PREMIER PRODUCTIONS INC., PETITIONER, PHILIPPINE MOVIE PICTURE WORKER’S ASSOCIATION, RESPONDENT.

Petitioner Premier Productions, Inc., seeks review, by certiorari, of a
resolution of the Court of Industrial Relations, sitting in
banc.

It appears, that on September 3, 1951, said petitioner, hereinafter referred
to as the Company, filed, with the Court of Industrial Relations, a petition,
which was docketed as Case No. 598-V thereof,praying, that respondent therein,
the Philippine Movie Pictures Workers’ Association, hereinafter referred to as
the Union, whose members are employees of said company, be enjoined from staging
a strike or walkout which they intended to call – in order to enforce certain
demands, made by them, for the improvement of the terms and conditions of their
employment – and that the issues raised by said demands be heard and settled in
accordance with law.

On September 13, 1951, the Union, in turn, filed a petition, which was
docketed as Case No. 598-V(l) of said Court, praying, that the Company be (a)
declared in contempt of court for certain acts and omissions allegedly violative
of section 19 of Commonwealth Act No. 103, and of an agreement, made by the
parties before the court, on September 6, 1951, as a condition to the calling
off of the strike above referred to, and (b) ordered to restore certain
privileges, formerly enjoyed by the employees of the Company, which were
discontinued by the same on September 10, 1951, and to reinstate certain members
of the Union.

On September 14, 1951, the Company filed an urgent petition, which was
docketed as Case No. 598-V(2) of said Court, for authority to engage temporarily
the services of from 8 to 10 workers to undertake overtime work in connection
with the production of three films named in the petition, which was granted by
an order of September 17, 1951.

On October 2, 1951, the Company filed a petition, which was docketed as Case
No. 598-V(3) of said Court, for permission to lay off forty (40) employees,
named in the petition, upon the ground of lack of work and of financial losses
said to have been suffered by the Company.

On October 8, 1951, the Union filed an urgent petition, which was docketed as
Case No. 598-V(4) of said Court, praying, that the Company be dealt with for
contempt of court, upon the ground that, in violation of the terms of the
aforementioned order of September 17, 1951, the Company had, among other things,
employed more men than those authorized in said order, assigned those
temporarily engaged pursuant thereto to work in other films than those specified
in said order, refused to give work to some regular employees who were members
of the Union, virtually shut down the carpentry department and introduced some
changes calculated to discriminate against and harrass said Union members.

On the same date, the Company filed an urgent petition, which was docketed as
Case No. 598-V(5) of said Court, praying that a strike allegedly called by the
Union on October 6, 1951, be declared illegal, and that the strikers be
considered dropped from the Company’s pay roll.

On November 5, 1951, the Union filed another urgent petition, which was
docketed as Case No. 598-V(2-A) of said Court, praying, among other things, that
the temporary employees engaged by the Company by authority of the order of
September 17, 1951, be discharged, because of completion of the work specified
in said order. Said employees were eventually discharged on December 18,
1951.

On November 29, 1951, the Company filed an urgent petition, which was
docketed as Case No. 598-V(6) of said Court, for permission to lay off
twenty-two (22) employees therein named, for alleged lack of work.

Under date of December 27, 1951, tha Company filed a petition, which was
docketed as Case No. 598-V(7) of said Court, praying that it be authorized to
lease its outfit and premises to Eddie Infante and Braulio B. Calma, whose
respective deeds of lease were attached to said petition. Tha Union objected
thereto upon the ground that the petition is “part and parcel of the scheme of
tha Company to lockout the members of said Union”; that the aforesaid lease
would, in effect, defeat and circumvent the demands of the Union that led to the
institution of Case No. 598-V; and that a judicial approval of said lease would
have the effect of prejudging the issues involved in said case and in the other
cases above referred to. Upon representations made by the Company, the
withdrawal of its petition of December 27, 1951, was authorized in an order
dated February 7, 1952.

