RIZAL WORKERS UNION, PETITIONER, VS. HON. PURA FERRER CALLEJA, IN HER CAPACITY AS DIRECTOR OF THE BUREAU OF LABOR RELATIONS, AND THE CONFEDERATION OF FILIPINO WORKERS, RESPONDENTS.

This petition for certiorari and prohibition seeks
to set aside the decision of the respondent Director of the Bureau of Labor
Relations annulling the result of a certification election held among the
workers of the La Campana Fabrica
de Tabacos, Inc. (La Campana).

The records show that the Confederation of Filipino Workers (CFW)
had challenged the incumbency of present petitioner Rizal
Workers Union (RWU) as the collective bargaining agent of the rank-and-file
employees of La Campana and had, within the freedom
period, petitioned the Bureau of Labor Relations for a certification
election.  The petition, initially denied for allegedly lacking the support of at
least 20%
of the membership of the bargaining unit,^[1] was subsequently granted, and the
certification election was held on September 5, 1987 under the supervision of representatives of
the Department of Labor and Employment headed by Adelaida
C. Gregorio.  RWU won over CFW by a
3-to-1 margin, the tally sheets showing the following voting results:  for RWU, 304 votes; for CFW, 102 votes; No
union, 1 vote; Spoiled Ballots, 7; Total, 414. 
Accordingly, and the supervision team having certified in the election
minutes that the election had been “** free, clean, honest, peaceful and
orderly,”^[2] RWU was proclaimed the winner.

The defeated union (CFW) signed the minutes under protest and
thereafter filed a formal protest^[3]
with the Bureau of Labor Relations, seeking annulment of the election results
for these alleged irregularities:

a)  Company owners stayed
inside the polling place campaigning for RWU and harassing voters sympathetic
to CFW;

b)  Management prevented 200
workers from leaving the plant on the eve of the  election;

c)  Many persons, not workers
of the company, were allowed to vote using employee identification cards;

d)  Management distributed
free T-shirts and money on the eve of the election to induce the recipients to
vote for RWU;

e)  Workers identified with
the CFW were barred from the company premises.^[4]

These claims were subsequently amplified in a supplemental protest which made mention of at least one
instance of an outsider who had been caught attempting to vote with the use of
an employee’s identification card and of
115 employees not being able to vote.  It
was further alleged that the
frauds were deliberately calculated to ensure the victory of RWU because it was
a company union, as was evident from the fact that despite its 33-year
incumbency during which no less than eleven (11) collective bargaining
agreements were executed with the company, the workers’ wages had remained very
low.

In an order dated November
12, 1987,^[5]
Med-Arbiter Manases T. Cruz dismissed the protest for
lack of merit and declared the election results final and RWU the certified
exclusive bargaining agent of all the rank-and-file workers of La Campana.  He found no
substantial evidence to support the protestant’s charges of fraud and gave
credit to the Election Minutes
attesting to the integrity of the election.

On appeal, however, to the respondent Director of Labor
Relations, that decision was reversed and another, dated February 12, 1988,^[6]
was rendered annulling the certification election and ordering that another
election be held.  In her decision, said respondent accorded
full credence to the allegations made in the protest, found these to have been
sufficiently proven by the protestant’s evidence consisting of a “Kapasyahan/Resolusyon” dated September 24, 1987^[7] and signed by some 100 workers (111
according to the respondent Director; 109 by the Med-Arbiter’s count), and a
sworn statement purportedly executed by one Eric Gamueda.^[8] According
to the first of said documents:  (1)
before the election about 200 workers were detained in their work stations and
thereby prevented from voting; (2) early in the morning of the election,
management distributed free T-shirts to workers who were then taken to the
election booths to vote; (3) construction men, not company employees, working
in a building within the company premises were issued employee identification
cards enabling them to vote in the election. 
The sworn statement is allegedly to the effect that the declarant (Eric Gamueda) was one
of those construction workers who was issued a La Campana
employee’s identification card so that he could vote in the election.  Respondent Director also faulted the
petitioner for opposing the protest by mere general averment without
categorically refuting the charges of fraud.

