CARMELITA E. VEGA, PETITIONER, VS. WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION COMMISSION AND REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES (BUREAU OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS), RESPONDENTS.

This is a petition for review^[1] of
the decision of the Workmen’s Compensation Commission which reversed the award
rendered by the Hearing Referee granting petitioner disability compensation
benefits under Sections 13 and 14 of the Workmen’s Compensation Act, as
amended.

The referee’s decision dated November 5, 1975 granted
petitioner-claimant Carmelita E. Vega P6,000.00 as disability compensation for
her ailment diagnosed as ectopic pregnancy,
complicated with hypertension and urinary tract infection, besides having
undergone hysterectomy, which caused her disability for labor as a public
school teacher; P5,391.40 as reimbursement of medical and hospital expenses;
and P61.00 as administrative fee.

The Solicitor General received a copy of the award on November 11, 1975, but failed to
timely take an appeal allegedly due to “volume and heavy pressure of
work.” Instead, it filed on December
10, 1975 a pleading denominated Petition to Elevate the Records for
Relief from Judgment.  The respondent
Commission, acting on the merits of the petition, reversed the award and
dismissed the claim, ruling that claimant’s ectopic
pregnancy (pregnancy outside the uterus) does not come within the compensatory
ambit of the law and that there is proof that her alleged hypertension was
complicated as would result to incapacity. 
Hence, on April 7, 1976, claimant filed the instant petition wherein she
assailed the respondent Commission’s decision dated January 30, 1976 as
contrary to law.

The petition is meritorious. 
On the basis of controlling jurisprudence that the Workmen’s
Compensation Commission loses appellate power to review the decision of a
hearing officer that has lapsed into finality, the Court sets aside the
disputed decision and reinstates the award rendered by the hearing referee.

The principle that perfection of appeal within the reglementary period is mandatory and jurisdictional, and
that failure to do so renders the questioned decision final and executory that deprives the appellate court of jurisdiction
to entertain the appeal applies to judgments of courts and of quasi-judicial
agencies like the Workmen’s Compensation Commission.  This rule of finality of judgments being
founded on public policy operates against all employers in compensation cases
whether private or public.  In Cruz vs.
Workmen’s Compensation Commission,^[2]
the Court speaking thru Justice Teehankee, reaffirmed
the doctrine in Soliven vs. Workmen’s Compensation Commission^[3]
thus:

“xxx ‘(the) basic rule of finality of judgment is applicable
indiscriminately to one and all and regardless of whether respondent employer
be a public or private employer, since the rule is grounded on fundamental
considerations of public policy and sound practice that at risk of occasional
error, the judgment of courts and award of quasi-judicial agencies must become
final at some definite date fixed by law,’ and ‘(I)t is of course beyond
question that the perfection of an appeal within the statutory or reglementary period is mandatory and jurisdictional and
that failure to so perfect an appeal renders final and executory
the questioned decision and deprives the appellate court of jurisdiction to
entertain the appeal.  The lapse of the
appeal period deprives the courts of jurisdiction to alter the final judgment.’
” (Citing Carreon vs. Work­men’s Compensation
Commission [May 31, 1977],
77 SCRA 297, 300; See Ramos vs. Republic, 69 SCRA 576 [1976], and
Vitug vs. Republic, 75 SCRA 436 [February 28, 1977].

Since it is undisputed that the Solicitor General received notice
of the referee’s award on November
11, 1975 and did not interpose a timely appeal within the 15-day
statutory period, it is obvious that the award had already become final and executory when the respondent Commission rendered its
reversal decision on January 30, 1976.

It is true that the Solicitor General filed a petition for relief
from judgment within the 30-day grace period, but under the rules^[4]
such petition must be grounded on fraud, accident, mistake or excusable
negligence.  The ground invoked by the
Solicitor General in the petition i. e., “volume
and heavy pressure of work” resulting in its inability to take an appeal
or file a motion for reconsideration has no merit.^[5]
The ground has been rejected by the Court in Cruz vs. Workmen’s Compensation
Commission^[6]
with admonition:

“In the Luzon Stevedoring Corporation cases (71 SCRA 655),
wherein the Court commended the Commission for recognizing in the sixteen (16)
separate cases therein involved its lack of appellate jurisdiction to review or
set aside the questioned awards which had already become final and executory and ‘thereby relieving this Court from the
needless burden of having to set aside its action had it arbitrarily resolved
the matter otherwise’ (contrary to the action taken by it in the cases at bar),
the Court in dealing with respondent’s counsel’s plea of volume and pressure of
work cited the now Chief Justice’s admonition in Republic vs. Lim (42 SCRA 163)
that in ‘failing to take the necessary and appropriate precautions required by
the circumstances, which resulted in (its) being unable to take an appeal from
the said award of the referee, the [respondent] has only (itself)
to blame.”

