madanguit paid no attention to
Dalmao, whereupon the latter became enraged, followed Madanguit and killed
him. The theory is not plausible for it is unlikely that for a small indebtedness
Dalmao should take away the life of an individual. it is also incredible that he
should stop a truck to demand payment. But this alleged debt of Madanguit lends
color to the plaintiff's version, because his rudeness in crowding Dalmao out of
the street was resented by the latter, who, as a creditor of Madanguit, evidently
expected better treatment.

The other defense that the killing was caused by Madanguit's intention to inflict
injuries upon Dalmao, or to his notorious negligence, is concededly premised on
the assumption that the decision in criminal case No. 4180, Exhibit E, is
admissible (appellant's brief, p.34). As we agree with the defendant that said
Exhibit, for the purpose of showing the facts recited therein, is not admissible, we
do not have to go into this defense, specially because we are not convinced
there was notorious negligence or wilfull misconduct on the part of Madanguit.

The net result is that plaintiff are entitled to compensation. And as the defendant
has assigned no error as to the rate or amount of the award, the judgment
appealed from will be affirmed, with costs against the appellant.

La recurrente, como fundamento de su recurso, alega:.

1. The Second Division of said Court of Appeals completely disregarded the fact
that the death of Ramon O. Madanguit was not an accident at all and erroneously
held that, because Ramon O. Madanguit was murdered by Ciriaco Dalmao in the
Lourdes Drug Store, the said death arose in the coarse of his employment or as
a result of said employment it been found by said Second Division of Court of
Appeals that the death of the deceased arose from the following facts:

. . . "On the road he overtook and passed another truck of the defendant, and in
doing so he fell but collided Ciriaco Dalmao (then riding a bicycle in the opposite
direction), practically ditching him, Dalmao immediately turned around and
pursued Madanguit's truck which a few minutes after had to park in front of the
house of Attorney Celestino Gallares, because some pedestrian signaled to get
aboard. Taking advantage of the stop. Madanguit went to the Lourdes Drug Store

36
across the street to wash his hands which had become dirty when he cleaned the
truck. In the meantime, Ciriaco Dalmao arrived, went into the drug store and
without much ado, knifed Madanguit to death. Dalmao was prosecuted, and
having pleaded guilty, was sentence accordingly."

2. The Second Division of the Court of Appeals committed an error in holding the
deceased was not notoriously negligent when, —

(a) The deceased violated and disregarded the rules and regulations of petitioner
by starting late from; petitioner's garage which fact accounted for deceased going
to the Lourdes Drug Store to wash his hands and comb his hair; and

(b) The deceased disregarded the right of Ciriaco Dalmao, his assailant, by
almost colliding with, and there was not enough space for his truck to go through
without causing injury or damage to the travelling public.

3. The Second Division of the Court of Appeals also committed an error of law in
implied holding that petitioner is an insurer against all accidental injuries which
might happened to its employees while in the course of their employment and
holding that, because the deceased was murdered on account of his
carelessness and derelictions of duty, the said deceased Ramon O. Madanguit
died in the course of his employment. (See par. 2, p.2, decision, Appendix A.)

4. The Second Division of the Court of Appeals again committed an error of law
by concluding that petitioner is answerable for the death of decease when it itself
finds that "It appears that because while driving the defendant's truck he (the
deceased) offended Dalmao, the latter stabbed and killed him" and . . .

5. Finally, the decision of the Second Division of Court of Appeals is against the
applicable decision of this Honorable Court in that it applied without exception
and limitation, the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Law in holding that
'the tendency is towards liberality in favor of the employee. And perhaps it is not
error to say that whenever an employee suffers injuries in the course of his
employment, a reasonable factual presumption is that the hurt arose out of the
employment' when according to the case Vergara vs. Pampanga Bus Co., G.R.
No. 44149, January 9, 1936; Vol. V, lawyers' Journal, p. 372, this Honorable
Court says:

"We have heretofore given repeated evidence of our desire to see a spirit of
liberality characterize the construction of the Workmen's Compensation Act. We
have endeavored to interpret the Act to promote its purpose. We have even gone
so far as to interpret it fairly in favor of the employee. But we cannot construct the
Act to fit particular cases, and in this particular case neither the facts nor the law
are demonstrative of a meritorious claim on the part of the employee coming
within the purview of the Workmen's Compensation Act."

