[G.R. No. 46020. December 8, 1938.

]
CONCEPCION MURILLO, in her own behalf and as
guardian ad litem of Antonio, Carmen, Flavio and Jose
Luis, surnamed Madrid, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. ALFREDO
MENDOZA, doing business under the name and style of
"MANILA STEAMSHIP NAVIGATION", DefendantAppellant.
Cardenas & Casal, for Appellant.
Arturo Zialcita, for Appellees.
DeWitt, Perkins & Ponce Enrile as amici curiae.
SYLLABUS
1. WORKMENS COMPENSATION ACT; GROSS INCOME;
EVIDENCE; BURDEN OF PROOF. In the case of Rolan v.
Perez (34 Off. Gaz., 1593), it was held that under the law, as
amended, the fact that the gross income of the employer
during the year next preceding the one in which the accident
occurred was P20,000 or more, as required by law, need not
be alleged or proven by the plaintiff, but that, it being a
defense of the defendant, the burden is on the latter to allege
and establish it.
2. ID.; MARITIME ACCIDENTS; APPLICABILITY OF THE LAW.
Unlike legislations existing in the United States of America
wherein, aside from the workmens compensation laws
adopted by the different States, the federal admiralty laws and
the Longshoremens and Harbor Workers Compensation Act
are in force, our Legislature has deemed it advisable to include
in the Workmens Compensation Act all accidents that may
occur to workmen or employees in factories, shops and other
industrial and agricultural workplaces as well as in the
interisland seas of the archipelago. The applicability of the

Workmens Compensation Act to accidents occurring in the

Philippine seas has been discussed for the first time in the
case of Enciso v. Dy-Liacco (57 Phil., 446 et seq.) , where the
question was decided affirmatively.
3. ID.; RESPONSIBILITY OF EMPLOYERS WHEN THEY DO NOT
INCUR FAULT OR NEGLIGENCE; EFFECT OF THE LAW. In the
case of Enciso v. Dy-Liacco, supra, this court stated that the
consensus of opinion and of the decisions of the courts of
various States of the Union is that workmens compensation
acts have been enacted to abrogate the common law and the
Civil Code relative to obligations arising from nonpunishable
fault or negligence. Under Act No. 3428, as amended by Act
No. 3812, accidents are compensated independently of
whether or not the employer has incurred fault or negligence,
and the only exceptions thereto are the accidents arising from
the voluntary act of the injured person, those resulting from
the drunkenness of the employee who had the accident, and
those caused by the notorious negligence thereof (section 4,
Act No. 3428).
4. ID.; THEORY ON WHICH LAW IS BASED. The workmens
compensation acts are based on a new theory of compensation
distinct from the theories of damages, payments under the
acts being made as compensation, not as indemnity (71 C. J.,
232; Mobile & O. R. Co. v. Industrial Commission of Illinois, 28
F. [2d], 228; Martin v. Kennecott Copper Corporation, 252, F.,
207; Devines Case, 129 N. E., 414; Duart v. Simmons, 121 N.
E., 10; 251 U. S., 457; Kenney v. Boston, 111 N. E., 47; Erie
R. Co. v. Linnekogel, 248 F., 389; De Biasi v. Normandy Water
Co., 228 F., 234; Schlickenmayer v. City of Highland Park, 235
N. W., 156; Andrejwski v. Wolverine Coal Co., 148 N. W., 684;
Flanigan v. Hines, 193 P., 1077).
5. ID.; LEGISLATIVE INTENTION. The intention of the
Legislature in enacting the Workmens Compensation Act was
to secure workmen and their dependents against becoming

objects of charity, by making a reasonable compensation for

such accidental calamities as are incidental to the
employment. Under such Act injuries to workmen and
employees are to be considered no longer as results of fault or
negligence, but as the products of the industry in which the
employee is concerned. Compensation for such injuries is,
under the theory of such statute, like any other item in the
cost of production or transportation, and ultimately charged to
the consumer. The law substitutes for liability for negligence an
entirely new conception; that is, that if the injury arises out of
and in the course of the employment, under the doctrine of
mans humanity to man, the cost of compensation must be
one of the elements to be liquidated and balanced in the
course of consumption. In other words, the theory of the law
is that, if the industry produces an injury, the cost of that
injury shall be included in the cost of the product of the
industry. Hence the provision that the injury must arise out of
and in the course of the employment (Mobile & O. R. Co. v.
Industrial Commission of Illinois, 28 F. [2d], 228, 229).
6. ID.; ACCIDENTS ARISING OUT OF AND IN THE COURSE OF
THE EMPLOYMENT; DEFINITIONS; CASE AT BAR. Section 2
of Act No. 3428, as amended by section 1 of Act No. 3812,
provides that in order that an accident may be compensated, it
is necessary that it has arisen out of and in the course of the
employment. A definition of the phrase arising out of the
employment that has received wide favor is the one stating
that this element required by law exists when there is
apparent to the rational mind, upon consideration of all the
circumstances, a causal connection between the conditions
under which the work is required to be performed and the
resulting injury (71 C. J., 648; Michigan Transit Corporation v.
Brown, 56 F. [2d], 200, 202; In re Employers Liability Assur.
Corporation, 102 N. E., 697; Industrial Commission of
Colorado v. Enyeart, 256 P., 314, 315; Mann v. Glastonbury
Knitting Co., 96 A., 368; 90 Conn., 116; Vicennes Bridge Co. v.
Industrial Commission, 184 N. E., 603, 605; Triangle Auto

Painting & Trimming Co. v. Industrial Commission, 178 N. E.,

886, 889; Landon v. Industrial Commission, 173 N. E., 49, 50;
Franklin Coal & Coke Co. v. Industrial Commission, 152 N. E.,
498, 500; Edelweiss Gardens v. Industrial Commission, 125 N.
E., 260; Texas Indemnity Ins. Co. v. McLaury, 54 S. W. [2d],
862, 863). It is that an accident has arisen in the course of the
employment when it has occurred within the period of the
employment, at a place where the employee may reasonably
be, and while he is reasonably fulfilling the duties of his
employment (71 C. J., 659; Stakonis v. United Advertising Co.,
148 A., 334; Taylor v. St. Pauls Universalist Church, 145 A.,
887; Flanagan v. Webster & Webster, 142 A., 201; Larke v.
John Hancock Mut. L. Ins. Co., 97 A., 320).
7. ID.; ID.; PROBATORY FACTS. The defendant and the
amici curi admit that the deceased met his death in the
course of his employment and while he was fulfilling his duties
as first officer, but they emphatically deny that his death has
arisen out of his employment. We can neither adhere to nor
uphold this theory on the ground that it is contrary to the
liberal interpretation of the law and to the spirit underlying the
same. In investigating whether or not the death of said official
arose out of his employment, all of the circumstances present
in the case should be taken into consideration in order to be
able to determine whether or not a causal connection exists
between his said death and the conditions under which he
necessarily had to fulfill his duties. The deceased was
contracted and employed to direct and render services in the
vessel. When he accepted the employment, he knew that he
was in duty bound to render services in good weather as well
as when the vessel encountered a storm or typhoon, as it so
happened, and it may be stated that he must have been aware
that in case of a typhoon his services had to be rendered in a
higher degree, because in such event it was part of his duties
to save the vessel. Taking into consideration all of these
circumstances, it is clear that this death is compensable under
the law on the ground that a causal relation existed between

such death and the conditions under which he has to perform

his employment. It is obvious that the typhoon was the
immediate cause of the sinking of the vessel and that there
existed no causal relation between it and the employment of
the deceased. It is evident, however, that between the
conditions and circumstances under which the deceased
discharged his employment and his death, there existed the
causal connection which makes the accident compensable.
8. ID.; RESPONSIBILITY OF EMPLOYERS IN FORTUITOUS
EVENTS. The doctrine is generally accepted that the
employer is not responsible for accidents arising from force
majeure or an act of God, as it is usually called, when the
employee has not been exposed to a greater danger than
usual. However, in the case of the deceased and in that of a
sailor, it cannot be denied that upon contracting their services
to navigate in the waters of the archipelago, having to render
extraordinary services in cases of typhoon, they are exposed
to greater risk than usual, in comparison with other employees
working on land.
9. ID.; INTENTION OF THE LEGISLATURE IN ENACTING THE
LAW. This court is of the opinion that the Legislature, in
enacting the Workmens Compensation Act and the
amendments thereto, intended to create a new source of
compensation in favor of workmen and employees, by granting
them the right to the compensation, in the cases provided
therein, independently of the fault or negligence incurred by
the employers. The rights and responsibilities defined in said
Act must be governed by its own peculiar provisions in
complete disregard of other similar provisions of the civil as
well as the mercantile law. If an accident is compensable
under when the Workmens Compensation Act, it must be
compensated even when the workmans right is not recognized
by or is in conflict with other provisions of the Civil Code or of
the Code of Commerce. The reason behind this principle is that
the Workmens Compensation Act was enacted by the

Legislature in abrogation of the other existing laws. Workmens

compensation acts follow the natural and logical evolution of
society and the theory upon which they are based is that each
time an employee is killed or injured, there is an economic loss
which must be made up or compensated in some way. The
burden of this economic loss should be borne by the industry
rather than by society as a whole. A fund should be provided
by the industry from which a fixed sum should be set apart as
every accident occurs to compensate the person injured, or his
dependents, for his or their loss (State v. Industrial
Commission, 111 N. E., 299; L. R. A. 1916D, 944).
DECISION
IMPERIAL, J.:
As widow and children of the deceased Octavio Madrid, the
former being the guardian ad litem of her minor children
Antonio, Carmen, Flavio and Jose Luis, surnamed Madrid, the
herein plaintiffs brought this action to recover from the
defendant the compensation allegedly granted them by the
Workmens Compensation Act by reason of the death of said
deceased.
The parties submitted the case upon the following stipulation
of facts:
jgc:chanroble s.com.ph

"1. That the plaintiffs are the dependents of Octavio Madrid,

now deceased, and the defendant is the owner and operator of
the S. S.Marie, the said defendant conducting his business
under the name and style of Manila Steamship Navigation
Company.
"2. That on or about July 8, 1936, the said Octavio Madrid was

employed by the defendant as first officer of the S. S.Marie,

with a salary of P110 a month plus board during the last 12
weeks immediately preceding his death or an average weekly
wage of P28.29.
"3. That on or about the date mentioned in the preceding
paragraph, while the said vessel was plying off the coast of the
Province of Isabela, at Palanan Point, and while Octavio Madrid
was performing his duties as first officers, the vessel was
struck by a heavy typhoon, as a result of which it sank with all
the officers and members of the crew perishing in the
disaster.
"4. That the plaintiffs are totally dependent upon the deceased
Octavio Madrid, and in accordance with the provisions of the
Workmens Compensation Act, they are entitled to the
maximum compensation of P3,000, if the accident is
compensable.
"5. That notice of injury and claim for compensation was filed
on time by the plaintiffs despite which said defendant refused
and still refused to pay the compensation due.
"6. That there are nineteen (19) other cases (Cases Nos.
50632- 50636; 50638-50640; 50710, 50746, 50973, 51004,
51016, 51187, 51189 and 51191-51194, of identical nature
now pending in this court, all of which were brought against
the same defendant by the dependents of the other officers
and members of the crew who died in the sinking of the S.
S.Marie.
"7. That the defendant accepts all the facts alleged in the
complaints filed in the other nineteen (19) cases, and specially
those relating to questions of the occurrences of the accident,
dependency, wages, and the amounts of compensation
claimed in each and every case.

"8. That the parties plaintiffs and defendant agree that

whatever decision is rendered by the court in the present case
shall apply to the other nineteen (19) cases.
"9. That the parties also agree to submit this case on the
above stipulation of facts without any hearing, and to this end,
the respective counsel pray that they be given ten (10) days
from this date to present a memorandum."
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Upon the foregoing stipulation of facts the court rendered

judgment on November 16, 1937, ordering the defendant to
pay to the plaintiffs the sum of P3,000 with legal interest
thereon from November 23, 1936, and the costs. The court,
believing that the stipulation likewise submitted for decision
the other 19 cases mentioned therein, also ordered the
defendant, in the decision rendered by it in this case, to pa to
the other plaintiffs the sums of money claimed as
compensation in the other complaints filed by them. The
defendant appealed from the decision so rendered, but in this
appeal and in the decision rendered by this court, only the
appeal taken in this case G. R. No. 46020 will be considered
and decided. The reason is because in this appeal the plaintiffs
is the other cases have neither appeared nor been heard.
According to the stipulation of facts, it is admitted that on July
8, 1936, Octavio Madrid was employed by the defendant as
first officer of the S. S. "Marie", with a salary of P110 a month;
that on said date, while the vessel in question was plying off
Palanan Point, Province of Isabela, and while Octavio Madrid
was performing his duties as first officer, it was caught in a
severe storm, as a result of which it sank with all the officers
and members of the crew, including Octavio Madrid, perishing
in the disaster.
1. It is admitted that the defendant was the owner and
operator of the S. S. Marie and that he was doing business
under the name of "Manila Steamship Navigation company" ;

but the plaintiffs did not prove that the gross income of his
business during the year next preceding the one in which the
accident occurred amount to P20,000 or more. In the first
assignment of error, it is contended that the court should have
dismissed the action for failure to prove such fact, inasmuch
as the Workmens Compensation Act requires that the gross
income of the employer during the year next preceding the
one in which the accident occurred should have amounted to
P20,000 or more, because otherwise the claim should be
presented in accordance with the provisions of Act No. 1874.
In the case of Rolan v. Perez (34 Off. Gaz., 1598), this court
held that under the law, as amended, the fact that the gross
income of the employer during the year next preceding the
one in which the accident occurred was P20,000 or more, as
required by law, need not be alleged or proven by the plaintiff,
but that, if being a defense of the defendant, the burden is on
the latter to allege and establish it. In the above-cited case, it
was said:
jgc:chanroble s.com.ph

". . . The court dismissed the complaint, in addition to the

above ground, because in its opinion the plaintiff had failed to
establish that the gross income of the diary farm in 1933 was
not less than P20,000. We hold that this was error. The law, as
it now stands, does not require. the plaintiff to allege and
prove this fact. It is defense favorable to the defendant and
the burden is on him to establish it. Subsection (d) of section
39 of Act No. 3428 originally read:
jgc:chanroble s.com.ph

"SEC. 39 . . .
"(d) "Industrial employment" in case of private employers
includes all employment or work at a trade, occupation or
profession exercised by an employer for the purpose of gain,
the gross income of which in the year immediately preceding
the one during which the accident occurred was not less than
forty thousand pesos, except agriculture, charitable
institutions, and domestic service.

"As amended by section 13 of Act No. 3812, said subsection

(d) is couched in this wise:
jgc:chanroble s.com.ph

"(d) "Industrial employment" in case of private employers

includes all employment or work at a trade, occupation or
profession exercised by an employer for the purpose of gain,
except agriculture, charitable institutions, and domestic
service, but as to agriculture, employees for the operation of
mechanical implements shall be entitled to the benefits of this
Act.
"It will be noted that when the said subsection was amended,
the legislature omitted the phrase the gross income of which
in the year immediately preceding the one during which the
accident occurred was not less than forty thousand pesos. This
omission simply means that from the taking effect of the
amendment, December 8, 1930, the necessity to allege and
prove the amount of the gross income ceased.
"It is true that section 42, as amended by section 14 of Act
No. 3812, provides that when the gross income of any trade or
occupation exercised by the employer during the year next
preceding the one in which the accident occurred, is less than
P20,000, the claim for compensation shall be governed by the
provisions of Act No. 1874; but the only purpose of this
provision is to introduce a defense in favor of the employer so
that, in the event his gross income does not reach said
amount, he may invoke his right to be used under the
provisions of Act No. 1874; and being a defense favorable to
the defendant, upon him, and not upon the plaintiff, rests the
burden of alleging and proving it."
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The doctrine laid down in said case directly disposes of the

first assignment of error which should be overruled for being
unfounded.

