SAMAR MINING CO., INC., PETITIONER, VS. WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION COMMISSION, EMETERIA VDA. DE MENDOZA AND TRINIDAD VDA. DE MENDOZA, RESPONDENTS.

CONCURRING OPINION

BARREDO, J.:

I concur, but I do not see the necessity for the decision in this
case going beyond holding that the separate claims herein involved should be
heard and decided by the referee in Regional Office No. IV, Manila,
to the exclusion of the referee in Regional Office No. IX, Zamboanga
City and that the Workmen’s Compensation Commission has jurisdiction to
determine who between the two claimants is the legal widow of the deceased
worker entitled to be paid the compensation provided by law to a
“dependent widow”.  After all,
these are the only two issues that require determination by this Court.  Once the above issues of venue and
jurisdiction are settled, it is, in my considered view, a little officious on Our part to suggest any procedure that the parties should
follow in the conduct of their respect­ive cases.  The danger in proposing guidelines which are
not fixed by any law or rule for the specific pur­pose herein involved, namely,
the settlement of claims under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, and, therefore,
not binding upon anyone, lies in that the parties might conceivably adopt other
own devices they believe more conducive to their respective ends, in which
event, this Supreme Court would be placed in the unenviable position of being
ignored.  Worse, as far as simplifying
procedures is concerned, such deviation by either party might give rise to
unforeseeable complications and incidents, the resolution of which will further
delay the final disposition of the main case, and thus, the laudable objective,
evident in the main opinion, of hastening said disposition would be
defeated.  Withal, I, for one, am not
certain that the suggested procedure of written interrogatories is the most workable
and expeditious one, but I dare not make my own suggestion, since to do so
would be inconsistent with my view that the parties should be left free to do
what they believe is proper under the circumstances.

Again, in its obvious effort to assist the parties in finding
ways of settling their dispute most speedily and inexpensively, the main
opinion has strayed into mat­ters which I am afraid constitute pre-judgment
somehow of such issues as the compensability of the illness which caused the
death of the worker in question, the necessity of the personal presence during
the hearings in Manila of the claimant from Zamboanga
and what matters only she has to prove. 
I think it is unfair, at this stage, to make any pronouncements on these
issues which are yet to be re­solved when the parties prosecute their
respective claims in the Commission.

Of course, I join the commendable desire of Mr. Justice Teehankee to save parties as much effort and ex­pense as
possible in prosecuting claims for compensation under the Workmen’s
Compensation Act.  Indeed, every tech­nicality
should be swept aside in such cases in favor of the most speedy and inexpensive
procedure of arriving at a just and fair award to the proper parties.  In pursu­ance of this end, however, this
Court need not go out of its way so as to act as the guardian for all claimants
and improvise procedures not set out in any legislative enactment whether
general or special nor in any rule of court
specifically designed for the purpose.  I
believe that our task in the premises is limited to matters with­in our
appellate jurisdiction, the promulgation of the rules of procedure in the
Workmen’s Compensation Commission having been lodged squarely by the law in
that Com­mission itself.  [par. (c), Sec. 47, Act No. 3428, as
amended.]

Coming now to the two issues submitted for Our resolution, those
of venue and jurisdiction, I concur, as I have already indicated, in the
holding that pursuant to Sec. 2 of Rule 6 of the Commission, quoted in the main
opinion, the two claims herein involved should be heard and decided by the
referee in the Manila regional office where the first claim was filed, to the
exclusion of the Zamboanga City regional office.  It is clear to me that the contingency of two
women filing in distinct places separate claims in which they allege adversely
to one another each to be the legal widow of the same work­er is within the
contemplation of the provision in the cited section of the rules to the effect
that where separate claims are filed in more than one of the venues fixed
therein, “the unit where the claim is first filed shall assume exclusive
jurisdiction over the case.” It is a necessary consequence of this
provision that any hardship to any of the parties occasioned by their separate
claims and their respective initial venues is part of the very nature of the
reasons for which such sepa­rate claims are filed and, naturally, it is not
imposing any uncalled for burden upon them that they should be prepared to
undergo said hardships.  I submit that,
after all, the law need not assume that workers would enter in­to extra-legal
relationships.  Besides, the resolution
of the Commission upholding the propriety of the separate venues of the two
claims in question is obviously imprac­tical, since it overlooks the fact that
of necessity only one common decision can be rendered in regard to the two
claims and the Commission does not suggest how this can be done under the
procedure it has sanctioned.  Precisely,
it is one of the purposes of the rule fixing a common venue to enable the
Commission to render such a single decision.