37
No se discuten por la recurrente, ni puede discurtilos en esta instancia, los hechos
declarados probados por el Tribunal de Apelacion en su decision objeto del presente
recurso, a sabeer:

Driving the passenger truck No. 77 of the defendant transportation company,

Ramon Madanguit left Tagbilaran, Bohol, on his regular trip to barrio Catigbian of
another municipality in the afternoon of May 17, 1938. On the road he overtook
and passed another truck of the defendant and in doing so he fell but collided
with Ciriaco Dalmao (the riding a bicycle in the opposite direction), practically
ditching him. Dalmao immediately turned around and pursued Madanguit's truck,
which few minutes later had to work in front of the house of Attorney Celestino
Gallares, because some pedestrian signaled to get aboard. Taking advantage of
the stop, Madanguit went to the Lourdes Drug Store across the street to wash his
hands which had become dirty when he cleaned the truck. in the meantime ,
Ciriaco Dalmao arrived, went into the drug store, and without much ado, knifed
Madanguit to death. Dalmao was prosecuted, and having pleaded guilty, was
sentence accordingly.

Subsequently, the heirs of Madanguit filed this action for compensation under Act 3428,
as amended, in the Court of First Instance of Bohol, and obtained judgment for the total
sum of P1,507,58, to be paid in the manner directed. The defendant appealed,
questioning not the amount of compensation nor the manner of payment thereof, but the
right of the plaintiff to be compensated, and submitting the proposition: First, that the
death did not arise out of Madanguit's employment and in the course thereof; and,
occurred on account of Madanguit's notorious negligence, or intention to inflict upon
Dalmao.

La unica cuestion, por consiguiente, que se plantea ante Nos es la de si, en vista de
tales hechos, procede o no otorgar a la recurrida los beneficios de la Ley de
Compensacion de Obreros No. 3428, segun ha sido enmendada por la Ley No. 3812.
Dicha ley, tal como ha sido enmendada, dispone en su articulo 2, lo siguiente:

ART. 2. Motivos para una compensacion. — Cuando un empleado sufre una

lesion personal por accidente proveniente de, y en el curso de su empleo, o
contrajere una enfermedad causada directamente por el empleo o como
resultado de la naturaleza de dicho empleo, su patrono le pagara una
compensacion en las cantidades y a las personas que se especifican mas
adelante.

En Pollisco vs. Basilan Lumber Co., R.G. No. 39721, este Tribunal, entre otras cosas,
declaro que Pollisco tenia derecho a la compensacion no obstante haber ocurrido el
accidente despues de su trabajo y mientras volvia ya a su casa. El caso de autos es, a
nuestro juicio, mas fuerte y meritorio todavia que el citado de Pollisco. Como se
desprende de los hechos probados segun el Tribunal de Apelacion, Madanguit, el
difunto, era el chofer de uno de los buses de la recurrente, Bohol Land Transportation
Co., y mientras guiaba el coche, este choco contra la bicicleta que montaba Ciriaco

38
Dalmao; que momentos despues, casi inmediatamente, Madanguit paro su coche
frente a la casa del abogado Celestino Gallares, por haber recibido señas de algunos
peatones que querian coger el camion y, aprovechando esta oportunidad, bajo de el y
se dirigio al Lourdes Drug Store con el objeto de lavarse las manos que se habian
ensuciado al limpiar su coche. Entretanto, Ciriaco Dalmao llego y entro en la botica y,
sin mas ni mas, apuñalo a Madanguit que murio en el acto.