2. In second assignment of error it is contended that the

accident is not compensable under Act No. 3428, as amended,
on the ground that the immediate cause thereof was a force
majeure or a fortuitous event for which nobody should be
responsible.
The first point raised by the assignment of error is whether or
not the Workmens Compensation Act covers maritime
accidents occurring in the Philippine waters. Unlike legislations
existing in the United States of America wherein, aside from
the workmens compensation laws adopted by the different
States, the federal admiralty laws and the Longshoremens and
Harbor Workers Compensation Act are in force, our
Legislature has deemed it advisable to include in the
Workmens Compensation Act all accidents that may occur to
workmen or employees in factories, shops and other industrial
and agricultural workplaces as well as in the interisland seas of
the archipelago. In this wise, section 38 of Act No. 3428, as
amended by section 12 of Act No. 3812, provides:
jgc:chanrobles.com .ph

"SEC. 38. Interisland trade. This Act shall cover the liability
of the employers towards employees engaged in the coastwise
and interisland trade, and also in the foreign trade when such
is permissible under the laws of the United States and the
Philippine Islands."
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The applicability of the Workmens Compensation Act to

accidents occurring in the Philippine seas has been discussed
for the first time in the case of Enciso v. Dy-Liacco (57 Phil.,
446 et seq.) , where the question was decided affirmatively. In
said case it was stated:
jgc:chanrobles.com .ph

"The next point the appellant takes up is whether Act No. 3428
applies to the accident we are considering, and he contends
that the provisions of this law do not cover the present case. It
would be enough, to refute this contention, to cite section 38
of the Act in question, which reads as follows:
jgc:chanrobles.com .ph

"SEC. 38. Interisland trade. This Act shall cover the liability
of the employers towards employees engaged in the
interisland trade, and also in the foreign trade when such is
permissible under the laws of the United States and the
Philippine Islands.
"A casual reading of this section will show that the sea
accident is which Dimamay died comes under it, since the
Aloneros was then engaged in the interisland trade."
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The next question raised is whether or not Octavio Madrids

death is compensable under the law, it appearing that it was
caused by the typhoon which is a force majeure or fortuitous
event, being an act of God unforeseen and imputable to
nobody. Stated in other words, the question submitted, which
this court is called upon to decide, in whether or not Act No.
3428, as amended by Act No. 3812, includes responsibilities
for damages arising from unforeseen acts wherein no fault or
negligence not punishable by law has intervened (articles
1105, 1902, 1903, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909 and 1910 of
the Civil Code).
In the case of Enciso v. Dy-Liacco, supra, this court stated that
the consensus of opinion and of the decisions of the courts of
various States of the Union is that workmens compensation
acts have been enacted to abrogate the common law and the
Civil Code relative to obligations arising from nonpunishable
fault or negligence. To that effect it was said:
jgc:chanrobles.com .ph

"It is also argued that the accident was due to force majeure
and therefore the appellant cannot be made responsible for it
according to law. It has been repeatedly stated that the
Workmens Compensation Law was enacted to abrogate the
common law and our Civil Code upon culpable acts and
omissions, and that the employer need not be guilty of neglect
or fault, in order that responsibility may attach to him. Bearing

in mind this purpose, the appellants contention is evidently

untenable.
"The compensation acts, especially the pioneer enactments
differ considerably, one from another, in many essential
aspects. While the purpose sought to be accomplished is the
same, the legislatures of the various states chose diverse
means for its attainment. One thing is characteristic of all of
the acts; the common law doctrines of negligence are
abrogated, and in place of the common law procedure is
substituted a scheme for achieving cheap, speedy justice. (28
R. C. L., p. 714.)
". . . Admitting, however, that the compensation acts do create
liability without fault, the courts have uniformly held this to be
no objection to their validity. It is pointed out that our
jurisprudence affords numerous examples of liability without
fault and the deprivation of property without fault being
attributable to its owner. Statutes making railroad corporations
absolutely liable, without regard to negligence, for injuries to
property caused by fire escaping from their locomotive
engines, are clearly statutes creating liability without fault, yet
these statues have been upheld by all the courts of the states
in which they have been upheld by all the courts of the state in
which they have been enacted, as well as by the Supreme
Court of the United States. As a matter of fact, the workmens
compensation act does exactly the same thing as the safety
appliance acts; it imposes new duties of care on the employer
- the difference being that in one case the duty is announced
in definite terms, whereas in the other it rests in implication.
As expressed by the United States Supreme Court, the
common law bases the employers liability for injuries to the
employee upon the ground of negligence; but negligence is
merely the disregard of some duty imposed by law; and the
nature and extent of the duty may be modified by legislation,
with corresponding change in the test of negligence. . . ." (28
R. C. L., pp. 752, 753.)

The workmens compensation acts are based on a new theory

of compensation distinct from the theories of damages,
payments under the acts being made as compensation, not as
indemnity (74 C.J., 232; Mobile & O. R. Co. v. Industrial
Commission of Illinois, 28 F. [2d] 228; Martin v. Kennecott
Copper Corporation, 252 F. 207; Devines Case, 129 N. E.,
414; Duart v. Simmons, 121 N. E., 100; 251 U. S., 547;
Kenney v. Boston, 111 N. E., 47; Erie R. Co. v. Linnekogel, 248
F., 389; De Biasi v. Normandy Water Co., 228 F., 234;
Schlickenmayer v. City of Highland Park, 235 N. W., 156;
Andrejwski v. Wolverine Coal Co., 148 N. W., 684; Flanigan v.
Hines, 193 P., 1077).
The intention of the Legislature in enacting the Workmens
Compensation Act was to secure workmen and their
dependents against becoming objects of charity, by making a
reasonable compensation for such accidental calamities as are
incidental to the employment. Under such Act injuries to
workmen and employees are to be considered no longer as
results of fault or negligence, but as the products of the
industry in which the employee is concerned. Compensation
for such injuries is, under the theory of such statute, like any
other item in the cost of production or transportation, and
ultimately charged to the consumer. The law substitutes for
liability for negligence an entirely new conception; that is, that
if the injury arises out of and in the course of the employment,
under the doctrine of mans humanity to man, the cost of
compensation must be one of the elements to be liquidated
and balanced in the course of consumption. In other words,
the theory of the law is that, if the industry produces an injury,
that cost of that injury shall be included in the cost of the
product of the industry. Hence the provision that the injury
must arise out of and in the course of the employment (Mobile
& O. R. Co. v. Industrial Commission of Illinois, 28 F. [2d],
228, 229).

Under Act No. 3428, as amended by Act No. 3812, accidents

are compensated independently of whether or not the
employer has incurred fault or negligence, and the only
exceptions thereto are the accidents arising from the voluntary
act of the injured person, those resulting from the
drunkenness of the employee who had the accident, and those
caused by the notorious negligence thereof (section 4, Act No.
3428).
Lastly, it is contended by the appellant and by the attorneys
for the Philippine Shipowners Association, Inc., who have
appeared as amici curi, that the accident is not compensable
under the law because it did not arise out of the employment
of the deceased. Section 2 of the Act no. 3428, as amended by
section 1 of Act No. 3812, provides that in order that an
accident may be compensated, it is necessary that it has
arisen out of and in the course of the employment. A definition
of the phrase arising out of the employment that has received
wide favor is the one stating that this element required by law
exists when there is apparent to the rational mind, upon
consideration of all of the circumstances, a causal connection
between the conditions under which the work is required to be
performed and the resulting injury (71 C. J., 648; Michigan
Transit Corporation v. Brown, 56 F. [2d], 200, 202; In re
Employers Liability Assur. Corporation, 102 N. E., 697;
Industrial Commission of Colorado v. Enyeart, 256 P., 314,
315; Mann v. Glastonbury Knitting Co., 96 A., 368; 90 Conn.,
116; Vincennes Bridge Co. v. Industrial Commission, 184 N.
E., 603, 605; Triangle Auto Painting & Trimming Co. v.
Industrial Commission, 178 N. E., 886, 889; Landon v.
Industrial Commission, 173 N. E. 49, 50; Franklin Coal & Coke
Co. v. Industrial Commission, 152 N. E., 498, 500; Edelweiss
Gardens v. Industrial Commission, 125 N. E., 260; Texas
Indemnity Ins. Co. v. McLaury, 54 S. E. [2d], 862, 863). It is
said that an accident has arisen in the course of the
employment when it has occurred within the period of the
employment, at a place where the employee may reasonably

be, and while he is reasonably fulfilling the duties of his

employment (71 C. J., 659; Stakonis v. United Advertising Co.,
148 A., 334; Taylor v. St. Pauls Universalist Church, 145 A.,
887; Flanagan v. Webster & Webster, 142 A., 201; Larke v.
John Hancock Mut. L. Ins. Co., 97 A., 320). The defendant and
the amici curiae admit that the deceased met his death in the
course of his employment and while he was fulfilling his duties
as first officer, but they emphatically deny that his death has
arisen out of his employment. We can neither adhere to nor
uphold this theory on the ground that it is contrary to the
liberal interpretation of the law and to the spirit underlying the
same. In investigating whether or not the death of said official
arose out of his employment, all of the circumstances present
in the case should be taken into consideration in order to be
able to determine whether or not a causal connection exists
between his said death and the conditions under which he
necessarily had to fulfill his duties. The deceased was
contracted and employed to direct and render services in the
vessel. When he accepted the employment, he knew that he
was in duty bound to render services in good weather as well
as when the vessel encountered a storm or typhoon, as it so
happened, and it may be stated that he must have been aware
that in case of a typhoon his services has to be rendered in a
higher degree, because in such event it was part of his duties
to save the vessel. Taking into consideration all of these
circumstances, it is clear that his death is compensable under
the law on the ground that a causal relation existed between
such death and the conditions under which he had to perform
his employment. It is obvious that the typhoon was the
immediate cause of the sinking of the vessel and that there
existed no causal relation between it and the employment of
the deceased. It is evident, however, that between the
conditions and circumstances under which the deceased
discharged his employment and his death, there existed the
causal connection which makes the accident compensable.
The doctrine is generally accepted that the employer is not

responsible for accidents arising from force majeure or an act

of God, as it is usually called, when the employee has not been
exposed to a greater danger than usual. However, in the case
of the deceased and in that of a sailor, it cannot be denied that
upon contracting their services to navigate in the waters of the
archipelago, having to render extraordinary services in cases
of typhoon, they are exposed to greater risk than usual, in
comparison with other employees working on land.
"Injuries resulting from exposure to the elements are generally
classed as risks to which the general public is exposed. As
shown by the earlier annotations, however, the rule is
generally recognized that if an employee, by reason of his
duties, is exposed to a special or peculiar danger from the
elements, that is, one greater than that to which other
persons in the community are exposed, and an unexpected
injury is sustained by reason of the elements, the injury
constitutes an accident arising out of and in the course of the
employment within the meaning of the workmens
compensation acts. And this rule has been recognized and
applied in later cases." (83 A. L. R. Annotation, page 234).
"An assistant engineer on a dredge was drown while
attempting to save the dredge from destruction during a
storm. The trial court found that the sinking of the dredge was
due to the violence of the storm, and that the death of the
engineer was due to an accident arising out of the
employment. In affirming the decision, the court said: "The
nature of the employment, the conditions under which it was
to be and was pursued, the exposure to probable injury from
reasonably to be expected storms of similar character were all
matters incident to such a risk as was here underwritten, and
therefore an injury maturing such a risk, we think, could well
be said to have been incidental to and to have arisen out of
that employment." (Workmens Compensation Law, Schneider,
vol. I, pp. 1076, 1077.)

The court, in granting the compensation to the plaintiffs, based

its opinion mostly on the doctrine laid down by this court in
the case of Enciso v. Dy-Liacco, supra. The attorney for the
defendant and the amici curiae insist that there is no parity
between the facts of the above-cited case and those of the
case under consideration. In said case the motor boat
"Aloneros" sank on its way to a river to seek shelter, because a
hurricane was raging. Upon reaching the sea, the anchor stuck
to a rock and the launch could not get out of the place. The big
waves therein dashed against the launch until it was filled with
water, and a little late it sank with the master. It is contended
that there is no similarity in the facts because the sinking of
the launch "Aloneros" was due to the waves. This court sees
no substantial difference between the facts of one and those of
the other case. In the Enciso case the immediate cause of the
masters death was the sinking of the launch, but there is no
doubt that said accident was due to the typhoon then raging.
In both cases the mediate cause of death was the typhoon.
There is similarity between an accident caused by lightning
and one caused by a typhoon because both are fortuitous
events and of the so-called acts of God. by reason of such
similarity some cases decided by the courts in connection with
accidents caused by lightning may be cited to better illustrate
the doctrine laid down by this Court.
In the case of Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Industrial Commission of
Colorado (254 P., 995), the Supreme Court of said State held
that the death of a farm hand, who was struck by lightning
while driving a team of horses across a hill near a wire fence,
was compensable as an accident which arose out of his
employment.
In the case of Moody v. Tillman (163 S. E., 521), the Supreme
Court of Georgia held that burns received by a workman
employed to sound a turpentine still, where burns resulted
from the stills catching fire by lightning, had arisen out of the

employment and were compensable.

In the case of Mathis v. Ash Grove Lime & Portland Cement Co.
(272 P., 183), the Supreme Court of Kansas held that the
death of the employee of some quarries, by lightning, while he
was walking along the railroad track on his way from one
quarry to another, was compensable and that such death arose
out of the employment.
In the cases of Lebourgeois v. Lyon Lumber Co. (6 La. App.,
216); Fontenot v. Lyon Lumber Co. (6 La. App., 162), and
Gasca v. Texas Pipe Line co. (2 La. App., 483), the Supreme
Court of Louisiana held that an employee killed by lightning
while eating his launch near a tree at the noon hour, was killed
by an accident arising out of his employment and was
compensable.
The attorneys who appeared as amici curiae call this courts
attention to articles 643 and 837 of the Code of Commerce
and contend that it was not the intention of the legislature to
repeal the above-cited articles with the enactment of the
Workmens Compensation Act. The pertinent parts of said
articles read as follows:
jgc:chanroble s.com.ph

"ART. 643. If the vessel and her freight should be totally lost,
by reason of capture or wreck, all rights of the crew to
demand any wages whatsoever shall be extinguished, as well
as that of the agent for the recovery of the advances made."

cralaw virtua1aw library

"ART. 837. The civil liability contracted by the shipowners in

the cases prescribed in this section, shall be understood as
limited to the value of the vessel with all her appurtenances
and all the freight earned during the voyage."

workmen and employees, by granting them the right to the

compensation, in the cases provided therein, independently of
the fault or negligence incurred by the employers. The rights
and responsibilities defined in said Act must be governed by its
own peculiar provisions in complete disregard of other similar
provisions in complete disregard of other similar provisions of
the civil as well as the mercantile law. If an accident is
compensable under the Workmens Compensation Act, it must
be compensated even when the workmans right is not
recognized by or is in conflict with other provisions of the Civil
Code or of the Code of Commerce. The reason behind this
principle is that the Workmens Compensation Act was enacted
by the Legislature in abrogation of the other existing laws.
Workmens compensation acts follow the natural and logical
evolution of society and the theory upon which they are based
is that each time an employee is killed or injured, there is an
economic loss which must be made up or compensated in
some way. The burden of this economic loss should be borne
by the industry rather than by society as a whole. A fund
should be provided by the industry from which a fixed sum
should be set apart as every accident occurs to compensate
the person injured, or his dependents, for his or their loss
(State v. Industrial Commission, 111 N. E., 299; L. R. A.
1916D, 944).
This court is aware of the fact that the practical application of
the doctrine laid down herein will perhaps occasion great
losses to the shipowners doing business in this country, but
humanity and civilization demand protection for the workman
in every line of labor, and to fulfill this social objective and at
the same time avoid ruin, employers and shipowners should
employ means to insure the stability of their business.

cralaw virtua1aw library

This court is of the opinion that the Legislature, in enacting the

Workmens Compensation Act and the amendments thereto,
intended to create a new source of compensation in favor of

3. In his last assignment of error the defendant contends that

the court erred in ordering him to pay to the plaintiffs the sum
of P3,000, with legal interest thereon from November 23,
1936, and the costs. Such contention is without merit. It has

been stipulated that in case the plaintiffs are entitled to the

compensation sought by them, such compensation would
consist in the amount of money in question. On the other
hand, it having been decided that the death of Octavio Madrid
is compensable under the law, the court did not commit the
error so assigned.
For all the foregoing reasons, the decision rendered by the
lower court in this case, which is the only one appealed from,
is affirmed, with the costs of this instance to the defendantappellant. So ordered.
Avancea, C.J., Villa-Real, Diaz, Laurel and Concepcion, JJ.,
concur.

G.R. No. L-58445 April 27, 1989

ZAIDA G. RARO, petitioner,
vs.
EMPLOYEES' COMPENSATION COMMISSION and
GOVERNMENT SERVICE INSURANCE SYSTEM
(Bureau of Mines and Geo-Sciences), respondents.
GUTIERREZ, JR., J.:
Jurisprudence on the compensability of cancer ailments
has of late become a source of confusion among the
claimants and the government agencies enforcing the
employees' compensation law. The strongly lingering
influence of the principles of 94 presumption of
compensability" and "aggravation" found in the defunct
Workmen's Compensation Act but expressly discarded
under the present compensation scheme has led to

conflict and inconsistency in employees' compensation

decisions.
The problem is attributable to the inherent difficulty in
applying the new principle of "proof of increased risk."
There are two approaches to a solution in cases where it
cannot be proved that the risk of contracting an illness
not listed as an occupational disease was increased by
the claimant's working conditions. The one espoused by
the petitioner insists that if a claimant cannot prove the
necessary work connection because the causes of the
disease are still unknown, it must be presumed that
working conditions increased the risk of contracting the
ailment. On the other hand, the respondents state that if
there is no proof of the required work connection, the
disease is not compensable because the law says so.
The petitioner states that she was in perfect health when
employed as a clerk by the Bureau of Mines and GeoSciences at its Daet, Camarines Norte regional office on
March 17, 1975. About four years later, she began
suffering from severe and recurrent headaches coupled
with blurring of vision. Forced to take sick leaves every
now and then, she sought medical treatment in Manila.
She was then a Mining Recorder in the Bureau.
The petitioner was diagnosed at the Makati Medical
Center to be suffering from brain tumor. By that time, her

memory, sense of time, vision, and reasoning power had

been lost.
A claim for disability benefits filed by her husband with
the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) was
denied. A motion for reconsideration was similarly
denied. An appeal to the Employees' Compensation
Commission resulted in the Commission's affirming the
GSIS decision.
The following issues are raised in this petition:

strike a lowly paid laborer or a highly paid executive or

one who works on land, in water, or in the bowels of the
earth. It makes the difference whether the victim is
employed or unemployed, a white collar employee or a
blue collar worker, a housekeeper, an urban dweller or a
resident of a rural area.
It is not also correct to say that all cancers are not
compensable. The list of occupational diseases prepared
by the Commission includes some cancers as
compensable, namely

1. Whether brain tumor which causes are

unknown but contracted during employment
is compensable under the present
compensation laws.

Occupational Diseases Nature of

Employment

2. Whether the presumption of

compensability is absolutely inapplicable
under the present compensation laws when a
disease is not listed as occupational disease.
(p. 17, Rollo)

16. Cancer of stomach and other

Woodworkers, wood products lymphatic and
blood forming vessels; industry carpenters,
nasal cavity and sinuses and employees in
pulp and paper mills and plywood mills.