This is not to say, however, that the parties and their lawyers,
if any are contracted to assist them, and the government authorities concerned,
particularly those in the Workmen’s Compensation Commission, should not, in
laying down the detailed procedure of hearing such separate claims, seek, in
cooperation with each other, the most practical, inexpensive and speedy ones in
each par­ticular case, having in mind the peculiar circumstances thereof.  We trust the members of the bar and the offi­cers
of the Commission to be imbued with the humane and social intendment of the
law, reflected in all its provisions, particularly, that which limits the
attorney’s fees that may be charged in such cases to not more than five (5) per
cent of the amount received by the claim­ants, if the case is not appealed and
ten (10) per cent in case it is appealed, (Sec. 31) and that true to the spirit
of the enactment, no unnecessary obstacle would be placed by any of them to the
prompt disposition and settlement of all claims, with the least expense.

In line with this idea, I join Mr. Justice Teehan­kee
in suggesting to the parties herein utilization of or resort to the procedure
indicated in Section 8 of the Act.  In
this particular instance, since there is a law specifically providing that in
case of disagreement among several persons entitled to compensation as to their
respective shares, the Workmen’s Compensation Commission shall act as referee,
it not unduly stretch­ing the law for Us to hold that by analogy, the Commis­sion
should also act as referee when there are two wo­men respectively claiming to
be the true and legal widow of a deceased worker, thereby obviating the
necessity of a protracted litigation to settle the issue.

This brings me to the matter of jurisdiction which I believe is
the more pressing issue in this case, if only because neither the law nor the
rules make any spe­cific reference thereto. 
The question is, does the Workmen’s Compensation Commission, have
jurisdiction to decide as to who between two alleged
widows of a worker is the true and legal one? 
Or is that point a civil law matter which comes within the competence of
the ordinary courts, so as to necessitate the filing of a separate court proceeding
thereon before the Commission may final­ly decide to whom to make the
award?  Indeed, I feel that the
importance of this question deserves more than the seemingly passing and casual
attention given to it almost matter-of-factly in the main opinion.  In fact, I venture to say that apparently,
the main opinion assumes that the jurisdiction in question belongs to the
Commission.

While I agree that this assumption is ultimately correct, I
prefer to spell out its bases considering that, to my knowledge, this is the
first case brought to this Court, in which this issue is decisive.  Besides, if We do
not decide this squarely now, any of the parties might prolong this
compensation case by raising the issue later.

As may be recalled, before the passage of Republic Act 772 on June 20, 1952, compensation cases
were filed, tried and decided in the regular courts.  It was by this Act that Section 46 of Act
3428 was added providing thus:

“Sec. 46.  Jurisdiction.  – The Workmen’s Compensation Commissioner
shall have exclusive jurisdiction to hear and decide claims for compensation
under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, subject to appeal to the Supreme Court,
in the same manner and in the same period as provided by law and by rules of
court for appeal from the court of Industrial Relations to the Supreme
Court.”

Blue Bar Coconut Company vs. Boo, 95 Phil. 867, made it clear
that the “exclusive jurisdiction” vested by Republic Act 772 upon the
Workmen’s Compensation Commission to hear and decide claims for compensation
under the Act is intended “to withdraw or take away that jurisdiction from
the Justice of the Peace Courts and Courts of First Instance that theretofore
heard and decided workmen’s claims for compensation within their respective
jurisdiction.  x x x.  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” (p. 870).  Having in view the intent of the Act to
simplify and expedite the settlement of claims contemplated in it, it stands to
reason that this transfer of juris­diction must be construed to be plenary and
complete.