En otro asunto, Bellosillo vs. City of Manila, R.G. No. 34522, decidido por este Tribunal,
se declaro que un obrero de la Ciudad de Manila, que trabajaba en las calles publicas,
tenia derecho a la compensacion bajo la ley, a pesar de haber dejado temporalmente
su trabajo y cruzado la calle, momento en que fue atropellado por un automovil que le
dejo muerto en el acto. En Corpus Juris, pag. 673, tomo 71, hallamos lo siguente:

. . . where the employee is injured while seeking toilet facilities or going to ro from
a toilet, the injury arises out of the employment and in the course of it . . .

El Tribunal de Apelacines, por tanto, no incurrio en error alguno al decidir este asunto,
confirmando en todas sus partes el fallo del tribunal a quo a favor de Fermina Vda. de
Madanguit, la recurrida.

En su consecuencia, procede, y asi lo declaramos, confirmar en todas sus partes la

decision objeto del recurso, con las costas en ambar instancias a cargo de la
recurrente. Asi se ordena.

39
 Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila

FIRST DIVISION

G.R. No. L-46046 April 5, 1985

EMELITA ENAO, petitioner,

vs.
THE EMPLOYEES' COMPENSATION COMMISSION, respondent.

Vivencio M. Carpio, Jr. for petitioner.

Jose G. De Vera for respondent ECC.

ALAMPAY, J.:

This is a petition for review of the decision of the Employees' Compensation

Commission (E.C.C.), dated October 26, 1976, affirming the decision of the
Government Service Insurance System, denying petitioner's claim for Compensation
of income benefits due to the injuries sustained by her when on August 1, 1975,
while on her way to Dipolog City for the purpose of purchasing supplies and other
training and school aids for her office, she, together with others, were ambushed by
unidentified men believed to be communist insurgents.

The antecedent facts of this case are not disputed and are well stated in the
appealed decision rendered by the Employees' Compensation Commission, subject
of the petition in this case.

... On August 1, 1975, appellant (Emelita Enao), a Public School

Teacher, together with others, was on her way from her official station
at Sergio Osmena, Sr., Zamboanga del Norte to Dipolog City.
According to the Acting Administrative Officer of her employer, 'Having
held classes on July 26, in lieu of August 1, 1975, as per District
Memorandum hereto attached, Miss Enao was on her way home from
station when their group was ambushed and fired upon by armed men
hitting her on her forearm and abdomen necessitating operation' (Part
II, Income Benefits Claim for Payment), and according to appellant's
witnesses, who were members of the ambushed party, she was on her
way to Dipolog City for the purpose of 'securing supplies and other
training and school aids necessary for furthering (our) services as a
school teacher' (Affidavits of Francisco L. Podol and Juanita Adanza,

40
 respectively). When the appellant and her group were at barrio de
Venta Perla, Polanco, Zamboanga del Norte, they were fired upon by a
band of armed men believed to be communist insurgents. As a result of
the ambush, the appellant sustained gunshot wounds on her left
forearm and abdomen which compelled her confinement at the
Zamboanga del Norte Provincial Hospital from August 1 to 6, 1975, for
surgical removal of foreign bodies (shrapnel) from her left arm and later
at the Dipolog Medical Center from September 10 to 12, 1975 for
definitive treatment. She also developed interstitial pneumonia as a
result. (Decision of the Employees' Compensation Commission, Annex
"B", Rollo, pp. 8-9).

On August 5, 1975, petitioner sent a notice of claim of injury to the Secretary of

Education and Culture, through the Division Superintendent of Schools, Zamboanga
City. It is said that this claim was not controverted.

On the same date, a claim for income benefits for disability was filed by the herein
petitioner with the Government Service Insurance System but this claim was denied
by the System in its letter-decision, dated February 27, 1976, on its reasoning that:

It appears that on your way to Dipolog City for the purpose of

purchasing your needs, you were ambushed by unidentified men
believed to be NPAS. Though this happened on August 1, 1975, a
regular working day, this was considered your off day, having held
classes in its stead on July 26, 1975, a Saturday, per District
Memorandum No. 1, s. 1975, dated June 2, 1975. Under such
situation, for purposes of the Employees' Compensation, said accident
happened outside your time and place of work, not to mention the fact
that you were not in the performance of your official functions when it
happened.