The key argument of the petitioner is based on the fact

that medical science cannot, as yet, positively identify
the causes of various types of cancer. It is a disease that
strikes people in general. The nature of a person's
employment appears to have no relevance. Cancer can

xxx xxx xxx xxx

17. Cancer of the lungs, liver Vinyl chloride

workers, and brain plastic workers.
(Annex A, Amended Rules on Employees
Compensation)

The petitioner questions the above listing. We see no

arbitrariness in the Commission's allowing vinyl chloride
workers or plastic workers to be compensated for brain
cancer. There are certain cancers which are reasonably
considered as strongly induced by specific causes.
Heavy doses of radiation as in Chernobyl, USSR,
cigarette smoke over a long period for lung cancer,
certain chemicals for specific cancers, and asbestos
dust, among others, are generally accepted as
increasing the risks of contracting specific cancers. What
the law requires for others is proof.
The first thing that stands in the way of the petition is the
law itself.
Presidential Decree No. 422, as amended, the Labor
Code of the Philippines defines "sickness" as follows:
ART. 167. Definition of Terms. As used in
this Title unless the context indicates
otherwise:
xxx xxx xxx
(1) Sickness means any illness definitely
accepted as an occupational disease listed
by the Commission, or any illness caused by
employment subject to proof by the employee

that the risk of contracting the same is by

working conditions. For this purpose, the Co
on is empowered to determine and approve
occupational and work- related illnesses that
may be considered compensable sable
based on hazards of employment. (PD 1368,
May 1, 1978).
Section 1 (b), Rule III of the Amended Rules on
Employees Compensation clearly defines who are
entitled. It provides:
SECTION 1.
xxx xxx xxx
(b) For the sickness and the resulting
disability or death to be compensable, the
sickness must be the result of an
occupational disease under Annex A of these
rules with the conditions set therein
satisfied; otherwise, proof must be shown
that the risk of contracting the disease is
increase by the working conditions.
(Emphasis supplied)
The law, as it now stands requires the claimant to prove
a positive thing the illness was caused by employment

and the risk of contracting the disease is increased by

the working conditions. To say that since the proof is not
available, therefore, the trust fund has the obligation to
pay is contrary to the legal requirement that proof must
be adduced. The existence of otherwise non-existent
proof cannot be presumed .
In Navalta v. Government Service Insurance
System (G.R. No. 46684, April 27, 1988) this Court
recognized the fact that cancer is a disease of still
unknown origin which strikes; people in all walks of life,
employed or unemployed. Unless it be shown that a
particular form of cancer is caused by specific working
conditions (e. g. chemical fumes, nuclear radiation,
asbestos dust, etc.) we cannot conclude that it was the
employment which increased the risk of contracting the
disease .
To understand why the "Presumption of compensability"
together with the host of decisions interpreting the
"arising out of and in the course of employment"
provision of the defunct law has been stricken from the
present law, one has to go into the distinctions between
the old workmen's compensation law and the present
scheme.
On January 1, 1975, the Workmen's Compensation Act
was replaced by a novel scheme under the new Labor

Code. The new law discarded, among others, the

concepts of "presumption of compensability" and
"aggravation" and substituted a system based on social
security principles. The present system is also
administered by social insurance agencies the
Government Service Insurance System and Social
Security System under the Employees' Compensation
Commission. The intent was to restore a sensible
equilibrium between the employer's obligation to pay
workmen's compensation and the employee's right to
receive reparation for work- connected death or
disability. (Sulit v. Employees' Compensation
Commission, 98 SCRA 483 [1980]; Armena v.
Employees' Compensation Commission, 122 SCRA 851
[1983]; Erese v. Employees' Compensation Commission,
138 SCRA 192 [1985]; De Jesus v. Employees'
Compensation Commission, 142 SCRA 92 [1986];
Sarmiento v. Employees' Compensation Commission, et
al., GR No. 65680, May 11, 1988).
Instead of an adversarial contest by the worker or his
family against the employer, we now have a social
insurance scheme where regular premiums are paid by
employers to a trust fund and claims are paid from the
trust fund to those who can prove entitlement.

In Sarmiento v. Employees' Compensation Commission

(supra), we affirmed the validity of the new law by
explaining the present system as follows:
We cannot give serious consideration to the
petitioner's attack against the constitutionality
of the new law on employee's compensation.
It must be noted that the petitioner filed his
claim under the provisions of this same law. It
was only when his claim was rejected that he
now questions the constitutionality of this law
on appeal by certiorari.
The Court has recognized the validity of the
present law and has granted and rejected
claims according to its provisions. We find in
it no infringement of the worker's
constitutional rights.
xxx xxx xxx
The new law establishes a state insurance
fund built up by the contributions of
employers based on the salaries of their
employees. The injured worker does not have
to litigate his right to compensation. No
employer opposes his claim There is no
notice of injury nor requirement of

controversion. The sick worker simply files a

claim with a new neutral Employees'
Compensation Commission which then
determines on the basis of the employee's
supporting papers and medical evidence
whether or not compensation may be paid.
The payment of benefits is more prompt. The
cost of administration is low. The amount of
death benefits has also been doubled.
On the other hand, the employer's duty is
only to pay the regular monthly premiums to
the scheme. It does not look for insurance
companies to meet sudden demands for
compensation payments or set up its own
fund to meet these contingencies. It does not
have to defend itself from spuriously
documented or long past claims.
The new law applies the social security
principle in the handling of workmen's
compensation. The Commission administers
and settles claims from a fired under its
exclusive control. The employer does not
intervene in the compensation process and it
has no control, as in the past, over payment
of benefits. The open ended Table of
Occupational Diseases requires no proof of

causation. A covered claimant suffering from

an occupational disease is automatically paid
benefits.
Since there is no employer opposing or
fighting a claim for compensation, the rules
on presumption of compensability and
controversion cease to have importance. The
lopsided situation of an employer versus one
employee, which called for equalization
through the various rules and concepts
favoring the claimant, is now absent.
xxx xxx xxx
The petitioner's challenge is really against the
desirability of the new law. There is no
serious attempt to assail it on constitutional
grounds.
The wisdom of the present scheme of
workmen's compensation is a matter that
should be addressed to the President and
Congress, not to this Court. Whether or not
the former workmen's compensation program
with its presumptions, controversions,
adversarial procedures, and levels of
payment is preferable to the present scheme

must be decided by the political departments.

The present law was enacted in the belief
that it better complies with the mandate on
social justice and is more advantageous to
the greater number of working men and
women. Until Congress and the President
decide to improve or amend the law, our duty
is to apply it. (at pp. 4, 5, and 6)
The non-adversarial nature of employees' compensation
proceedings is crucial to an understanding of the present
scheme. There is a widespread misconception that the
poor employee is still arrayed against the might and
power of his rich corporate employer. Hence, he must be
given all kinds of favorable presumptions. This is
fallacious. It is now the trust fund and not the employer
which suffers if benefits are paid to claimants who are
not entitled under the law. The employer joins its
employees in trying to have their claims approved. The
employer is spared the problem of proving
a negative proposition that the disease was not
caused by employment. It is a government institution
which protects the stability and integrity of the State
Insurance Fund against the payment of noncompensable claims. The employee, this time assisted
by his employer, is required to prove

a positiveproposition, that the risk of contracting the

is increased by working conditions.
The social insurance aspect of the present law is the
other important feature which distinguishes it from the
old and familiar system.
Employees' compensation is based on social security
principles. All covered employers throughout the country
are required by law to contribute fixed and regular
premiums or contributions to a trust fund for their
employees. Benefits are paid from this trust fund. At the
time the amount of contributions was being fixed,
actuarial studies were undertaken. The actuarially
determined number of workers who would probably file
claims within any given year is important in insuring the
stability of the said fund and making certain that the
system can pay benefits when due to all who are entitled
and in the increased amounts fixed by law.
We have no actuarial expertise in this Court. If diseases
not intended by the law to be compensated are
inadvertently or recklessly included, the integrity of the
State Insurance Fund is endangered. Compassion for
the victims of diseases not covered by the law ignores
the need to show a greater concern for the trust fund to
winch the tens of millions of workers and their families
look for compensation whenever covered accidents,

salary and deaths occur. As earlier stated, if increased

contributions or premiums must be paid in order to give
benefits to those who are now excluded, it is Congress
which should amend the law after proper actuarial
studies. This Court cannot engage in judicial legislation
on such a complex subject with such far reaching
implications.
We trust that the public respondents and the Social
Security System are continually evaluating the actuarial
soundness of the trust funds they administer. In this way,
more types of cancers and other excluded diseases may
be included in the list of covered occupational diseases.
Or legislation may be recommended to Congress either
increasing the contribution rates of employers, increasing
benefit payments, or making it easier to prove
entitlement. We regret that these are beyond the powers
of this Court to accomplish.
For the guidance of the administrative agencies and
practising lawyers concerned, this decision expressly
supersedes the decisions in Panotes v. Employees'
Compensation Commission [128 SCRA 473
(1984)]; Mercado v. Employees' Compensation
Commission [127 SCRA 664 (1984)]; Ovenson v.
Employees' Compensation Commission [156 SCRA 21
(1987)]; Nemaria v. Employees' Compensation

Commission [155 SCRA 166 (1987)] and other cases

with conclusions different from those stated above.
WHEREFORE, the petition is hereby DISMISSED The
questioned decision of the public respondents is
AFFIRMED.
SO ORDERED.
G.R. No. L-35741

December 20, 1932

VICTORIA TALLER VIUDA DE NAVA, plaintiffappellant,

vs.
YNCHAUSTI STEAMSHIP CO., defendant-appellee.
Acting Provincial Fiscal Debuque for appellant.
A. de Aboitiz Pinaga for appellee.
De Witt, Perkins & Brady as amicus curiae.

STREET, J.:
This action was instituted in the Court of First Instance of
Iloilo by Victoria Taller Vda. de Nava, for the purpose of
recovering the sum of P1,00.92 from the Ynchausti
Steamship Co., it being alleged that said amount is due
to the plaintiff under the Workmen's Compensation Act,

No. 3428 of the Philippine Legislature, by reason of the

death of her husband in the course of his duty, while
serving as helmsman (timonel) on the interisland
steamer Vizcaya, under the circumstances stated in the
complaint. Upon hearing the cause the trial court
absolved the defendant from the complaint, and the
plaintiff appealed.
The case was submitted upon an agreed statement of
facts from which it appears that the Ynchausti Steamship
Co. is engaged in the business of operating vessels in
the coastwise and interisland trade, and on April 2, 1930,
the steamer Vizcaya, one of its vessels, was being
maneuvered in the mouth of the Iloilo River, at Iloilo. At
this time Valentin Nava held the position of helmsman
(timonel) on said boat, receiving a monthly compensation
of P35. In connection with moving the boat Nava, in
charge of other members of the crew, was engaged in
hauling in the ship's cable and in coiling the cable on the
deck of the boat preparatory to passing it down a
hatchway and bestowing it in its proper place in the
vessel. While thus engaged Nava found the space which
they required for coiling the cable partly occupied by a
folding bed belonging to one of the third-class
passengers. Nava asked whose bed it was, and
Dalmacio Villanueva, one of the passengers, answered
that he was the owner of the bed. Thereupon Nava said

that he (Nava) would push it to another place because it

interfered with the work. Suiting the action to the word,
he pushed the bed with his foot towards the other side of
the ship. This act aroused the anger of the owner of the
bed, and hot words were exchanged, in the course of
which Villanueva, using one of the wooden bars of the
bed, gave Nava a jab in the pit of the stomach. Under the
impact of this blow Nava leaned back, and at this
moment Vicente Villanueva, a brother of Dalmacio
Villanueva, ran up to Nava and stabbed him with a fan
knife just above the left nipple. The blade penetrated
Nava's heart and he died almost instantly. For the crime
of homicide thus committed Vicente Villanueva was later
sentenced to imprisonment for fourteen years, eight
months and one day, reclusion temporal, with
accessories, and was required to indemnify the family of
the deceased in the amount of P1,000, with costs. The
deceased left a wife and seven children, and this action
for compensation was instituted by the widow, under Act
No. 3428 of the Philippine Legislature, as amended.
The answer of the defendant raises several questions all
of which were decided in favor of the plaintiff by the trial
court with the exception of the most vital one which will
chiefly engage our attention in the course of this opinion.
But as the defendant relies in its brief upon the various
points decided against it in the appealed decision, it is

advisable to notice these points as preliminary to the

discussion of what we consider to be the main question.
Among other things, it is insisted that the death of
Valentin Nava was not an accident within the meaning of
the Workmen's Compensation Act, No. 3428. Under
section 2 of Act No. 3428, as it stood when this incident
occurred, compensation is demandable for "a personal
injury from any accident due to and in the pursuance of
the employment". By the word "accident" as here used it
is intended to indicate that the act causing the injury shall
be casual, in the sense of being unforeseen, and one for
which the injured party is not legally responsible. Now, in
the case before us, the death of Valentin Nava, was not,
at least as regards the perpetrator of the deed, any
accident whatever. The death was caused by the
criminal and intentional act of Vicente Villanueva. But an
act may be an accident as regards one person or from
one point of view and not an accident as regards another
person and from another point of view. This homicide
was not attributable to the act of deceased himself and
was not capable of being foreseen as a likely
consequence of the discharge of his duties. The trial
court therefore correctly held that the death of Nava was
due an accident within the meaning of section 2 of Act
No. 3428.

Again, it is insisted that Nava was not an "industrial

employee", within the meaning of the Workmen's
Compensation Act, inasmuch as he was employed as a
helmsman (timonel) and his duties were not of an
industrial nature. This contention takes too narrow a view
of the meaning of the phrase "industrial employee" as
used in the Act cited. As helmsman on the boat Nava
was charged with the performance of duties connected
with piloting of the boat and controlling its movements
when in motion. Duties of this character are clearly of an
industrial nature, since they are concerned with effecting
the ends and purposes of industry. The definition of
"industrial employment", as given in subsection (d) of
section 39, Act No. 3428, covers all employment or work
at a trade, occupation or profession exercised by an
employer for the purpose of gain, subject only to the
limitation of yearly gross income. Nava was therefore an
industrial employee and entitled to compensation under
the Act, provided the other circumstances attendant upon
the accident which caused his death were of such nature
as to bring him within the purview of the Act.
It is further insisted that Act No. 3428, as amended, does
not cover the case of an employee upon a coastwise
vessel. In this connection attention is directed to the fact
that, under section 38, Act No. 3428 extends to the
cases of "employees engaged in the interisland trade";

and it was only by Act No. 3812 (section 12) that the
provision was amended so as to include employees
engaged in the "coastwise and interisland trade". From
this it is supposed that the case in question does not fall
under section 38 of Act No. 3428. The question is in our
opinion without merit. In the first place, the word
"interisland", as originally used in section 38, was
apparently used in a broad sense, to include all shipping
in and among the islands, in vessels of Philippine
registration, and it is not limited to shipping from a port of
one island to a port of another island. The expression
"the coastwise and" was therefore of clarifying a possible
ambiguity and to bring the phraseology of the Act more
into harmony with the technical terms commonly used in
the Customs laws and regulations. Even supposing,
therefore, that theVizcaya was only engaged in the
carrying of trade between different ports of the same
island a fact which does not appear the "accident"
with which we are here concerned should be considered
within the purview of the law. It is not apparent that the
meaning of the law was changed in any essential feature
by this amendment.
Still, again, it is insisted that the case does not come
under Act No. 3428 for the reason that it does not appear
that the defendant had a gross income during the year
immediately preceding the one during which the accident

occurred of not less than P40,000. But we note that in

the agreed statement of facts it is stated that during the
last twelve months anterior to the month of April of 1930,
the defendant had a gross income of more than P40,000
as a result of its business. This was evidently intended to
cover the requirement expressed in subsection (d) of
section 39 of Act No. 3428, and although the stipulation
does not technically cover the gross earning for the full
calendar year anterior to the calendar year in which the
accident occurred, we are of the opinion that the trial
judge committed no error in interpreting the stipulation in
that sense.

result of the nature of such employment. In this

connection we quote section 2 of Act No. 3428, which
runs as follows:

Finally, it is supposed that the circumstance that the

criminal court imposed the civil obligation on Vicente
Villanueva to indemnify the family of the deceased in the
amount of one thousand pesos makes it improper to
allow additional compensation in this case. As the trial
court properly held, the suggestion is without merit. In
the first place, it does not appear that the criminal
indemnity has been paid and, in the second place, that
obligation is wholly distinct from the obligation imposed
by the Workmen's Compensation Act and the latter is in
no sense subsidiary to the former.

This provision was amended by section 1 of Act No.

3812 so as to read as follows:

SEC. 2. Grounds for compensation. When any

employee receives a personal injury from any
accident due to and in the pursuance of the
employment, or contracts any illness directly
caused by such employment or the result of the
nature of such employment, his employer shall pay
compensation in the sums and to the persons
hereinafter specified.

