(Dummy) Gancho-On vs. Sec. of Labor and Employment
(Dummy) Gancho-On vs. Sec. of Labor and Employment
BELLOSILLO, J.
FACTS:
On January 16, 1992, the respondent Lakas ng Nagkakaisang Manggagawa-PAFLU filed with the
Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) a petition for certification election in a bid to
exclusively represent the truck drivers of Eros Repair Shop.
Petitioner Teofisto C. Gancho-on, owner of the shop, moved for the dismissal of the petition on
the ground of absence of employer-employee relationship. He contended that the members of
respondent Union who would constitute the proposed bargaining unit were not employees of
his shop but of individual owners of the trucks used in the trucking and hauling business
managed by his wife, Herminia.
On 13 May 1992 the petition for certification election was given due course with the following
options: respondent union, or no union at all. Petitioner assailed the order for certification
election before respondent Secretary of Labor and Employment, still insisting on the absence of
employer-employee relationship.
Petitioner raises the same issue before the Supreme Court. On 11 January 1993 the certification
election nevertheless proceeded. Respondent union thereafter submitted to the Court an
original copy of the declaration of the final certification election results showing that it did not
garner a single vote because out of thirty-six (36) drivers, all of the twenty (20) who cast their
votes favored a "no union."
ISSUE:
WON it is still necessary for the Court to resolve the issue of employer-employee relationship. (NO)
RULING:
Petitioner entirely misses the material points which have rendered the present proceeding moot
and academic. First, subject resolution of respondent Secretary as aforestated decreed that the pre-
election conference preparatory to the certification election be immediately conducted. The
certification election thereafter became a fait accompli. Second, in a sense salutary to petitioner, the
defeat suffered by respondent Union in its bid to be certified as the sole bargaining agent of the truck
drivers made irrelevant the findings of both the Med-Arbiter-Designate and respondent Secretary that
an employer-employee relationship existed. It should be emphasized that the issue of employer-
employee relationship came into being only because petitioner denied its existence in his motion to
dismiss the petition for certification election. Since the certification proceeding before the Med-Arbiter
merely provided the mainspring of this petition the defeat of respondent Union in the election has
stripped this case of its raison d'etre.
It is a rule of universal application, almost, that courts of justice constituted to pass upon
substantial rights will not consider questions in which no actual interests are involved; they decline
jurisdiction of moot cases. And where the issue has become moot and academic, there is no justiciable
controversy, so that a declaration thereon would be of no practical-use or value. There is no actual
substantial relief to which petitioners would be entitled and which would be negated by the dismissal of
the petition. The petition is DISMISSED for being moot and academic.