In view of the foregoing, your claim is hereby denied. (Annex "A", Rollo,
p. 7)

Not satisfied with the above ruling of the GSIS and upon denial of petitioner's motion
for reconsideration thereof, the latter appealed to the Employees' Compensation
Commission. On October 26, 1976, the ECC affirmed the decision of the GSIS
appealed from and dismissed the Petitioner's claim, on the grounds that:

... First. the day when the accident occurred, more particularly August
1, 1975, was an off-day. Perusal of the District Memorandum No. 1,
series of 1975 and dated June 2, 1975, win show that August 1, 1975,
is not just an isolated off-day, but one of those dates fixed and set in
lieu of Saturday. Hence, the injury was incurred not during office hours.
Second, appellant incurred injury while en route to Dipolog City; more

41
 aptly put, while outside t-he school premises where she normally
discharges her official functions. The sworn statement of the Acting
Administrative Officer and the appellant's witness all point to the same
circumstance. Third, while appellant's witnesses testified in an affidavit
that appellant left her official station for Dipolog City on the day in
question for the purpose of procurring school supplies and training aids
to enhance her teaching efficiency, we find the version of the Acting
Administrative Officer more credible-that is, the appellant was on her
way home from station-for there is nothing which indicates that it is
false, misleading or fabricated. On the other hand, the preponderance
of legal opinion holds that affidavits, as those of appellant's witnesses,
are only prima facie evidence of weak probative force and are in
themselves self-serving declarations where the same have been made
in anticipation of a future litigation. It has been said that 'perhaps the
most subtle and prolific of au the fallacies of testimony arises out of
unconscious partisanship.' In the case at bar, upon the happening of
the accident, the companions of the appellant perhaps still sympathetic
to her for what befall her, and testifying in an affidavit, are apt to side
with her. (Annex "B", Rollo, pp. 9-10)

In the petition for review presented to this Court, Petitioner contends that the
Respondent ECC has decided the claim in a way not in accordance with law and
applicable decision of the Supreme Court.

At the time of the incident in question, the pertinent and governing provisions of law
are to be found in Section 1, Rule 11, of the Amended Rules on Employees'
Compensation, which provides:

SECTION 1. Grounds.—(a) For the injury and the resulting disability or

death to be compensable, the injury must be the result of an
employment accident satisfying all of the following conditions:

(1) The employee must have sustained the injury during his working
hours;

(2) The employee must have been injured at the place where his work
requires him to be; and

(3) The employee must have been performing his official function.

The Petitioner, in proceeding to Dipolog City on August 1, 1975, which is a Friday,

from her station at the Municipality of Sergio Osmena, Sr., Zamboanga del Norte,
intended to procure supplies and other training aids which are needed facilities in
connection with her services as a school teacher at the Wilbon Primary School,
cannot be at all disputed. The companions of the Petitioner at the time of the

42
ambush and who appear to be co-teachers of the Petitioner, namely: Francisco L.
Podol and Juanita Adanza, have attested in their respective affidavits that they and
the Petitioner were at that time on their way to Dipolog City "for the purpose of
securing supplies and other training and school aids necessary for the furtherance of
their services as school teachers." There is no mention at an in the decision of the
Employees' Compensation Commission that this particular assertion has been at all
contradicted or controverted by any evidence whatsoever submitted to the
Commission by the GSIS.

We find no basis at an for the findings made by the Employees' Compensation

Commission in its decision that the statements of Petitioner and her witnesses are
merely self-serving declarations because We can discern no circumstance that
would indicate or support such a conclusion. As a matter of fact, the decision
appealed from accepts the fact that the statements given by Petitioner-Appellant's
witnesses constitute prima facie evidence of the matter sought to be established.
Uncontroverted and unrefuted by any evidence, then such statements of appellant's
witnesses would suffice to establish that the multiple gunshot wounds and injuries
sustained by appellant and which caused her confinement at the Zamboanga del
Norte Provincial Hospital from August 1 to 6, 1975 for removal of shrapnels from her
left arm and later at the Dipolog Medical Center from September 1 to 12, 1975, are
definitely work-connected.

