CIRIACO HINOGUIN, PETITIONER, VS. EMPLOYEES’ COMPENSATION COMMISSION AND GOVERNMENT SERVICE INSURANCE SYSTEM (ARMED FORCES OF THE PHILIPPINES), RESPONDENTS.

This Petition for Review is directed against the Decision of the
Employees’ Compensation Commission (“ECC”) in ECC Case No. 3275 (Ciriaco Hinoguin v. Government
Service Insurance System [Armed Forces of the Philippines]) which affirmed the
decision of the Government Service Insurance System (“GSIS”) denying
petitioner’s claim for compensation benefit on account of the death of
petitioner’s son, Sgt. Lemick G. Hinoguin.

The deceased, Sgt. Hinoguin started his
military service in 1974, when he was called to military training by the
Philippine Army.  He later on enlisted in
the Philippine Army as a private first class. 
At the time of his death on 7
August 1985, he was holding the rank of Sergeant per Special Order
P-4200, HPA, dated 15 October 1985,
in “A” Company, 14^th Infantry Battalion, 5^th
Infantry Division, PA.  The Headquarters
of the 14th Infantry Battalion was located at Bical, Muñoz, Nueva Ecija.  Sgt. Hinoguin was
Detachment Non-Commissioned Officer at Capintalan, Carranglan, Nueva Ecija, “A” Company being stationed at Carranglan, Nueva Ecija.

On 1 August 1985, Sgt. Hinoguin and two
(2) members of his Detachment, Cpl. Rogelio Clavo and
Dft. Nicomedes Alibuyog, sought permission from Captain Frankie Z. Besas, Commanding Officer of “A” Company to go on
overnight pass to Aritao, Nueva
Vizcaya, “to settle [an] important matter
thereat.”^[1]
Captain Besas orally granted them permission to go to
Aritao and to take their issued firearms with them,
considering that Aritao was regarded as “a
critical place,”^[2]
that is, it had peace and order problems due to the presence of elements of the
New People’s Army (“NPA”) in or in the vicinity of Aritao.

Sgt. Hinoguin, Cpl. Clavo
and Dft. Alibuyog left Carranglan, Nueva Ecija, about noon
on 1 August 1985 and arrived
in Aritao, Nueva Vizcaya, about 1:30 o’clock
P.M. on the same day.^[3]
They proceeded to the home of Dft. Alibuyog’s parents where they had lunch.  About 4:00
o’clock P.M., the three (3) soldiers with a fourth man, a civilian
and relative of Dft. Alibuyog,
had some gin and beer, finishing a bottle of gin and two (2) large bottles of
beer.  Three hours later, at about 7:00 o’clock P.M., the soldiers left the Alibuyog home to return to their Company Headquarters.  They boarded a tricycle, presumably a
motor-driven one, Sgt. Hinoguin and Cpl. Clavo seating themselves in the tricycle cab while Dft. Alibuyog occupied the seat
behind the driver.  Upon reaching the poblacion of Aritao, Dft. Alibuyog dismounted, walked
towards and in front of the tricycle cab, holding his M-16 rifle in his right
hand, not noticing that the rifle’s safety lever was on “semi-automatic” (and
not on “safety”).  He
accidentally touched the trigger, firing a single shot in the process and
hitting Sgt. Hinoguin, then still sitting in the cab,
in the left lower abdomen.  The Sergeant
did not apparently realize immediately that he had been hit; he took three (3)
steps forward, cried that he had been hit and fell to the ground.

His companions rushed Sgt. Hinoguin to
a hospital in Bayombong, Nueva
Vizcaya, for treatment.  Their Company Commander, Capt. Besas, hurried to the hospital upon being notified of the
shooting and there talked with the wounded Sergeant.  The latter confirmed to Capt. Besas that he had indeed been accidentally shot by Dft. Alibuyog.  Sgt. Hinoguin was
later moved to the AFP Medical
Center in Quezon City and there he died on 7 August 1985.  The Death Certificate lists “septic
shock” as immediate cause of death, and “generalized septicemia of
peritonitis” as antecedent cause, following his sustaining a gunshot
wound.

An investigation conducted by H.Q., 14^th
Infantry Battalion on 11 August 1985
concluded that the shooting of Sgt. Hinoguin was
“purely accidental in nature.”^[4]
On 19 November 1985, a “Line of Duty Board of Officers” was convened
by H.Q., 14^th Infantry Battalion, “to determine Line of Duty
Status of [the] late Sgt. Lemick Hinoguin
640407 (Inf.) PA, a member of “A” Co., 14IB, 5ID, PA who died x x x due to Gun Shot Wound as a
result of an accidental fire (sic) committed by Dft. Nicomedes Alibuyog 085-5009 (Inf) PA x x x.”
After receiving and deliberating on the Investigation Report dated 11 August 1985 together with the
sworn statements of witnesses Alibuyog, Clavo and Besas, and after some
further questioning of Capt. Besas, the Line of Duty
Board reached the following conclusion and recommendation:

“Sgt. Hinoguin was then the
designated Detachment Commander of Capintalan
detachment.  On or about 011300H August
1985 Dft Alibuyog invited
Sgt. Hinoguin and Cpl. Clavo
to his home to celebrate at Aritao, Nueva Vizcaya.  They asked permission to go on overnight and
to allow them to carry their firearms with them because the place where they
were going is critical.  They were given
such permission verbally by their Commanding Officer.  The death of Sgt. Hinoguin
was purely accidental as the Investigation Report presented here proved beyond
reasonable [doubt] the fact that Dft. Alibuyog had no grudge either [against] Cpl. Clavo or Sgt. Hinoguin.