In improvidently proceeding to pass upon the substantial merits
of the referee’s award, after it had ordered the elevation of the entire
records of the claim, without first decisively resolving the propriety of the
petition for relief from judgment, respondent Commission committed grave abuse
of discretion.  The award appealed from
having become final, and the petition availed of not being authorized by the
rules, the respondent Commission did not acquire appellate jurisdiction over
the case and, hence, its decision reversing the award and dis­missing the claim
is null and void.

At any rate, We note that the referee has made it clear in the
award that the respondent Republic did not effectively controvert the
claim.  Nevertheless, the respondent Com­mission
justifies its reversal on the ground that “mere failure to controvert will
not make a claim compensable if in its very face it is not so.” Although
there is logic in its Conclusion, we hold that the respondent Commission cannot
disregard the settled doctrine in compensation cases that non-controversion of the claim constitutes a waiver of all
non-jurisdictional defenses and, consequently, an admission of compensability
of the claim by the employer.^[7]

“The effect of non-controversion on
the part of the employer is, indeed, far-reaching.  As enunciated in a long line of decisions,
this inaction constitutes a waiver of any conceivable defense not jurisdictional
in nature, and fatal to those that might have been raised by the employer; it
is a renunciation of the right to challenge the propriety of the claim; and
ultimately it is an admission of compensability by the employer.^[8]
Hence, as articulated in Agustin vs. Workmen’s Compensation Commission^[9]
the claimant-petitioner’s right to compensation becomes all the more
impregnable when we take into account that the employer’s right to controvert
the claim has been forfeited due to its failure to file with the Commission the
notice of controversion prescribed by the second
paragraph of Section 45 of the Act.”

In the case at bar, the respondent Commission states in its
decision that the petitioner-claimant has proved by ample evidence not only her
employment with the respondent Bureau of Public Schools but also her disability
for work on account of her illness since April 13, 1971 to November 21,
1971.  Having established that
petitioner’s illness supervened in the course of employment, there arises in
her favor the rebuttable presumption that the said
illness either arose out of, or at least was aggravated by, the nature of her
employment, and that consequently, the burden to show by substantial evidence
to the contrary lies with the employer.^[10]
We noted that respondent employer failed to discharge this burden of proof.

ACCORDINGLY, the decision dated January 30, 1976 of the Workmen’s Compensation
Commission is hereby set aside, and the award dated November 5, 1975 of the Hearing Officer is hereby
reinstated in toto.

No costs.

SO ORDERED.

Teehankee, (Chairman), Makasiar, Fernandez, Guerrero, and Melencio-Herrera, JJ., concur.

^[1]
Treated as special civil action in the resolution of September 17, 1976.

^[2] 2
PHILAJUR 436, 440 (January 31, 1978).

^[3]
77 SCRA 519, 521 (June 30, 1977).

^[4]
Section 1, Rule 22 of the Revised Rules of the Commission.

^[5] Pantoja vs. Republic, et al., L-43317, December 29, 1978, citing Pepito vs. WCC, SCRA 39 [1978]; Bilbao vs. Republic, 80
SCRA 178 [1978]; and Ranada vs.
WCC, 73 SCRA 263 [1976].

^[6] Supra.

^[7] Zafra vs. WCC, L-42990, November 21, 1978.

^[8]
Seven Up Bottling Co. vs. Vda.
de Tero, L-31995, February 12, 1973; Vda. de Galang vs. WCC, L-42531, March 30, 1977, 76 SCRA 153, etc.

^[9]
L-19957, September 29, 1964,
12 SCRA 55.

^[10] Zafra vs. Workmen’s Compensation Commission, supra.