SEC. 2. Grounds for compensation. When any

employee receives a personal injury from any
accident arising out of and in the course of the
employment, or contracts any illness directly
caused by such employment, or the result of the
nature of such employment, his employer shall pay
compensation in the sums and to the persons
hereinafter specified.

lawphil.net

This brings us to consider the most important question in

the case, namely, whether the death of Valentin Nava
occurred in the course of his employment, or was the

This last provision, having been enacted since the death

of Valentin Nava, is not directly applicable to the case
before us, but it may properly be quoted for purposes of

comparison and interpretation. Fixing our attention then

more particularly upon section 2 of Act No. 3428, it is
quite clear that the death of Valentin Nava was not due
to any illness directly caused by his employment or the
result of the nature of such employment. We are of the
opinion, however, that it occurred in the course of his
employment and "in pursuance of the employment", as
this expression is used in the provision cited. The
attorneys for the appellee presents a narrow view of
Nava's employment and insists that, inasmuch as he
was employed as helmsman, he was acting within the
scope of his duties only when his hand was on the helm
of the vessel and he was engaged in actually guiding its
motions. We are of the opinion that his duties should be
considered as having greater latitude. It is true that the
term indicative of his employment was that of helmsman,
but we think that his duties should be considered as
comprehending acts done by him in helping to guide the
ship. In maneuvering a vessel, in entering and leaving
ports, it is necessary for the ship's officers in charge of
the motions of the vessel to avail themselves of cables;
and the taking in of a cable and the coiling of it upon the
deck are acts properly incident to controlling the motion
of the vessel. It results that, when Nava found that one of
the third-class passengers had placed his bed on the
deck in a position where it was in his way, he acted
within the scope of his duty when he pushed the bed

back; and when the fatal assault was made upon him
because of that act, it must be considered that his death
resulted from an act done in the line of his duty.
At this juncture it may be well to give a few words of
explanation concerning the verbiage of section 2 of Act
No. 3428 and of the amendment effected in this section
by Act No. 3812, and particularly in the substitution, in
the latter Act, of the expression "arising out of and in the
course of the employment" for the expression "due and
to in the pursuance of the employment" used in Act No.
3428. Upon this point we note that Act No. 3428 was
adopted by the Philippine Legislature in Spanish, and the
original of the section is taken from the statutes of the
Territory of Hawaii (section 3604, Chapter 209 of the
Revised Laws of Hawaii, 1925). Our English version here
is the official translation into English of the Spanish
version as adopted by the Philippine Legislature. In the
Hawaiian law the expression used in the part of the
statute here under consideration is "arising out of and in
the course of such employment". These words, after
passing through the Spanish version, and upon being
turned back into English, appeared as "due to and in the
pursuance of the employment". It follows that the
expression found in the amendatory provision (section 1
of Act No. 3812) is merely a reversion to the English
wording of the Hawaiian statute, which corresponds, we

may add, to the wording commonly used in the American

statutes. It is clear therefore that the amendment
introduced by the last named Act was merely intended to
bring the English version of our statute into verbal
conformity with the Hawaiian and other American laws.
No change whatever in the meaning of the provision was
intended to be effected by said amendment.
The attorneys for the appellee have called our attention
to some American decisions, which, it is insisted, support
the conclusion of the trial court that the homicide which
resulted in the death of Valentin Nava was not an
accident due to and in the pursuance of his employment,
as this expression runs in section 2 of Act No. 3428. The
cases most emphatically urged upon us in this
connection by the appellee are State of Minnesota ex rel.
School Dist. No. 1, in Itasca County vs. District Court
(140 Minn., 470; 15 A. L. R., 579), and
Schmoll vs. Weisbrod & Hess Brewing Co. (89 N. J. L.,
150; 97 Atl., 732). In the first of these cases the facts
were as follows:
The school district employed a young woman to teach in
the Round Lake school, some 35 miles from Deer River
in Itasca County and 25 miles from Black Duck in
Beltrami County, these two places being the nearest
railway points. The country was densely wooded and
sparsely settled. The school was a one-room school and

fifteen pupils attended. The nearest house was a half

mile away, and the boarding house was a mile or a mile
and a quarter. On the morning of September 20, 1916,
an unknown man asked for food at the boarding place of
the teacher. On the evening of that day, when her work
at the school was finished, she started for her boarding
house, taking a short cut through the woods. She had
some papers which she intended to correct at home in
the evening, and a book to study. As she was on her
way, and when just off the school grounds, she was
criminally assaulted by this for the gratification of his
passions, and as part of the transaction he shot her,
destroying the sight of her left eye. She filed a claim for
compensation against the school district, under the
Compensation Act, which required an employer to pay
compensation "in every case of personal injury or death
of his employee, caused by accident, arising out of and
in the course of the employment". The District Court for
Itasca County awarded the compensation prayed for,
and the School District brought an action for certiorari in
the Supreme Court of Minnesota, claiming that the injury
suffered by the employee did not arise out of and in the
course of the employment. The Supreme Court reversed
the judgment of the lower court, and held that the injury
for which compensation had been awarded by the district
court did not arise out of the employment.

In the second case it appeared that the deceased was a

route foreman in the employ of the respondent. His
duties were to look after the various beer delivery routes
and see that they were properly conducted, and on
Saturdays he had a beer delivery where he delivered
beer and collected the moneys therefor. On the 19th day
of December, 1914, on a Saturday night, at about 8
o'clock, the deceased made a delivery of beer at some
dwelling house in Atlantic City leaving his wagon in the
street, a little distance away, and while returning to his
wagon he was assaulted and shot by some person
unknown. The deceased mounted his wagon and
returned to brewery and accounted to his employer for
the moneys intrusted to and collected by him and then
went to a hospital where he, ten days later, died from the
effects of the gunshot wound.

that the injury had been incurred in the course of her

employment. The second case brings us perhaps into
more debatable ground, but the casual relation between
the performance of duty and the assault was not as
manifest as in the case now before us. The following
decisions, gleaned from American jurisprudence, shed
further light upon the situation before us:

In the first of these cases it is quite evident that there

was no causal relation between the service which the
plaintiff as a teacher, had rendered and the assault which
was committed upon her. In the second case the motive
of the assault was evidently robbery, and there was no
direct connection between the work done by the victim of
the robbery and the assault. If it had appeared, in the
first case, that the teacher had been attacked while in the
act of properly disciplining one of her pupils, and
because of that fact, it would, we think, have been held

In Scholtzhauer vs. C. & L. Lunch Co. (233 N. Y., 12; 134

N. E., 701), it was held that the injury did not arise out of
the employment, where a waitress in a restaurant was
shot by a negro dish-washer because she had declined
an invitation to out with him and had stated that she
would not go out with a negro.

In In re Wooley vs. Minneapolis Equipment Co. and

Globe Indemnity Co. (157 Minn., 428; 196 N. W. 477),
where a salesman was shot and killed in a street brawl
brought on by himself and for his own purposes, even
though he was engaged in his employee's business just
before the fracas, and intended to resume it afterwards,
the court held that the injury did not arise out of the
employment.

In the case now in hand it seems clear to us that the

plaintiff is entitled to the compensation demanded and no
question has been made as to the amount thereof.

The judgment appealed from will therefore be reversed,

and the plaintiff will recover of the defendant the sum of
P1,000.92, with interest from the date of the filing of the
complaint and with costs. So ordered.
Villa-Real, Hull, Vickers and Imperial, JJ., concur.
G.R. No. L-47360

November 28, 1940

BOHOL LAND TRANSPORTATION CO., recurrente y

apelante,
vs.
FERMINA VIUDA DE MADANGUIT Y
OTROS, recurridos y apelados.
Sres. Alvear y Agrava en representacion de la
recurrente.
D. Antonio Logarta y D. Cecilio I. Lim en representacion
de los recurridos.
HORRILLENO, J.:
Este es un recurso de certiorari promotivao por la Bohol
Land Transportaion Co. contra Fermina Viuda de
Mandaguit, la recurrida, en el que pide se revoque la
decision del Tribunal de Apelaciones, promulgada el 28
de febrero de 1940, la cual, copiada literalmente, dice
asi:.

Driving the passenger truck No. 77 of the

defendant transportation company, Ramon
Madanguit left Tagbilaran, Bohol, on his regular trip
to barrio Catigbian of another municipality in the
afternoon of May 17, 1937. On the road he
overtook and passed another truck of the
defendant, and in doing so he fell but collided with
Ciriaco Dalmao (then riding a bicycle in the
opposite direction),practically ditching him. Dalmao
immediately turned around and pursued
Madanguit's truck, which a few minutes later had to
park in front of the house of Attorney Celestino
Gallares, because some pedestrian signaled to get
aboard. Taking advantage of the stop, Madanguit
went to the Lourdes Drug Store across the street to
wash his hands which had become dirty when he
cleaned the truck. In the meantime, Ciriaco Dalmao
arrived, went into the drug store, and, without much
ado, knifed Madanguit to death. Dalmao was
prosecuted and having pleaded guilty was
sentenced accordingly.
Subsequently, the heirs of Madanguit filed this
action for compensation under Act No. 3428, as
amended, in the Court of First Instance of Bohol,
and obtained judgment for the total sum of
P1,507.58, to be paid in the manner directed. The

defendant appealed, questioning not the amount of

compensation nor the manner of payment thereof,
but the right of the plaintiff to be compensated, and
submitting the proposition: First, that the death did
not arise out of Madanguit's employment and in the
course thereof; and, second that compensation is
not due because the death occurred on the
account of Madanguit's notorious negligence, or
intention to inflict injury upon Dalmao.
We are of the opinion that under the facts stated at
the beginning of this decision, the death of
Madanguit arose out, and in the course of his
employment. It appears that because while driving
the defendant's truck he offended Dalmao, the
latter stabbed and killed him.
But the defendant maintains that there is no
competent proof regarding Dalmao's motive,
maintaining that the declaration in open court of the
widow of Madanguit, who merely repeated
Dalmao's testimony in the criminal case against
him for murder is hearsay and incompetent
evidence. But hearsay evidence regarding the
motive or intention of a person is admissible, as an
exception to the hearsay rule. (SeeWigmore on
Evidence, par. 1729, et seq.: and also notes to its
Supplement.) And view of the fact that the

declarations of Dalmao were made under the

sanction of an oath, and the defendant itself
presented Exhibit 9 (testimony of some witness in
the criminal case against Dalmao), which
corroborates the widow's testimony, we cannot say
that there is not enough evidence about the motive
impelling Dalmao's murderous hand.
At any rate, the declaration of the widow at pages
22 to 25 of the transcript of the stenographic notes
were not objected to as hearsay, and for all
purposes are in the record entitled to some value.
(Diaz vs. U.S., 223 U.S. 442.).
Nevertheless, let us suppose, that proof of
Dalmao's resentment is insufficient. Then
Madanguit's injury does not appear to have arisen
out of his employment; yet it being undeniable that
he was killed 'in the course of his employment' (see
Jackson vs. Dairyman's Creamery, 162 S.E., 359;
Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co. vs. Sartonio, 12
Pac. [2nd] 221, his family is entitled to
compensation under the decision of the Supreme
Court in Pollisco vs. Basilan Lumber Co., G.R.
39721, Oct 23, 1993 (Philippine Cases on
Workmen's Compensation by Butalid, p.7)

Referring to the second point, the accident did not

arise out of his employment, which was that of
operating the machine and fixing it when it was out
of commission, inasmuch as said accident did not
occur while he was engaged in said work and as a
consequence thereof.
"But that the accident occurred in the course
of his employment there can be no doubt, for
the reason that, being an employee of the
firm and while riding in the wagon furnished
by the company to bring then home within the
concession after their work, plaintiff was
within the radius of action and under the
control of the defendant company." (Pollisco
vs. Basilan Lumber Co., supra ).
In Bellosillo vs. City of Manila (G.R. No. 34522,
November 9, 1931, Butalid, supra, p. 16), a
workman employed on a public street temporarily
left his work and crossed the street, he was run
over by an automobile and killed. The Supreme
Court gave him compensation under Act 3428,
holding that the injury was caused by an accident
due to, and in pursuance of, his employment.
It should be noted in this connection that in
constructing this specific provision of the

Workmen's compensation law, the tendency is

towards liberality in favor whenever an employee
suffers injury in the course of his employment, a
reasonable factual presumption, is that the hurt
arose out of the employment.
The defendant attempted to establish the fact that
Madanguit owed Dalmao about P3.50; that on May
17, just a few minutes before the killing, Dalmao
stopped Madanguit and asked for payment, that
Madanguit paid no attention to Dalmao, whereupon
the latter became enraged, followed Madanguit and
killed him. The theory is not plausible for it is
unlikely that for a small indebtedness Dalmao
should take away the life of an individual. it is also
incredible that he should stop a truck to demand
payment. But this alleged debt of Madanguit lends
color to the plaintiff's version, because his
rudeness in crowding Dalmao out of the street was
resented by the latter, who, as a creditor of
Madanguit, evidently expected better treatment.
The other defense that the killing was caused by
Madanguit's intention to inflict injuries upon
Dalmao, or to his notorious negligence, is
concededly premised on the assumption that the
decision in criminal case No. 4180, Exhibit E, is
admissible (appellant's brief, p.34). As we agree

with the defendant that said Exhibit, for the purpose

of showing the facts recited therein, is not
admissible, we do not have to go into this defense,
specially because we are not convinced there was
notorious negligence or wilfull misconduct on the
part of Madanguit.
The net result is that plaintiff are entitled to
compensation. And as the defendant has assigned
no error as to the rate or amount of the award, the
judgment appealed from will be affirmed, with costs
against the appellant.
La recurrente, como fundamento de su recurso, alega:.
1. The Second Division of said Court of Appeals
completely disregarded the fact that the death of
Ramon O. Madanguit was not an accident at all
and erroneously held that, because Ramon O.
Madanguit was murdered by Ciriaco Dalmao in the
Lourdes Drug Store, the said death arose in the
coarse of his employment or as a result of said
employment it been found by said Second Division
of Court of Appeals that the death of the deceased
arose from the following facts:
. . . "On the road he overtook and passed another
truck of the defendant, and in doing so he fell but

collided Ciriaco Dalmao (then riding a bicycle in the

opposite direction), practically ditching him, Dalmao
immediately turned around and pursued
Madanguit's truck which a few minutes after had to
park in front of the house of Attorney Celestino
Gallares, because some pedestrian signaled to get
aboard. Taking advantage of the stop. Madanguit
went to the Lourdes Drug Store across the street to
wash his hands which had become dirty when he
cleaned the truck. In the meantime, Ciriaco Dalmao
arrived, went into the drug store and without much
ado, knifed Madanguit to death. Dalmao was
prosecuted, and having pleaded guilty, was
sentence accordingly."
2. The Second Division of the Court of Appeals
committed an error in holding the deceased was
not notoriously negligent when,
(a) The deceased violated and disregarded the
rules and regulations of petitioner by starting late
from; petitioner's garage which fact accounted for
deceased going to the Lourdes Drug Store to wash
his hands and comb his hair; and
(b) The deceased disregarded the right of Ciriaco
Dalmao, his assailant, by almost colliding with, and
there was not enough space for his truck to go

through without causing injury or damage to the

travelling public.
3. The Second Division of the Court of Appeals
also committed an error of law in implied holding
that petitioner is an insurer against all accidental
injuries which might happened to its employees
while in the course of their employment and holding
that, because the deceased was murdered on
account of his carelessness and derelictions of
duty, the said deceased Ramon O. Madanguit died
in the course of his employment. (See par. 2, p.2,
decision, Appendix A.)
4. The Second Division of the Court of Appeals
again committed an error of law by concluding that
petitioner is answerable for the death of decease
when it itself finds that "It appears that because
while driving the defendant's truck he (the
deceased) offended Dalmao, the latter stabbed and
killed him" and . . .
5. Finally, the decision of the Second Division of
Court of Appeals is against the applicable decision
of this Honorable Court in that it applied without
exception and limitation, the provisions of the
Workmen's Compensation Law in holding that 'the
tendency is towards liberality in favor of the

employee. And perhaps it is not error to say that

whenever an employee suffers injuries in the
course of his employment, a reasonable factual
presumption is that the hurt arose out of the
employment' when according to the case
Vergara vs. Pampanga Bus Co., G.R. No. 44149,
January 9, 1936; Vol. V, lawyers' Journal, p. 372,
this Honorable Court says:
"We have heretofore given repeated evidence of
our desire to see a spirit of liberality characterize
the construction of the Workmen's Compensation
Act. We have endeavored to interpret the Act to
promote its purpose. We have even gone so far as
to interpret it fairly in favor of the employee. But we
cannot construct the Act to fit particular cases, and
in this particular case neither the facts nor the law
are demonstrative of a meritorious claim on the
part of the employee coming within the purview of
the Workmen's Compensation Act."
No se discuten por la recurrente, ni puede discurtilos en
esta instancia, los hechos declarados probados por el
Tribunal de Apelacion en su decision objeto del presente
recurso, a sabeer:
Driving the passenger truck No. 77 of the
defendant transportation company, Ramon

Madanguit left Tagbilaran, Bohol, on his regular trip

to barrio Catigbian of another municipality in the
afternoon of May 17, 1938. On the road he
overtook and passed another truck of the
defendant and in doing so he fell but collided with
Ciriaco Dalmao (the riding a bicycle in the opposite
direction), practically ditching him. Dalmao
immediately turned around and pursued
Madanguit's truck, which few minutes later had to
work in front of the house of Attorney Celestino
Gallares, because some pedestrian signaled to get
aboard. Taking advantage of the stop, Madanguit
went to the Lourdes Drug Store across the street to
wash his hands which had become dirty when he
cleaned the truck. in the meantime , Ciriaco
Dalmao arrived, went into the drug store, and
without much ado, knifed Madanguit to death.
Dalmao was prosecuted, and having pleaded
guilty, was sentence accordingly.
Subsequently, the heirs of Madanguit filed this action for
compensation under Act 3428, as amended, in the Court
of First Instance of Bohol, and obtained judgment for the
total sum of P1,507,58, to be paid in the manner
directed. The defendant appealed, questioning not the
amount of compensation nor the manner of payment
thereof, but the right of the plaintiff to be compensated,

and submitting the proposition: First, that the death did

not arise out of Madanguit's employment and in the
course thereof; and, occurred on account of Madanguit's
notorious negligence, or intention to inflict upon Dalmao.
La unica cuestion, por consiguiente, que se plantea ante
Nos es la de si, en vista de tales hechos, procede o no
otorgar a la recurrida los beneficios de la Ley de
Compensacion de Obreros No. 3428, segun ha sido
enmendada por la Ley No. 3812. Dicha ley, tal como ha
sido enmendada, dispone en su articulo 2, lo siguiente:
ART. 2. Motivos para una compensacion.
Cuando un empleado sufre una lesion personal por
accidente proveniente de, y en el curso de su
empleo, o contrajere una enfermedad causada
directamente por el empleo o como resultado de la
naturaleza de dicho empleo, su patrono le pagara
una compensacion en las cantidades y a las
personas que se especifican mas adelante.
En Pollisco vs. Basilan Lumber Co., R.G. No. 39721,
este Tribunal, entre otras cosas, declaro que Pollisco
tenia derecho a la compensacion no obstante haber
ocurrido el accidente despues de su trabajo y mientras
volvia ya a su casa. El caso de autos es, a nuestro juicio,
mas fuerte y meritorio todavia que el citado de Pollisco.
Como se desprende de los hechos probados segun el

Tribunal de Apelacion, Madanguit, el difunto, era el

chofer de uno de los buses de la recurrente, Bohol Land
Transportation Co., y mientras guiaba el coche, este
choco contra la bicicleta que montaba Ciriaco Dalmao;
que momentos despues, casi inmediatamente,
Madanguit paro su coche frente a la casa del abogado
Celestino Gallares, por haber recibido seas de algunos
peatones que querian coger el camion y, aprovechando
esta oportunidad, bajo de el y se dirigio al Lourdes Drug
Store con el objeto de lavarse las manos que se habian
ensuciado al limpiar su coche. Entretanto, Ciriaco
Dalmao llego y entro en la botica y, sin mas ni mas,
apualo a Madanguit que murio en el acto.
En otro asunto, Bellosillo vs. City of Manila, R.G. No.
34522, decidido por este Tribunal, se declaro que un
obrero de la Ciudad de Manila, que trabajaba en las
calles publicas, tenia derecho a la compensacion bajo la
ley, a pesar de haber dejado temporalmente su trabajo y
cruzado la calle, momento en que fue atropellado por un
automovil que le dejo muerto en el acto. En Corpus
Juris, pag. 673, tomo 71, hallamos lo siguente:
. . . where the employee is injured while seeking
toilet facilities or going to ro from a toilet, the injury
arises out of the employment and in the course of it
...

