Philippine Blooming Mills Employees Organization vs.

Philippine Blooming
Mills Co., Inc.
G. R. No. L-31195, 5 June 1973
51 SCRA 189

FACTS:

Several employees of the Philippine Blooming Mills Co., Inc. (PBM) who are
members of the Philippine Blooming Mills Employees Organization (PBM Union)
participated in the demonstrations in Malacañang against the alleged abuses of the
Pasig Police. PBM pleaded not to require the workers in the first shift from
participating in the said demonstration, but the employees proceeded anyways. PBM
charged them with violation of their Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with
the then Court of Industrial Relations (CIR), which ruled that the employees are guilty
of unfair labor practice and lost their status as employees of PBM. PBM Union filed
their motion for reconsideration but was dismissed by the CIR. Hence, an appeal was
filed with the Supreme Court.

ISSUE: Whether or not the demonstrations made by the employees of PBM is

unconstitutional.

HELD:

No.

1. The respondent Court of Industrial Relations, after opining that the mass
demonstration was not a declaration of strike, concluded that by their "concerted act
and the occurrence of a temporary stoppage of work," herein petitioners are guilty of
bargaining in bad faith and hence violated the collective bargaining agreement with
private respondent Philippine Blooming Mills Co., Inc. Set against and tested by the
foregoing principles governing a democratic society, such a conclusion cannot be
sustained. The demonstration held by petitioners on March 4, 1969 before
Malacañang was against alleged abuses of some Pasig policemen, not against their
employer, herein private respondent firm, said demonstration was purely and
completely an exercise of their freedom of expression in general and of their right of
assembly and of petition for redress of grievances in particular before the appropriate
governmental agency, the Chief Executive, against the police officers of the
municipality of Pasig. They exercised their civil and political rights for their mutual
aid and protection from what they believe were police excesses. As a matter of fact, it
was the duty of herein private respondent firm to protect herein petitioner Union and
its members from the harassment of local police officers. It was to the interest of
herein private respondent firm to rally to the defense of, and to take up the cudgels
for, its employees, so that they can report to work free from harassment, vexation or
peril and as a consequence perform more efficiently the irrespective tasks to enhance
its productivity as well as profits. Herein respondent employer did not even offer to
intercede for its employees with the local police. Was it securing peace for itself at the
expense of its workers? Was it also intimidated by the local police or did it encourage
the local police to terrorize or vex its workers? Its failure to defend its own employees
all the more weakened the position of its laborers vis-a-vis the alleged oppressive
police, who might have been all the more emboldened thereby to subject its lowly
employees to further indignities.

In seeking sanctuary behind their freedom of expression as well as their right of

assembly and of petition against alleged persecution of local officialdom, the
employees and laborers of herein private respondent firm were fighting for their very
survival, utilizing only the weapons afforded them by the Constitution — the
untrammelled enjoyment of their basic human rights. The pretension of their
employer that it would suffer loss or damage by reason of the absence of its
employees from 6 o'clock in the morning to 2 o'clock in the afternoon, is a plea for the
preservation merely of their property rights. Such apprehended loss or damage would
not spell the difference between the life and death of the firm or its owners or its
management. The employees' pathetic situation was a stark reality — abused,
harassed and persecuted as they believed they were by the peace officers of the
municipality. As above intimated, the condition in which the employees found
themselves vis-a-vis the local police of Pasig, was a matter that vitally affected their
right to individual existence as well as that of their families. Material loss can be
repaired or adequately compensated. The debasement of the human being — broken
in morale and brutalized in spirit — can never be fully evaluated in monetary terms.
The wounds fester and the scars remain to humiliate him to his dying day, even as he
cries in anguish for retribution, denial of which is like rubbing salt on bruised tissues.

As heretofore stated, the primacy of human rights — freedom of expression, of

peaceful assembly and of petition for redress of grievances — over property rights has
been sustained. Emphatic reiteration of this basic tenet as a coveted boon — at once
the shield and armor of the dignity and worth of the human personality, the all-
consuming ideal of our enlightened civilization — becomes Our duty, if freedom and
social justice have any meaning at all for him who toils so that capital can produce
economic goods that can generate happiness for all. To regard the demonstration
against police officers, not against the employer, as evidence of bad faith in collective
bargaining and hence a violation of the collective bargaining agreement and a cause
for the dismissal from employment of the demonstrating employees, stretches unduly
the compass of the collective bargaining agreement, is "a potent means of inhibiting
speech" and therefore inflicts amoral as well as mortal wound on the constitutional
guarantees of free expression, of peaceful assembly and of petition. The collective
bargaining agreement which fixes the working shifts of the employees, according to
the respondent Court of Industrial Relations, in effect imposes on the workers the
"duty x x x to observe regular working hours." The strained construction of the Court
of Industrial Relations that such stipulated working shifts deny the workers the right
to stage a mass demonstration against police abuses during working hours, constitutes
a virtual tyranny over the mind and life of the workers and deserves severe
condemnation. Renunciation of the freedom should not be predicated on such a
slender ground.

