Phil. Blooming Mills Employees Organization vs.
  The pretension of their employer that it would suffer loss or
Phil. Blooming Mills Co.,Inc. 50 SCRA 189, 202-203
Facts:
The petitioner Philippine Blooming Mills Employees Organization
(PBMEO) is a legitimate labor union composed of the employees of
the respondent Philippine Blooming Mills Co., Inc., with the officers
and members of the petitioner Uuion.
Petitioners claim that on March 1, 1969, they decided to stage a mass
demonstration at Malacañang on March 4, 1969, in protest against
alleged abuses of the Pasig police, to be participated in by the workers
in the first shift (from 6 A.M. to 2 P.M.) as well as those in the regular
second and third shifts (from 7 A.M. to 4 P.M. and from 8 A.M. to 5
P.M., respectively); and that they informed the respondent Company
of their proposed demonstration.
The parties stipulated that the company, after learning the mass
demonstration, informed the union panel that they even if the
demonstration is an inalienable right granted by the Constitution, it
should not unduly prejudice the normal operation of the company.  As
such, they warned the PBMEO representatives that workers who
belong to the first and regular shifts, who without previous leave of
absence approved by the Company, particularly , the officers present
who are the organizers of the demonstration, who shall fail to report
for work the following morning (March 4, 1969) shall be dismissed,
because such failure is a violation of the existing CBA (collective
bargaining agreement which fixes the working shifts of the
employees) particularly Article XXIV: NO LOCKOUT — NO STRIKE’; and,
therefore, would be amounting to an illegal strike.
Because the petitioners and their members proceeded with the
demonstration despite the pleas of the respondent Company that the
first shift workers should not be required to participate in the
demonstration and that the workers in the second and third shifts
should be utilized for the demonstration, respondent Company
charged the petitioners with a “violation of Section 4(a)-6 in relation
to Sections 13 and 14, as well as Section 15, all of Republic Act No.
875, and of the CBA providing for ‘No Strike and No Lockout.’ ”
In their answer, petitioners claim that they did not violate the existing
CBA because they gave the respondent Company prior notice of the
mass demonstration on March 4, 1969; that the said mass
demonstration was a valid exercise of their constitutional freedom of
speech against the alleged abuses of some Pasig policemen; and that
their mass demonstration was not a declaration of strike because it
was not directed against the respondent firm.
After considering the aforementioned stipulation of facts submitted by
the parties, Judge Joaquin M. Salvador, in an order dated September
15, 1969, found herein petitioner PBMEO guilty of bargaining in bad
faith and herein petitioners, as directly responsible for perpetrating
the said unfair labor practice were considered to have lost their status
as employees of the respondent Company.
Issue:
Whether the respondents’ act of concluding that the petitioners acted
in bad faith for proceeding with the demonstration and expelling them
from the company is unconstitutional.
Held:
No.
damage by reason of the absence of its employees 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.
While the Bill of Rights also protects property rights, the primacy of
human rights over property rights is recognized. Because these
freedoms are “delicate and vulnerable, as well as supremely precious
in our society” and the “threat of sanctions may deter their exercise
almost as potently as the actual application of sanctions,” they “need
breathing space to survive,” permitting government regulation only
“with narrow specificity.”
In seeking sanctuary behind their freedom of expression 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 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 primacy of human rights — freedom of expression, of peaceful
assembly and of petition for redress of grievances — over property
rights has to be sustained.
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.
The respondent company is the one guilty of unfair labor practice.
Because the refusal on the part of the respondent firm to permit all its
employees and workers to join the mass demonstration against
alleged police abuses and the subsequent separation of the eight (8)
petitioners from the service constituted an unconstitutional restraint
on the freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and freedom
petition for redress of grievances, the respondent firm committed an
unfair labor practice defined in Section 4(a-1) in relation to Section 3
of Republic Act No. 875, otherwise known as the Industrial Peace Act.
Section 3 of Republic Act No. 8 guarantees to the employees the right
“to engage in concert activities for … mutual aid or protection”; while
Section 4(a-1) regards as an unfair labor practice for an employer
interfere with, restrain or coerce employees in the exercise their
rights guaranteed in Section Three.”  The insistence on the part of the
respondent firm that the workers for the morning and regular shift
should not participate in the mass demonstration, under pain of
dismissal, was as heretofore stated, “a potent means of inhibiting
speech.”
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 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 …”. 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.
Management has shown not only lack of good-will or good intention,
but a complete lack of sympathetic understanding of the plight of its
laborers who claim that they are being subjected to indignities by the
local police, It was more expedient for the firm to conserve its income
or profits than to assist its employees in their fight for their freedoms
and security against alleged petty tyrannies of local police officers.
This is sheer opportunism. Such opportunism and expediency resorted
to by the respondent company assaulted the immunities and welfare
of its employees. It was pure and implement selfishness, if not greed.
If free expression was accorded recognition and protection to fortify
labor unionism such as in the Republic Savings Bank vs CIR, where the
complaint assailed the morality and integrity of the bank president no
less, such recognition and protection for free speech, free assembly
and right to petition are rendered all the more justifiable and more
imperative in the case at bar, where the mass demonstration was not
against the company nor any of its officers.