El Tribunal de Apelacines, por tanto, no incurrio en error

alguno al decidir este asunto, confirmando en todas sus
partes el fallo del tribunal a quo a favor de Fermina Vda.
de Madanguit, la recurrida.
En su consecuencia, procede, y asi lo declaramos,
confirmar en todas sus partes la decision objeto del
recurso, con las costas en ambar instancias a cargo de
la recurrente. Asi se ordena.
Avancea, Pres., Imperial, Diaz y Laurel, MM., estan
conformes.
Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. L-26341

November 27, 1968

ILOILO DOCK & ENGINEERING CO., petitioner,

vs.
WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION COMMISSION and
IRENEA M. PABLO, for herself and in behalf of her
minor children EDWIN, EDGAR and EDNA, all
surnamed PABLO, respondents.

Luisito C. Hofilena for petitioner.

Villavieja and Villanueva for respondent Workmen's
Compensation Commission.
Gualberto C. Opong for respondent Irenea M. Pablo and
her minor children.
CASTRO, J.:
This is an appeal by the Iloilo Dock and Engineering
Company (hereinafter referred to as the IDECO) from the
decision dated February 28, 1966 of the Workmen's
Compensation Commission (hereinafter referred to as
the Commission) affirming the decision of the Regional
Office VII in Iloilo City, and ordering the IDECO to pay to
the widow and children of Teodoro G. Pablo (Irenea M.
Pablo and the minors Edwin, Edgar and Edna, all
surnamed Pablo) the sum of P4,000, to pay to the widow
P89 as reimbursement for burial expenses and P300 as
attorney's fees, and to pay to the Commission the
amount of P46 as fees pursuant to section 55 of the
Workmen's Compensation Act, as amended.
At about 5:02 o'clock in the afternoon of January 29,
1960, Pablo, who was employed as a mechanic of the
IDECO, while walking on his way home, was shot to
death in front of, and about 20 meters away from, the
main IDECO gate, on a private road commonly called the
IDECO road. The slayer, Martin Cordero, was not heard

to say anything before or after the killing. The motive for

the crime was and still is unknown as Cordero was
himself killed before he could be tried for Pablo's death.
At the time of the killing, Pablo's companion was Rodolfo
Galopez, another employee, who, like Pablo, had
finished overtime work at 5:00 p.m. and was going home.
From the main IDECO gate to the spot where Pablo was
killed, there were four "carinderias" on the left side of the
road and two "carinderias" and a residential house on
the right side. The entire length of the road is nowhere
stated in the record.
According to the IDECO, the Commission erred (1) in
holding that Pablo's death occurred in the course of
employment and in presuming that it arose out of the
employment; (2) in applying the "proximity rule;" and (3)
in holding that Pablo's death was an accident within the
purview of the Workmen's Compensation Act.
The principal issue is whether Pablo's death comes
within the meaning and intendment of that "deceptively
simple and litigiously prolific",1 phrase The two
components of the coverage formula "arising out of"
and "in the course of employment."2 The two
components of the coverage formula "arising out of"
and "in the course of employment" are said to be
separate tests which must be independently
satisfied;3 however, it should not be forgotten that the

basic concept of compensation coverage is unitary, not

dual, and is best expressed in the word, "workconnection," because an uncompromising insistence on
an independent application of each of the two portions of
the test can, in certain cases, exclude clearly workconnected injuries.4 The words "arising out of" refer to
the origin or cause of the accident, and are descriptive of
its character, while the words "in the course of" refer to
the time, place and circumstances under which the
accident takes place.5
As a matter of general proposition, an injury or accident
is said to arise "in the course of employment" when it
takes place within the period of the employment, at a
place where the employee reasonably may be, and while
he is fulfilling his duties or is engaged in doing something
incidental thereto.6
The general rule in workmen's compensation law known
as the "going & coming rule," simply stated, is that "in the
absence of special circumstances, an employee injured
in, going to, or coming from his place of work is excluded
from the benefits of workmen's compensation acts."7 This
rule, however, admits of four well-recognized exceptions,
to wit: (1) where the employee is proceeding to or from
his work on the premises of his employer; (2) where the
employee is about to enter or about to leave the
premises of his employer by way of the exclusive or

customary means of ingress and egress; (3) where the

employee is charged, while on his way to or from his
place of employment or at his home, or during his
employment, with some duty or special errand connected
with his employment; and (4) where the employer, as an
incident of the employment, provides the means of
transportation to and from the place of employment.8
We address ourselves particularly to an examination and
consideration of the second exception, i.e., injuries
sustained off the premises of the employer, but while
using a customary means of ingress and egress.
This exception, known as the "proximity rule," was
applied in Philippine Fiber Processing Co., Inc. vs.
Ampil.9There, the employee, at about 5:15 a.m., while
proceeding to his place of work and running to avoid the
rain, slipped and fell into a ditch fronting the main gate of
the employer's factory, as a result of which he died the
next day. The sole question was whether or not the
accident which caused the employee's death arose out
of and in the course of his employment. This Court ruled
in favor of the claimant thus:
The very case of Afable vs. Singer Sewing Machine
Co. invoked by the petitioner intimated that "we do
not of course mean to imply that an employee can
never recover for injuries suffered while on his way

to or from work. That depends on the nature of his

employment." Considering the facts found by the
Commission, namely, that the deceased Angel
Ariar was not under any shift routine; that his
assignment covered the entire working hours of the
factory; that the first working hour starts at 6:00
o'clock in the morning; that it takes at least thirty
minutes before the machine operates at full speed
or load; that the spot where he fell (ditch fronting
petitioner's factory or sidewalk of its premises), is
immediately proximate to his place of work, the
accident in question must be deemed to have
occurred within the zone of his employment and
therefore arose out of and in the course thereof. In
Salilig vs. Insular Lumber Co., G.R. No. 28951,
September 10, 1928, referred to in the Comments
on the Workmen's Compensation Commission Act
by Morabe and Inton, 1955 edition, compensation
was allowed for injury received by a laborer from
an accident in going to his place of work, along a
path or way owned by his employer and commonly
used by the latter's laborers.
In contrast is Pampanga Sugar Development Co., Inc.
vs. Quiroz,10 which concerned injuries sustained by a
centrifugal operator. He had reported for work at 9:30
p.m. (March 7, 1958) and was dismissed at 5:30 the

following morning. Soon "after he stepped out of the

company gate, and while standing about 2- meters
from it between the shoulder of the highway and a
railroad that came from inside the compound and
intersected the highway, waiting for a ride home, he was
bumped by a jeepney, as a result of which he sustained"
injuries. In holding that these injuries were "not produced
by an accident "arising out of and in the course of
employment," " this Court reasoned thus:
The compensability of an injury suffered by an
employee proceeding to or coming from his work
depends upon whether or not it is "workconnected." As Chief Justice Kenison of New
Hampshire has put it, "the fact that the employee is
travelling to or from work on a public highway does
not necessarily exclude coverage (Brousseau vs.
Blackstone Mills, 130 A 2d 543, 545). Conversely, it
is not enough to say that the employee would not
have been on the public highway had it not been
for his job, since the same can usually be said of
the general public (Payne & Dolan vs. Industrial
Commission, 46 NE 2d 925). The law, in effect,
insures the employee against losses arising from
the perils of his work. In other words, the
Workmen's Compensation Act covers occupational
injuries, which, as such, must have a causative

connection with something, not merely in common

with the public, but peculiar to the employment. In
order to warrant recovery for off-the-premises
injuries, it must be shown that there has been a
very special danger, some particular risk which the
employer could have caused or allowed to exist.
Hence,
It is significant that practically all successful
off-the-premises cases have involved normal
route of access to the plant, or an icy
sidewalk adjacent to the premises and
therefore identified with the premises in the
sense that the employer should have
removed the ice. (Emphasis ours.)
It is true that in Philippine Fiber Processing Co. v.
Ampil, G.R. No. L-8130 (June 30, 1956), we held
the employer liable for an injury sustained by an
employee who, as he was running to his place of
work to avoid the rain, slipped and fell into a ditch
in front of the factory's main gate and near the
same. The ditch was, however, in itself an obvious
hazard which, owing to its proximity to the gate, the
employer should have taken measures to remove.
Thus, thru his inaction, he had contributed, in a
special way, to the occurrence of the accident.

In the case at bar, no such special circumstance

appears to exist. There is no particular causative
connection between the injury sustained by the
employee and either his work or his employer.
Although, as stated in the decision appealed from,
the record does not show that the company "had
taken measures to make the waiting place safe for
the employees," neither does the record show
either that the accident occurred at the usual
waiting place of the employees, or that said place
was particularly unsafe.
Our Workmen's Compensation Act being essentially
American in origin and text, it is not amiss to pay
deference to pertinent American jurisprudence. In the
precise area of law here involved, we can draw guidance
from an affluence of Federal and State precedents.
From Samuel B. Horovitz' Injury and Death under
Workmen's Compensation Laws (1944), pp. 159 to 165,
we glean the following observations:
Suppose, however, that the injury occurs on the
way to work or on the way home from work. Injuries
going to or from work have caused many judicial
upheavals.

The question here is limited to whether the injuries

are "in the course of" and not "out of" the
employment. How the injury occurred is not in
point. Street risks, whether the employee was
walking or driving, and all other similar questions
deal with the risk of injury or "out of" the
employment. "In the course of" deals mainly with
the element of time and space, or "time, place and
circumstances."
Thus, if the injury occurred fifteen minutes before
working hours and within one hundred feet of the
employer's premises, on sidewalks or public roads,
the question of "in the course of" the employment is
flatly raised.
Some of our states refuse to extend this definition
of "in the course of" to include these injuries. Most
of the states will protect the employee from the
moment his foot or person reaches the employer's
premises, whether he arrives early or late. These
states find something sacred about the
employment premises and define "premises" very
broadly, not only to include premises owned by the
employer, but also premises leased, hired,
supplied or used by him, even private alleyways
merely used by the employer. Adjacent private
premises are protected by many states, and a few

protect the employee even on adjacent public

sidewalks and streets. Where a city or any
employer owns or controls an island, all its streets
are protected premises.
There is no reason in principle why states should
not protect employees for a reasonable period of
time prior to or after working hours and for
a reasonable distance before reaching or after
leaving the employer's premises. The Supreme
Court of the United States has declared that it will
not overturn any state decision that so enlarges the
scope of its act. Hence, a deaf worker, trespassing
on railroad tracks adjacent to his employer's brickmaking premises (but shown by his superintendent
the specific short crossing over the track), and
killed by a train, was held to be in the course of his
employment when hit by an oncoming train fifteen
minutes before his day would have begun. So long
as causal relation to the employment is discernible,
no federal question arises.
The narrow rule that a worker is not in the course
of his employment until he crosses the employment
threshold is itself subject to many exceptions. Offpremises injuries to or from work, in both liberal
and narrow states, are compensable (1) if the
employee is on the way to or from work in a vehicle

owned or supplied by the employer, whether in a

public (e.g., the employer's street car) or private
conveyance; (2) if the employee is subject to call at
all hours or at the moment of injury; (3) if the
employee is travelling for the employer, i.e.,
travelling workers; (4) if the employer pays for the
employee's time from the moment he leaves his
home to his return home; (5) if the employee is on
his way to do further work at home, even though on
a fixed salary; (6) where the employee is required
to bring his automobile to his place of business for
use there. Other exceptions undoubtedly are
equally justified, dependent on their own peculiar
circumstances.
Schneider (supra, at p. 117) makes this significant
statement:
The proximity rule exception to the general going
and coming rule is that an employee is generally
considered to be in the course of his employment
while coming to or going from his work, when,
though off the actual premises of his employer, he
is still in close proximity thereto, is proceeding
diligently at an appropriate time, by reasonable
means, over the natural, practical, customary,
convenient and recognized way of ingress, or
egress either on land under the control of the

employer, or on adjacent property with the express

or implied consent of the employer.
On pp. 98 to 99 of 85 ALR, we find the following
disquisition:
The compensation acts have been very generally
held not to authorize an award in case of an injury
or death from a peril which is common to all
mankind, or to which the public at large is exposed.
28 R.C. L. 804. And they do not as a general rule
cover injuries received while going to or from work
on public streets, where the employee has not
reached, or has left the employer's premises. The
question whether an injury arises out of and in the
course of the employment, however, is one
dependent upon the facts of each case, and in
some cases, where an injury occured while the
employee was going to or from work, but was in the
street in front of the employer's premises, it has
been held compensable.
Thus, in the reported case (Barnett v. Brtiling
Cafeteria Co., ante, 85) the injury was held to have
arisen out of and in the course of the employment,
where the employee slipped on ice on the sidewalk
immediately in front of the employer's place of
business, while on her way to report for duty, and

just before entering by the only entrance to her

place of employment. The court here recognized
the general rule that, if an employee is injured while
going to or from his work to his house, or to or from
some point not visited for the discharge of a duty
arising out of the employment, or while in the use
of a public highway, he does not come within the
protection of the Workmen's Compensation Act, but
stated that there is an exception to this rule
and that the employment is not limited by the
actual time when the workman reaches the scene
of his labor and begins it, or when he ceases, but
includes a reasonable time and opportunity before
and after, while he is at or near his place of
employment. The court reasoned that in the case
at bar, although the employee had not entered the
employer's place of business, and the sidewalk
was a public highway so much therefore as was in
front of the employer's place of business was a
necessary adjunct, used in connection with the
business, and that the sidewalk was to a limited
degree and purpose a part of the employer's
premises.
In Industrial Commission v. Barber (1927) 117 Ohio
St 373, 159 NE 363, the injury was held to have
arisen in the course of the employment where an

employee, about five minutes before the hour when

he was to go on duty, was struck by an automobile
owned and driven by another employee, within a
short distance from the employer's plant, which
was located at the dead end of a street maintained
by the employer from its plant to the intersection
with another street, and, although the street was a
public one, it led nowhere except to the employer's
plant, and all of its employees were obliged to use
it in going to and from their work. The court stated
that where the conditions under the control of an
industrial plant are such that the employee has no
option but to pursue a given course with reference
to such conditions and environments, the
pursuance of such course is an implied obligation
of the employer in his contract with such employee,
and that when he, for the purpose of entering his
employment, has entered into the sphere or zone
controlled by his employer and is pursuing a course
with reference to which he has no option, he is then
not only within the conditions and environments of
the plant of his employer, but is then in the course
of his employment; and that, when he receives an
injury attributable to such conditions and
environments, there is a direct causal connection
between his employment and his injury, and the
injury falls within the class of industrial injuries for

which compensation has been provided by the

Workmen's Compensation Law.
99 C.J.S., at pp. 807-814, has this to say:
It is laid down as a general rule, known as the
"going and coming" rule, that, in the absence of
special circumstances, and except in certain
unusual circumstances, and where nothing else
appears, harm or injury sustained by an employee
while going to or from his work is not compensable.
Such injury, or accident, is regarded by the weight
of authority of many courts as not arising out of his
employment, and as not being, or not occurring, in
the course thereof.
However, this rule is not inflexible, is not of
inevitable application, and is subject to
qualifications, and to exceptions which depend on
the nature, circumstances, and conditions of the
particular employment, the circumstances of the
particular case, and the cause of the injury.
Jaynes vs. Potlach Forests11 expresses with enlightening
clarity the rationale for extending the scope of "course of
employment" to certain "off-premises" injuries:

We are urged here to again recognize and apply

the distinction between off-premises injuries which
occur on private property and those which occur on
public streets and highways. The extension of the
course of employment to off-premises injuries is
not based upon the principle which would justify a
distinction upon the narrow ground of private and
public property; it is not sound to say that while an
employee is on public highway he is always there
as a member of the public and in nowise in the
exercise of any right conferred by his contract to
employment; nor is it a complete answer to say that
while he is on his employer's premises his
presence there is by contract right, otherwise he
would be a trespasser. The question of whether or
not one is a covered employee should not be
resolved by the application of the law relating to
rights to enter upon lands, or by law of trespass,
licensee, invitee or otherwise.
A substantial and fair ground to justify the
extension of the course of employment beyond the
premises of the employer is to extend its scope to
the necessary risks and hazards associated with
the employment. These risks may or may not be on
the premises of the employer and for this reason
there is no justification to distinguish between

extended risks on public highways and private

pathways. In fact it is at most a distinction without a
difference. Under the better reasoned cases the
technical status as public or private is obviously of
no moment or in any event in and of itself is not
conclusive.
Likewise enlightening is the following explanation of the
premises rule exceptions:
We have, then a workable explanation of the
exception to the premises rule: it is not nearness,
or reasonable distance, or even the identifying or
surrounding areas with the premises; it is simply
that, when a court has satisfied itself that there is a
distinct "arising out of" or causal connection
between the conditions under which claimant must
approach and leave the premises and the
occurrence of the injury, it may hold that the course
of employment extends as far as those conditions
extend. (Larson's Workmen's Compensation Law,
1965 ed., vol. 1, pp. 210-211)
We now direct our attention to the cause of the
employee's death: assault.
An "assault," although resulting from a deliberate act of
the slayer, is considered an "accident" within the

meaning of sec. 2 of the Workmen's Compensation Act,

since the word "accident" is intended to indicate that "the
act causing the injury shall be casual or unforeseen, an
act for which the injured party is not legally
responsible."12
In the cases where the assault was proven to have been
work-connected, compensation was awarded. In Nava,
supra, the helmsman of a boat was engaged in hauling
the ship's cable and in coiling the cable partly occupied
by a folding bed of one of the passengers. This
passenger, upon being asked, declared his ownership of
the bed. Nava expressed his intention of pushing it out of
the way and proceeded to do so. Angered by this, the
passenger exchanged hot words with Nava, and then,
with a piece of wood, jabbed Nava at the pit of the
stomach. At this point, the passenger's brother ran up to
Nava and stabbed him to death. The death was
adjudged compensable.
In Bohol Land Transportation Co. vs. Vda. de
Mandaguit,13 the truck which Mandaguit was driving
collided with a cyclist going in the opposite direction. The
latter turned around and immediately pursued the bus.
He overtook it a few minutes later when it stopped to
take on passengers. The driver then disembarked from
the bus to wash his hands at a drugstore nearby. The
cyclist followed him there and knifed him to death. We

affirmed the grant of compensation upon the finding that

the death arose out of and in the course of employment.
In Galicia vs. Dy Pac,14 the employee, Pablo Carla, was
asked to work in lieu of another employee who had been
suspended from work upon request of his labor union;
while Carla was working, the suspended employee
asked him to intercede for him, but Carla refused; an
altercation resulted; shortly thereafter the suspended
employee stabbed Carla to death. The death was held
compensable because "the injury sustained by the
deceased was caused by an accident arising out of his
employment since the evidence is clear that the fight
which resulted in the killing of the deceased had its origin
or cause in the fact that he was placed in the job
previously occupied by the assailant."
In the three cases above-cited, there was evidence as to
the motive of the assailant.
In A. P. Santos, Inc. vs. Dabacol,15 the death of an
employee-driver who, while driving a cab, was killed by
an unidentified passenger, was held compensable by the
Commission. However, the question of whether the
assault arose out of the employment, was not raised on
appeal to this Court.