Having twice filed for reconsideration and been rebuffed both
times, RWU finally instituted the present petition, impugning the respondent
Director’s decision as rendered with grave abuse of discretion in that the
factual conclusions made therein are
without support in the evidence and rest on nothing more substantial than the
protestant’s bare allegations.

In a motion to intervene accompanied by a
petition-in-intervention,^[9]
La Campana took up the cudgels for the petitioner,
denied having intervened in the election or connived with the petitioner in any
cheating, and echoed the charge that the Director’s decision was tainted with grave abuse of discretion for
want of substantial evidentiary basis.

It being well-settled rule that the findings of fact of
quasi-judicial agencies of the Department of Labor and Employment are binding
on this Court if supported by substantial evidence,^[10]
all that is necessary in order to resolve this case is to determine whether or
not evidence of such character exists
or has been presented which would justify the decision of the respondent
Director.  From even a perfunctory
assessment, it becomes apparent that the “evidence” upon which said
decision is professedly based does not come up to that standard of
substantiality.

Neither the “Kapasyahan/Resolusyon”
nor the Gamueda statement was identified by their
purported authors or signatories.  None
of the one hundred or more employees who supposedly signed that manifesto was
presented at the hearing to claim authorship or, howsoever routinely, affirm
that what is narrated therein had in fact transpired.  The same is true of the statement
attributed to Eric Gamueda.  As far as the protest was concerned,
therefore, both documents were nothing but mere scraps of paper without
evidentiary value and, indeed, were not even admissible against herein
petitioner, deprived as it was of the right and opportunity to confront their
authors and examine them about the
truth of their declarations.^[11]

It is of course
also sound and settled rule that administrative agencies performing
quasi-judicial functions are unfettered by the rigid technicalities of
procedure observed
in the courts of law,^[12] and this so that disputes brought before
such bodies may be resolved in the most expeditious and inexpensive manner
possible.  But what is involved here
transcends mere procedural technicality and concerns the more paramount
principles and requirements of due
process, which may not be sacrificed to speed or expediency.  Such a primacy, made inherent in the judicial
process by constitutional fiat,
is implicitly recognized in Art. 221
of the Labor Code, as amended, which in part provides:

“Art. 221.  Technical rules not binding and prior resort to amicable settlement. – In any proceeding
before the Commission or any of the Labor Arbiters, the rules of evidence
prevailing in courts of law or equity shall not be controlling, and it is the
spirit and intention of this code that the Commission and its members and the
Labor Arbiters shall use every and all reasonable means to ascertain the facts
in each case speedily and objectively, without regard to technicalities of law or procedure, all in the
interest of due process.  * * *.”

The clear message of the law is that even in the disposition of
labor cases, due process must never be subordinated to expediency or
dispatch.  Upon this principle, the
unidentified documents relied upon by the respondent Director must be seen and
taken for what they are, mere
inadmissible hearsay.  They cannot, by
any stretch of reasoning, be deemed substantial evidence of the election frauds
complained of.  And as this Court held in
Ang Tibay vs. CIR:^[13]

“* * * (the) assurance of a desirable flexibility in
administrative procedure does not go so far as to justify orders without a
basis in evidence having rational probative force.  Mere uncorroborated hearsay or rumor does
not constitute substantial evidence.”

But even given the benefit of every doubt as to their
admissibility, said statements still fail to qualify as credible or persuasive
evidence of the alleged frauds.  The
“Resolusyon/Kapasyahan,” for one, is so
sketchy in content that it gives
the impression of being no more than a collection of general allegations
presented ready-made to people who signed
it without really knowing or caring about whether they were true or not.  It states, for example, that more than 200
employees were not allowed to vote.  But
that figure must have been plucked out of thin air because there are repeated references in the record^[14] which
the respondent union (CFW) has never seriously disputed that the voters list
agreed upon by the parties showed only 495 eligible voters out of which number 414 in fact voted, as shown by
the official tally, thus leaving only 81 who failed to vote
for one reason or another.  The existence
of an agreed voters list against which the identity of every prospective voter
could be checked also renders quite implausible the insinuation made in said
statements that anyone who presented himself at the polling place with an
employee’s identification card would be allowed to vote without question.  The election minutes record that in the one
instance where a voter’s status as an employee was questioned by a CFW
representative, although his name appeared in the voters list and he presented an identification card, his ballot was ordered
segregated by the DOLE
supervision team when he failed to produce his residence certificate, which
decision however did not satisfy the CFW representatives, who walked out of the
proceedings.^[15]

