SAMAHANG MANGGAGAWA NG RIZAL PARK AND DOMINGO ENRIQUEZ, PETITIONERS, VS. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION AND NATIONAL PARK DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE, RESPONDENTS.

The petitioners were dismissed by the National Park Development
Committee, private respondent herein, on the supercilious ground that their
continued employment was “not compatible with the rules of the New
Society.” That was in 1972, shortly after the imposition of martial
law.  When the petitioners complained to
the Department of Labor, their dismissal was sustained by the Labor
Arbiter.  This was not suprising because the year was 1976 and martial law was
still in force.

What is suprising is this.  When his decision was appealed to the NLRC,
the public respondent also affirmed the dismissal albeit on a different
ground.  This was on June 29, 1990, long after the New Society had been banished and
discredited.  The Freedom Constitution
had already called for the eradication of “all iniquitous vestiges of the
previous regime.”^[1]

The petitioners were employees of the private respondent, then
under the chairmanship of Imelda Marcos and the vice-chairmanship of the late Teodoro F. Valencia. 
Sometime in August 1972, the petitioner union proposed negotiations for
the adoption of a collective bargaining agreement but the proposal was
ignored.  The union then filed a notice
of strike with the Bureau of Labor Relations on September 6, 1972, on the grounds of refusal of management
to bargain collectively, refusal to recognize the union, and discrimination
of union members.  The conference
scheduled by the Bureau for the following day could not even be held because
the private respondent did not send a representative.

On September 16, 1972,
petitioner Corazon Alparicio was dismissed.  This was followed on October 3 and 4, 1972,
with the unceremonious separation also of the other individual
petitioners.  The uniform reason given
was the incompatibility of their continued employment with the rules of the New
Society.  A sample letter read as
follows:

Republic of the Philippines
Office of the President

NATIONAL
PARKS DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE

Rizal Park,
Manila

October 3, 1972

Date

Mr.
Modesto Deunida

Driver
Truck In-Charge

Rizal Park

Sir/Madam:

This notice terminates your services, effective immediately.  Your continued employment under the NATIONAL
PARKS DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE or in any of its projects is not compatible with
the rules of the New Society.

For immediate compliance and guidance.

(SGD.) JESUS B. ALVAREZ, JR.

Director

The proceedings were delayed when the private respondent
submitted that the complaint should be resolved by the Office of the President,
resulting in the elevation of the matter to Malacañang.  The case was returned to the public
respondent on the finding that it fell under the jurisdiction of the NLRC
pursuant to P.D. No. 21, promulgated on October 14, 1972.^[2]

The Labor Arbiter dismissed the case, holding that P.D. No. 21
was not applicable, the dismissals having been made before its effectivity date. 
His decision was duly appealed to the NLRC, but action on the appeal was
also delayed, and further still when the records of
the case were among those burned in the fire at the NLRC building on December 13, 1983.  According to the NLRC, it took some time
before they could be reconstituted.^[3]

In its own decision,^[4]
the reorganized NLRC still saw fit to sustain the dismissals made by the
private respondent and declared as follows:

A perusal of the evidence adduced shows that the charge of unfair
labor practice allegedly committed by the respondent has not been sufficiently
proven.  It is well settled that a charge
for unfair labor practice must be proven by clear and convincing evidence, which
is miserably wanting in this
case.

The NLRC assumed all the time that it had jurisdiction over the
case.  So apparently have the petitioners
in the petition now before us as the said decision is challenged only for grave
abuse of discretion in upholding the invalid dismissals.  The Solicitor General has moved for
dismissal, but not on jurisdictional grounds.

In recent decisions, this Court has held that the National Parks
Development Committee is a government agency whose employees are covered by the
civil service rules and not the Labor Code.

In Perlas vs. People of the Philippines,^[5]
we held that the Sandiganbayan had jurisdiction over
the acting director of the Committee who was under prosecution for estafa, thus:

The National Parks Development Committee was created originally as
an Executive Committee on January 14,
1963, for the development of the Quezon
Memorial, Luneta and other national parks (Executive
Order No. 30).  It was later designated
as the National Parks Development Committee (NPDC) on February 7, 1974 (E.O. No. 69).  On January
9, 1966, Mrs. Imelda R. Marcos and Teodoro
F. Valencia were designated Chairman and Vice-Chairman respectively (E.O. No.
3).  Despite an attempt to transfer it to
the Bureau of Forest Development, Department of Natural Resources, on December 1, 1975 (Letter of
Implementation No. 39, issued pursuant to PD No. 830, dated November 27, 1975),
the NPDC has remained under the Office of the President (E.O. No. 709, dated
July 27, 1981).

