SALVADOR LAZO, PETITIONER, VS. EMPLOYEES COMPENSATION COMMISSION & GOVERNMENT SERVICE INSURANCE SYSTEM (CENTRAL BANK OF THE PHILIPPINES), RESPONDENTS.

This is an appeal from the
decision of the respondent Employees Compensation Commission (ECC) in ECC Case
No. 2883 which affirmed the dismissal of petitioner’s claim for compensation
against the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS).

The petitioner, Salvador Lazo, is a security guard of the Central Bank of the Philippines assigned to its main office in Malate, Manila.  His regular tour of duty is
from 2:00 o’clock
in the afternoon to 10:00 o’clock in the evening.  On
18 June 1986, the petitioner rendered duty from 2:00 o’clock in the afternoon to 10:00 o’clock in
the evening.  But, as the security guard who was to relieve
him failed to arrive, the petitioner rendered overtime duty
up to 5:00 o’clock in the
morning of 19 June 1986, when he asked permission from his
superior to leave early in order to take home to Binangonan,
Rizal, his sack of rice.

On his way home, at about 6:00
o’clock in the morning of 19
June 1986, the passenger jeepney the
petitioner was riding on turned turtle due to slippery road.  As a result, he sustained injuries and was
taken to the Angono
Emergency Hospital
for treatment.  He was later transferred
to the National Orthopedic
Hospital where he was confined
until 25 July 1986.

For the injuries he
sustained, petitioner filed a claim for disability benefits under PD 626, as
amended.  His claim, however, was denied
by the GSIS for the reason that –

“It appears that after performing your regular duties as Security
Guard from 2:00 P.M. to 10:00 P.M. on June 18, 1986, you rendered overtime duty from 10:00 P.M. to 5:06
A.M. of the following day; that at about 5:06 A.M. after asking permission from your superior
you were allowed to leave the Office to do certain personal matter – that of
bringing home a sack of rice and that, while on your way home, you met a vehicular accident that resulted to
(sic) your injuries.  From
the foregoing informations, it is evident that you
were not at your work place performing your duties when the incident occurred.”^[1]

It was held that the condition for compensability had not been satisfied.

Upon review of the case, the respondent Employees Compensation
Commission affirmed the decision since the accident which involved the
petitioner occurred far from his work place and while he was attending to a
personal matter.

Hence, the present recourse.

The petitioner contends that the injuries he sustained due to the
vehicular accident on his way home from work should be construed as “arising
out of or in the course of employment” and thus, compensable.  In support of his prayer for the reversal of
the decision, the petitioner cites the case of Pedro Baldebrin vs. Workmen’s Compensation Commision,^[2] where the Court awarded compensation
to the peti­tioner therein who figured in an accident on his way home from his official station at Pagadian City to his place of residence at Aurora, Zamboanga del Sur.  In the accident, petitioner’s left eye was
hit by a pebble while he was riding on a bus.

Respondents claim that the Baldebrin
ruling is a deviation from cases earlier decided and hence, not applicable to
the present case.

The Court has carefully considered the petition and the arguments
of the parties and finds that the petitioner’s submission is meritorious.

Liberally interpreting the employees compensation law to give
effect to its compassionate spirit as a social legislation,^[3]
in Vda. de Torbela v. ECC,^[4]
the Court held:

“It is a fact that
Jose P. Torbela, Sr. died on March 3, 1975 at about
5:45 o’clock in the morning due to injuries sustained by him in a vehicular
accident while he was on his way to school
from Bacolod City, where he lived, to Hinigaran, Negros Occidental where the
school of which he was the principal was located and that at the time of the
accident he had in his possession official papers he allegedly worked on in his
residence on the eve of his death.  The
claim is compensable.  When an employee is accidentally
injured at a point reasonably proximate to the place at work, while he is going to and from his work, such injury is deemed to
have arisen out of and in the course of his employment.”

Again in Alano v. ECC,^[5]
it was reiterated:

“Dedicacion de Vera, a government
employee during her lifetime, worked as
principal of Salinap
School in San
Carlos City, Pangasinan.  Her tour of duty was from 7:30 a.m.
to 5:30 p.m.  On November 29, 1976, at 7:00 A.M., while she was waiting for a ride
at Plaza Jaycee in San Carlos City on her way to the school, she was bumped and run over by a speeding Toyota mini-bus which resulted in her instantaneous death. 
x x x”

“In this case, it is not disputed that the deceased died while going to her place of work.  She was at the place where, as the petitioner puts it, her job necessarily required her to
be if she was to reach her place of work on time.  There was nothing private or personal
about the school principal’s being at the place of the accident.  She was there because
her employment required her to be there.”

More recently, in Vano vs. GSIS & ECC,^[6]
this Court, applying the above
quoted decisions, enunciated:

“Filomeno Vano
was a letter carrier of the Bureau of Posts in Tagbilaran City.  On July
31, 1983, a Sunday, at around 3:30
p.m. Vano was driving his motorcycle with
his son as backrider allegedly on his way to his
station in Tagbilaran for his work the following day,
Monday.  As they were approaching Hinawanan Bridge
in Loay, Bohol,
the motorcycle skidded, causing its passengers to be thrown overboard.  Vano’s head hit the
bridge’s railing which rendered him unconscious.  He was taken to the Engelwood Hospital
where he was declared dead on arrival due to severe hemorrhage.