WHEREFORE, judgement is hereby rendered:
(1) setting aside as null and void the orders of the respondent Court of
Industrial Relations dated September 15 and October 9, 1969; and
(2) directing the re instatement of the herein eight (8) petitioners, with
full back pay from the date of their separation from the service until re
instated, minus one day’s pay and whatever earnings they might have
realized from other sources during their separation from the service.
With costs against private respondent Philippine Blooming Company,
Inc.
PROCEDURAL DUE PROCESS
Banco-Espanol-Filipino vs. Palanca
Facts: Engracio Palanca Tanquinyeng y Limquingco mortgaged
various parcels of real property in Manila to El Banco Espanol-Filipino.
Afterwards, Engracio returned to China and there he died on January
29, 1810 without returning again to the Philippines. The mortgagor
then instituted foreclosure proceeding but since defendant is a non-
resident, it was necessary to give notice by publication. The Clerk of
Court was also directed to send copy of the summons to the
defendant’s last known address, which is in Amoy, China. It is not
shown whether the Clerk complied with this requirement.
Nevertheless, after publication in a newspaper of the City of Manila,
the cause proceeded and judgment by default was rendered. The
decision was likewise published and afterwards sale by public auction
was held with the bank as the highest bidder. On August 7, 1908, this
sale was confirmed by the court. However, about seven years after
the confirmation of this sale, a motion was made by Vicente Palanca,
as administrator of the estate of the original defendant, wherein the
applicant requested the court to set aside the order of default and the
judgment, and to vacate all the proceedings subsequent thereto. The
basis of this application was that the order of default and the
judgment rendered thereon were void because the court had never
acquired jurisdiction over the defendant or over the subject of the
action.
ISSUE: Whether or not due process of law was observed?
HELD: As applied to a judicial proceeding, however, it may be laid
down with certainty that the requirement of due process is satisfied if
the following conditions are present, namely; (1) There must be a
court or tribunal clothed with judicial power to hear and determine
the matter before it; (2) jurisdiction must be lawfully acquired over
the person of the defendant or over the property which is the subject
of the proceeding; (3) the defendant must be given an opportunity to
be heard; and (4) judgment must be rendered upon lawful hearing.
Passing at once to the requisite that the defendant shall have an
opportunity to be heard, we observe that in a foreclosure case some
notification of the proceedings to the nonresident owner, prescribing
the time within which appearance must be made, is everywhere
recognized as essential. To answer this necessity the statutes
generally provide for publication, and usually in addition thereto, for
the mailing of notice to the defendant, if his residence is known.
Though commonly called constructive, or substituted service of
process in any true sense. It is merely a means provided by law
whereby the owner may be admonished that his property is the
subject of judicial proceedings and that it is incumbent upon him to
take such steps as he sees fit to protect it.
It will be observed that this mode of notification does not involve any
absolute assurance that the absent owner shall thereby receive actual
notice. The periodical containing the publication may never in fact
come to his hands, and the chances that he should discover the notice
may often be very slight. Even where notice is sent by mail the
probability of his receiving it, though much increased, is dependent
upon the correctness of the address to which it is forwarded as well as
upon the regularity and security of the mail service. It will be noted,
furthermore, that the provision of our law relative to the mailing of
notice does not absolutely require the mailing of notice
unconditionally and in every event, but only in the case where the
defendant's residence is known. In the light of all these facts, it is
evident that actual notice to the defendant in cases of this kind is not,
under the law, to be considered absolutely necessary.
The idea upon which the law proceeds in recognizing the efficacy of a
means of notification which may fall short of actual notice is
apparently this: Property is always assumed to be in the possession of
its owner, in person or by agent; and he may be safely held, under
certain conditions, to be affected with knowledge that proceedings
have been instituted for its condemnation and sale.
Did the failure of the clerk to send notice to defendant’s last known
address constitute denial of due process?
The observations which have just been made lead to the conclusion
that the failure of the clerk to mail the notice, if in fact he did so fail in
his duty, is not such an irregularity, as amounts to a denial of due
process of law; and hence in our opinion that irregularity, if proved,
would not avoid the judgment in this case. Notice was given by
publication in a newspaper and this is the only form of notice which
the law unconditionally requires. This in our opinion is all that was
absolutely necessary to sustain the proceedings.
It will be observed that in considering the effect of this irregularity, it
makes a difference whether it be viewed as a question involving
jurisdiction or as a question involving due process of law. In the matter
of jurisdiction there can be no distinction between the much and the
little. The court either has jurisdiction or it has not; and if the
requirement as to the mailing of notice should be considered as a step
antecedent to the acquiring of jurisdiction, there could be no escape
from the conclusion that the failure to take that step was fatal to the
validity of the judgment. In the application of the idea of due process
of law, on the other hand, it is clearly unnecessary to be so rigorous.
The jurisdiction being once established, all that due process of law
thereafter requires is an opportunity for the defendant to be heard;
and as publication was duly made in the newspaper, it would seem
highly unreasonable to hold that failure to mail the notice was fatal.
