VETERANS SECURITY FREE WORKERS UNION (FFW), PETITIONER, VS. HONORABLE GAUDENCIO CLORIBEL, AS VICE-EXECUTIVE JUDGE AND PRESIDING JUDGE OF BRANCH VI, OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANC…

We grant the writs of certiorari and prohibition prayed
for, since the matters involved in the civil case with prayer for preliminary
injunction to declare the petitioner-union’s strike and picket illegal are
identical to those at issue in the certification and unfair labor practice
cases pending before the Court of Industrial Relations and fall within its
exclusive jurisdiction.

Respondent company, Jamila &
Company, Inc., under the style of Veterans Philippine Scouts Security Agency,
is engaged in the business of
providing security guard services and has em­ployed watchmen or security guards
for the purpose.  Under its contracts
with its clients, respondent company provides that the guards furnished by it
shall remain its employees, under its supervision, direction and control and
that it assumes exclusive responsibility for any and all claims of such guards
as well as of third persons against
them.

Petitioner union, claiming to have unionized the overwhelming
majority of respondent company’s employees, sent respondent on March 24, 1966 its proposals for
collective bargaining. 
According to the petitioner, respondent company thereafter immediately
dismissed its officers, including its president, and many of its members for
their union activities.  Having
previously filed a notice of strike, it struck on May 6, 1966 and staged a picket line at the Company’s
premises.

Respondent company thereupon filed on the following day, May
1966, its complaint with the Court of First Instance of Manila.^[1]
Claiming that the strike was illegal because no employer-employee relation ever
existed between it and the members of petitioner-union, that the union in
picketing was “threatening bodily harm to the person and property of the
manager and officers of (respondent)”, and that it was being exposed to
numerous suits for breach of contract by several business establishments with contracts with it for security
guard services, since the union’s members had abandoned guarding the premises
to join the “illegal” strike and picket line, it prayed for judgment declaring that no “juridical relation of
employer-employee” binds it to the union members, that the strike and picket is illegal and the
union be perpetually enjoined from picketing its premises as well as its
clients’ premises, and for payment of P10, 000.00 for attorneys’ fees and
litigation expenses.

At respondent’s instance, respondent judge issued ex-parte his order of May 9, 1966, restraining petitioner-union and its members
and sympathizers ‘from striking and picketing.” The next day, he issued ex-parte his order of May 10, 1966, authorizing respondents chief of police and
sheriff to execute and implement his no-strike and no picketing order.  On May
26, 1966, he further issued ex-parte
another order ordering said respondents-officials “to continue executing
or implementing” his said’ two previous orders.

Petitioner-union, on the
other hand, filed with the Court of Industrial Relations on May 11, 1966, i. e. four
days after the filing of respondent company’s civil case below, a case for
mandatory certification as the exclusive bargaining representative of
respondent’s employees and another case for unfair labor practice, citing
respondent’s refusal to bargain in good faith and its illegal dismissal of
union members.^[2] Petitioner filed in due course its Answer
and an urgent motion for reconsideration of said orders, questioning their
legality and the respondent Court’s jurisdiction, which respondent judge denied
in his order of July 13, 1966.

After the filing on
August 22, 1966 of the petition at bar, the Court, upon bond, issued a writ of
preliminary injunction restraining respondent judge from further proceeding in
the civil case below and the other respondents from executing or implementing
the questioned orders.

1.       It has long been
accepted as dogma^[3]
that cases involving unfair labor practice fall within the exclusive
jurisdiction of the Court of Industrial Relations, by virtue of the explicit
provisions of Section 5(a) of the Industrial Peace Act^[4]
that said Court “shall have jurisdiction over the prevention of unfair
labor practices and is empowered to prevent any person from engaging in any unfair
labor practice.  This power shall be exclusive
and shall not be affected by any other means of adjustment or prevention that
has been or may be established by an agreement, code, law or otherwise.”
The strike and picketing restrained by the questioned orders of respondent judge
arose out of unfair labor practices of respondent company in allegedly refusing
to bargain in good faith and dismissing for union activities the union
officials and members, which are the very subject-matter of the unfair labor
charge filed by the union in the Industrial Court.  These were facts expressly alleged by
petitioner in its Urgent Motion for Reconsideration asking respondent judge to
set aside the questioned orders and raising respondent Court’s lack of jurisdiction.  The very complaint of respondent in the case
below, for all its artful wording, was sufficient on its face to apprise
respondent Court that the matter presented before it involved an unfair labor
practice case falling within the Industrial Court’s exclusive competence and
jurisdiction, for respondent, while disclaiming any employer-employee
relationship with the union members, denounced them for striking against it,
notwithstanding its contingent willingness to bargain, and abandoning their
guard assignments, and asked respondent Court to declare the strike illegal.