The conjecture expressed in the decision of the ECC that appellant obtained the
referred self-serving declaration of her witnesses "in anticipation of a future litigation"
is unfair and untenable. Petitioner could not have even expected that respondent
GSIS would resist her claim. Notice of the same claim for the injuries she sustained
is said to have been presented to the Secretary of Education and Culture, through
the Division Superintendent of Schools, Division of Zamboanga del Norte at Dipolog
City, promptly on August 5, 1975, or four (4) days after the ambush incident and
such claim was not controverted by said public school officials. These submissions
of Petitioner-Appellant have not at all been contradicted by Respondent. No cause
has, therefore, been shown why petitioner would have been to obtain false affidavits
from her co-teachers whose sense and probity and righteousness must be
presumed until otherwise disproved.

Furthermore, the fact that Dipolog City is also the residence of the Petitioner does
not at all, by this singular circumstance, render untrue or false the clear evidence
submitted in this case that Petitioner and her co-teachers were proceeding to
Dipolog City at the time to purchase needed supplies and other training and school
aids. That Dipolog City happened to be also the Petitioner's place of residence, in
this instance, becomes simply incidental and/or purely coincidental.

As it can be rightfully ruled that the Claimant-Petitioner was actually then performing
her official functions, it hardly matters then whether such task which Petitioner was
then engaged in or discharging, happened outside the regular working hours and not
43
in the Petitioner's place of work. It is rather obvious that in proceeding to purchase
school materials in Dipolog City, Petitioner would necessarily have to leave the
school premises and her travel need not be during her usual working hours. What is
significant and controlling is that the injuries she sustained are work-connected,
which the Court finds to be so.

The environmental facts in this case are even more compelling than the earlier case
of Vda. de Torbela vs. Employees' Compensation Commission, L-42627, February
21, 1980, 96 SCRA 260, where, by a significant majority vote of this Court, it was
held that a claim arising from a vehicular accident sustained by a school principal on
his way from Bacolod City where he lived to his school at Hinigaran, Negros
Occidental where he was the school principal of, is compensable. It was therein
ruled that "where an employee is accidentally injured at a point reasonably
proximate to the place of work, while she is going to and from her work, such injury
is deemed to have arisen out of and in the course of her employment.

WHEREFORE, the decision of the Employees' Compensation Commission

appealed from is hereby SET ASIDE, and the Government Service Insurance
System is hereby ordered to grant the Petitioner's claim for loss of income benefits
and to process and ascertain the total amount due herein Petitioner and thereafter to
pay the same.

SO ORDERED.

44
 Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila

FIRST DIVISION

G.R. No. 90204 May 11, 1990

MANUEL BELARMINO, petitioner,

vs.
EMPLOYEES' COMPENSATION COMMISSION and GOVERNMENT SERVICE
INSURANCE SYSTEM, respondents.

GRIÑO-AQUINO, J.:

This seven-year-old case involves a claim for benefits for the death of a lady school
teacher which the public respondents disallowed on the ground that the cause of
death was not work-connected.

Before her death on February 19, 1982, petitioner's wife, Oania Belarmino, was a
classroom teacher of the Department of Education, Culture and Sports assigned at
the Buracan Elementary School in Dimasalang, Masbate (p. 13, Rollo). She had
been a classroom teacher since October 18, 1971, or for eleven (11) years. Her
husband, the petitioner, is also a public school teacher.

On January 14, 1982, at nine o'clock in the morning, while performing her duties as
a classroom teacher, Mrs. Belarmino who was in her 8th month of pregnancy,
accidentally slipped and fell on the classroom floor. Moments later, she complained
of abdominal pain and stomach cramps. For several days, she continued to suffer
from recurrent abdominal pain and a feeling of heaviness in her stomach, but,
heedless of the advice of her female co-teachers to take a leave of absence, she
continued to report to the school because there was much work to do. On January
25, 1982, eleven (11) days after her accident, she went into labor and prematurely
delivered a baby girl at home (p. 8, Rollo).