In Batangas Transportation Company vs. Vda. de

Rivera,16 that question was raised. While the employeedriver was driving a bus, a passenger boarded it and sat
directly behind the driver. After about thirty minutes,
during which the passenger and the driver never so
much as exchanged a word, the passenger shot the
driver to death and then fled. There was no competent
proof as to the cause of the assault, although there were
intimations that the incident arose from a personal
grudge. The majority decision17 ruled the death
compensable. The bases: (1) Once it is proved that the
employee died in the course of the employment, the
legal presumption, in the absence of substantial
evidence to the contrary, is that the claim "comes within
the provisions of the compensation law" (sec. 43), in
other words, that the incident arose out of the workman's
employment. (2) Doubts as to rights to compensation are
resolved in favor of the employee and his dependents.
(3) The Commissioner's declaration on the workconnection might be binding on the Court. (4) There are
employments which increase the risk of assault on the
person of the employee and it is in that sense that an
injury or harm sustained by the assaulted worker arises
out of the employment, because the increased risk to
assault supplies the link or connection between the injury
and the employment. Among the jobs enumerated as
increasing the risk of assault are (a) jobs having to do

with keeping the peace or guarding property; (b) jobs

having to do with keeping or carrying of money which
subject to the employee to the risk of assault because of
the increased temptation to robbery; (c) jobs which
expose the employee to direct contact with lawless and
irresponsible members of the community, like that of a
bartender; and (d) work as bus driver, taxi driver or street
car conductor.

It has been said that an employment may either increase

risk of assault because of its nature or be the subjectmatter of a dispute leading to the assault. The first kind
of employment, the so-called "increased risk" jobs
comprehend (1) jobs involving dangerous duties, such as
that of guarding the employer's property, that of carrying
or keeping money, that where the employee is exposed
to lawless or irresponsible members of the public, or that
which subjects him to increased or indiscriminate contact
with the public, such as the job of a street car conductor
or taxi-driver;18 (2) jobs where the employee is placed in
a dangerous environment;19 and (3) jobs of employees
whose work takes them on the highway. On the other
hand, the employment itself may be the subject-matter of
a dispute leading to the assault as where a supervisor is
assaulted by workmen he has fired, or where the
argument was over the performance of work or
possession of tools or the like, or where the violence was
due to labor disputes.20
In Rivera, supra, the unexplained assault on the
employee was considered to have arisen out of the
employment because it occurred in the course of
employment. This Court relied on the presumption of law
that in any proceeding for the enforcement of a claim, the
claim is presumed to come within the provisions of the
Act.21According to this Court, "this statutory presumption

was copied from New York." Concerning the

corresponding New York provision of law, Larson has this
to say:
In a few jurisdictions, notably New York and
Massachusetts, a statutory presumption in favor of
coverage has figured in unexplained-accident
cases. The Massachusetts statute provides:
In any claim for compensation, where the
employee has been killed, or is physically or
mentally unable to testify, it shall be
presumed, in the absence of substantial
evidence to the contrary, that the claim comes
within the provisions of this chapter, that
sufficient notice of the injury has been given,
and that the injury or death was not
occasioned by the wilful intention of the
employee to injure or kill himself or another.
This provision was largely copied from the New
York section on presumptions, except that the New
York act creates the presumption in all cases, not
merely those involving an employee's death or
inability to testify.
The sweeping inclusiveness of this language might
seem at first glance to mean that the mere making

of a claim is also the making of a prima facie case,

as long as death or injury is shown to have
occurred. The New York and Massachusetts courts
have not so interpreted these statutes, however. It
seems to be necessary to establish some kind of
preliminary link with the employment before the
presumption can attach. Otherwise, the claimant
widow would have merely to say, "My husband,
who was one of your employee, has died, and I
therefore claim death benefits," whereupon the
affirmative burden would devolve upon the
employer to prove that there was no connection
between the death and the environment.
It is not yet entirely clear what initial demonstration
of employment-connection will give the
presumption a foothold. Apparently, the idea is to
rule out cases in which claimant can show neither
that the injury occurred in the course of
employment nor that it arose out of it, as where he
contracted a disease but has no evidence to show
where he got it. If there is evidence that the injury
occurred in the course of employment, the
presumption will usually supply the "arising-out-ofemployment" factor." Larson's Workmen
Compensation Law (1965) vol. 1, pp. 123-124.

We also quote from the decision of the Court of Appeals

of New York in Daus vs. Gunderman & Sons:22
The statute is not intended to relieve completely an
employee from the burden of showing that
accidental injuries suffered by him actually were
sustained in the course of his employment. "It is not
the law that mere proof of an accident, without
other evidence, creates the presumption under
section 21 of the Workmen's Compensation Law
(Consol. Law, c. 67) that the accident arose out of
and in the course of the employment. On the
contrary, it has been frequently held, directly and
indirectly, that there must be some evidence from
which the conclusion can be drawn that the injuries
did arise out of and in the course of the
employment." Proof of the accident will give rise to
the statutory presumption only where some
connection appears between the accident and the
employment.
Likewise of relevance is the following treatise:
The discussion of the coverage formula, "arising
out of and in the course of employment," was
opened with the suggestion that, while "course"
and "arising" were put under separate headings for
convenience, some interplay between the two

factors should be observed in the various

categories discussed.
A few examples may now be reviewed to show that
the two tests, in practice, have not been kept in airtight compartments, but have to some extent
merged into a single concept of work-connection.
One is almost tempted to formulate a sort of
quantum theory of work-connection: that a certain
minimum quantum of work-connection must be
shown, and if the "course" quantity is very small,
but the "arising" quantity is large, the quantum will
add up to the necessary minimum, as it will also
when the "arising" quantity is very small but the
"course" quantity is relatively large.
But if both the "course" and "arising" quantities are
small, the minimum quantum will not be met.
As an example of the first, a strong "arising" factor
but weak "course" factor, one may cite the cases in
which recoveries have been allowed off the
employment premises, outside business hours,
when an employee going to or coming from work is
injured by a hazard distinctly traceable to the
employment, such as a traffic jam overflowing from
the employment premises, or a rock flying through
the air from a blast on the premises. Here, by

normal course of employment standards, there

would be no award, since the employee was not on
the premises while coming or going. Yet
the unmistakable character of the causal relation of
the injury to the employment has been sufficient to
make up for the weakness of the "course" factor.
Another example of the same kind of balancing-out
is seen in the line of cases dealing with injury to
travelling men or loggers while sleeping in hotels or
bunkhouses. It was shown in the analysis of these
cases that, although the "course" factor is on the
borderline when the employee is sound asleep at
the time of injury, a strong causal relation of the
injury to the conditions of employment as where
a fellow-logger runs amok, or a straw falls into the
bunkhouse-inmate's throat from the mattress
above, or the employee is trapped in a burning
hotel will boost the case over the line to
success; while a weak causal connection, as where
the salesman merely slips in a hotel bath, coupled
with a weak "course" factor due to the absence of
any direct service performed for the employer at
the time, will under present decisions add up to a
quantum of work-connection too small to support
an award. It was also shown that when the
"course" element is strengthened by the fact that
the employee is at all times on call, the range of

compensable sources of injury is broader than

when the employee, although living on the
premises is not on call.
A somewhat similar balancing-out process is seen
in the holding that a borderline course-ofemployment activity like seeking personal comfort
or going to and from work falls short of
compensability if the method adopted is unusual,
unreasonable and dangerous, while no such
restriction applies to the direct performance of the
work.
As an example of the reverse situation, a strong
"course" element and a weak "arising" element;
one may recall the "positional" cases discussed in
section 10, as well as the unexplained-fall and
other "neutral-cause" cases. Here the course of
employment test is satisfied beyond the slightest
doubt: the employee is in the midst of performing
the active duties of his job. But the causal
connection is very weak, since the source of the
injury whether a stray bullet, a wandering
lunatic, and unexplained fall or death, or a
mistaken assault by a stranger is not distinctly
associated with employment conditions as such,
and is tied to the employment only by the argument
that the injury would not have occurred to this

employee but for the obligation of the employment

which placed him in the position to be hurt. Yet,
since the "course" element is so strong, awards are
becoming increasingly common on these facts.
Incidentally, it may be observed that this "quantum"
idea forms a useful yardstick for measuring just
how generous a court has become in expanding
compensation coverage; for if a court makes an
award when a case, by the above standards, is
weak both on course of employment and on causal
connection, one can conclude that the court is
capable of giving the act a broad construction.
Thus, an award was made in Puffin v. General
Electric, where the course element was weak (rest
period) and the causal element was weak (setting
fire to own sweater while smoking). Both factors
were likewise very weak in O'Leary v. Brown
Pacific-Maxon Inc., where the course of
employment consisted of a recreation period
interrupted by a rescue of a stranger, and the
arising factor consisted of drowning in a channel
where decedent was prohibited from going. And, in
Martin v. Plaut, the course of employment factor
was weak (a cook dressing in the morning) and the
causal factor was also weak (an unexplained fall);
yet an award was made in New York.

But another New York case shows that the

simultaneous weakness of course and arising
factors may reach the point where the requisite
quantum is not found. In Shultz v. Nation
Associates, compensation was denied to an
employee who while combing her hair preparatory
to going to lunch negligently struck her eye with the
comb. Here we see thinness on all fronts: as to
course of employment time factor, we have a lunch
period; as to the course of employment activity
factor, we have care of personal appearance; and
as to the causal factor, we have negligence of the
employee. Each weakness standing alone lunch
period, care of appearance, negligence would
not be fatal; there are many awards in which one or
another of these is present. But when all are
present, while an award is not impossible and
could be defended on a point by point basis, it
cannot be relied upon in most jurisdictions by the
prudent lawyer. Larson's Workmen's
Compensation Law 1965 ed. Vol. 1, pp. 452.97 to
452.100.
In resume:
1. Workmen's compensation is granted if the
injuries result from an accident which arise out of
and in the course of employment.

2. Both the "arising" factor and the "course" factor

must be present. If one factor is weak and the other
is strong, the injury is compensable, but not where
both factors are weak. Ultimately, the question is
whether the accident is work-connected.
3. In a proceeding for the enforcement of a claim,
the same is presumed to come within the
provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act.
But a preliminary link must first be shown to exist
between the injury and the employment. Thus if the
injury occurred in the course of employment, it is
presumed to have arisen out of the employment.
4. The "course" factor applies to time, place and
circumstances. This factor is present if the injury
takes place within the period of employment, at a
place where the employee may be, and while he is
fulfilling his duties or is engaged in doing
something incidental thereto.
5. The rule is that an injury sustained while the
employee goes to or comes from his place of work,
is not of the employment.
6. The exception to the rule is an injury sustained
off the employee's premises, but while in close
proximity thereto and while using a customary

means of ingress and egress. The reason for

extending the scope of "course of employment" to
off-premises injuries is that there is a causal
connection between the work and the hazard.
7. An "assault" may be considered an "accident"
within the meaning of the Workmen's
Compensation Act. The employment may either
increase risk of assault because of its nature or be
the subject-matter of a dispute leading to the
assault.
From the milestones, we now proceed to take our
bearings in the case at bar, having in mind always that
no cover-all formula can be spelled out with specificity,
that the particular facts and circumstances of each case
must be inquired into, and that in any perceptive inquiry,
the question as to where the line should be drawn
beyond which the liability of the employer cannot
continue has been held to be usually one of fact.
We shall first dwell on the question of ownership of the
private road where Pablo was killed. In granting
compensation, the Commission said that "the road
where the deceased was shot was of private ownership,
was called the IDECO road, and led straight to the main
IDECO gate, thus raising the reasonable assumption that
it belonged" to the IDECO. The Commission reasoned

out that "even if the ownership of the road were open to

question, there was no doubt that its private character
was obviously exploited by the respondent for the
purpose of its own business to such an extent as to
make it to all intents and purposes an extension of its
premises," so that the "shooting of the deceased may be
considered to have taken place on the premises, and
therefore within the employment;" and that "while
respondent allowed its name to be used in connection
with the private road for the ingress and egress of the
employees it did not apparently take the necessary
precaution to make it safe for its employees by
employing security guards."
But the IDECO denies ownership of the road. In its
memorandum filed with the Regional Office, IDECO
averred that Pablo's death did not originate from his work
as to time, place and circumstances. This, in effect, is a
denial of ownership of the road. The decision of the
Regional Office does not state that the road belongs to
the IDECO. All that it says is that Pablo was shot "barely
two minutes after he was dismissed from work and while
walking along the IDECO road about twenty (20) meters
from the gate." In its "motion for reconsideration and/or
review," the IDECO emphasized that "the place where
the incident happened was a public road, not less than
twenty (20) meters away from the main gate of the

compound, and therefore not proximate to or in the

immediate vicinity of the place of work." Again, the
ownership of the road was implicitly denied. And in its
"motion for reconsideration and/or appeal to the
Commission en banc," the IDECO alleged outright that
the "road where the incident took place, although of
private ownership, does not belong to IDECO. There is
absolutely no evidence on record that shows IDECO
owns the road." If the road were owned by the IDECO,
there would have been no question that the assault
arose "in the course of employment."23 But if it did indeed
own the road, then the IDECO would have fenced it, and
place its main gate at the other end of the road where it
meets the public highway.
But while the IDECO does not own the private road, it
cannot be denied that it was using the same as the
principal means of ingress and egress. The private road
leads directly to its main gate.24 Its right to use the road
must then perforce proceed from either an easement of
right of way or a lease. Its right, therefore, is either a
legal one or a contractual one. In either case the IDECO
should logically and properly be charged with security
control of the road. The IDECO owed its employees a
safe passage to its premises. In compliance with such
duty, the IDECO should have seen to it not only that road
was properly paved and did not have holes or ditches,

but should also have instituted measures for the proper

policing of the immediate area. The point where Pablo
was shot was barely twenty meters away from the main
IDECO gate, certainly nearer than a stone's throw
therefrom. The spot is immediately proximate to the
IDECO's premises. Considering this fact, and the further
facts that Pablo had just finished overtime work at the
time, and was killed barely two minutes after dismissal
from work, the Ampil case is squarely applicable here.
We may say, as we did in Ampil, that the place where the
employee was injured being "immediately proximate to
his place of work, the accident in question must be
deemed to have occurred within the zone of his
employment and therefore arose out of and in the course
thereof." Our principal question is whether the injury was
sustained in the course of employment. We find that it
was, and so conclude that the assault arose out of the
employment, even though the said assault is
unexplained.
American jurisprudence supports this view.
In Bountiful Brick Company vs. Giles,25 the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled:
Employment includes both only the actual doing of
the work, but a reasonable margin of time and
space necessary to be used in passing to and from

the place where the work is to be done. If the

employee to be injured while passing, with the
express or implied consent of the employer, to or
from his work by a way over the employer's
premises, or over those of another in such
proximity and relation as to be in practical effect a
part of the employer's premises, the injury is one
arising out of and in the course of employment as
much as though it had happened while the
employee was engaged in his work at the place of
its performance. In other words, the employment
may begin in point of time before the work is
entered upon and in point of space before the
place where the work is to be done is reached.
Probably, as a general rule, employment may be
said to begin when the employee reaches the
entrance to the employer's premises where the
work is to be done; but it is clear that in some
cases the rule extends to include adjacent
premises used by the employee as a means of
ingress and egress with the express or implied
consent of the employer.
The above ruling is on all fours with our facts. Two
minutes from dismissal and twenty meters from the main
IDECO gate are "a reasonable margin of time and space
necessary to be used in passing to and from" the