The mass demonstration staged by the employees on March 4, 1969 could not have
been legally enjoined by any court, for such an injunction would be trenching upon
the freedom of expression of the workers, even if it legally appears to be an illegal
picketing or strike. The respondent Court of Industrial Relations in the case at bar
concedes that the mass demonstration was not a declaration of a strike "as the same is
not rooted in any industrial dispute although there is a concerted act and the
occurrence of a temporary stoppage of work." (Annex "F", p.45, rec.).

The respondent firm claims that there was no need for all its employees to participate
in the demonstration and that they suggested to the Union that only the first and
regular shift from 6 A.M. to 2 P.M. should report for work in order that loss or
damage to the firm will be averted.This stand failed to appreciate the sine qua non of
an effective demonstration especially by a labor union, namely the complete unity of
the Union members as well as their total presence at the demonstration site in order to
generate the maximum sympathy for the validity of their cause but also immediate
action on the part of the corresponding government agencies with jurisdiction over the
issues they raised against the local police. Circulation is one of the aspects of freedom
of expression. If demonstrators are reduced by one-third, then by that much the
circulation of the issues raised by the demonstration is diminished. The more the
participants, the more persons can be apprised of the purpose of the rally. Moreover,
the absence of one-third of their members will be regarded as a substantial indication
of disunity in their ranks which will enervate their position and abet continued alleged
police persecution. At any rate, the Union notified the company two days in advance
of their projected demonstration and the company could have made arrangements to
counteract or prevent whatever losses it might sustain by reason of the absence of its
workers for one day, especially in this case when the Union requested it to excuse
only the day-shift employees who will join the demonstration on March 4, 1969
which request the Union reiterated in their telegram received by the company at 9:50
in the morning of March 4, 1969, the day of the mass demonstration (pp. 42-43, rec.).
There was a lack of human understanding or compassion on the part of the firm in
rejecting the request of the Union for excuse from work for the day shifts in order to
carry out its mass demonstration. And to regard as a ground for dismissal the mass
demonstration held against the Pasig police, not against the company, is gross
vindictiveness on the part of the employer, which is as unchristian as it is
unconstitutional.

2. Apart from violating the constitutional guarantees of free speech and assembly as
well as the right to petition for redress of grievances of the employees, the dismissal
of the eight (8) leaders of the workers for proceeding with the demonstration and
consequently being absent from work,constitutes a denial of social justice likewise
assured by the fundamental law to these lowly employees. Section 5 of Article II of
the Constitution imposes upon the State "the promotion of social justice to insure the
well-being and economic security of all of the people," which guarantee is
emphasized by the other directive in Section 6 of Article XIV of the Constitution that
"the State shall afford protection to labor x x x". Respondent Court of Industrial
Relations as an agency of the State is under obligation at all times to give meaning
and substance to these constitutional guarantees in favor of the working man; for
otherwise these constitutional safeguards would be merely a lot of "meaningless
constitutional patter." Under the Industrial Peace Act, the Court of Industrial
Relations is enjoined to effect the policy of the law "to eliminate the causes of
industrial unrest by encouraging and protecting the exercise by employees of their
right to self-organization for the purpose of collective bargaining and for the
promotion of their moral, social and economic well-being. "It is most unfortunate in
the case at bar that respondent Court of Industrial Relations, the very governmental
agency designed therefor, failed to implement this policy and failed to keep faith with
its avowed mission — its raison d'etre — as ordained and directed by the
Constitution.

3. It has been likewise established that a violation of a constitutional right divests the
court of jurisdiction; and as a consequence its judgment is null and void and confers
no rights. Relief from a criminal conviction secured at the sacrifice of constitutional
liberties, may be obtained through habeas corpus proceedings even long after the
finality of the judgment. Thus, habeas corpus is the remedy to obtain the release of an
individual, who is convicted by final judgment through a forced confession, which
violated his constitutional right against self-incrimination; or who is denied the right
to present evidence in his defense as a deprivation of his liberty without due process
of law, even after the accused has already served sentence for twenty-two years.

Both the respondents Court of Industrial Relations and private firm trenched upon
these constitutional immunities of petitioners. Both failed to accord preference to such
rights and aggravated the inhumanity to which the aggrieved workers claimed they
had been subjected by the municipal police. Having violated these basic human rights
of the laborers, the Court of Industrial Relations ousted itself of jurisdiction and the
questioned orders it issued in the instant case are a nullity. Recognition and protection
of such freedoms are imperative on all public offices including the courts as well as
private citizens and corporations, the exercise and enjoyment of which must not be
nullified by a mere procedural rule promulgated by the Court of Industrial Relations
exercising a purely delegated legislative power, when even a law enacted by Congress
must yield to the untrammelled enjoyment of these human rights. There is no time
limit to the exercise of these freedoms. The right to enjoy them is not exhausted by
the delivery of one speech, the printing of one article or the staging of one
demonstration. It is a continuing immunity,to be invoked and exercised when exigent
and expedient whenever there are errors to be rectified, abuses to be denounced,
inhumanities to be condemned. Otherwise, these guarantees in the Bill of Rights
would be vitiated by a rule on procedure prescribing the period for appeal. The battle
then would be reduced to a race for time. And in such a contest between an employer
and its laborer, the latter eventually loses because he cannot employ the best and
dedicated counsel who can defend his interest with the required diligence and zeal,
bereft as he is of the financial resources with which to pay for competent legal
services.