RECOMMENDATION:

The recommendation written by the Chairman and unanimously voted
for by the members contain the following:

The Board after a thorough deliberation on presented evidences
declares that the Death of Sgt. Lemick Hinoguin 640407 (Inf) PA is in
Line of Duty.

The Board recommend further that all benefits due the legal
dependents of the late Sgt. Lemick Hinoguin be given.”^[5]
(Underscoring supplied)

Sometime in March 1986, petitioner filed his claim for
compensation benefits under P.D. No. 626 (as amended), claiming that the death
of his son was work-connected and therefore compensable.  This was denied^[6]
by the GSIS on the ground that petitioner’s son was not at his work place nor
performing his duty as a soldier of the Philippine Army at the time of his
death.

Petitioner filed a Motion for Reconsideration which Motion was,
however, denied by the GSIS.  This denial
was confirmed by the Workmen’s Compensation Commission (“WCC”) in a
Decision dated 24 May 1988 which stated that:

“[F]rom the recital of the facts
therein [we found it] very difficult for us to perceive where the
work-connection of the events that led to appellant’s son’s death lies.  Under the law, death resulting from injury is
considered compensable if it arise out of and in the course of employment.  Definitely, the death of Hinoguin did not arise out of employment.  Clearly, the facts showed that he was not
on his place of work, nor was he performing official functions.  On the contrary, he was on pass and had
just came from a merrymaking when accidentally shot by his companion.”^[7] (Underscoring
supplied)

The sole issue to be resolved in this case is whether or not the
death of Sgt. Lemick Hinoguin
is compensable under the applicable statute and regulations.

Considering that Sgt. Hinoguin died on 7 August 1985, the applicable law is to
be found in Book Four, Title III of the Labor Code, as amended.  It may be noted at the outset that under
Article 167 (g) of the Labor Code, as amended and Section 4 (b) (1) of Rule I
of the Amended (Implementing) Rules on Employees’ Compensation, the term
“employee” includes a “member of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.”
Rule XIII entitled “Death”, of the Amended (Implementing) Rules provides
in part as follows:

“SECTION 1.  Conditions
to Entitlement. — (a) The beneficiaries of a deceased employee shall be
entitled to an income benefit if all of the following conditions are satisfied:

(1)     The employee had been
duly reported to the System;

(2)     He died as a result of
injury or sickness; and

(3)     The System has been
duly notified of his death, as well as the injury or sickness which caused his
death.

His employer shall be liable for the benefit if such death occurred
before the employee is duly reported for coverage of the System.

x x
x              x
x x                 x x x”

Article 167 (k) of the Labor Code as amended
defines a compensable “injury” quite simply as “any harmful
change in the human organism from any accident arising out of and in the
course of the employment.” The Amended (Implementing) Rules have, however,
elaborated considerably on the simple and succinct statutory provision.  Rule III, Section 1 (a) reads:

“SECTION 1.  Grounds.
— (a) For the injury and the resulting disability or death to be compensable,
the injury must be the result of an employment accident satisfying all of the
following grounds:

(1)     The employee must have
been injured at the place where his work requires him to be;

(2)     The employee must have
been performing his official functions; and

(3)     If the injury is
sustained elsewhere, the employee must have been executing an order for the
employer.

x x x              x x x                 x x x“

(Underscoring
supplied)

It will be seen that because the Amended (Implementing) Rules are
intended to apply to all kinds of employment, such rules must be read and
applied with reasonable flexibility and comprehensiveness.  The concept of a “work place”
referred to in Ground 1, for instance, cannot always be literally applied to a
soldier on active duty status, as if he were a machine operator or a worker in
an assembly line in a factory or a clerk in a particular fixed office.  Obviously, a soldier must go where his
company is stationed.  In the instant
case, Aritao, Nueva Vizcaya was not, of course, Carranglan,
Nueva Ecija, Aritao being approximately 1-1/2 hours away from the latter
by public transportation.  But Sgt. Hinoguin, Cpl. Clavo and Dft. Alibuyog had permission from
their Commanding Officer to proceed to Aritao, and it
appears to us that a place which soldiers have secured lawful permission
to be at cannot be very different, legally speaking, from a place where they
are required to go by their commanding officer.  We note that the three (3) soldiers were on
an overnight pass which, notably, they did not utilize in full.  They were not on vacation leave.  Morever, the were
required or authorized to carry their firearms with which presumably they were
to defend themselves if NPA elements happened to attack them while en route to
and from Aritao or with which to attack and seek to
capture such NPA elements as they might encounter.  Indeed, if the three (3) soldiers had in fact
encountered NPAs while on their way to or from Aritao and been fired upon by them and if Sgt. Hinoguin had been killed by an NPA bullet, we do not
believe that respondent GSIS would have had any difficulty in holding the death
a compensable one.

