DY PAC PAKIAO WORKERS UNION, PETITIONER, VS. DY PAC AND COMPANY, INC., ALFONSO SANTOS SORIANO AND COURT OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, RESPONDENTS.

On January 30, 1961, the
respondents Dy Pac & Company, Inc. and Alfonso
Santos Soriano were adjudged guilty of unfair labor
practice by the respondent Court of Industrial Relations and were consequently
ordered to pay certain workers, all members of the petitioner Dy Pac Pakiao Workers Union, backwages from the date of their unjust dismissal to the
date of the finality of the CIR’s decision, without,
however, the benefit of reinstatement. 
Both the Company and the Union moved for
reconsideration of this decision, but their motions were denied.  On appeal by the res­pondent Company, this
Court, in Dy Pac & Company vs. CIR and Dy Pac Pakiao Workers Union, L-18460,^[1] affirmed the CIR decision in its entirety.

Upon this Court’s decision becoming final and executory
on December 1, 1962, the Union
moved in the CIR for computation of the backwages
awarded to its members.  The motion was
granted.  On January 30, 1963, the chief examiner of the CIR
turned in his assessment of backwages based
principally on the time records and payrolls pertaining to the affected workers
for the period from August 25 to November
3, 1956 — the only records then extant and available for the
purpose.  According to the chief
examiner’s report, the backwages covering the period
from January 20, 1957 (the date when the workers ceased in their employment) to
December 1, 1962 (date of the finality of the decision of this Court) amounted
to a total of P65,122.59 corresponding to 17 of the 19 workers listed as
complainants in exhibit I, page of the original records.  Two workers, Floro
Asada and Percival Echaluce, were not included in the
computation due to the ab­sence of their names in the time records and payrolls
made available by the Company.

The parties filed their oppositions to the report.  On November
9, 1966, after evaluating the evidence adduced and hearing the
arguments of the oppositors, the CIR, through Judge
Joaquin Salvador, issued an order approving the chief examiner’s report on the
whole, and ordering the inclusion of Percival Echaluce
among the workers entitled to backwages.  Floro Asada
remained excluded, however, due allegedly to the absence of a sufficient basis
for his inclusion.  Both the Company and
the Union took exception to this ruling, and moved for
modification thereof.

On January 28, 1967,
after hearing duly had, the CIR en banc passed a resolution,
concurred in by three of its judges, with the two others not taking part,
modifying the order of Nov­ember 9,
1966.  The award was thereby
drastically reduced to only six months of backwages,
the first three months corresponding to the time when the old carro of the Company was operating without the
workers involved in this case, and the next three corresponding to an arbitrary
period during which the same workers would have, “in all
probability,” found some other employment following the complete stoppage
of the operations of the old carro.  The resolution of the CIR en banc
also contained an order for the inclusion of Floro
Asada upon a finding that, the latter was em­ployed at the old carro during the time involved in this case but happened to be on sick leave when
the pertinent time records and payrolls were prepared.  The name of Percival Echaluce
was, however, caused to be excluded due to its non-appearance in the same time
records and payrolls.

The Union has come to this Court on a
special civil action of certiorari questioning the authority of the CIR en
banc to render its resolution of January
28, 1967.

The two issues posed for resolution we shall discuss in seriatim.

1. The dispositive portion of the
original decision of Jan­uary 30, 1961,
rendered by the CIR through Judge Jose Bautista, reads:

“IN VIEW OF ALL THE FOREGOING CON­SIDERATIONS, the respondents
are hereby ordered to pay immediately the backwages
of the complainant workers, from the
date of the stoppage of work in the old carro
up to the time when this decision shall become final and executory,
without reinstatement.”

Subsequently, the CIR en banc,
through a resolution also penned by Judge Bautista, denied the motions for
reconsideration filed by both the Union and the
Company.  This resolution, dated March 23, 1961, stated:

“Respondents moved for new trial and the reconsideration of
the decision of this Court dated January
30, 1961; while complainant, in its motion for reconsideration,
prayed that said decision be modified in the sense that the company should also
be ordered to reinstate the workers in addition to the payment of their back
wages.

“After a careful examination of the evidence of the parties,
together with the reasons given in the motions for reconsideration, we find
respon­dents’ reasons for new trial and reconsideration of the decision of this
Court of January 30, 1961 with­out merit. 
Complainant’s motion for reconsidera­tion also cannot be entertained
because there is no operation in the old carro.  The operation of the old carro
depends upon a filer who could make the bunch of crates function smoothly.  When Alfonso Santos Soriano
abandoned the work, the work was stopped. 
Then his son, Alfredo Santos Soriano took
over, but he had to quit because he was not a competent filer.  To reinstate the workers concerned when there
is no work to be done would be injustice to the com­pany, because management
would be forced to give salaries to the workers even if they have nothing to
do.  It should be noted that the
punishment which this Court imposes upon any erring party is remedial and not
punitive in character.

“WHEREFORE, all motions for reconsideration should be, as they
are hereby, DENIED.”

On appeal to this Court by the Company, we
decided the case (L-18460, supra) with the following dispositive
statement:  “WHEREFORE, the decision
appealed from is hereby affirmed with costs against the appellant.”

The CIR en banc, in now constricting the coverage
of the backwages due to the workers from 5 years and
10 month plus to only 6 months, relied heavily on the argument that since the
work at the old carro had been permanently
stopped after March 2, 1958 due to the non-availability of a qualified filer, the workers involved could not have
been reinstated to their former jobs.  The CIR en banc thus concluded
that whatever backwages these workers were entitled
to should not extend beyond the time when, had they been reinstated, they would
have nevertheless ceased working due to the legitimate shutting up of the carro.