Affirming that finding, we said in Republic vs. Court of Appeals^[6]
as follows:

Since NPDC is a government agency, its employees are covered by
civil service rules and regulations (Sec. 2, Article IX, 1987
Constitution).  Its employees are civil
service employees (Sec. 14, Executive Order No. 180).

While NPDC employees are allowed under the 1987 Constitution to
organize and join unions of their choice, there is as yet no law permitting
them to strike.  In case of a labor
dispute between the employees and the government, Section 15 of Executive Order
No. 180 dated June 1, 1987
provides that the Public Sector Labor-Management Council, not the Department of Labor and Employment, shall
hear the dispute.  Clearly, the Court of
Appeals and the lower court erred in holding that the labor dispute between the
NPDC and the members of the NPDSA is cognizable by the Department of Labor and
Employment.

Nevertheless, considering that this case has been pending since
1972 and all the evidence needed to resolve it is before us, and more so
because the issue presents no special difficulty, the Court feels it should be
decided now, without going through the correct procedural formalities that
anyway will result in the same conclusion.

Accordingly, we rule directly as follows.

A mere reading of the termination notice will readily show that
the dismissals were not for cause and that the reason given was prima facie
invalid.  The general statement that the
employment of the petitioners was not consonant with the rules of the New
Society was a preposterous justification. 
There was no indication of the specific rules supposedly violated nor
was there a showing, assuming the said rules had been pinpointed, of how or
when they had been breached by the dismissed employees.  Neither was it established that the employees
were informed of the charges against them or that they were given an
opportunity to be heard in their defense.

Such cavalier treatment of the employees could have been
permitted under the so-called New Society but cannot be countenanced now under the restored democracy.  It is truly amazing that it was sustained by
the present NLRC and no less astonishing that it is now defended by the Office
of the Solicitor General.  That office
suggests that the burden of proof was on the petitioners, as complainants, to
show that their dismissal was illegal. 
This is incorrect; that office has it backwards.  It is settled that in cases of dismissal, it
is the employer who must prove its validity, not the employee who must prove
its invalidity.

It must be borne in mind that the basic principle in termination
cases is that the burden of proof rests upon the employer to show that the dismissal is for just cause and
failure to do so would necessarily mean that the dismissal is not justified
and, therefore the employee is entitled to be reinstated in accordance with the
mandate of Article 280 of the New Labor Code.^[7]

By simply saying that the continued employment of the petitioners
was not consistent with the rules of the New Society, the private respondent
failed to discharge the burden of proving that the employees deserved to be
dismissed.  In sustaining the dismissals
despite their undisguised arbitrariness, the NLRC committed grave abuse of
discretion correctible by the extraordinary writ of certiorari under
Rule 65 of the Rules of Court.

The insolence of the Marcos government should have been corrected
by now, after more than five years since the people power revolution that
banished the deposed President and with him, it was hoped then, all the
oppressions of his discredited regime. 
It seems, however, that the effects of past arrogance have not yet
completely disappeared and, worse, are still being affirmed and stoutly
defended now by the new government.  The
Court will not allow this.

WHEREFORE, the petitioners GRANTED.  The decision
of the NLRC dated June 29, 1990,
is REVERSED.  The private respondent is
ordered to REINSTATE all the individual petitioners without loss of seniority
rights and to pay them five years back salaries.^[8]

SO ORDERED.

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

Gancayco, J., on leave.

^[1]
Article II, Sec. 1(a).

^[2]
Rollo, pp. 48-49.

^[3]
Rollo, p. 62.

^[4] Decision penned by Commissioner Rustico L. Diokno with
Commissioners Bonto-Perez and Zapanta,
concurring.

^[5]
176 SCRA 57.

^[6]
180 SCRA 428.

^[7]
Polymedic General Hospital vs. NLRC, 134 SCRA
420 (1985).

^[8]
Balquidra v. CFI of Capiz,
80 SCRA 123 (1977), citing Cristobal v. Melchor, 101 Phil. 857 (1977); Salcedo
v. C.A., 81 SCRA 408 (1978); Gementiza v.
C.A., 113 SCRA 477 (1982); Laganapan v. Asedillo, 154
SCRA 377 (1987); and Antiporda v. Ticao, 160 SCRA 40 (1968), where, reinstatement no longer
being feasible, payment to a dismissed civil service employee of “back wages
equivalent to five (5) years pay without qualification or deduction,” was
declared adequate remedy in the premises.