FORTUNATA VDA. DE HORNIDO, PETITIONER, VS. EMPLOYEES COMPENSATION COMMISSION AND GOVERNMENT SERVICE INSURANCE SYSTEM (DEPT. OF EDUCATION, CULTURE AND SPORTS), RESPONDENTS.

It is a time-honored
policy of the State to protect the rights of workers in the government and the private sector, and to
promote their welfare.  Thus, the
legislature enacted the Workmen’s Compensation Act which was later superseded
by the Employee’s Compensation Act.  The
purpose of these two laws is to ensure that workers and their families are
adequately compensated in times of work-oriented injuries, sickness or even
death.  But what happens when disability
benefits are claimed twenty-one years from the time the disability occurs?  Does the aforestated
policy of the State prevail over the well-settled principle of
prescription?  This is the problem posed before this Court
in the instant petition for review on certiorari of a decision of the
Employee’s Compensation Commission.

Asenciano Hornido was
employed as
an elementary public school
teacher until his retirement on May 9,
1974.  Sometime in 1965, Hornido
contracted hypertension allegedly
due to “so many years of strenuous teaching.”^[1] In 1976, he succumbed to pneumonia secondary to CVA and hypertension.

On August 25, 1985, herein
petitioner Fortunata Vda. de Hornido applied for compensation benefits with the GSIS but
the same was denied in the
following tenor:

“It appears from the records that your husband retired from
the service on May 9, 1974.  In this connection, please be informed of the
pertinent provisions of the aforecited Decree, and
corresponding implementing rules duly promulgated by the Employees’ Compensation Commission, quoted hereunder:

‘Art. 208.  Applicability – This Title shall apply
only to injury, sickness,
disability or death occurring on or after January 1, 1975.’

‘Rule III, Sec. 1(c) – Only injury or
sickness that occurred on or after January
1, 1975 and the resulting disability or death shall be compensable
under these Rules.'”^[2]
(Underscoring supplied.)

Aggrieved by the decision of the respondent GSIS, petitioner
thereafter sought redress from the respondent ECC but to no avail.  Quoted hereunder are the pertinent portions
of the ECC decision dated April 7, 1987,
which is now subject of review by this Court by the present petition for review
on certiorari, to wit:

“(At most), the instant case falls within the jurisdiction of
the old workmen’s compensation law. 
Causes of action under the old law, however, must be filed within 10
years from their accrual.  Otherwise,
they shall be forever barred.  Records of
the case at bar show that this case was filed after the lapse of the ten-year
period.

FOR ALL THE FOREGOING, the instant case is hereby DISMISSED for
lack of jurisdiction.

SO ORDERED.”^[3]

The records reveal that the deceased employee retired from the
service on May 9, 1974.  Presidential Decree No. 626 (The Employees
Compensation Act) on which petitioner anchors her claim took effect only on January 1, 1975.  In this respect, the law is clear.  Petitioner’s claim should be governed not by
PD No. 626 but by the Workmen’s Compensation Act which was the law then in
force.  This is consistent with the
ruling of this Court in Vda. de
Tumolva vs. ECC,^[4]
where it was held thus:

“Where the ailment was contracted before January 1, 1975,
although the death occurred and the subsequent claim was filed after the effectivity
of the New Labor Code in 1975, the claim should still be decided under the Workmen’s
Compensation Act (Ibid, citing De Castro, Jr. vs. Republic, 75 SCRA 372; Cuenza vs. ECC, 104 SCRA 198)” (Underscoring
supplied.)

Under the Workmen’s
Compensation Act, “it is not necessary to prove that employment was the
sole cause of the death or injury suffered by the employee.  It is sufficient to show that the employment
had contributed to the aggravation or acceleration of such death or
ailment.”^[5]
Nevertheless, this Court finds that the instant petition is devoid of merit.

The Government Corporate Counsel, acting as counsel for
respondent GSIS stated in his memorandum that even under the old Workmen’s
Compensation Act, petitioner’s claim should nevertheless be denied since her
husband was no longer an employee at the time of his death.  Additionally, the said counsel avers that
since death did not occur within 2 years from the alleged work-connected sickness, the requirements
set forth in Sec. 8 of the governing law was not complied with.^[6]
“(H) is death occurred 6 years after he contracted
the ailments of ‘cerebral thrombosis and hypertension essential’ which caused
his death.”^[7]
In view of the foregoing, counsel for respondent GSIS contends that
petitioner’s claim cannot prosper.

The Court finds that what is most persuasive is the point raised
by the Solicitor General as counsel for respondent Commission in his comment
that the petitioner’s claim is barred by prescription.

Petitioner admits that her husband’s disability started as early
as 1965 when he contracted hypertension. 
True, the old workmen’s compensation act grants disability benefits for
diseases “which have been shown to have arisen in the course of
employment.”^[8]
It must, however, be remembered that since petitioner
claims a right under a statute, Article 1144 of the Civil Code comes into play.  The said Article requires that the claim must
be filed within 10 years from the time the cause of action accrued.  In the instant case, more than 10 years have
elapsed from the time petitioner’s cause of action arose before she filed her
claim in 1984.  It took twenty-one long
years before petitioner decided to take the necessary action.

This Court sustains the Solicitor General’s observation that
“petitioner cannot justify her unreasonable delay in filing her claim by
invoking scarcity of GSIS forms, difficulty of transportation in the area, her
health problems and financial difficulties.”^[9]

These reasons adduced by the petitioner are, at the very least,
flimsy and cannot justify a reversal of the decision of the respondent
commission.  Other options were available
to her, such as sending her application for compensation through the mail.  It is obvious, therefore, that her inaction
way beyond the reglementary period proved fatal to
her cause.

WHEREFORE, premises considered, the petition is hereby
DENIED for lack of merit and the decision of the respondent commission is
AFFIRMED.  No costs.

SO ORDERED.

Narvasa, (Chairman), Cruz, Griño-Aquino, and Medialdea, JJ., concur.

^[1]
Page 1, Petition for
Review; Page 3, Rollo.

^[2]
Page 10-11, Rollo.

^[3]
Pages 11-12, Rollo.

^[4]
141 SCRA 78 (1986).

^[5]
Bonifacio vs.
GSIS, 146 SCRA 276 (1986).

^[6]
“Sec. 8.  Death
Benefit.- If the disease contracted or injury
received by the employee as provided in section two hereof causes
his death within two years from the
date of such injury or sickness, the employer
shall pay the compensation to the persons entitled thereto, and in case there
shall be none, he shall pay to the person
representing the deceased employee the
burial expenses not to exceed two hundred pesos, and shall also pay to or for the following persons, in the
order of priority and during the periods hereinafter set forth, a weekly
compensation equivalent to the following percentages of the average weekly
wages of the employee as determined in section nineteen of this Act:

“x x x                                               x x x                
                       x x x”

(Underscoring supplied.)

^[7]
Page 100, Rollo.

^[8]
Hernandez vs. WCC, 14 SCRA 219 (1965).

^[9]
Page 28, Rollo.