JOSE MA. GONZALES, PETITIONER, VS. VICTORY LABOR UNION (VICLU), JULIAN BOLTRON, SEVERINO APAWAN, PONCIANO SAYAM, AND QUIRICO MENDEZ, RESPONDENTS.

This case is before us on review by certiorari of the decision of the Court of Industrial Relations dated May 8, 1963, and of its resolution of July 19, 1963, in Case No. 303-ULP-Cebu, Victory
Labor Union (VICLU) et al., vs. Jose M. Gonzales.

Herein petitioner Gonzales was engaged in trawl fishing, and
among his employees were Julian Beltran, Severo Apawan, Ponciano Sayan, Quirico Mendez and Virgilio Baes – all of them
working to petitioner’s fishing boat, the M/L Emiliana.  On March
31, 1962 the Acting Prosecutor of the Court of Industrial Relations
filed a complaint against petitioner, charging him with unfair labor practice in dismissing said employees without
just cause but by reason of their membership in VICLU and thereby interfering
and coercing them in the
exercise of their right to self-organization.

Gonzales
admitted in his answer that the complainants, except Virgilio
Baes, were his employees, but denied that be
dismissed them for their union affiliation, and alleged that their dismisal was for cause, they having been found to have connived with
each other in pilfering the catch of the fishing boat and selling the same to
the public for their personal benefit. 
Petitioner further denied that he had knowledge, prior to the filing of
the complaint, of the complainants’ membership in the labor union.

After
trial, the court below, in a decision penned by Presiding Judge Jose S.
Bautista, held herein peti­tioner guilty of unfair labor practice, ordered him
to cease and desist from the acts complained of and directed the reinstatement
of the complainants with back wages from Feb­ruary
7, 1962, which was the date of their dismissal. 
Pe­titioner filed a motion
for reconsideration before the Court en banc, but the motion was
denied in a minute resolution signed by Presiding Judge Bautista and concurred
in by As­sociate Judges Arsenio I. Martinez and Baltazar M. Villanueva. 
An extended dissent, however, was filed, by Associate Judge Emiliano C. Tabigne, with the concurrence of Associate Judge Amando C. Bugayong.

In
this case we are again faced with the application of the substantial evidence
rule,^[1] under which the
findings of fact of the Court of Industrial Relations are not disturbed on
appeal as long as they are supported by “such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.”^[2]

There is one circumstance
which, at the very outset, has detained us from accepting the findings of fact
in the decision appealed from as conclusive, namely, that the said decision was
rendered by an almost evenly divided court and that the division was precisely
on the facts as borne out by the evidence. 
In such a situation this Court feels called upon to go over the record and, in order to determine the
substantiality of the evidence, consider it not only in its quantitative but
also in its qualitative aspects.  For to
be substantial, evidence must first at all be credible.

The question then is
whether or not the conclusion of the bare majority of the Court below, that the
complainants there, now respondents, were dismissed by petitioner for their
union affiliation, meets the test thus established.  The only evidence on this point is the testimony of
respondents Julian Beltran, Severino Apawan and Quirico Mendez, as
well as the testimony of the union president, Attorney Loreto G. Campos.  The first three more or less uniformly
declared that they be­came members of VICLU on November 15, 1951 by signing the corresponding membership slip
(Exh. A); that they had not violated any rule or
committed any irregularity in the performance of their duties; and that on
February 7, 1962 they were called by the management and told that they were
being dismissed by reason of their union membership.  Upon its face and considered in isolation,
such evidence could conceivably meet the test of substantiality.  But there is other evidence which cannot be lightly
dismissed without arbitrarily closing the door to a judicious discharge of the
power of review, within the limits set down by the rule.

1.  First of all, there is
the membership slip signed by complainants Julian Beltran, Severino
Apawan, Ponciano Sayan and Quirico Mendez when
they allegedly affiliated to the Victory Labor Union.  The slip is likewise signed by the union president, Attorney Loreto G. Campos, and
bears the handwritten date in ink, “Nov. 15, 1951.” Attorney Campos categorically affirmed on the witness stand
the correctness of the date thus written, and said that the actual signing was done in the morning of that
day.  Yet the log book of the M/L Emiliana shows that the whole day of November
15, 1961 the boat
was out fishing in the sea off Bohol. 
Between the entries in a log
book, which is required by law
to be kept by every master or captain of a registrable
vessel,
and a membership slip such as that
signed by respondents, the first is undoubtedly more reliable.