Her abdominal pains persisted even after the delivery, accompanied by high fever
and headache. She was brought to the Alino Hospital in Dimasalang, Masbate on
February 11, 1982. Dr. Alfonso Alino found that she was suffering from septicemia
post partum due to infected lacerations of the vagina. She was discharged from the
hospital after five (5) days on February 16, 1982, apparently recovered but she died
three (3) days later. The cause of death was septicemia post partum. She was 33

45
years old, survived by her husband and four (4) children, the oldest of whom was 11
years old and the youngest, her newborn infant (p. 9, Rollo).

On April 21, 1983, a claim for death benefits was filed by her husband. On February
14, 1984, it was denied by the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) which
held that 'septicemia post partum the cause of death, is not an occupational disease,
and neither was there any showing that aforesaid ailment was contracted by reason
of her employment. . . . The alleged accident mentioned could not have precipitated
the death of the wife but rather the result of the infection of her lacerated wounds as
a result of her delivery at home" (p. 14 Rollo).

On appeal to the Employees Compensation Commission, the latter issued

Resolution No. 3913 dated July 8, 1988 holding:

We agree with the decision of the system, hence we dismiss this

appeal. Postpartum septicemia is an acute infectious disease of the
puerperium resulting from the entrance into the blood of bacteria
usually streptococci and their toxins which cause dissolution of the
blood, degenerative changes in the organs and the symptoms of
intoxication. The cause of this condition in the instant case was the
infected vaginal lacerations resulting from the decedent's delivery of
her child which took place at home. The alleged accident in school
could not have been the cause of septicemia, which in this case is
clearly caused by factors not inherent in employment or in the working
conditions of the deceased. (pp. 14-15, Rollo.)

Hence, this petition for review.

After a careful consideration of the petition and the annexes thereof, as well as the
comments of the public respondents, we are persuaded that the public respondents'
peremptory denial of the petitioner's claim constitutes a grave abuse of discretion.

Rule III, Section 1 of the Amended Rules on Employees' Compensation enumerates

the grounds for compensability of injury resulting in disability or death of an
employee, as follows:

Sec. 1. Grounds — (a) For the injury and the resulting disability or
death to be compensable, the injury must be the result of
an employment accident satisfying all of the following conditions:

(1) The employee must have been injured at the place

where his work requires him to be;

(2) The employee must have been performing his official

functions; and

46
 (3) If the injury is sustained elsewhere, the employee must
have been executing an order for the employer.

(b) For the sickness and the resulting disability or death to be

compensable, the sickness must be the result of an occupational
disease listed under Annex "A" of these Rules with the conditions set
therein satisfied; otherwise, proof must be shown that the risk of
contracting the disease is increased by the working conditions.

(c) Only injury or sickness that occurred on or after January 1, 1975

and the resulting disability or death shall be compensable under these
Rules.

The illness, septicemia post partum which resulted in the death of Oania Belarmino,
is admittedly not listed as an occupational disease in her particular line of work as a
classroom teacher. However, as pointed out in the petition, her death from that
ailment is compensable because an employment accident and the conditions of her
employment contributed to its development. The condition of the classroom floor
caused Mrs. Belarmino to slip and fall and suffer injury as a result. The fall
precipitated the onset of recurrent abdominal pains which culminated in the
premature termination of her pregnancy with tragic consequences to her. Her fall on
the classroom floor brought about her premature delivery which caused the
development of post partum septicemia which resulted in death. Her fall therefore
was the proximate or responsible cause that set in motion an unbroken chain of
events, leading to her demise.

. . . what is termed in American cases the proximate cause, not

implying however, as might be inferred from the word itself, the nearest
in point of time or relation, but rather, [is] the efficient cause, which may
be the most remote of an operative chain. It must be that which sets
the others in motion and is to be distinguished from a mere preexisting
condition upon which the effective cause operates, and must have
been adequate to produce the resultant damage without the
intervention of an independent cause. (Atlantic Gulf vs. Insular
Government, 10 Phil. 166,171.)

