GOVERNMENT SERVICE INSURANCE SYSTEM EMPLOYEES ASSOCIATION (GSISEA), GOVERNMENT SERVICE INSURANCE SYSTEM SUPERVISORS’ UNION (GSISSU), CONFEDERATION OF UNIONS IN GOVERNMENT CORPOR…

Petitioner Unions filed the instant case to prohibit and enjoin the Court of
Industrial Relations from hearing and adjudicating the labor controversy between
the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) and the Government Service
Insurance System Employees’ Association (GSISEA) and Supervisors’ Union
(GSISSU), now constituting Case No. 38-IPA of the Industrial Court. After
hearing and oral argument on October 6, 1961, we dismissed the petition by
resolution of the same date, without prejudice to a more extended decision.

The issue is whether, the labor controversy between the GSIS Employees’
Association and the Supervisors’ Union (which are affiliates of the other
petitioner groups) and the GSIS Management, concerning implementation of
certain provisions on salary standardization contained in their collective
bargaining agreement, has been properly certified by the President of the
Philippines to the Court of Industrial Relations. It appears that on August 15,
1961, the then Executive Secretary Natalio P. Castillo, in a letter (Annex E)
dated August 15, 1961 and signed by him “by authority of the President”,
officially referred the controversy to the Industrial Court, stating:

“Considering the importance of continued operations of the System to our
government employees and to the Government and the consequences that would ensue
should a strike develop, it is believed that this is a dispute in an industry
indispensable to the national interest.

Pursuant to Section 10 of Republic Act No. 875, otherwise known as the Magna
Charta of Labor, the President hereby certifies the dispute between the
management of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) and the Government
Service Insurance System Employees’ Association (GSISEA) and the Government
Service Insurance System Supervisors’ Union (GSISSU) to the Court of Industrial
Relations and requests the Court to take immediate appropriate steps in the
exercise of its powers under the law.”

The Unions question this letter and claim
that the same constitutes no valid certification, on the grounds (a) that the
President on the date of the letter was in the Visayas and arrived only on the
night of August 17, and there is no proof that the Executive Secretary was
authorized to act on behalf of the President; and (b) that the powers of the
President under section 10 of the Industrial Peace Act (R.A. 875) can not be
delegated to a Cabinet member.

We see no merit in this contention. The Executive Secretary’s letter (Annex E
of the Petition) Is not a certification of the industrial dispute by the
Executive Secretary, but attests to the fact that the President has ordered said
dispute certified to the Industrial Court, as required by law. The fact that on
several previous occasions, Presidents of the Philippines have made similar
certifications through letters addressed to the Court of Industrial Relations
and personally signed by them, is of no significance, since the statute does not
prescribe in what form the Chief Executive should certify an industrial
controversy to the Court of Industrial Relations.

That the president was not in Manila on the date of the letter certainly does
not preclude his having ordered the reference in question. The facilities of
communication now available contradict any impossibility of such order being
made. The presumption of performance of official duty on the part of the
Executive Secretary is not rebutted by mere conjectures based on the absence of
the President from a given locality, nor by the lack of any mention of the
certification by the chronicle of the President’s activities in the Official
Gazette. For the Executive Secretary to officially state in writing that the
President has made or authorized the certification, when in fact he has not done
so, would constitute the crime of falsification of an official document, and the
commission of such offense can not be lightly inferred.

That the certification came two days before the strike was declared is
immaterial, since section 10 of the Act does not require the existence of a
strike, but only of an industrial dispute; and it is not denied that
the employer and the Unions had such a dispute, and that officials of the
Department of Labor previously tried to conciliate the disputants but without
success.

The respondents have shown, furthermore, that the Chief Executive has
approved, over his signature, the request made by the Manager of the Government
Service Insurance System in his letter of August 11, to have its dispute with
the Unions certified to the Court of Industrial Relations (Respondents’ Exhibit
1). No delegation of power was, therefore, involved, contrary to the allegations
of the petitioners.

Finding no merit in the petition, we hereby dismiss the same, and the writs
sought are denied. Costs against petitioners .

Padilla, Bautista Angelo,
Labrador, Barrera, Paredes, Dizon, and De Leon, JJ., concur.