VICTORIA VDA. DE BUNGKAS, ET AL., PETITIONERS, VS. NATIONAL WATERWORKS AND SEWERAGE AUTHORITY, RESPONDENT.

This case has been submitted for decision on the petition for review
and the answer thereto, both parties having waived the filing of their
respective briefs.  The only issue is
whether or not the cause of death of peti­tioner’s husband was
service-connected so as to entitle her to an award under the Workmen’s Compensation
Act.

The facts found by the Chairman of the Workmen’s Com­pensation
Commission, Mrs. Nieves Baens del
Rosario, as stated in her decision of August
21, 1965, are not disputed. 
The deceased Eleuterio Bungkas
was in life an employee of respondent National Waterworks and Sewerage
Authority.  His first job was a
pipe-fitter – digging soil, and laying and connecting underground water
pipes.  He worked in that capacity from
1945 to 1949.  In 1950 he was assigned as
security guard, in which assignment he stayed until he died in 1956.  The cause of his death was “acute
nephritis, due to uremia and acute cardiac dilatation.” The Commission
found -and there is no evidence to the contrary – that nephritis could be
caused by the factors of “cold and wet” due to submersion in water,
and that if such factors had had anything to do with the disease which Bungkas contracted, the disease would have manifested
itself during the time when he was working as pipe-fitter, that is, from 1945
to 1949, and not four years thereafter, or in 1953, when he showed the first
symptoms.  The time-gap, according to the
Commission, was too long to justify a conclusion that the sickness was
service-induced.

On the other hand, there is nothing peculiar in the work of a
security guard which could have caused the sick­ness, or predisposed the
deceased to it, nor any indication that he would not have contracted it had he
not been employed at all in that capacity.

As the record stands, we find no ground to reverse the
decision sought to be reviewed, and hence affirm the same.  No costs.

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Dizon, Zaldivar, Sanchez, Castro,
Angeles, and Fernando, JJ., concur.