NATIONAL MINES AND ALLIED WORKERS’ UNION AND INDIVIDUALS LISTED IN ANNEX A, PETITIONERS, VS. HON. RONALDO B. ZAMORA, IN HIS CAPACITY AS PRESIDENTIAL ASSISTANT FOR LEGAL AFFAIRS;…

What is being assailed in these special civil actions of certiorari,
prohibition and mandamus is the actuation of Presidential Assistant Ronaldo B. Zamora in entertaining a motion for the
reconsideration of the decision of Presidential Executive Assistant Jacobo C. Clave in an appealed labor case and staying the
execution thereof.  The antecedents are
as follows:

On June 18, 1974
the National Mines and Allied Workers’ Union and one
hundred eighty-three employees filed with the old National Labor Relations
Commission (NLRC) a complaint against C. Q. Johnson Enterprises, Inc.  They charged that company with unfair labor
practice and illegal dismissal of the 183 complainants without prior clearance
from the Secretary of Labor as required in Presidential Decree No. 21.

It was alleged in that complaint that on June 14, 1974, or after
the 183 employees had affiliated with the union and the union in its letter of
June 10, 1974 had proposed a collective bargaining agreement, C. Q. Johnson
Enterprises, a company manufacturing embroidery garments, laid them off on the
pretext of retrenchment but the real reason was to harass them because of their
union activities.

After hearing, Diego P. Atienza and
Ricardo C. Castro, as acting chairman and member, respectively, of the old
NLRC, issued on September 4, 1974
a brief order for reinstatement with backwages, which
reads:

“Due to a violation of Presidential Decree No. 21 and its
implementing Rules and Regulations committed by the respondent when it laid off
the complainants within ten (10) days after the filing of the application to
dismiss, respondent is hereby ordered to reinstate the complainants with full backwages from the date of their respective dismissals to
the date of their actual reinstatement.”

The company appealed to the Secretary of Labor.  On motion of the union and the 183
complainants and over the company’s opposition, the Secretary of Labor
dismissed the appeal for being pro forma.  He affirmed the NLRC’s
order for reinstatement with backwages.

The company filed a motion for reconsideration.  The Secretary of Labor denied it in his
resolution of February 14, 1975.

The company appealed to the President of the Philippines.  The union and the 183 complainants filed
motions to dismiss the appeal and for execution.  The company opposed the motion for execution.

On January 12, 1976
Presidential Executive Assistant Jacobo C. Clave, by
authority of the President, rendered a decision affirming the resolution of the
Secretary of Labor which dismissed the company’s appeal for being pro forma.  The appeal was pro forma
because the company merely stated in its appeal that the NLRC’s
order was contrary to law and the evidence and did not specify what conclusions
in the order were not supported by the evidence or were contrary to law.

The Presidential Executive Assistant added that he examined the
substantive aspects of the case and he was satisfied that the order of
reinstatement was “morally just”.

The company received a copy of that decision on January 20, 1976.  Ten days later, or on January 30, 1976, it filed a motion for
reconsideration.  In that motion, C. Q.
Johnson Enterprises stressed that it was a distressed company as shown by the
fact that on January 6, 1976
the Secretary of Labor approved its application for exemption from the
obligation to grant emergency allowances to its workers.  The Union and the 183
complainants filed a motion to strike out the motion for reconsideration.

In the meantime, the record of the case was remanded to the new
NLRC.  An examiner found that the 183
complainants were entitled to backwages in the
aggregate sum of P538,060.50 for the period from December 23, 1974 to February 29, 1976.  The labor arbiter on March 24, 1976 ordered the company to deposit
that amount with the NLRC within ten days from notice.  The company appealed that order of the NLRC.

The NLRC in its resolution of May 10, 1976 directed the labor arbiter to afford the
company a chance to prove the amounts deductible from the backwages.

The labor arbiter in his order of July 26, 1976 approved the revised examiner’s report,
granting backwages only to 121 claimants and reducing
the total amount thereof to P359,128.  The claimants asked the NLRC to issue a writ
of execution for that amount.