2.  The complaint for unfair
labor practice named Virgilio Baes
as one of the five complainants, all members of VICLU.  According to Attorney Campos, when examined
at the trial, Baes was not a member of the union at all, had not signed any membership
paper, and was included in the complaint only through inadvertence.  His inclusion
certainly does not speak well of Attorney Campos’ credibility as witness, particularly in the light
of his other testimony that before he prepared the complaint, as president and
lawyer of the union, he investigated the complainants one by one, and that
there was a preliminary hearing
of the case by the prosecutor of the Court.

3.  Petitioner was never
officially notified that respondents were members of the Victory Labor
Union.  No demand for check-off
deductions from their wages was ever served upon him.  In fact, respondents themselves said that
from November 15, 1961, up
to the time of their dismissal from employment on February 7, 1962, they did not pay any monthly union
dues.  And although all the crew members
of the M/L Emiliana were supposedly affiliated to
VICLU, no attempt whatsoever was made by the latter to secure a collective
bargaining agreement or at least a certification election.

4.  A significant fact is
that it was not only respondents who were dismissed by petitioner but also the
captain of the vessel himself, Ernesto Baroc, who was
not a member of the union and whose dismissal was for complicity in the pilferage of the catch of the M/L Emiliana.

The
foregoing circumstances, objective as they are, lend strong support to the
testimony of petitioner Gonzales and of his witness Felipe Jubay,
to the effect that they had received evidence, consisting of reports from
different sources, that whenever the boat arrived at Cebu
after a fish­ing trip
respondents would sell fish at very cheap prices; that Gonzales
investigated them one by one and was convinced of their guilt; that he was not yet through with the in­vestigation, but
they failed to return after February 7, 1962; and that he did not know they
were members of any labor union.

Besides the foregoing
evidence for herein petitioner the two dissenting members of the court below
also con­sidered certain significant contradictions in the testimony of
respondents.  We quote from their
opinion:

“Regarding their dismissal, we find that there was sufficient
justification for the action taken by the employer.  It appears that these employees were found to
have sabotaged the interest of their employer. 
They pilfered the fish caught by them and sold them to private parties
and pocketed the proceeds thereof.  This
circumstance is a clear indication of sabotage and pilferage pure and
simple.  And the dismissal of this
instant case should, therefore, be in order.

It is claimed that there were acts of discrimination on the part of
the employer when these employees were
dismissed.  We hold the contrary
view.  Let us take for instance the
so-called interview of the four employees by the employer on February
7, 1962.  One witness (Boltron)
testified that the four of them were
called together to the office of the management and told them that they were dismissed because management did not like their membership
to their union.  The other witness
testified that such incident happened aboard the boat M/L Emiliana
(Witness Mendez).  In another instance, Witness Apawan said that he was called alone to the office of respondent employer and nobody was with them at the time he was told of
his dismissal.  These contradictory statements
clearly indicate that the employer has no knowledge of their membership at the
time except when the complaint was filed and notified by the filing of the same
and their dismissal was not, therefore, motivated by any discriminatory act on
the part of the employer.  As stated
above, we find that there was justification of their dismissal because of the
pilferage committed by them in disposing a portion of the catch to private
parties to the loss of their employer. 
When an employee has committed an act inimical to the employer’s
interest, his dismissal is just cause and may be permitted by this Court.”

We conclude, in
view of all the considerations above set forth, that the bare testimony of
respondents, complainants below, is insufficient to establish the charge of
unfair labor practice under the standard fixed by law and enunciated in the
decisions of this Court.

The judgment appealed
from is set aside, and the complaint is dismissed, with costs.

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Dizon, Zaldivar, Sanchez, Castro,
Teehankee, and Barredo, JJ., concur.

Fernando, J., in the result.

^[1]
Sec. 6, R. A. No. 875.

^[2]
Ang Tibay vs. CIR,
69 Phil. 635; Santiago Rice Mill vs. Santiago Labor Union, G. R. No.
18040, August 31 1962; Kaisahan Ng Mga Manggagawa sa La Campana vs. Tantongco, G. R. No. L-18338, October 31, 1962.