These were the proceedings. pending in the Court of Industrial Relations,
between the parties herein, when the incidents now before us took place.

During the period from February 9, to March 7, 1952, the Union filed against
the Company three (3) urgent petitions, for contempt of court, which were
docketed as Cases Nos. 598-V(8), 598-7(10) and 598-V(ll). In Case No. 598-V(8)
the Union alleged that on February 7, 1952, several equipment of the Company
were, with the knowledge and consent of its officers, surreptitiously withdrawn,
at night, from the premises of the Company and then taken elsewhere and used by
Artemio Marquez, a former director of the Company, to shoot a film entitled
“Bakas ng Kahapon”, with the assistance of persons other than members of the
Union, who were laid off by the Company, despite the pendency of the cases and
disputes already adverted to and in defiance of the authority of the Court of
Industrial Relations. In Case No. 598-V(10), it was averred that, after the
institution of Case No. 598-V(8), the Company had leased some of its apparatus
and other facilities to Efren Reyes – an actor of the Company, purporting to be
an independent producer – in shooting the film “Larawan ng Buhay.” In Case NO.
598-V(11) it was contended that the Company had leased other appliances to
Manuel Vistan, Jr., a stockholder of said Company and former production mamager
thereof, who used said equipment in.shooting the film “Troubador”; that on
February 28, 1952, the aforemantioned Artemio Marquez had started shooting the
film “Boys Town”, with equipment and other property of the Company, without the
authority of the Court; and that these acts constituted and unfair labor
practice and a contempt of court, and, unless restrained, would cause
irreparable injury to the Union, For these reasons, it was prayed that the
officers of the Company be dealt with for contempt of court; that the
aforementioned lease of equipments and properties of the Company be declared
unjustified and illegal; and that, meanwhile, a writ of preliminary injunction
restraining the performance of the acts complained of be issued.

The answer filed by the Company in the three (3) cases in question denied
that said acts constituted a violation of any court order or law and averred
substantially that the pictures mentioned in the petitions of the Union were
being filmed by bona fide independent producers.

After a hearing held, on October 7, 1952, in the course of which the parties
introduced some evidence and agreed on certain facts, the three (3) cases were
submitted for decision. At this juncture, it should be noted that the
aforementioned petitions of the Union, praying thet the officers of the Company
be dealt with for contempt of court, appear to be predicated upon the theory
that the acts charged tend to change the status quo, in violation of Section 19
of Commonwealth Act No. 103, regardless of whether the alleged oontracts of
lease of the equipment and other properties of the Company were fictitious or
real, and even assuming or granting that the same were genuine. What is more,
the Union seemed to have adhered to this general line of attack during the
hearing of these cases, although in the course thereof the Union stressed a
number of ciraumstances obviously intended to cast suspicion upon the
authenticity of said transactions. However, in the oral argument, before
submitting the petitions for decision on the merits, counsel for the Union
maintained that said leases were simulated. Before said decision was rendered,
or on April 18, 1953, the Union filed a “supplemental petition” to annul said
lease contracts, upon the ground that the same were “simulated and fraudulent
transactions x x x calculated to deceive” the “Court ©nd the Union,” and forming
“part of a general pattern of action of the Company in driving” the members of
the Union “out of employment ot laying them off, without authority of the court
and thus break the Union that submitted to the Company certain demands” for
improvement of the conditions of their amployaent. In said supplemental
petition, the Union prayed the Court:

“(1) To annul, void and declare inexistent all the lease contracts entered
into between Premier Productions, Inc. and the so-called ‘independent producers’
regarding the use of the studio equipment and facilities since January 1952
untili. the present;

“(2) To restrain, enjoin and prohibit th3 officers, counsel and
representatives or agents of the petitioner company (respondent herein) from
leasing or allowing the use, and continuation with the lease, of the equipment
and other properties with such parties pending the resolution of the current
labor dispute;

“(3) To adjudge the respondent herein, its President, Treasurer, General
Manager, officers and counsel in contempt of court for the above-mentioned
illegal and unauthorized acts and transactions which constitute direct and
indirect contempt; and

“(4) To grant to the union such other relief or remedy as may be deemed just,
proper and equitable in the premises ” (Record, G.R. No L-7753, pp.
37-38.)