The proximate legal cause is that acting first and producing the injury,
either immediately or by setting other events in motion, all constituting
a natural and continuous chain of events, each having a close causal
connection with its immediate predecessor the final event in the chain
immediately effecting the injury as a natural and probable result of the
cause which first acted, under such circumstances that the person
responsible for the first event should, as an ordinarily prudent and
intelligent person, have reasonable ground to expect at the moment of

47
 his act or default that an injury to some person might probably result
therefrom. (Bataclan v. Medina, 102 Phil. 181.)

Thus in Enriquez v. WCC, 93 SCRA 366, 372, this Court ruled:

. . . Verily, the right to compensation extends to disability due to

disease supervening upon and proximately and naturally resulting from
a compensable injury (82 Am. Jur. 132). Where the primary injury is
shown to have arisen in the course of employment, every natural
consequence that flows from the injury likewise arises out of the
employment, unless it is the result of an independent intervening cause
attributable to complainants own negligence or misconduct ( I Larson
Workmen's Compensation Law 3-279 [1972]). Simply stated, all the
medical consequences and sequels that flow from the primary injury
are compensable. (Ibid.)

Mrs. Belarmino's fall was the primary injury that arose in the course of her
employment as a classroom teacher, hence, all the medical consequences flowing
from it: her recurrent abdominal pains, the premature delivery of her baby, her
septicemia post partum and death, are compensable.

There is no merit in the public respondents' argument that the cause of the
decedent's post partum septicemia "was the infected vaginal lacerations resulting
from the decedent's delivery of her child at home" for the incident in school could not
have caused septicemia post partum, . . . the necessary precautions to avoid
infection during or after labor were (not) taken" (p. 29, Rollo).

The argument is unconvincing. It overlooks the fact that septicemia post partum is a
disease of childbirth, and premature childbirth would not have occurred if she did not
accidentally fall in the classroom.

It is true that if she had delivered her baby under sterile conditions in a hospital
operating room instead of in the unsterile environment of her humble home, and if
she had been attended by specially trained doctors and nurses, she probably would
not have suffered lacerations of the vagina and she probably would not have
contracted the fatal infection. Furthermore, if she had remained longer than five (5)
days in the hospital to complete the treatment of the infection, she probably would
not have died. But who is to blame for her inability to afford a hospital delivery and
the services of trained doctors and nurses? The court may take judicial notice of the
meager salaries that the Government pays its public school teachers. Forced to live
on the margin of poverty, they are unable to afford expensive hospital care, nor the
services of trained doctors and nurses when they or members of their families are in.
Penury compelled the deceased to scrimp by delivering her baby at home instead of
in a hospital.

48
The Government is not entirely blameless for her death for it is not entirely
blameless for her poverty. Government has yet to perform its declared policy "to free
the people from poverty, provide adequate social services, extend to them a decent
standard of living, and improve the quality of life for all (Sec. 7, Art. II, 1973
Constitution and Sec. 9, Art. II, 1987 Constitution). Social justice for the lowly and
underpaid public school teachers will only be an empty shibboleth until Government
adopts measures to ameliorate their economic condition and provides them with
adequate medical care or the means to afford it. "Compassion for the poor is an
imperative of every humane society" (PLDT v. Bucay and NLRC, 164 SCRA 671,
673). By their denial of the petitioner's claim for benefits arising from the death of his
wife, the public respondents ignored this imperative of Government, and thereby
committed a grave abuse of discretion.

WHEREFORE, the petition for certiorari is granted. The respondents Employees

Compensation Commission and the Government Service Insurance System are
ordered to pay death benefits to the petitioner and/or the dependents of the late
Oania Belarmino, with legal rate of interest from the filing of the claim until it is fully
paid, plus attorney's fees equivalent to ten (10%) percent of the award, and costs of
suit.

SO ORDERED.

49