IDECO's premises. The IDECO employees used the

private road with its consent, express or implied. Twenty
meters on that road from the main gate is in close
proximity to the IDECO's premises. It follows that Pablo's
death was in the course of employment.
In Carter vs. Lanzetta,26 it was held that "such statutes
envision extension of coverage to employees from the
time they reach the employer's premises until they
depart therefrom and that hours of service include a
period when this might be accomplished within a
reasonable interval;" and that "under exceptional
circumstances, a continuance of the course of
employment may be extended by allowing the employee
a reasonable time not only to enter or leave the premises
but also to surmount certain hazards adjacent thereto."
The private road led directly to the main IDECO gate.
From this description, it would appear that the road is a
dead-end street. In Singer vs. Rich Marine Sales,27 it was
held that, where the employee, while returning to work at
the end of the lunch period, fell at the curb of the
sidewalk immediately adjacent to the employer's
premises and one other located thereon, and the general
public used the street only in connection with those
premises, and the employer actually stored boats on the
sidewalk, the sidewalk was within the precincts of
employment. In that case there were even two business

establishments on the dead-end street. Here, it is

exclusively the IDECO premises which appear to be at
the end of the private road.
We find in Jean vs. Chrysler Corporation28 a meaningful
statement of the obligation of the employer to its
employees: "That the employer owes, so to speak, a
duty of 'safe passage' to an employee to the point where
he can reach the proper arrival or departure from his
work seems without question."
We next quote extensively from Kelty vs. Travellers
Insurance Company:29
The rule has been repeatedly announced in Texas
that an injury received by an employee while using
the public streets and highways in going to or
returning from the place of employment is not
compensable, the rationale of the rule being that in
most instances such an injury is suffered as a
consequence of risk and hazards to which all
members of the travelling public are subject rather
than risk and hazards having to do with and
originating in the work or business of the
employer....
Another exception, however, which is applicable is
found in the so-called "access" cases. In these

cases a workman who has been injured at a plane

intended by the employer for use as a means of
ingress or egress to and from the actual place of
the employee's work has been held to be in the
course of his employment. The courts have said
that these access areas are so closely related to
the employer's premises as to be fairly treated as a
part of the employer's premises. We shall discuss
the principal authorities dealing with this exception
to the general rule.
The leading cases in Texas dealing with the
"access" exception, and one which we think is
controlling of this appeal, is Lumberman's
Reciprocal Ass'n v. Behnken, 112 Tex. 103, 246
S.W. 72, 28 A.L.R. 1402. In that case the employee
was employed by Hartburg Lumber Company,
which company operated and owned a sawmill in
Hartburg, Texas, which was a lumber town,
consisting solely of the employer's facilities. A
railroad track ran through the town and a part of the
lumber company's facilities was situated on either
side of the right-of-way. A public road ran parallel to
the railroad tracks which led to the various
buildings on the property of the lumber company.
This crossing was used by any member of the
public desiring to go to any part of the lumber

company facilities. On the day in question the

decedent quit work at noon, went home for lunch
and while returning to the lumber company plant for
the purpose of resuming his employment, was
struck and killed by a train at the crossing in
question. The insurance company contended (as it
does here) that the decedent's death did not
originate in the work or business of his employer
and that at the time of his fatal injuries he was not
in or about the furtherance of the affairs or
business of his employer. The Supreme Court, in
an extensive opinion, reviewed the authorities from
other states and especially Latter's Case 238
Mass. 326, 130 N. E. 637, 638, and arrived at the
conclusion that the injury and death under such
circumstances were compensable under the Texas
Act. The court held that the railroad crossing bore
so intimate a relation to the lumber company's
premises that it could hardly be treated otherwise
than as a part of the premises. The Court pointed
out that the lumber company had rights in and to
the crossing which was used in connection with the
lumber company's business, whether by
employees or by members of the public. In
announcing the "access" doctrine Justice
Greenwood said:

Was Behnken engaged in or about the

furtherance of the affairs or business of his
employer when he received the injury causing
his death? He was upon the crossing
provided as the means of access to his work
solely because he was an employee. He
encountered the dangers incident to use of
the crossing in order that he might perform
the duties imposed by his contract of service.
Without subjecting himself to such dangers
he could not do what was required of him in
the conduct of the lumber company's
business. He had reached a place provided
and used only as an adjunct to that business,
and was injured from a risk created by the
conditions under which the business was
carried on. To hold that he was not acting in
furtherance of the affairs or business of the
lumber company would be to give a strict
interpretation to this remedial statute, which
should be liberally construed with a view to
accomplish its purpose and to promote
justice.
xxx

xxx

xxx

In Texas Employer's Ins. Ass'n v. Anderson, Tex.

Civ. App., 125 S. W. 2d 674, wr. ref., this court

followed the rule announced in Behnken, supra. In

that case the employee was killed while crossing
the railroad track near his place of employment. In
discussing the question of the situs of the injury
Justice Looney said:
Its use as a means of ingress to and exit from
his place of work not only conduced his
safety and convenience, but contributed to
the promptness and efficiency with which he
was enabled to discharge the duties owing
his employer; hence the reason and
necessity for his presence upon the railroad
track (that portion of the pathway leading over
the railroad right of way) when injured, in our
opinion, had to do with, originated in and
grew out of the work of the employer; and
that, the injury received at the time, place and
under the circumstances, necessarily was in
furtherance of the affairs or business of the
employer.
Again, in Texas Employers' Ins. Ass'n v. Boecker,
Tex. Civ. App. 53 S. W. 2d 327, err. ref., this court
had occasion to follow the "access" doctrine. In that
case Chief Justice Jones quoted from the Supreme
Court of the United States in the case of Bountiful

Brisk Company, et al. v. Giles, 276 U.S. 154, 48 S.

Ct. 221, 72 L. Ed. 507, 66 A. L. R. 1402, as follows:
An employment includes not only the actual
doing of the work, but a reasonable margin of
time and space necessary to be used in
passing to and from the place where the work
is to be done. If the employee be injured
while passing, with the express or implied
consent of the employer, to or from his work
by a way over the employer's premises, or
over those of another in such proximity and
relation as to be in practical effect a part of
the employer's premises, the injury is one
arising out of and in the course of the
employment as much as though it had
happened while the employee was engaged
in his work at the place of its performance. In
other words, the employment may begin in
point of time before the work is entered upon
and in point of space before the place where
the work is to be done is reached.
The ruling enunciated above is applicable in the case at
bar. That part of the road where Pablo was killed is in
very close proximity to the employer's premises. It is an
"access area" "so clearly related to the employer's
premises as to be fairly treated as a part of the

employer's premises." That portion of the road bears "so

intimate a relation" to the company's premises. It is the
chief means of entering the IDECO premises, either for
the public or for its employees. The IDECO uses it
extensively in pursuit of its business. It has rights of
passage over the road, either legal, if by virtue of
easement, or contractual, if by reason of lease. Pablo
was using the road as a means of access to his work
solely because he was an employee. For this reason, the
IDECO was under obligation to keep the place safe for
its employees. Safe, that is, against dangers that the
employees might encounter therein, one of these
dangers being assault by third persons. Having failed to
take the proper security measures over the said area
which it controls, the IDECO is liable for the injuries
suffered by Pablo resulting in his death.
As therefore stated, the assault on Pablo is unexplained.
The murderer was himself killed before he could be
brought to trial. It is true there is authority for the
statement that before the "proximity" rule may be applied
it must first be shown that there is a causal connection
between the employment and the hazard which resulted
in the injury.30 The following more modern view was
expressed in Lewis Wood Preserving Company vs.
Jones:31

While some earlier cases seem to indicate that the

causative danger must be peculiar to the work and
not common to the neighborhood for the injuries to
arise out of and in the course of the employment
(see Maryland Casualty Co. v. Peek, 36 Ga. App.
557 [137 S.E. 121]; Hartford Accident and
Indemnity Co. v. Cox, 61 Ga. App. 420, 6 S.E. 2d
189), later cases have been somewhat more
liberal, saying that, "to be compensable, injuries do
not have to arise from something peculiar to the
employment." Fidelity & Casualty Co. of N.Y. v.
Bardon, 79 Ga. App. 260, 262, 54 S.E. 2d 443,
444. "Where the duties of an employee entail his
presence (at a place and a time) the claim for an
injury there occurring is not to be barred because it
results from a risk common to all others ... unless it
is also common to the general public without
regard to such conditions, and independently of
place, employment, or pursuit." New Amsterdam
Casualty Co. v. Sumrell, 30 Ga. App. 682, 118 S.E.
786, cited in Globe Indemnity Co. v. MacKendree,
39 Ga. App. 58, 146 S.E. 46, 47; McKiney v.
Reynolds & Manley Lumber Co., 79 Ga. App. 826,
829, 54 S.E. 2d 471, 473.
But even without the foregoing pronouncement, the
employer should still be held liable in view of our

conclusion that that portion of the road where Pablo was

killed, because of its proximity, should be considered part
of the IDECO's premises. Hence, the injury was in
the course of employment, and there automatically
arises the presumption invoked in Rivera that the
injury by assault arose out of the employment, i. e., there
is a causal relation between the assault and the
employment.
We do say here that the circumstances of time, two
minutes after dismissal from overtime work, and space,
twenty meters from the employer's main gate, bring
Pablo's death within the scope of the course factor. But it
may logically be asked: Suppose it were three minutes
after and thirty meters from, or five minutes after and fifty
meters from, would the "proximity" rule still apply? In
answer, we need but quote that portion of the decision
inJean vs. Chrysler Corporation, supra, which answered
a question arising from an ingenious hypothetical
question put forth by the defendant therein:
We could, of course, say "this is not the case
before us" and utilize the old saw, "that which is not
before us we do not decide." Instead, we prefer to
utilize the considerably older law: "Sufficient unto
the day is the evil thereof" (Matthew 1:34),
appending, however, this admonition: no statute is
static; it must remain constantly viable to meet new

challenges placed to it. Recovery in a proper case

should not be suppressed because of a conjectural
posture which may never arise and which if it does,
will be decided in the light of then existing law.
Since the Workmen's Compensation Act is basically a
social legislation designed to afford relief to workmen, it
must be liberally construed to attain the purpose for
which it was enacted.32 Liberally construed, sec. 2 of the
Act comprehends Pablo's death. The Commission did
not err in granting compensation.
ACCORDINGLY, the decision appealed from is affirmed,
at petitioner's cost.
Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Dizon, Zaldivar,
Sanchez, Fernando and Capistrano, JJ., concur.
G.R. No. L-46046 April 5, 1985
EMELITA ENAO, petitioner,
vs.
THE EMPLOYEES' COMPENSATION
COMMISSION, respondent.
Vivencio M. Carpio, Jr. for petitioner.
Jose G. De Vera for respondent ECC.

ALAMPAY, J.:
This is a petition for review of the decision of the
Employees' Compensation Commission (E.C.C.), dated
October 26, 1976, affirming the decision of the
Government Service Insurance System, denying
petitioner's claim for Compensation of income benefits
due to the injuries sustained by her when on August 1,
1975, while on her way to Dipolog City for the purpose of
purchasing supplies and other training and school aids
for her office, she, together with others, were ambushed
by unidentified men believed to be communist
insurgents.
The antecedent facts of this case are not disputed and
are well stated in the appealed decision rendered by the
Employees' Compensation Commission, subject of the
petition in this case.
... On August 1, 1975, appellant (Emelita
Enao), a Public School Teacher, together with
others, was on her way from her official
station at Sergio Osmena, Sr., Zamboanga
del Norte to Dipolog City. According to the
Acting Administrative Officer of her employer,
'Having held classes on July 26, in lieu of

August 1, 1975, as per District Memorandum

hereto attached, Miss Enao was on her way
home from station when their group was
ambushed and fired upon by armed men
hitting her on her forearm and abdomen
necessitating operation' (Part II, Income
Benefits Claim for Payment), and according
to appellant's witnesses, who were members
of the ambushed party, she was on her way
to Dipolog City for the purpose of 'securing
supplies and other training and school aids
necessary for furthering (our) services as a
school teacher' (Affidavits of Francisco L.
Podol and Juanita Adanza, respectively).
When the appellant and her group were at
barrio de Venta Perla, Polanco, Zamboanga
del Norte, they were fired upon by a band of
armed men believed to be communist
insurgents. As a result of the ambush, the
appellant sustained gunshot wounds on her
left forearm and abdomen which compelled
her confinement at the Zamboanga del Norte
Provincial Hospital from August 1 to 6, 1975,
for surgical removal of foreign bodies
(shrapnel) from her left arm and later at the
Dipolog Medical Center from September 10
to 12, 1975 for definitive treatment. She also

developed interstitial pneumonia as a result.

(Decision of the Employees' Compensation
Commission, Annex "B", Rollo, pp. 8-9).
On August 5, 1975, petitioner sent a notice of claim of
injury to the Secretary of Education and Culture, through
the Division Superintendent of Schools, Zamboanga City.
It is said that this claim was not controverted.
On the same date, a claim for income benefits for
disability was filed by the herein petitioner with the
Government Service Insurance System but this claim
was denied by the System in its letter-decision, dated
February 27, 1976, on its reasoning that:
It appears that on your way to Dipolog City for
the purpose of purchasing your needs, you
were ambushed by unidentified men believed
to be NPAS. Though this happened on
August 1, 1975, a regular working day, this
was considered your off day, having held
classes in its stead on July 26, 1975, a
Saturday, per District Memorandum No. 1, s.
1975, dated June 2, 1975. Under such
situation, for purposes of the Employees'
Compensation, said accident happened
outside your time and place of work, not to
mention the fact that you were not in the

performance of your official functions when it

happened.
In view of the foregoing, your claim is hereby
denied. (Annex "A", Rollo, p. 7)
Not satisfied with the above ruling of the GSIS and upon
denial of petitioner's motion for reconsideration thereof,
the latter appealed to the Employees' Compensation
Commission. On October 26, 1976, the ECC affirmed the
decision of the GSIS appealed from and dismissed the
Petitioner's claim, on the grounds that:
... First. the day when the accident occurred,
more particularly August 1, 1975, was an offday. Perusal of the District Memorandum No.
1, series of 1975 and dated June 2, 1975, win
show that August 1, 1975, is not just an
isolated off-day, but one of those dates fixed
and set in lieu of Saturday. Hence, the injury
was incurred not during office hours. Second,
appellant incurred injury while en route to
Dipolog City; more aptly put, while outside the school premises where she normally
discharges her official functions. The sworn
statement of the Acting Administrative Officer
and the appellant's witness all point to the
same circumstance. Third, while appellant's

witnesses testified in an affidavit that

appellant left her official station for Dipolog
City on the day in question for the purpose of
procurring school supplies and training aids
to enhance her teaching efficiency, we find
the version of the Acting Administrative
Officer more credible-that is, the appellant
was on her way home from station-for there is
nothing which indicates that it is false,
misleading or fabricated. On the other hand,
the preponderance of legal opinion holds that
affidavits, as those of appellant's witnesses,
are only prima facie evidence of weak
probative force and are in themselves selfserving declarations where the same have
been made in anticipation of a future
litigation. It has been said that 'perhaps the
most subtle and prolific of au the fallacies of
testimony arises out of unconscious
partisanship.' In the case at bar, upon the
happening of the accident, the companions of
the appellant perhaps still sympathetic to her
for what befall her, and testifying in an
affidavit, are apt to side with her. (Annex "B",
Rollo, pp. 9-10)

In the petition for review presented to this Court,

Petitioner contends that the Respondent ECC has
decided the claim in a way not in accordance with law
and applicable decision of the Supreme Court.
At the time of the incident in question, the pertinent and
governing provisions of law are to be found in Section 1,
Rule 11, of the Amended Rules on Employees'
Compensation, which provides:
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 conditions:
(1) The employee must have sustained the
injury during his working hours;
(2) The employee must have been injured at
the place where his work requires him to be;
and
(3) The employee must have been performing
his official function.
The Petitioner, in proceeding to Dipolog City on August
1, 1975, which is a Friday, from her station at the
Municipality of Sergio Osmena, Sr., Zamboanga del

Norte, intended to procure supplies and other training

aids which are needed facilities in connection with her
services as a school teacher at the Wilbon Primary
School, cannot be at all disputed. The companions of the
Petitioner at the time of the ambush and who appear to
be co-teachers of the Petitioner, namely: Francisco L.
Podol and Juanita Adanza, have attested in their
respective affidavits that they and the Petitioner were at
that time on their way to Dipolog City "for the purpose of
securing supplies and other training and school aids
necessary for the furtherance of their services as school
teachers." There is no mention at an in the decision of
the Employees' Compensation Commission that this
particular assertion has been at all contradicted or
controverted by any evidence whatsoever submitted to
the Commission by the GSIS.
We find no basis at an for the findings made by the
Employees' Compensation Commission in its decision
that the statements of Petitioner and her witnesses are
merely self-serving declarations because We can discern
no circumstance that would indicate or support such a
conclusion. As a matter of fact, the decision appealed
from accepts the fact that the statements given by
Petitioner-Appellant's witnesses constitute prima facie
evidence of the matter sought to be established.
Uncontroverted and unrefuted by any evidence, then

such statements of appellant's witnesses would suffice to

establish that the multiple gunshot wounds and injuries
sustained by appellant and which caused her
confinement at the Zamboanga del Norte Provincial
Hospital from August 1 to 6, 1975 for removal of
shrapnels from her left arm and later at the Dipolog
Medical Center from September 1 to 12, 1975, are
definitely work-connected.
The conjecture expressed in the decision of the ECC that
appellant obtained the referred self-serving declaration of
her witnesses "in anticipation of a future litigation" is
unfair and untenable. Petitioner could not have even
expected that respondent GSIS would resist her claim.
Notice of the same claim for the injuries she sustained is
said to have been presented to the Secretary of
Education and Culture, through the Division
Superintendent of Schools, Division of Zamboanga del
Norte at Dipolog City, promptly on August 5, 1975, or
four (4) days after the ambush incident and such claim
was not controverted by said public school officials.
These submissions of Petitioner-Appellant have not at all
been contradicted by Respondent. No cause has,
therefore, been shown why petitioner would have been
to obtain false affidavits from her co-teachers whose
sense and probity and righteousness must be presumed
until otherwise disproved.