We think that in applying the requirement of due process of law, it is
permissible to reflect upon the purposes of the provision which is
supposed to have been violated and the principle underlying the
exercise of judicial power in these proceedings. Judge in the light of
these conceptions, we think that the provision of Act of Congress
declaring that no person shall be deprived of his property without due
process of law has not been infringed.
People vs. De la Piedra, G.R. No. 121777,
Jan. 24, 2001
FACTS:
Accused-appellant Carol M. dela Piedra was charged of illegal
recruitment in large scale by promising an employment abroad Maria
Lourdes Modesto y Gadrino, Nancy Araneta y Aliwanag and Jennelyn
Baez y Timbol, a job to Singapore without having previously obtained
from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, a license or
authority to engage in recruitment and overseas placement of
workers. In fact said Maria Lourdes Modesto had already advanced
the amount of P2,000.00 to the accused for and in consideration of
the promised employment which did not materialize. Thus causing
damage and prejudice to the latter in the said sum.
Erlie Ramos, Attorney II of the Philippine Overseas Employment
Agency (POEA), received a telephone call from an unidentified woman
inquiring about the legitimacy of the recruitment conducted by a
certain Mrs. Carol Figueroa. Ramos. An entrapment was then planned
by the Criminal Investigation Service (CIS) headed by Capt. Mendoza
and successfully arrested the accused-appellant.
Later on, in the course of their investigation, the CIS discovered that
Carol Figueroa had many aliases, among them, Carol Llena and Carol
dela Piedra.
At the trial, the prosecution presented five (5) witnesses, namely, Erlie
Ramos, SPO2 Erwin Manalopilar, Eileen Fermindoza, Nancy Araneta
and Lourdes Modesto and all of them positively testified that the
accused offer them a job to Singapore.
The trial found the accused-appellant guilty of beyond reasonable
doubt of Illegal Recruitment committed in a large scale.
ISSUE:
WON Article 13 (b) of the Labor Code defining recruitment and
placement is void for vagueness and, thus, violates the due process
clause.
HELD:
NO. Article 13 (b) of the Labor Code is not a vague provision.
As a rule, a statute or act may be said to be vague when it lacks
comprehensible standards that men of common intelligence must
necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application. It is
repugnant to the Constitution in two respects: (1) it violates due
process for failure to accord persons, especially the parties targeted
by it, fair notice of the conduct to avoid; and (2) it leaves law enforcers
unbridled discretion in carrying out its provisions and become an
arbitrary flexing of the Government muscle.
The court cannot sustain the Appellant argument that the acts that
constitute recruitment and placement suffer from overbreadth since
by merely referring a person for employment, a person may be
convicted of illegal recruitment.
Evidently,appellant has taken the penultimate paragraph in the
excerpt quoted above out of context. The Court, in Panis  case, merely
bemoaned the lack of records that would help shed light on the
meaning of the proviso. The absence of such records notwithstanding,
the Court was able to arrive at a reasonable interpretation of the
proviso by applying principles in criminal law and drawing from the
language and intent of the law itself. Section 13 (b), therefore, is not a
perfectly vague act whose obscurity is evident on its face. If at all, the
proviso therein is merely couched in imprecise language that was
salvaged by proper construction. It is not void for vagueness.
An act will be declared void and inoperative on the ground of
vagueness and uncertainty, only upon a showing that the defect is
such that the courts are unable to determine, with any reasonable
degree of certainty, what the legislature intended. x x x. In this
connection we cannot permit reference to the rule that legislation
should not be held invalid on the ground of uncertainty if susceptible
of any reasonable construction that will support and give it effect. An
Act will not be declared inoperative and ineffectual on the ground that
it furnishes no adequate means to secure the purpose for which it is
passed, if men of common sense and reason can devise and provide
the means, and all the instrumentalities necessary for its execution
are within the reach of those entrusted therewith.
That Section 13 (b) encompasses what appellant apparently considers
as customary and harmless acts such as labor or employment
referral (referring an applicant, according to appellant, for
employment to a prospective employer) does not render the law
over broad. Evidently, appellant misapprehends concept of over
breadth.
A statute may be said to be over broad where it operates to inhibit the
exercise of individual freedoms affirmatively guaranteed by the
Constitution, such as the freedom of speech or religion. A generally
worded statute, when construed to punish conduct which cannot be
constitutionally punished is unconstitutionally vague to the extent
that it fails to give adequate warning of the boundary between the
constitutionally permissible and the constitutionally impermissible
applications of the statute
In Blo Umpar Adiong vs. Commission on Elections,for instance, we
struck down as void for overbreadth provisions prohibiting the posting
of election propaganda in any place including private vehicles other
than in the common poster areas sanctioned by the COMELEC. We
held that the challenged provisions not only deprived the owner of
the vehicle the use of his property but also deprived the citizen of his
right to free speech and information. The prohibition in Adiong,
therefore, was so broad that it covered even constitutionally
guaranteed rights and, hence, void for over breadth. 

In the present case, however, appellant did not even specify what
constitutionally protected freedoms are embraced by the definition of
recruitment and placement that would render the same
constitutionally over broad.