There are, however, two schools of thought as to the extent of
this jurisdiction in regard to the determination of the persons entitled to be
considered as “dependents” for the purposes of the Act under its
Section 9, when there are two or more persons claiming the same status as
against each other, as, for example, the two alleged widows in the case at bar,
each of whom would like to be recognized as the true and legal dependent widow
to the exclusion of the other.  One
school be­lieves that the conferment of jurisdiction upon the Commission by
Section 46, as already stated, does not clothe it with authority to decide
questions of legal filiation because this pertains to
the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts, hence, in such a situation, the pro­cedure
is to require the contending parties to have the matter settled first in court,
preferably in the settlement of the estate of the deceased or in an interpleader, and the determination of the question of
“dependency” may be made by the Commission only after the court has
decided the matter of filiation.  The other school of course, of the view that
the transfer of jurisdiction from the courts to the Commission is, as I have
already stated, plenary and complete, for the purposes, at least, of the
payment of claims under the Act.  It is
true, according to this school, that the same issue of filia­tion
may conceivably arise in court in relation to other matters between the same
parties, such as in the settlement of the estate of the deceased worker, should
he leave any partitionable one in which other
persons, who have not and could not have appeared before the Commission for
lack of legal interest in the subject matter, may be entitled to take part, and
the possibility of a diverse finding in the two proceedings does exist, but
such a contingency must be accepted as part of the vary nature of the two
remedies which are distinct and different from each other.

As may be seen, the first view has the juridical advantage of
singleness of determination of the matter of filiation
from the point of view of family solida­rity, while the other suffers from the
defect that this important point may be decided differently by the Com­mission
and the court, thus resulting in the absurdity that the filiation
found to be legitimate by the former may be found to be illegitimate by the
other, but, as already stated, those who uphold the second view contend that,
for the sake of hastening the award of compensation to the parties who, in any
event, would factually be in need thereof, the risk of such diversity of
findings may well be worth taking, the chances thereof being, anyway,
ordinarily remote.  At the very worse, it
is pointed out that juridically speaking, there is
nothing wrong with such a possibility, for there are other instances in law
where such a contingency is permitted, such as, (1) in the case of recovery of
damages ex-contractu or from culpa aquiliana independently of the acquittal of the re­sponsible
party in a criminal case involving the same ba­sic facts and (2) in cases of
registration of voters wherein a person may be held by the court to be a
Filipino citizen and a resident of a particular place for registration purposes
for a particular election and yet may be found to be an alien or a non-resident
in an ordinary court proceeding.  Reasons
for the possibility of diverse findings are many and varied, among them, the
difference in the quantum or in the nature of the evi­dence or proof required
which varies in each proceeding, but whatever be the cause or causes, the
variance in the results of the different proceedings has always been con­sidered
as juridically tolerable.

Upon these considerations, it is not difficult to choose which
school to follow.  It is quite obvious
that the noble objectives of the Workmen’s Compensation Act may best be
achieved by placing within the jurisdiction of the Commission all matters
relevant to the proper payment of any claim contemplated in the Act, without
pre­judice to whatever the courts may hold in respect to said matters in any
other proceeding.

For these reasons, I vote to reverse the appealed order and resolution
en banc of the Workmen’s Compensation Commission and to order the
said Commission to have the venue of the two claims in question laid in the
regional office in Manila, leaving it to the Commission and the parties to
devise together the most expedient and inexpensive means of hearing and
disposing of the same, including the question of who between the two claimants
is the real dependent widow of the deceased laborer.  Without costs.

CONCURRING OPINION

FERNANDO, J.:

Implicit in the ably written opinion of Justice Teehankee, which I join, is the recognition of the power of
the Workmen’s Compensation Commission, an administrative tribunal, to pass upon
and decide questions ordinarily falling within the competence of and cognizable
by the judiciary, namely “as to who of the two claimants is the legal wife
of the decedent and as such a dependent entitled under Section 9 of the act to
the compensation * * *.”^[1]
Thus once again is made evident a sympathetic response to the question of the
permissible scope of the authority that may be lawfully entrusted to
administrative agencies.  That is as it
should be.  No bar should be interposed
to the conferment of the needed authority to the governmental agency which can
best discharge the function entrusted to it, even at the risk of defying the
canons a rigid, formalistic approach to the postulate of separation of powers
would impose.  It does not admit of doubt
that if the determination as to who is the widow of the deceased according to
law in case conflicting claims are raised cannot be passed upon by the
Commission but must be left to the courts in a separate action, then the result
would be further delay and frustration of an objective of a legislation which
in accordance with the social justice principle and protection to labor
provisions of the Constitution require speedy implementation.  This latest manifestation of according wide
discretion to administrative tribunals marks to my
mind the attainment of further progress in the effort of government through
such instrumentalities to cope with the increased responsibilities thrust on it
if social and economic rights, or liberty in an affirmative sense, would be
vitalized.  Hence this brief concurring
opinion.

