G. R. No. L-17804. January 31, 1963
NATIONAL MARKETING CORPORATION AND PRICE STABILIZATION CORPORATION (BOARD OF LIQUIDATORS), PETITIONERS, VS. COURT OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS AND PRISCO WORKERS UNION, ET AL., RESPO…
REYES, J.B.L., J.:
on 8 October 1960) ordering petitioners to pay 202 workers of PRISCO,
in Case No. 840-V (6), their unpaid overtime, and Sundays and legal
holidays work, from 8 June 1951 to 30 June 1953 , in accordance with
the partial decision of said Court of 25 August 1953 .
The antecedent facts of this case are stated in our decision of 29 December 1958 entitled Price Stabilization Corporation vs. PRISCO Workers’ Union , et al., L-9288, and Price Stabilization Corporation vs. Court of Industrial Relations, 102 Phil., 515; 29 November 1957 .
From them it can be gleaned that on 18 March 1953 , fifty-eight
(58) workers, represented by the respondent Union , filed a petition
with the Court of Industrial Relations to enforce certain demands on
the employer Price Stabilization Corporation, known as PRISCO (Case
840-V). On 25 August 1953 , the Court rendered a partial decision
ordering the employer to pay 25% additional compensation for unpaid
overtime and for Sundays and legal holidays service rendered since 8
June 1951 . While this decision was originally limited to the original
58 petitioners, the Court, on 9 May 1955 , subsequently granted the
Union ‘s petition (Case No. 840-V(4), extending the benefits of the
decision to other workers of PRISCO similarly situated; and this
decision was affirmed by the Supreme Court in its Case No. L-9288 (supra)
for the reason that “workers involved in a dispute include other
workers, unionists or not, who are presumed interested in the outcome
of the demands or strike one way or another”. On the merits of the
other Union demands in Court of Industrial Relations Case No. 840-V,
the Supreme Court likewise supported the Industrial Court’s ruling that
PRISCO is a government-owned corporation run and operated like ordinary
business corporations, and “when the Government engages in business it
becomes subject to the laws and regulations governing the relations of
labor and management”, and is not exempt from the provisions of the
Eight-Hour Labor Law (Commonwealth Act No. 444) (G.R. No. L-9834, ante).
In the meantime, on 17 June 1955, PRISCO was abolished by Republic
Act 1345 creating the National Marketing Corporation and transferring
its employees and fixed assets to the NAMARCO, and its other choses in
action, obligations, and liabilities to the Board of Liquidators; so
that thereafter, both NAMARCO and PRISCO (Board of Liquidators) were
impleaded as respondents in the court below when on 20 March 1958 202
other employees and workers of the former PRISCO, among them 45
employees of the General Auditing Office (GAO) assigned thereto, filed
a petition for payment of overtime, Sundays and legal holidays work
rendered from 8 June 1951 to 30 June 1953, based on the partial
decision of the Court of Industrial Relations of 25 August 1953. On 2
April 1958, this claim was resisted by PRISCO on the ground that the
partial decision embraced only the 58 original petitioners; that the
claim has already prescribed under Section 7-A of Commonwealth Act 444
as amended by Republic Act 1993; and that some 45 employees among the
claimants were, and some still are, employees of the GAO, and not of
PRISCO. This opposition notwithstanding, the Court of Industrial
Relations, on 10 June 1960 , granted the petition, and ordered payment
of their claims, after computation thereof by the Court Examiner or his
duly authorized representative. Motion for reconsideration of this
order having been denied en banc, PRISCO appealed to this Court by petition for review.
Petitioners’ arguments are centered upon two questions: First, has the claim for payment of overtime and Sundays and legal holidays work prescribed? Second,
should employees of the GAO assigned to, and working in, the
government-controlled PRISCO and NAMARCO be deemed employees of said
corporations in matters of compensation for overtime and other benefits?
It is contended for the petitioners that since the claimants now
are different from the original claimants in the main case, the present
petition cannot be considered as a continuation of the original case,
or an implementation of the partial decision, but a new case; that
since the benefits granted in the partial decision of 25 August 1953
were intended only for the individual petitioners whose names appear in
the records as original parties in the main case, and Republic Act 1993
amending Section 7-A of the Eight-Hour Labor Law (C. A. 444) prescribes
the time limit for filing an action thereunder to 3 years from the time
the cause of action accrues, the present petition has already
prescribed, having been filed only on 20 March 1958, or more than 3
years from 25 August 1953, when their cause of action accrued. In other
words, the Court of Industrial Relations can no longer invoke its power
to extend the benefits of the partial decision to other employees of
the company.
It is very clear, however (as the records, of the case show), that
the present petition of 20 March 1958, far from being a “new petition”,
is really one for the execution of the partial Court of Industrial
Relations decision of 25 August 1953, with regards to the other workers
and employees affected thereby and who have not yet been paid their
work overtime and on Sundays and legal holidays. Not being a new claim,
said petition was filed well within the five-year period within which
enforcement of a decision of the Court of Industrial Relations by
motion for execution may be made (Section 6, Rule 39, of the Rules of
Court, in connection with Section 23, C.A. 103, as amended by Section
6, C.A. 559). Thus, Section 23, C.A. 103, as amended, provides:
“In case of non-compliance with any award, order,
or decision of the Court of Industrial Relations after it has become
final, conclusive, and executory, the judgment may be enforced by a
writ of execution or any other remedy provided by law in respect to
enforcement and execution of orders, decisions or judgments of the
Court of First Instance.”