Turning to the question of whether Sgt. Hinoguin
was performing official functions at the time he sustained the gunshot wound,
it has already been pointed out above that the Line of Duty Board of Officers
of the 14^th Infantry Battalion Headquarters had already
determined that the death of Sgt. Hinoguin had
occurred “in line of duty.” It may be noted in this connection that a
soldier on active duty status is really on 24 hours a day official duty status
and is subject to military discipline and military law 24 hours a day.  He is subject to call and to the orders of
his superior officers at all times, 7 days a week, except, of course, when he
is on vacation leave status (which Sgt. Hinoguin was
not).  Thus, we think that the
work-connected character of Sgt. Hinoguin’s injury
and death was not effectively precluded by the simple circumstance that he was
on an overnight pass to go to the home of Dft. Alibuyog, a soldier under his own command.  Sgt. Hinoguin did
not effectively cease performing “official functions” because he was
granted a pass.  While going to a fellow
soldier’s home for a few hours for a meal and some drinks was not a specific military
duty, he was nonetheless in the course of performance of official
functions.  Indeed, it appears to us that
a soldier should be presumed to be on official duty unless he is shown to have
clearly and unequivocally put aside that status or condition temporarily by,
e.g., going on an approved vacation leave.7 Even vacation leave may, it should
be remembered, be preterminated by superior orders.

More generally, a soldier in the Armed Forces must accept certain
risks, for instance, that he will be fired upon by forces hostile to the State
or the Government.  That is not, of
course, the only risk that he is compelled to accept by the very nature of his
occupation or profession as a soldier. 
Most of the persons around him are necessarily also members of the Armed
Forces who carry firearms, too.  In other
words, a soldier must also assume the risk of being accidentally fired upon by
his fellow soldiers.  This is reasonably
regarded as a hazard or risk inherent in his employment as a soldier.

We hold, therefore, that the death of Sgt. Hinoguin
that resulted from his being hit by an accidental discharge of the M-16 of Dft. Alibuyog, in the
circumstances of this case, arose out of and in the course of his employment as
a soldier on active duty status in the Armed Forces of the Philippines and
hence compensable.

It may be well to add that what we have written above in respect
of performance of official functions of members of the Armed Forces must be
understood in the context of the specific purpose at hand, that is, the
interpretation and application of the compensation provisions of the Labor Code
and applicable related regulations.  It
is commonplace that those provisions should, to the extent possible, be given
the interpretation most likely to effectuate the beneficent and humanitarian
purposes infusing the Labor Code.

ACCORDINGLY, the Decision of the GSIS taken through its Claim
Review Committee dated 20 November
1986 and the Decision dated 24
May 1988 of the Employees’ Compensation Commission in ECC Case No.
3275, are hereby REVERSED and the GSIS is hereby DIRECTED to award all
applicable benefits in respect of the death of Sgt. Lemick
G. Hinoguin, to petitioner.  No pronouncement as to costs.

SO ORDERED.

Fernan, C.J., (Chairman), Gutierrez,
Jr., Bidin, and
Cortes, JJ., concur.

^[1]
Affidavit of Capt. F.Z. Besas, dated 27 June 1986; Records of ECC Case No.
3275 (Ciriaco Hinoguin vs.
ECC, et al.), p. 8.  In a sworn
“question and answer” statement given by Draftee N.C. Alibuyog on 4
August 1985 at Battalion H.Q., he said, among other things:

“5.       T: 
Saang lugar ng maganap ang
mga pangyayari?

S:  Sa bayan po ng Aritao,
Nueva Vizcaya, Sir.

6.        T: 
Sino sino ang iyong mga kasama
ng maganap ang mga pangyayari?

S:  Sina Cpl. Clavo at Sgt. Limec Hinugen po sir.

7.        T:   Bakit kayo nakarating sa Aritao, Nueva
Vizcaya at ano ang inyong   ginagawa doon?

S:  Kami po ay may mahalagang bagay na kukunin
at tuloy ay mamamasyal sa amin sir.

8.        T: 
Kayo ba ay nagpaalam?

S:  Opo sir.

9.        T: 
Kangino kayo nagpaalam?

S:  Sa aming CO Sir na si CAPT. FRANKIE BESAS sir.

10.      T: 
Ano ang inyong paalam?

S:  Na kami po ay pupunta sa
Aritao, Nueva Vizcaya, sir.

x x x     x x x     x x x”

(Underscoring supplied)

^[2]
Affidavit of Capt. F.Z. Besas, ibid.

^[3]
See sworn statement of Cpl. Rogelio Clavo, Records of
ECC Case No. 3275, p. 2.

^[4]
Records of ECC Case No. 3275, p. 11

^[5] Ibid.

^[6] Id.,
p. 17.

^[7]
Annex “A” of Petition, Rollo, pp.
11-14.

7
Dela Rea v. Employees’ Compensation Commission, et
al., 141 SCRA 128 (1986) may be distinguished on this ground, among others.