Prior to Republic Act No. 772^[2]
the office of the Workmen’s Compensation Commissioner which was later amended
by Republic Act No. 4119 establishing in its place a Workmen’s Compensation
Commission composed of a Chairman and two Associate Commissioners,^[3]
the enforcement of the Workmen’s Compensation Act was left to the courts.^[4]
The judiciary then had the task among others of passing on all questions as to
whether or not there is a right to compensation, the amount due and to
whom.  A dispute as to who of the
claimants was the legitimate widow of the deceased entitled as a dependent to
compensation clearly then was for the appropriate court to settle.  In line with the growing tendency to entrust
the enforcement especially of legislation social in character to administrative
bodies on the assumption that there would be a more speedy disposition of
matters submitted to them as there is less reliance on strict procedural rules,
the aforesaid statutes were passed by Congress. 
There is a clear manifestation of the legislative objective then to
leave to the Workmen’s Compensation Commission its implementation.  It is to be admitted that no specific
reference is made as to whether or not it could, in the discharge of the
responsibility entrusted to it, resolve issues which in their traditional
terminology of the law is “judicial in character.” It could be that
for those enamored of the conceptual approach, there should be a demarcation of functions so that on the judiciary, and on
it alone, should be left its determination. 
To so view the matter, however, is to run the risk, in this particular
case at least, of incurring additional delay in the disposition of claims, a
delay which could be ill-afforded by the heirs and dependents of those injured
from any accident arising out of and in the course of employment.  Such a frustration of legislative purpose
should be avoided unless the language of the law leaves no other
alternative.  So we have decided and, to
my mind, correctly.

There is moreover the equally applicable doctrine of statutory
construction that whenever power is granted, it is to be assumed that the means
necessary so that its exercise would be rendered effective is to be deemed
included.  Clearly if it were not so, the
result might be to reduce the statute to a barren form of words.  The effect would be nullification instead of
implementation.  To paraphrase Justice
Laurel, whenever there is a transfer of competence from one agency to another,
what could be lawfully performed by the former is not beyond the authority
conferred on the latter.^[5]
There is to be no fragmentation.  If it
were otherwise, there is the risk of failing to achieve that which is desired.

In terms of the fundamental principle of separation of powers,
this decision is a further recognition of the traditional flexibility
associated with such a concept.  It is
not to be enforced with pedantic rigor. 
The demands of practical statesmanship preclude a doctrinaire
application.  The decisive question
should be whether there is a need for an administrative tribunal being created
and if so, what powers must be entrusted to it to assure that the legislative
objective is attained.  The fact that
under a tripartite system of government such agencies fall within the executive
branch should not be a bar to the conferment of such authority, even if
essentially judicial in character, as long as it is incidental to the discharge
of the task of its implementation.^[6]
Any other view would be self-defeating. 
There is to be then no hesitancy in according the seal of approval to an
assumption of wider competence by administrative tribunals.  It is of course preferable that there be
express statutory language to that effect. 
Lacking such explicitness, an enactment is to be so construed.  That would conduce to their further
efficiency.  It would be a further
recognition of what is now undeniable, that such agencies are, along with
courts, and perhaps to a greater degree, necessary instruments in the
fulfillment of the welfare function incumbent on government.

^[1]
Decision of Justice Teehankee, p. 6.

^[2] June 20, 1952.

^[3] June 20, 1964.

^[4]
Act No. 3428 as amended (1908).

^[5] Cf. Angara v. Electoral
Commission, 63 Phil. 139 (1936).

^[6]
Cf. Springer v. Government of the Philippine Islands,
277 US 189 (1928).