BLUE BAR COCONUT COMPANY, THE EMPLOYERS’ LIABILITY ASSURANCE CORPORATION, LTD., AND E. E. ELSER, INC., PETITIONERS, VS. JOAQUIN BOO, RESPONDENT.

This is an appeal by certiorari from a decision promulgated and
signed by the Deputy Workmen’s Compensation Commissioner, as provided
for in section 46, Republic Act No. 772, in connection with Rule 44 of
the Rules of Court.

Joaquin Boo filed with the Workmen’s Compensation Commission a
“Notice of Injury or Sickness and Claim Compensation” under the
Workmen’s Compensation Act, averring that prior to 9 October 1951 he
was employed by the Blue Bar Coconut Company as a dryer man who
regulated the pressure and heat of the dryer, a steam machine for
desiccating coconut, and made regular rounds in the compound to
supervise the men under his charge, that as a result of the exposure to
the heat while operating the dryer and change of temperature when
making the rounds he coughed out blood, a symptom of
pulmonary-tuberculosis. The ailment disabled him from work and for that
reason he was laid off. After hearing the evidence of both parties on
the claim the referee rendered a decision, the dispositive part of
which reads, as follows:

Wherefore, judgment is for claimant and against the
respondents, Blue Bar Coconut Company and E. E. Elser, Inc., and it is
hereby ordered:

(1) That the respondents, Blue Bar Coconut
Company and the insurance carrier hereof pay claimant, through this
Commission jointly and severally the sum of P992.14 as compensation due
and payable as of February 28^ 1953; and beginning March 1, 1953 the
weekly payment of P13.89 be continued until the physician of the
company certifies that the claimant is no longer disabled for work, but
not to exceed 208 weeks;

(2) To provide continued medical treatment and hospitalization of the sick laborer; and

(3) To pay the Workmen’s Compensation Fund the following:

a. P1.00 for the decision	P1.00
b. P1.00 for every P100 of award which in this case is P992.14; with the reservation to collect additional costs of P1.00 for every P100 of additional award	9.00
Total	P10.00

A motion for review was filed by the respondents. The Deputy
Workmen’s Compensation Commissioner affirmed the decision of the
referee on the merits but excluded the insurance carrier from the
liability of paying the compensation awarded, because according to the
Deputy Workmen’s Compensation Commissioner the payment of the
compensation awarded should be made by the Blue Bar Coconut Company
alone, without prejudice to its right to reimbursement from the
insurance carrier. A petition to set aside the decision was filed, on
the ground that the Deputy Workmen’s Compensation Commissioner had no
jurisdiction to hear and decide the claim in question, the jurisdiction
to hear and decide claims for compensation under the Act being vested
exclusively in the Workmen’s Compensation Commissioner.^[1] The petition was denied.

The first ground of the appeal by certiorari filed by the
petitioners is the same passed upon by the Deputy Workmen’s
Compensation Commissioner who ruled that the “exclusive jurisdiction”
vested in the Workmen’s Compensation Commissioner to hear and decide
claims for compensation under the Act is not intended to exclude the
Deputy Commissioner from hearing and deciding such claims but to
withdraw or take away that jurisdiction from the Justice of the Peace
Courts and Courts of First Instance that theretofore had heard and
decided workmen’s claims for compensation within their respective
jurisdictions. To this ruling we agree. The Congress has the power and
authority to vest in the Workmen’s Compensation Commission the
jurisdiction to hear and decide claims under the Workmen’s Compensation
Act to the exclusion of the Courts that theretofore had exercised such
jurisdiction.^[2] If the Act
intended to exclude the Deputy Workmen’s Compensation Commissioner from
hearing and deciding compensation claims under the Workmen’s
Compensation Act, it would have expressly provided that the Deputy
Commissioner could hear and decide only in the absence, inability or
disqualification of the Commissioner. More, section 50, Republic Act
No. 772, provides that-

After the hearing of a case by the Commissioner, his
deputy or any of the referees, the same shall be decided according to
its merits and the decisions be promulgated and signed by the
Commissioner or his deputy. Fifteen days after the promulgation of the
decision the same shall become final unless previously appealed.

The petitioners contend that the sickness of the claimant being
idiopathic is not compensable and invokes the rule laid down in Vergara
vs. Pampanga Bus Company, 62 Phil., 820, 823; that the
claimant having been disabled for work on 11 October 1951 it was error
to apply the provisions of Republic Act No. 722 which took effect on 20
June 1952. The resolution of these two points will decide the other
questions raised by the petitioners.

The referee makes of the evidence the following resume:

The evidence for the claimant, Joaquin Boo, may be
summarized as follows: that the claimant entered the service of the
respondent company since 1946; that before he was admitted in the
service, he was physically examined by the doctor of the respondent
company; that he was insured by the Philippine American Life Insurance
Company in April, 1948, after being X-rayed; that his work was to
regulate the temperature of the steam machine in drying the coconuts;
that in 1948, he had an accident in the room where he was working—while
he was inspecting the work of the grinder men and while passing near
the motor, he felt an electric shock and was not able to leave the
place until the running belt injured his legs making him unconscious;
that in October, 1951, when he was found vomiting blood, he was laid
off from work; that he was sent by the physician of the company Dr.
Artemio Masangkay, to the Quezon Institute for treatment and that he
stayed in the hospital from November 13, 1951 to March, 1952, where he
was treated by Dr. Bautista; that the respondent company has supplied
him medicine and had given him the amount of P100.00 for hospital
expenses; and that due to the fact that he had no more money, he left
the Quezon Institute.