“We
see no reason to deviate from the foregoing rulings.  Like the deceased in
these two (2) aforementioned cases, it was established that petitioner’s
husband in the case at bar was on his way to his place of work when he met the accident.  His death, therefore, is compensable under
the law as an employment accident.”

In the above cases, the employees were on their way to work.  In the case at bar, petitioner had come from
work and was on his way home, just like in the Baldebrin
case, where the employee “x x x
figured in an accident when he was going home
from his official station at Pagadian City to his place of residence at Aurora, Zamboanga del Sur x x x.”^[7]

In Baldebrin,
the Court said:

“The principal issue is whether petitioner’s injury comes within
the meaning of and intendment of the phrase ‘arising out of and in the course of employment.’ (Section 2, Workmen’s
Compensation Act).  In Philippine
Engineer’s Syndicate, Inc. vs. Flora S. Martin and Workmen’s Compensation
Commission, 4 SCRA 356.  We held that
‘where an employee, after working hours, attempted to ride on the platform of a
service truck of the company near his place of work, and, while thus
attempting, slipped and fell to the ground and was run over by the truck,
resulting in his death, the accident may be said to have arisen out of
or in the course of employment,
for which reason his death is compensable.  The fact standing alone, that the truck was in motion when the employee boarded, is insufficient
to justify the conclusion that he had been notoriously negligent, where it does not appear that
the truck was running at a great speed.’ And, in a later
case, Iloilo Dock & Engineering Co. vs. Workmen’s Compensation
Commission, 26 SCRA 102, 103, We ruled
that ‘[e]mployment includes not only the actual doing of the work, but a
reasonable margin of time and space necessary to be used in passing to and from
the place where the work is to be done. 
If the employee be injured while passing, with the express or implied consent of the employer, to or from his work by a way over the employer’s premises, or over those of another in such proximity and relation as to be in
practical effect a part of the employer’s
premises, the injury is one arising out of and in
the course of the employment as much as though it had happened while the
employee was engaged in his work at the place of its performance.”
(Underscoring supplied)

In the case at
bar, it can be seen that petitioner left his station at the Central Bank several
hours after his regular time
off, because the reliever did not arrive,
and so petitioner was asked to go on overtime.  After permission to leave was given, he went home. 
There is no evidence on record
that petitioner deviated from his usual, regular homeward route or that interruptions occurred in the journey.

While the presumption of compensability
and theory of aggravation under the
Workmen’s Compensation Act (under
which the Baldebrin
case was decided) may have been abandoned under the New Labor
Code,^[8]
it is significant that the liberality of
the law in general in favor of the workingman still subsists.  As agent charged by the law to implement social
justice guaranteed and secured by the Constitution, the Employees Compensation
Commission should adopt a liberal attitude in favor of the employee in deciding
claims for compensability, especially where there is some basis in the facts
for inferring a work connection to the accident.

This kind of interpretation gives meaning and substance to the
compassionate spirit of the law as embodied in Article 4 of the New Labor Code which
states that “all doubts in the implementation and interpretation of the
provisions of the Labor Code including its implementing rules and regulations
shall be resolved in favor of labor.”

The policy then is
to extend the applicability of the decree (PD 626) to as many employees who can
avail of the benefits thereunder.  This is in consonance with the avowed policy
of the State to give maximum aid and protection to labor.^[9]

There is no reason, in principle, why employees should not be
protected for a reasonable period of time prior to or after working hours and
for a reasonable distance before
reaching or after leaving the employer’s premises.^[10]

If the Vano ruling
awarded compensation to an employee who was on his way from home to his work station one day before an official working day, there is no
reason to deny compensation for accidental
injury occuring while he is on his way home one hour
after he had left his work station.

We are constrained not to consider the defense of the street
peril doctrine and instead interpret the law liberally in favor of the employee
because the Employees Compensation Act, like the Workmen’s Compensation Act, is
basically a social legislation designed to afford relief to the working men and
women in our society.

WHEREFORE, the decision appealed from is REVERSED and SET
ASIDE.  Let the case be remanded to the
ECC and the GSIS for disposition in accordance with this decision.

SO ORDERED.

Melencio-Herrera, (Chairman), Paras, Sarmiento, and Regalado, JJ., concur.

^[1]
Annex “B”, Rollo at p. 7

^[2]
G.R. No. L-43792, October 12, 1984,
132 SCRA 510

^[3]
Clemente v. WCC, G.R. No. L-42087, 8 April 1988, 159 SCRA 492

^[4]
G.R. No. L-42627, February 21, 1980, 96 SCRA
260

^[5]
G.R. No. L-48594, March 16, 1988,
158 SCRA 670

^[6]
G.R. No. 81327, December
4, 1989

^[7]
see Baldebrin,
supra.

^[8]
PD 626 – promulgated on 1 January 1975, further amended by PD 1368 on 1 May 1978.

^[9]
Carbajal v. Government Service Insurance
System, G.R. No. L-46654, August 9, 1988, 164 SCRA 204

^[10]
Cudahy Packing Co. v. Parramore, 263 U.S. 418 [1923] and Papineau
v. Industrial Accident Commission, 187 Pac. 108.