2.       Respondent’s
contention that it filed the civil case below ahead by four days of
petitioner’s filing of the unfair labor practice charge against it with the
Industrial Court, which is a mere charge that cannot deprive respondent Court
of the jurisdiction thus already acquired, has long been given short shrift.^[5]
It is settled doctrine that labor disputes arising out of un fair labor
practices committed by any of the parties do not present a question of concurrent
jurisdiction between the Court of First Instance and the Industrial
Court, but that jurisdiction over such matters is
vested exclusively in the Court of Industrial Relations.  As succinctly restated by Mr. Justice Sanchez
in Phil. Communications Workers vs. Nolasco, supra,
“CIR’s jurisdiction stays even if no unfair labor practice case has
been filed with CIR.  It is enough that
unfair labor practice is involved.  This
renders irrelevant the distinction respondents would wish to make between an
unfair labor practice charge and an unfair labor practice complaint.”

3. Respondent’s arguments are expended with its claim that the
principal question presented by it for determination by respondent Court as to
whether or not an employer-employee relationship exists between it and the
union members is a prejudicial question that has first to be resolved by
respondent Court, and that the Industrial Court, in an order of October 3,
1966, granted its motion to suspend proceedings in the two pending cases before it, pending such
determination.  Exclusive jurisdiction
over the question lies in the Industrial Court
and the alleged lack of such employer-employee relationship is a matter of
defense that respondent should properly raise in the two cases for mandatory
certification and unfair labor practice pending before the Industrial
Court.  The Industrial
Court suspended further proceedings, while
asserting that it is “vested with jurisdiction to determine the existence
of employer-employee relationship ahead of all other Courts,” and that it
was not waiving its jurisdiction, as a matter of “voluntary desistance to
prevent any multiplicity of suits and conflict in findings by the different
courts on the same matter.”^[6]
Such suspension of proceedings was based on tortuous premises, considering that
petitioner, in opposing the suspension of the proceedings, had duly informed
the Industrial Court, that this Court had already enjoined the respondent Court
from further proceeding in the civil case and that the way was clear for it to
expeditiously proceed with the cases before it and resolve them.

ACCORDINGLY, the writs of certiorari and
prohibition prayed for herein are granted. 
The respondent Court’s questioned orders of May 9, 10, and 26, 1966 are
declared null and void and the writ of preliminary injunction heretofore issued
by the Court is hereby made permanent. 

Costs against respondent Jamila &
Co., Inc.

SO ORDERED.

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, Dizon, Makalintal, Zaldivar, Sanchez, Castro, Fernando, and Barredo, JJ., concur.

Villamor, J., took no part.

^[1]
Civil Case No. 65327, entitled
“Jamila & Co., Inc., plaintiff vs.
Veterans Security Free Workers Union, defendant.”

^[2]
Case No. 1689 – MC and Charge
No. 1136 – ULP.

^[3]
Associated Labor Union vs. Gomez, L-25999, Feb. 9, 1967, 19 SCRA 304 and cases cited. Federation Obrera vs. Mojica,
L-25059, Aug. 30, 1968;
Phil. Communications Workers vs. Nolasco,
L-24984, July 29, 1968;
Regal Mfg. Employees Ass’n. vs. Reyes,
L-24388, July 29, 1968.

^[4]
Republic Act 875.

^[5]
Erlanger & Galinger, Inc. vs. Erlanger
& Galinger Employees  Ass’n. 104 Phil. 17
(1958) and cases cited; .Federation Obrer vs, Mojica, supra,
fn. 3.

^[6]
Annex A, Answer to petition.