Dr. Artemio Masangkay, the physician of
the Blue Bar Coconut Company, testified that he is the physician of the
respondent company; that he admitted having physically examined Joaquin
Boo when he entered the service of the respondent company and that
Joaquin Boo was found to be physically healthy; that he attended the
claimant when he met an accident in 1948 inside the factory; that the
claimant stumbled down and was cut by the running belt producing two
lacerated wounds on the legs and multiple contusions in the body and
arms; that he treated the claimant for about 5 months; that in his
opinion the laborer has completely recovered from his injuries that for
the accident, the company paid the injured man as compensation the sum
of P600; that in 1951, he treated the claimant when the latter vomited
blood for two weeks and later sent him to the Quezon Institute for
treatment; and that the diagnosis made in the Quezon Institute by X-ray
shows T.B. moderately advanced. Dr. Masangkay also certified that the
nature of the work of the claimant, regulating the pressure and heat of
the dryer, indirectly affected his sickness of tuberculosis explaining
that the abrupt or sudden changes of temperature that the claimant was
subjected to had something to do with lowering of body resistance which
favored the growth and flare up of the tuberculosis lesion, and that
the lack of sleep of claimant due to his work at night also aggravated
to a great extent the development of the disease.

From this resume it may be inferred that when in 1946 he was engaged
by, or admitted into the service of, the company, the claimant was free
from disease, because a physical examination of the claimant by a
physician of the company preceded his admission into its service; that
he continued in the same physical condition up to April 1948 when the
Philippine American Life Insurance Company insured him after an
examination had been made and an X-ray taken. If the claimant was
already infected before his admission into the company’s service, the
ailment must have been latent and for that reason the company and
insurance physicians were unable to detect the bacilli when the
claimant was examined in 1946 and 1948. If he was not infected before
he was taken in by the company or if he was later infected while in the
service of the company, the fact that he was stricken with the
sickness, as shown by haemoptysis, is a strong indication that it was
the result of the nature of his work or employment. The claimant has
made out his case and the burden of proof shifted to the company. The
latter must show that the lessening of the claimant’s resistance was
due to causes other than the nature of his work or employment, such as
dissipation, excesses or lack of sleep and the like. For three years
the claimant’s body was subjected and exposed to constant changes of
temperature. Lack of sleep due to claimant’s work at night in the
company’s factory predisposed him to contract the disease or
contributed a great deal to the development and progress of his
ailment. It is not surprising, therefore, that in October, 1951 he was
found suffering from tuberculosis and had to be laid off as the
sickness disabled him from doing his work. It could not have been the
direct result of the accident in 1948 because, according to the
testimony of the company’s physician, the claimant completely recovered
from his injuries and for which he was fully compensated. The report on
the sickness of the claimant submitted on 11 September 1952 by the
company’s physician, Dr. Artemio Masangkay, states the following:

Pulmonary tuberculosis, both lungs with cavity on the left, and the cause of the disease is infection.

And the report submitted by Dr. Bautista of the Quezon Institute on 11 October 1952 reveals—

* * * that the nature and the degree of the disease
is chronic, active, moderately advanced bilateral pulmonary
tuberculosis with cavity on the left, * * *.

Whether the claimant’s sickness was by infection prior to his
entering the service of the company in 1946 or during and in the course
of his employment, there is no question that it was aggravated by or
the result of the nature of his work or employment in the company’s
factory. If the sickness was the result of infection and aggravated by
causes other than the nature of his work or employment it would not be
compensable. But if it was caused or aggravated as a result of the
nature of his work or employment in the company’s factory it would be
compensable. In other words, even if the claimant was infected prior to
his engagement by the company or subsequent thereto or during the
employment, an infection, not detected by the company and insurance
physicians, if aggravated by the nature of the claimant’s work, to such
an extent that he was disabled and had to be laid off from work, would
be compensable. Such is the situation of the claimant in this case.

The fact that the term “tuberculosis” and the words “either
aggravated by” are inserted by Republic Act No. 772, amending section
2 of the Workmen’s Compensation Act (No. 3426, as amended), which took
effect on 20 June 1952 only, does not change the import of the legal
provisions concerning the employer’s liability to give compensation to
a laborer who was disabled by an ailment which was the result of the
nature of his work or employment, as provided for in the original
Workmen’s Compensation Act (No. 3428, as amended by Act No. 3812). As
already stated, if the claimant was not infected when in 1946 he was
engaged by the company as a dryer man in its factory and he contracted
the disease after the accident according to the company’s physician, it
is a logical inference that he contracted the illness as a result of
the nature of his work or employment. There is no need for the
amendatory terms of section 2 inserted by Republic Act No. 772, except
for the purpose of clarification, because under the terms of the
original section 2 of Act No. 3428, as amended by Act No. 3812, the
company is liable to pay the compensation therein provided. And the
company must have been of that belief, for in its “report of accident
or sickness,” dated 11 September 1952, submitted to the Workmen’s
Compensation Commission, the question as to whether the employer will
in due time pay the compensation as provided for in Act No. 3428, as
amended, was answered in the affirmative. In view of the conclusion
arrived at the other errors allegedly committed by the Workmen’s
Compensation Commission need not be passed upon.

The decision under review is affirmed, with costs against the petitioners.

Paras, C.J., Pablo, Bengzon, Montemayor, Reyes, A., Jugo, Bautista Angelo, Labrador, Concepcion, and Reyes, J.B.L., JJ., concur.

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^[1] Section 46, Republic Act No. 772.

^[2] Section 2, Article VIII, Constitution of the Philippines.