Although this supplemental petition, questioning squarely the genuineness of
the contracts already referred to, and amending, in effect, the original
petitions for contempt of court, had not been heard as yet, the Presiding Judge
of the Court of Industrial Relations randered on July 29, 1953, a decision, on
the said original petitions, finding

x x x that there is no substantial evidence to sustain the existence of a
fictotious lease or that Marquez is a more dummy of petitioner. The fact that
Cornello Hermoso, a co-producer of Artemio Marquez, is a nephew of Mrs. Adela H.
Santiago, one of the officers petitioner; that Chavez,”accountant of petitioner,
is also the accountant of Marquez; that the actors and actresses of Marquez were
formerly actors and actresses of petitioner, the Premier Productions- these
merely create a suspicion and are not relevant evidence as a reasonable mind
might accept as adequate to support a conclusion of the existence of a
fictitious lease. Substantial evidence is more than a scintilla, and must do
more than create a suspicion of the existence of the fact to be established”
(ibid., p.46).

and declaring that the contracts in question are “therefore xxx valid and
binding,” and accordingly denying said original petitions for contempt of court.
Hence, on motion for reconsideration filed by the Union, the Court of Industrial
Relations sitting in banc – by the vote of three members thereof,
namely, then associate Judges Jose S. Bautista, Modesto Castillo and L. Jimenez
Yamzon, with then Presiding Judge Arsenio Roldan and Associate Judge Juan A.
Lantin, dissenting – passed the following resolution:

“The decision of July 29, 1953, contains two inconsistent salient
features.

On one hand it made a finding that these circumstances ‘merely create a
suspicion and are not relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as
adequate to support a conclusion of the existence of a fictitious lease’, and
‘that the leases are valid and binding (p.8).

And on the other hand, the same decision admitted that the question of
legality of these leases is involved in thu union’s supplemental petition of
April 18, 1953 pray- for annulment of the lease contracts on grounds of
simulation, which petition is still to be heard and decided.

Instead of rendering such decision, the trial court should have awaited
further presentation of evidence in the aforesaid union’s supplemental petition,
so that all ingredients for the proper disposal of tha case would have been
complete.

Wherefore, the aforesaid decision of July 29, 1953, should be, as it is
hereby, reconsidered and set aside, as premature.” (Ibid.,
p.54.)

The Company has appealed from tho foregoing resolution upon the ground that
it is contrary to law, but we Co not believe that the appeal, may be
entertained. Said resolution does not settle any of the issues before the Court
of Industrial Relations. It merely defers tha determination of said issues,
until after the presentation of the evidence on the supplemental petition to
annul the leases in dispute, upon the ground that the same are fictitious. In
other words, the contested resolution is interlocutory in nature, and, as such,
it can not be appealed irrespective of our opinion on the merits thereof, which
we do not express. (Philippine Movie Pictures Workers’ Association vs.
Premier Productions, Inc., G.R. No.L-7771-7773, prom. May 31, 1955; Vda. de
Arrastia vs. Court of Industrial Relations, et al., L-5919, July 16,
1954; Yu Goat vs. Hugo, L-4842, Aug. 20, 1953; Hodges vs.
Villanueva, L-4134, Oct. 25, 1951.)

Wherefore,the appeal taken by petitioner-appellant, the Premier Productions,
Inc., is hereby dismissed, with the costs of this instance against said
petitioner-appellant, and let the records of these cases be remanded to the
Court of Industrial Relations for further proceedings.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Bengzon, Padilla, Montemayor, Reyes, Jugo, Bautista Angelo,
Labrador, and Reyes, J.B.L., JJ., concur.