As prescribed in the Rules of Court, final and conclusive judgments
may be executed by motion within five years from the date of entry
thereof, or by ordinary action filed after the lapse of five years but
before the action has prescribed (within 10 years from the date the
judgment becomes final). The present petition having been filed on 20
March 1958, or only about four years and seven months from the partial
decision of the Court of Industrial Relations of 25 August 1953, the
same has not prescribed.
“* * * If the awards made in 1948 has never been
executed as regards all the petitioners, then the present petition
should and must be denied. A new action or proceeding would be
necessary to enforce the award. However, if the 1948 award has
heretofore been executed or enforced as to some or all of the
petitioners and from the date of the last enforcement up to the date of
the present petition, not more than five years have elapsed, then the
present petition may be granted as to those petitioners not covered by
the prohibition of Section 6, Rule 39, Rules of Court.” (National
Development Company vs. Aralar et al., and Court of Industrial Relations, 108 Phil., 817.
Regarding petitioners’ argument that the Court of Industrial
Relations can no longer invoke its power to extend the benefits of the
partial decision to the other employees of the company,” it has been
repeatedly held that the benefits of an award can be extended to all
workers involved in a dispute, unionists or not, even though not
parties to the case, because it is to be presumed that other workers
are also interested in any increase in salary and other benefits,
“for otherwise, failure or refusal to do so would
constitute unjust and unwarranted discrimination which is not permitted
by the law.” (Price Stabilization Corporation vs. PRISCO Workers’ Union , G. R. No. L-9288, 29 December 1958 ).
In other words, the original petition filed on 18 March 1953 should
be deemed a class suit, and the benefits of an award may be extended to
laborers and employees who are similarly situated and more or less of
the same category (N.D.C. vs. Aralar et als, and CIR, supra; ASEDECO vs. Caledonia Pile Workers’ Union , 90 Phil., 817, February 26, 1952).
We now come to the question of whether or not the 45 claimants,
employees of the General Auditing Office working in the PRISCO, are
entitled to the benefits of overtime pay and payment for work performed
on Sundays and legal holidays.
It is claimed for petitioners that there is no employer-employee
relationship between them and the 45 claimants belonging to the GAO,
and, therefore, they are not entitled to, overtime compensation, first,
since the employees of the GAO working in tile PRISCO were appointed by
the Auditor General, and were subject to his control and supervision,
(Section 7, Executive Order No. 350, 3, October 1950); and second,
because being officers and employees of the National Government, the
Eight-Hour Labor Law is not applicable to them, and their overtime
services, if at all, should be paid at rates fixed by the Budget Act
(General Appropriation Act, C.A. 246, Par. 32). In support thereof,
petitioners invoke the opinion of the Secretary of Justice of 27 July
1949 referred to in Batong-bacal vs. NDC 93 Phil., 182; (49
Off. Gaz., No. 6, p. 2290), which holds that the auditors of
government-controlled corporations (referring to the National
Development Company), as well as their subordinates, are not corporate
employees but agents of the government, and, therefore, are embraced by
the civil service (49 Off. Gaz., No. 6 p. 2290).
The appellee Union maintains that the 45 employees of the auditing
office should enjoy the status of employees of PRISCO by pointing out
that their salaries are included in the, budget of PRISCO and not in
that of the National Government, in accordance with section 7 of
Executive Order No. 350 of 3 October 1950 . The Union also relies on
the Opinion No. 228 of the Secretary of Justice ruling that persons
appointed by the Auditor General to work in the Auditing Department of
the NARIC (a government-controlled corporation like the PRISCO) are
entitled to the same retirement gratuities granted to other NARIC
employees.
We agree with appellants that members of the auditing force can not
be regarded as employees of PRISCO in matters relating to their
compensation. They are appointed and supervised by the Auditor General,
have an independent tenure, and work subject to his orders and
instructions, and not to those of the management of appellants. Above
all, the nature of their functions and duties, for the purpose of
fiscal control, of appellants’ operations, imperatively demands, as a
matter of policy, that their positions be completely independent from
interference or inducement on the part of the supervised management, in
order to assure a maximum of impartiality in the auditing functions.
Both independence and impartiality require that the employees in
question be utterly free from apprehension as to their tenure and from
expectancy of benefits resulting from any action of the management,
since in either case there would be an influence at work that could
possibly lead, if not to positive malfeasance to laxity and
indifference that would gradually erode and endanger the critical
supervision entrusted to these auditing employees.
The inclusion of their items in the PRISCO budget should be viewed
as no more than a designation by the national government of the fund or
source from which their emoluments are to be drawn, and does not
signify that they are thereby made PRISCO employees.
We think that this case is governed by the doctrine laid down by this Court in the Batungbacal vs. NDC case, and not by Opinion No. 228 of the Secretary of Justice ante,
which contemplated a case of retirement gratuities for company auditors
which were left without work by the cessation of the operations they
were supervising. Thus, the Court of Industrial Relations erred in
regarding these employees of the General Auditing Office as standing on
an equal footing with other employees and covered by the previous award
of 25 August 1953 , when it should have declared them governed by the
general civil service laws and regulations applicable to regular
government employees.
Wherefore, premises considered, the judgment under review is
modified by reversing the same in so far as it declares that the 45
employees of the General Auditing Office are included in the former
award on overtime and holiday compensation. In all other respects the
judgment is affirmed. No costs in this instance.
Padilla, Bautista. Angelo, Labrador , Concepcion , Barrera, Paredes, Dizon, Regala and Makalintal, JJ., concur.