It results that the only relevant and competent evidence
regarding the conduct of the certification election is the election minutes
accomplished and signed by the DOLE
supervision team, and according to which the election proceeded in a “* *
* free, clean, honest, peaceful and orderly manner.” Based on said
evidence, it is the Med-Arbiter’s decision according it faith and credit that
should be upheld, in preference
to that of the respondent Director which, in ignoring said minutes and
relying on mere unproven allegations of fraud, was rendered with manifest grave
abuse of discretion.

The role played by La Campana in the
disputed election as well as in these proceedings has not escaped the Court’s
attention.  Although the charges of its
active intervention and electioneerng have not been
substantiated, the record shows that it sat with parties and the DOLE
representatives during the election proceedings.^[16]
This Court has time and again ruled that the employer is not a party in a
certification election, which activity is the sole concern of the workers.  The only instance in which an employer may
involve itself in that process is where it is obliged to file a petition for a
certification election by reason of its
workers’ request to bargain collectively, pursuant to Article 258 of the Labor
Code.  Even then, the employer’s involvement
ceases, and it becomes a neutral bystander, after the order for a certification
election issues.^[17]
It was entirely improper for La Campana to be present
at all during the proceedings, even as an observer, let alone sit in and participate therein through
a representative, as the minutes show it did.

WHEREFORE, certiorari is GRANTED.  The questioned decision of the public respondent is ANNULLED
and SET ASIDE.  The Med-Arbiter’s order
of November 12, 1987 declaring final the result of the certification election
of September 5, 1987 and certifying petitioner Rizal
Workers’ Union as the sole and exclusive bargaining agent of all rank-and-file
workers of La Campana Fabrica
de Tabacos, Inc. is REINSTATED and AFFIRMED.  This Court’s restraining order of April 27,
1988^[18]
against the execution or implementation of the respondent Director’s order of
February 12, 1988 subject of the petition is made permanent.  La Campana Fabrica de Tabacos, Inc. is
ADMONISHED for its improper participation and involvement in its workers’
certification election of September 5, 1987 and WARNED against repetition
thereof.  Costs against the private
respondents.

SO ORDERED.

Cruz, Gancayco, and Medialdea, JJ., concur.

Griño-Aquino, J., on official leave.

^[1]
Rollo, pp. 22-26

^[2]
Annex “D,” Petition; Rollo, pp.
39-40

^[3]
NCR-DD-M-6-446-87

^[4]
Rollo, pp. 95-96

^[5]
Rollo, pp. 73-79

^[6]
Rollo, pp. 101-107

^[7]
Rollo, pp. 45-52

^[8]
Rollo, p. 43; also referred to in respondent
Director’s Decision, Rollo, p. 98

^[9]
Rollo, pp. 209-243

^[10]
Mamerto vs. Inciong,
118 SCRA 265; Producers Bank vs. NLRC, 165 SCRA 281; Llobrera
vs. NLRC, 162 SCRA 788; San Miguel Corporation vs. NLRC, 128 SCRA
180; Kapisanan ng Manggagawa sa Camara
Shoes vs. Camara Shoes, et al., 111 SCRA 477

^[11]
People vs. Santos, 139 SCRA
583

^[12]
Ang Tibay vs. CIR, 69
Phil. 635

^[13]
Supra; Footnote 12

^[14]
Rollo, pp. 6, 22, 24, 29, 130, 231 and 255;
the election minutes (Annex “D,” Petition, supra)
signed by CFW also record that only 540 official ballots were prepared which,
considering that said number must have included some allowance for spoilage,
indirectly confirms that only 495 voters were registered.

^[15]
Rollo, p. 39

^[16]
Rollo, p. 74. 
Annex “D,” Petition, supra

^[17]
Consolidated Farms, Inc. vs. Noriel, 84 SCRA
469; Trade Unions of the Philippines
and Allied Services (TUPAS) vs. Trajano, 120
SCRA 64.

^[18]
Rollo, pp. 207-208