This Court will not dwell on the validity of the legal
proposition that “backwages should not extend
beyond the date of closure of business where such closure was due
to legitimate business reasons and not merely to an attempt to defeat the order
for reinstatement.”^[2]
Without determining whether or not this precept applies to the peculiar
circumstances of the present case, it is our considered view that the CIR en
banc acted in excess of its jurisdiction when it delimited, as it did, the
workers’ right to the recovery of
backwages as originally adjudicated in its decision
of January 30, 1961.  The latter decision
explicitly ruled that backwages were to span a period
commencing “from the date of the stoppage of work in the old carro up to the time when this decision shall become final and executory.”
The pretension that this was modified by resolution of the CIR en banc
cannot stand scrutiny because the same resolution merely rejected the parties’
motions for reconsideration and did not afford any kind of modified relief from the operation and effects of the judgment
of January 30, 1961. 
It should be remembered that while the body of a decision, order or
resolution might create some ambiguity regarding which way the court’s
reasoning preponderates, it is the dispositive
portion thereof that finally invests rights upon the parties, sets conditions
for the exercise of those rights, and imposes the corresponding duties or
obligations.^[3]

The award by the CIR of backwages from
the time the old carro ceased operations up to the time its decision,
as affirmed by this Court, became final and executory,
is now the law of the case and is beyond the reach of review by the CIR
or by this Court.

By “law of the case” is meant that “whatever is
once in revocably established as the controlling
legal rule or decision between the same parties in the same case continues to
be the law of the case” so long as the “facts on which such decision
was predicated continue to be the facts of the case before the court.  And once the decision becomes final, it is
binding on all inferior courts and, hence, beyond their power and authority to
alter or modify.^[4]

What we said in Galvez vs. Philippine
Long Distance Com­pany^[5]
is apropos:

“The equitable considerations that led the lower court to take
the action complained of can­not offset the demands of public policy and public
interest — which are also responsive to the tenets of equity — requiring that
all issues passed upon in decisions or
final orders that have become executory, be deemed
conclusively disposed of and definitely closed, for, otherwise, there would be
no end to litigations, thus setting at naught the main role of courts of
justice, which is to assist in the enforcement of the rule of law and the main­tenance
of peace and order, by setting justiciable
controversies with finality.”

2. The ClR en banc, in its
resolution subject of the pre­sent action, ordered the name of Percival Echaluce stricken from the list of workers entitled to backwages, while at the same it ordered the restoration of
the name of Floro Asada in the list.  The CIR en banc, unfortunately,
did not state its reasons for ousting Echaluce.  We can only infer that it based its ruling
upon the fact that Echaluce’s name does not appear in
the only payrolls and time records available. 
The ultimate question we thus confront is whether or not evidence exists
regarding Echaluce’s
employment with the Company during the time the latter committed acts constituting unfair labor practice,
independently of those payrolls and time records.

This Court need not venture far for the answer.  The order of November 9, 1966 penned by Judge
Joaquin Salvador who conducted a hearing on the examiner’s report, found with
respect to Echaluce that “the evidence is clear
that he was working in the company when the old ‘carro‘
ceased operation … the reason why his name does not appear in the payrolls is
the fact that he was then absent when they were signed.” The Company
appears not to have overcome this evidence, having relied solely on the
strength of the extant payrolls and time records.

At all events, that Percival Echaluce
and Floro Asada were among the complainants in
L-18460, is not controverted by the Company.  They must, therefore, perforce be considered
as included within the coverage and intendment of the dispositive
portion of the decision of this Court in L-18460.

The essential question that confronts the CIR is merely one of
computation of the backwages of these two
complainants, there being no record or payroll to indicate the exact amount of
the wages they were receiving at the time that the old carro
stopped operations.  We can, however,
with a certain degree of fairness, rely on the solution stated by Judge
Salvador in his order dated November
9, 1966, which solution is apparently acceptable to both the
Company and the Union, there being no indica­tion in the
record to the contrary.  This mode of
computation is expressed in the said order as follows:  “His backwages
should be based on the average of what his co-members received as shown in the
payrolls.”

ACCORDINGLY, the resolution of the CIR en banc
of January 28, 1967 is hereby modified so that, first, the compu­tation
of backwages shall cover the period from the date of
the stoppage of work at the old carro up to
December 1, 1962, the date the decision in the original case became final and executo­ry, and, second, Percival Echaluce and Floro Asada are enti­tled
to backwages which shall be based on the average of
what their co-workers received as shown in the pertinent payrolls.  Because the workers herein involved may have
found other em­ployment or other means of livelihood after they were dismissed,
it is only just and equitable that whatever they may have earned during the
period covered by the award of backwages should be
deducted from the total liability of the Company.  To this end the CIR is hereby directed to
admit pertinent evidence that may be adduced by the Company.

No pronouncement as to
cost.

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, Dizon, Makalintal, Zaldivar, Fernando, Barredo, Villamor, and Makasiar, JJ., concur.

Teehankee, J., concurs and dissents in a separate opinion.

^[1]
August 24, 1962, 5 SCRA 892
(per Concepcion, J.).

^[2]
Durable Shoe Factory vs. CIR, et al., L-7783, May 31, 1956.

^[3]
Manalang vs. Vidal Tuason
de Rickards, L-11986, July 31, 1953.

^[4]
Kabigting vs. Acting Director of Prisons,
L-15548, October ?????, 1962, 6 SCRA 286; People’s Homesite
and Housing Corporation vs. Mencias, L-24114, August 16, 1967, 20 SCRA 1041.

^[5]
L-16370, October 31, 1961,
3 SCRA 418, 423.

Clean

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