However, on that same date, July 26, 1976, Presidential Assistant Zamora, by authority
of the President, acted on the company’s motion for reconsideration of January 30, 1976.  Zamora
found that the company was not entirely to blame for the laying-off of its
employees, since it was severely distressed. 
He observed that if the execution was pushed through, the company’s
assets might be totally wiped out.  He
ordered a stay of execution and required the NLRC to elevate the record so that
the case could be restudied (OP Decision No. 1951).  In view of that order, the labor arbiter denied
the motion for execution.

Presidential Assistant Zamora’s order is the bone of contention
in this case.  The issues are whether the
company could ask for the reconsideration of Clave’s
decision, which was authorized by the President, and whether respondent Zamora
could stay the execution of the decision and review the merits of the company’s
appeal, notwithstanding that the original question raised in the Office of the
President was whether the company’s appeal from the NLRC’s
order of reinstatement was pro forma or not.

As correctly pointed out by the Solicitor General, the
reconsideration of Clave’s decision is governed by
the rules regulating appeals to the Office of the President and providing for
the finality of the decisions on such appeals (Executive Order No. 19, Series
of 1966, 62 O. G. 2940-2).

Under section 4 of Executive Order No. 19 a petition for
reconsideration of the decision of the Office of the President may be filed
within fifteen days from receipt of a copy thereof by the parties involved
based on grounds similar to those found in Rule 37 of the Rules of Court.  Among those grounds is that the decision is
not in conformity with the applicable law or evidence presented.

Under section 5 of the same Executive Order, a petition for
reconsideration in exceptionally meritorious cases may be entertained even if
filed beyond the fifteen-day period.

The unavoidable conclusion is that the Office of the President
has jurisdiction to entertain the company’s motion for reconsideration which
was filed on the tenth day following its receipt of Presidential Executive
Assistant Clave’s decision.

As to respondent Zamora’s directive, by authority of the
President, staying the execution of Presidential Executive Assistant Clave’s decision and requiring the Secretary of Labor to
elevate the record, that power, as noted by the Solicitor General, may be
implied from the provision of article 222 of the Labor Code that “the
decision of the Secretary of Labor shall be immediately executory,
even pending appeal, unless stayed by an order of the President”.

During the pendency of this case, or on
March 4, 1977, Zamora
resolved the oft-mentioned motion for reconsideration.  In that resolution he noted that the motion
was filed within the reglementary fifteen-day period fixed
in Executive Order No. 19.  He ruled that
technicalities should be disregarded and that the merits of the company’s
appeal should be passed upon.

After finding that the company is financially distressed and that
it violated section 11 of Presidential Decree No. 21 by laying off employees
without prior clearance from the Secretary of Labor, Zamora, by authority of
the President, modified the NLRC’s decision by
ordering the company to reinstate all dismissed regular employees, with at
least one year of service, without loss of seniority, and to pay them backwages equivalent to six months’ salary.

In view of that resolution, a supervening fact, this Court
required the parties to manifest whether the instant case has become moot and
academic.  Respondent public officials
manifested that the instant case has become moot because in this Court the
union wanted to stop Zamora from reviewing the NLRC decision but he modified it
as above indicated (we did not issue any restraining order).

The company manifested that it was in conformity with the said
resolution and that the instant case has become moot.

We agree with the respondents that the issue of whether the
Office of the President should resolve the company’s motion for reconsideration
is no longer justiciable in this case.

We cannot accede to petitioners’ prayer in their manifestation
and motion of April 6, 1977
that we should modify the said resolution by ordering the reinstatement of all
the dismissed employees with full backwages (an affirmance in toto of the
NLRC decision) because, under the pleadings, that resolution is not before this
Court for review.

WHEREFORE, this case is dismissed for having become
moot.  No costs.

SO ORDERED.

Barredo, Antonio, and Martin, JJ., concur.

Fernando, J., concurs in the
opinion of Justice
Aquino and in addition expresses the
view that the Presidential authority to reconsider its order has a
constitutional sanction and that the modified order of Presidential Assistant
Zamora does not suffer from any taint of arbitrariness.

Concepcion, Jr., J., on leave.