GENCONSU FREE WORKERS UNION, BENJAMIN CUEVAS, AND CARLOS ENRIQUEZ, PETITIONERS, VS. HON. AMADO G. INCIONG, DEPUTY MINISTER OF LABOR AND ALLENCO STEEL CORPORATION, RESPONDENTS.

It was the failure of respondent Deputy Minister of Labor Amado G. Inciong to grant backwages, although sustaining a decision of the National
Labor Relations Commission for reinstatement of petitioners Benjamin Cuevas and
Carlos Enriquez to their employment in respondent Allenco
Steel Corporation, that gave rise to this certiorari proceeding.^[1]
It is to the credit of petitioner Genconsu Free
Workers Union that it has not ceased in its efforts to remedy what it considers
an injustice done to its members, the aforesaid Cuevas and Enriquez.  The claim is made that the order of affirmance was tainted with unfairness, sufficing to
justify an invocation of the substantive due process guarantee, respondent firm
having been found guilty of an unfair labor practice by the labor arbitrator.^[2]
It must be admitted that the National Labor Relations Commission acted within
its competence in holding that there was no unfair labor practice.  According to its decision, the circumstances
that gave rise to this controversy started when “complainant Cuevas was
advised that he will be transferred to the Scrap Yard Section (T.s.n., pages 12 and 13, December 21, 1973).  He was given one week’s time to inform
respondent whether or not he would accept the new job.  Because complainant did not return,
respondent was constrained to file an application for clearance to terminate
his services on September 13, 1973
on the ground of abandonment.  The
immediate filing of the opposition to the clearance application and his
insistence to return to work clearly show that he did not abandon his job.  However, we believe that the complainant must
have been given more time to ponder on whether to accept the new job, for the
one-week time given to him to report was too short considering that the position
being offered is a new job for him.”^[3]
Petitioner Enriquez, on the other hand, according to such decision, “was
then on sick leave when respondent sent letters of recall to the laid-off
workers.  He was not dismissed and, in
fact, management even endorsed his claim for sickness benefit to the Social
Security System.  We do not find
sufficient evidence to show that respondent had committed discriminatory acts
against the union members, much less the herein complainants.  All of the workers were laid off when the
respondent’s plant stopped its operations in the melting plant and rolling
mills and all were recalled upon the resumption of the operations.”^[4]
It granted reinstatement but without backwages.  There were some loose ends in such decision
which respondent Deputy Minister of Labor could have clarified.  There was, instead, a terse three-paragraph
order of affirmance. 
On its face, it gives rise to doubts of possible injustice, which bears
careful scrutiny.  After setting forth
that there was “no sufficient evidence to indicate that [private respondent]
has committed discriminatory acts” against Cuevas and Enriquez and that
“there was actually no dismissal,” it characterized the failure of
complainant “to immediately report for work after the resumption of
respondent’s operation, [as] a result of misunderstanding or misapprehension by
the parties of the true facts and circumstances then obtaining.”^[5]

As to petitioner Enriquez, the facts as found justify the
conclusion that no backwages need be paid.  He could not have reported earlier as he was
on sick leave.  As to petitioner Cuevas,
however, the appraisal of the situation both by the National Labor Relations
Commission and the Deputy Minister of Labor lacks precision, giving rise to an
ambiguity that lends plausibility to a proceeding of this character.  The loss of backwages
could be too harsh a penalty, considering that as was admitted in the affirmed
decision, he should “have been given more time to ponder on whether to
accept the new job, for the one-week time given to him to report was too short
* * *.”^[6]
As there are matters that still need to be clarified, equity calls for a remand
of his claim to the National Labor Relations Commission for an ascertainment in
greater detail of the circumstances that resulted in his failure to report to
work.

Certiorari to that extent lies.  So we rule.

1.     
There is no occasion to pass upon the allegation
in the petition that certain discriminatory acts, anti-union in character,
could be attributed to private respondent. 
Respondent Deputy Minister of Labor and the National Labor Relations
Commission absolved it from such a charge. 
That is a finding of fact to which deference must be paid.  That norm has invariably been followed by
this Court.^[7]

2.     
The failing of both the National Labor Relations
Commission and respondent Deputy Minister of Labor with reference to petitioner
Cuevas certainly cannot be characterized as a clear denial of substantive due
process in the sense of its having “outrun the bounds of reason and result[ed]
in sheer oppression.”^[8]
(It cannot be denied, however, that the loss of backwages
under the circumstances disclosed may be unfair.  There does not appear of record the necessary
facts that would justify such a result. 
To repeat, there is an element of ambiguity in the decision of the
National Labor Relations Commission and the order of respondent Deputy Minister
of Labor that must be resolved.  It
cannot be denied either that both the Commission and respondent official did
not give full approval to what was done by private respondent Allenco Steel Corporation. 
There is to that extent, therefore, an element of unfairness if at this
stage it would be categorically declared that petitioner Cuevas was not
entitled to backwages.  If we do not squarely rule on the matter now,
it is because of the paucity of the facts of record.  It is for that reason that we order a remand
to the National Labor Relations Commission to determine with more precision the
aforesaid circumstances, more specifically the length of time he did not report
for work and the justification, if any, for such refusal.  It only remains to be added that as stated in
Almira v. B.F. Goodrich Philippines,^[9]
“labor law determinations, to quote from Bultmann,
should be not only secundum rationem but also secundum
caritatem.”^[10]

WHEREFORE, the assailed order of respondent Deputy
Minister of Labor is affirmed as to the denial of backwages
to petitioner Enriquez but modified in the sense that the case is remanded to
the National Labor Relations Commission for the determination with greater
detail of circumstances that resulted in the failure of petitioner Cuevas to
report for work and for it thereafter to rule on whether or not backwages should be granted petitioner Cuevas.

Barredo, Antonio, Aquino,
Concepcion, Jr., and Abad Santos, JJ., concur.

Santos, J., on official leave.

^[1]
Petition, pars. 5, 6, 7 and Annexes D and E.

^[2]
Ibid, pars. 1-4 and Annex C.

^[3]
Decision of the National Labor Relations Commission dated March 11, 1975, 2.

^[4]
Ibid.

^[5]
Order of respondent Deputy Minister of Labor dated June 9, 1977.

^[6]
Decision of the National Labor Relations Commission dated March 11, 1975, 2.

^[7]
Cf. Antipolo Highway Lines v. Inciong, L-38532, June 27, 1975, 64 SCRA 441; Jacqueline
Industries v. National Labor Relations Commission, L-37034, Aug. 29,
1975, 66 SCRA 397; Federacion Obrera
v. Noriel, L-41937, July 6, 1976, 72 SCRA 24; Kapisanan ng mga
Manggagawa v. Noriel,
L-45475, June 20, 1977, 77 SCRA 414; Monark
International, Inc. v. Noriel, L-47570-71, May
11, 1978, 83 SCRA 114; National Waterworks and Sewerage Authority v.
Court of Industrial Relations, L-33496, June 19, 1979.

^[8]
Cf. Ermita-Malate Hotel and Motel Operators
Association v. City Mayor, L-24693, July 31, 1967, 20 SCRA 849, 860.

^[9]
L-34974, July 25, 1974, 58
SCRA 120.

^[10]
Ibid, 131.