Furthermore, the fact that Dipolog City is also the

residence of the Petitioner does not at all, by this
singular circumstance, render untrue or false the clear
evidence submitted in this case that Petitioner and her
co-teachers were proceeding to Dipolog City at the time
to purchase needed supplies and other training and
school aids. That Dipolog City happened to be also the
Petitioner's place of residence, in this instance, becomes
simply incidental and/or purely coincidental.
As it can be rightfully ruled that the Claimant-Petitioner
was actually then performing her official functions, it
hardly matters then whether such task which Petitioner
was then engaged in or discharging, happened outside
the regular working hours and not in the Petitioner's
place of work. It is rather obvious that in proceeding to
purchase school materials in Dipolog City, Petitioner
would necessarily have to leave the school premises and
her travel need not be during her usual working hours.
What is significant and controlling is that the injuries she
sustained are work-connected, which the Court finds to
be so.
The environmental facts in this case are even more
compelling than the earlier case of Vda. de Torbela vs.
Employees' Compensation Commission, L-42627,
February 21, 1980, 96 SCRA 260, where, by a significant
majority vote of this Court, it was held that a claim arising

from a vehicular accident sustained by a school principal

on his way from Bacolod City where he lived to his
school at Hinigaran, Negros Occidental where he was
the school principal of, is compensable. It was therein
ruled that "where an employee is accidentally injured at a
point reasonably proximate to the place of work, while
she is going to and from her work, such injury is deemed
to have arisen out of and in the course of her
employment.
WHEREFORE, the decision of the Employees'
Compensation Commission appealed from is hereby
SET ASIDE, and the Government Service Insurance
System is hereby ordered to grant the Petitioner's claim
for loss of income benefits and to process and ascertain
the total amount due herein Petitioner and thereafter to
pay the same.
SO ORDERED.
Teehankee (Chairman), Melencio-Herrera, Plana,
Relova, Gutierrez, Jr., and De la Fuente, JJ., concur.
G.R. No. 90204 May 11, 1990
MANUEL BELARMINO, petitioner,
vs.
EMPLOYEES' COMPENSATION COMMISSION and

GOVERNMENT SERVICE INSURANCE

SYSTEM,respondents.

GRIO-AQUINO, J.:
This seven-year-old case involves a claim for benefits for
the death of a lady school teacher which the public
respondents disallowed on the ground that the cause of
death was not work-connected.
Before her death on February 19, 1982, petitioner's wife,
Oania Belarmino, was a classroom teacher of the
Department of Education, Culture and Sports assigned
at the Buracan Elementary School in Dimasalang,
Masbate (p. 13, Rollo). She had been a classroom
teacher since October 18, 1971, or for eleven (11) years.
Her husband, the petitioner, is also a public school
teacher.
On January 14, 1982, at nine o'clock in the morning,
while performing her duties as a classroom teacher, Mrs.
Belarmino who was in her 8th month of pregnancy,
accidentally slipped and fell on the classroom floor.
Moments later, she complained of abdominal pain and
stomach cramps. For several days, she continued to
suffer from recurrent abdominal pain and a feeling of

heaviness in her stomach, but, heedless of the advice of

her female co-teachers to take a leave of absence, she
continued to report to the school because there was
much work to do. On January 25, 1982, eleven (11) days
after her accident, she went into labor and prematurely
delivered a baby girl at home (p. 8, Rollo).
Her abdominal pains persisted even after the delivery,
accompanied by high fever and headache. She was
brought to the Alino Hospital in Dimasalang, Masbate on
February 11, 1982. Dr. Alfonso Alino found that she was
suffering from septicemia post partum due to infected
lacerations of the vagina. She was discharged from the
hospital after five (5) days on February 16, 1982,
apparently recovered but she died three (3) days later.
The cause of death was septicemia post partum. She
was 33 years old, survived by her husband and four (4)
children, the oldest of whom was 11 years old and the
youngest, her newborn infant (p. 9, Rollo).
On April 21, 1983, a claim for death benefits was filed by
her husband. On February 14, 1984, it was denied by the
Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) which
held that 'septicemia post partum the cause of death, is
not an occupational disease, and neither was there any
showing that aforesaid ailment was contracted by reason
of her employment. . . . The alleged accident mentioned
could not have precipitated the death of the wife but

rather the result of the infection of her lacerated wounds

as a result of her delivery at home" (p. 14 Rollo).
On appeal to the Employees Compensation
Commission, the latter issued Resolution No. 3913 dated
July 8, 1988 holding:
We agree with the decision of the system,
hence we dismiss this appeal. Postpartum
septicemia is an acute infectious disease of
the puerperium resulting from the entrance
into the blood of bacteria usually streptococci
and their toxins which cause dissolution of
the blood, degenerative changes in the
organs and the symptoms of intoxication. The
cause of this condition in the instant case was
the infected vaginal lacerations resulting from
the decedent's delivery of her child which
took place at home. The alleged accident in
school could not have been the cause of
septicemia, which in this case is clearly
caused by factors not inherent in employment
or in the working conditions of the deceased.
(pp. 14-15, Rollo.)
Hence, this petition for review.

After a careful consideration of the petition and the

annexes thereof, as well as the comments of the public
respondents, we are persuaded that the public
respondents' peremptory denial of the petitioner's claim
constitutes a grave abuse of discretion.
Rule III, Section 1 of the Amended Rules on Employees'
Compensation enumerates the grounds for
compensability of injury resulting in disability or death of
an employee, as follows:
Sec. 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 conditions:
(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.
(b) For the sickness and the resulting
disability or death to be compensable, the
sickness must be the result of an
occupational disease listed under Annex "A"
of these Rules with the conditions set therein
satisfied; otherwise, proof must be shown that
the risk of contracting the disease is
increased by the working conditions.
(c) Only injury or sickness that occurred on or
after January 1, 1975 and the resulting
disability or death shall be compensable
under these Rules.
The illness, septicemia post partum which resulted in the
death of Oania Belarmino, is admittedly not listed as an
occupational disease in her particular line of work as a
classroom teacher. However, as pointed out in the
petition, her death from that ailment is compensable
because an employment accident and the conditions of
her employment contributed to its development. The
condition of the classroom floor caused Mrs. Belarmino
to slip and fall and suffer injury as a result. The fall

precipitated the onset of recurrent abdominal pains

which culminated in the premature termination of her
pregnancy with tragic consequences to her. Her fall on
the classroom floor brought about her premature delivery
which caused the development of post partum
septicemia which resulted in death. Her fall therefore
was the proximate or responsible cause that set in
motion an unbroken chain of events, leading to her
demise.
. . . what is termed in American cases the
proximate cause, not implying however, as
might be inferred from the word itself, the
nearest in point of time or relation, but rather,
[is] the efficient cause, which may be the
most remote of an operative chain. It must be
that which sets the others in motion and is to
be distinguished from a mere preexisting
condition upon which the effective cause
operates, and must have been adequate to
produce the resultant damage without the
intervention of an independent cause.
(Atlantic Gulf vs. Insular Government, 10 Phil.
166,171.)
The proximate legal cause is that acting first
and producing the injury, either immediately
or by setting other events in motion, all

constituting a natural and continuous chain of

events, each having a close causal
connection with its immediate predecessor
the final event in the chain immediately
effecting the injury as a natural and probable
result of the cause which first acted, under
such circumstances that the person
responsible for the first event should, as an
ordinarily prudent and intelligent person, have
reasonable ground to expect at the moment
of his act or default that an injury to some
person might probably result therefrom.
(Bataclan v. Medina, 102 Phil. 181.)
Thus in Enriquez v. WCC, 93 SCRA 366, 372, this Court
ruled:
. . . Verily, the right to compensation extends
to disability due to disease supervening upon
and proximately and naturally resulting from a
compensable injury (82 Am. Jur. 132). Where
the primary injury is shown to have arisen in
the course of employment, every natural
consequence that flows from the injury
likewise arises out of the employment, unless
it is the result of an independent intervening
cause attributable to complainants own
negligence or misconduct ( I Larson

Workmen's Compensation Law 3-279 [1972]).

Simply stated, all the medical consequences
and sequels that flow from the primary injury
are compensable. (Ibid.)
Mrs. Belarmino's fall was the primary injury that arose in
the course of her employment as a classroom teacher,
hence, all the medical consequences flowing from it: her
recurrent abdominal pains, the premature delivery of her
baby, her septicemia post partum and death, are
compensable.
There is no merit in the public respondents' argument
that the cause of the decedent's post partum septicemia
"was the infected vaginal lacerations resulting from the
decedent's delivery of her child at home" for the incident
in school could not have caused septicemia post partum,
. . . the necessary precautions to avoid infection during
or after labor were (not) taken" (p. 29, Rollo).
The argument is unconvincing. It overlooks the fact that
septicemia post partum is a disease of childbirth, and
premature childbirth would not have occurred if she did
not accidentally fall in the classroom.
It is true that if she had delivered her baby under sterile
conditions in a hospital operating room instead of in the
unsterile environment of her humble home, and if she

had been attended by specially trained doctors and

nurses, she probably would not have suffered lacerations
of the vagina and she probably would not have
contracted the fatal infection. Furthermore, if she had
remained longer than five (5) days in the hospital to
complete the treatment of the infection, she probably
would not have died. But who is to blame for her inability
to afford a hospital delivery and the services of trained
doctors and nurses? The court may take judicial notice of
the meager salaries that the Government pays its public
school teachers. Forced to live on the margin of poverty,
they are unable to afford expensive hospital care, nor the
services of trained doctors and nurses when they or
members of their families are in. Penury compelled the
deceased to scrimp by delivering her baby at home
instead of in a hospital.
The Government is not entirely blameless for her death
for it is not entirely blameless for her poverty.
Government has yet to perform its declared policy "to
free the people from poverty, provide adequate social
services, extend to them a decent standard of living, and
improve the quality of life for all (Sec. 7, Art. II, 1973
Constitution and Sec. 9, Art. II, 1987 Constitution). Social
justice for the lowly and underpaid public school teachers
will only be an empty shibboleth until Government adopts
measures to ameliorate their economic condition and

provides them with adequate medical care or the means

to afford it. "Compassion for the poor is an imperative of
every humane society" (PLDT v. Bucay and NLRC, 164
SCRA 671, 673). By their denial of the petitioner's claim
for benefits arising from the death of his wife, the public
respondents ignored this imperative of Government, and
thereby committed a grave abuse of discretion.
WHEREFORE, the petition for certiorari is granted. The
respondents Employees Compensation Commission and
the Government Service Insurance System are ordered
to pay death benefits to the petitioner and/or the
dependents of the late Oania Belarmino, with legal rate
of interest from the filing of the claim until it is fully paid,
plus attorney's fees equivalent to ten (10%) percent of
the award, and costs of suit.
SO ORDERED.
Narvasa, Cruz and Medialdea, JJ., concur.
G.R. No. 81327 December 4, 1989
CRISPINA VANO, petitioner,
vs.
GOVERNMENT SERVICE INSURANCE SYSTEM,
(Bureau of Posts) and EMPLOYEES'
COMPENSATION COMMISSION, respondents.

Severino B. Estonina for petitioner.

The Government Corporate Counsel for GSIS.

PARAS, J.:
The only issue in this case is whether or not the death of
petitioner's husband, Filomeno Vano is compensable
under the Employees' Compensation Law.
Filomeno Vano was a letter carrier of the Bureau of
Posts in Tagbilaran City. On July 31, 1983, a Sunday, at
around 3:30 p.m. Vano was driving his motorcycle with
his son as backrider allegedly on his way to his station in
Tagbilaran for his work the following day, Monday. As
they were approaching Hinawanan Badge in Loay,
Bohol, the motorcycle skidded, causing its passengers to
be thrown overboard. Vano's head hit the bridge's railing
which rendered him unconscious. He was taken to the
Engelwood Hospital where he was declared dead on
arrival due to severe hemorrhage.
Vano's widow, Crispina Vano, filed a death benefit claim
under PD 626, as amended, with the Government
Service Insurance System (GSIS). On April 6, 1984, the
GSIS denied the claim, citing the following reason:

It appears on record that your husband was

on his way to his station when he died in a
vehicular accident he figured in a Sunday,
July 31, 1983.

Crispina Vano's requests for reconsideration were denied

by the GSIS, consequently, the case was elevated to the
Employees' Compensation Commission (ECC) for
appropriate review under ECC Case No. 2658.

Obviously, the accident occurred outside of

his time and place of work; neither was he
performing official duties at the time of its
occurrence. Accordingly, the conditions for
compensability in accordance with the law
have not been satisfied, to wit:

In a Decision dated October 13, 1987, the ECC affirmed

the decision denying the claim of Crispina Vano
because:

1. that the employee must have

been injured at the place where
his work requires him to be;
2. that 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
his employer. (p. 22, Rollo)

Under the Employees' Compensation law,

injuries resulting from accidents while an
employee is going to and from the place of
work is not compensable. Some exceptions,
however, are: when the injury is sustained at
a place proximate to the work-place, when
the employee meets the accident while riding
in a company vehicle and when he is on
special errand for his employer. (Section 1,
Rule III of the Amended Rules of Employees'
Compensation)
We note that the case at bar does not fall
under any of the foregoing exceptions. In fact,
the subject employee's accident happened on
a Sunday, a non-working day. In the light of
the foregoing, we cannot but affirm
respondent's denial of the claim. (pp. 13-15,
Rollo; p. 2, Decision, ECC Case No. 2658)

The petitioner then came to this Court on a petition for

review on certiorari. She alleges that since her husband
was precisely commuting from his hometown to
Tagbilaran City, where he would report for duty as letter
carrier the following day, when he met the accident, then
his consequent death should be compensated.
The respondent Government Service Insurance System
(GSIS) reiterates its views and contends that the present
provision of law on employment injury is different from
that provided in the old Workmen's Compensation Act
and is "categorical in that the injury must have been
sustained at work while at the workplace or elsewhere
while executing an order from the employer." (Rollo, p.
69)
For its part, the respondent Employees' Compensation
Commission stood firm in asserting that the death of
Filomeno Vano is not the result of an employment
accident as contemplated by law hence petitioner is
clearly not entitled to her claim for death benefits.
The case of Vda. de Torbela vs. Employees'
Compensation Commission (96 SCRA 260, 263, 264)
supports petitioner's contention of compensability. In the
said case, this Court held:

It is a fact that Jose P. Torbela, Sr. died on

March 3, 1975 at about 5:45 o'clock in the
morning due to injuries sustained by him in a
vehicular accident while he was on his way to
school from Bacolod City, where he lived, to
Hinigaran, Negros Occidental where the
school of which he was the principal was
located and that at the time of the accident he
had in his possession official papers he
allegedly worked on in his residence on the
eve of his death.
The claim is compensable. When an
employee is accidentally injured at a point
reasonably proximate to the place of work,
while he is going to and from his work, such
injury is deemed to have arisen out of and in
the course of his employment.
The same ruling was reiterated in the more recent case
of Alano vs. Employees' Compensation
Commission (158 SCRA, 669, 672):
In this case, it is not disputed that the
deceased died while going to her place of
work. She was at the place where, as the
petitioner puts it, her job necessarily required
her to be if she was to reach her place of

work on time. There was nothing private or

personal about the school principal's being at
the place of the accident. She was there
because her employment required her to be
there.
We see no reason to deviate from the foregoing rulings.
Like the deceased in these two (2) aforementioned
cases, it was established that petitioner's husband the
case at bar was on his way to his place of work when he
met the accident. His death, therefore, is compensable
under the law as an employment accident.
WHEREFORE, the decision appealed from is hereby
SET ASIDE and the Government Service Insurance
System is ordered to pay petitioner the sum of Twelve
Thousand Pesos (P12,000.00)) as death benefit and the
sum of One Thousand Two Hundred Pesos (P1,200.00)
as attorney's fees.
SO ORDERED.
Padilla, Sarmiento and Regalado, JJ., concur.
G.R. No. L-27588 December 31, 1927
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF NUEVA
SEGOVIA, as representative of the Roman Catholic
Apostolic Church, plaintiff-appellant,

vs.
THE PROVINCIAL BOARD OF ILOCOS NORTE, ET
AL., defendants-appellants.
Vicente Llanes and Proceso Coloma for plaintiffappellant.
Provincial Fiscal Santos for defendant-appellants.

AVANCEA, J.:
The plaintiff, the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church,
represented by the Bishop of Nueva Segovia, possesses
and is the owner of a parcel of land in the municipality of
San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte, all four sides of which face on
public streets. On the south side is a part of the
churchyard, the convent and an adjacent lot used for a
vegetable garden, containing an area off 1,624 square
meters, in which there is a stable and a well for the use
of the convent. In the center is the remainder of the
churchyard and the church. On the north is an old
cemetery with two of its walls still standing, and a portion
where formerly stood a tower, the base of which still be
seen, containing a total area of 8,955 square meters.
As required by the defendants, on July 3, 1925 the
plaintiff paid, under protest, the land tax on the lot

adjoining the convent and the lot which formerly was the
cemetery with the portion where the tower stood.
The plaintiff filed this action for the recovery of the sum
paid by to the defendants by way of land tax, alleging
that the collection of this tax is illegal. The lower court
absolved the defendants from the complaint in regard to
the lot adjoining convent and declared that the tax
collected on the lot, which formerly was the cemetery
and on the portion where the lower stood, was illegal.
Both parties appealed from this judgment.
The exemption in favor of the convent in the payment of
the land tax (sec. 344 [c] Administrative Code) refers to
the home of the parties who presides over the church
and who has to take care of himself in order to discharge
his duties. In therefore must, in the sense, include not
only the land actually occupied by the church, but also
the adjacent ground destined to the ordinary incidental
uses of man. Except in large cities where the density of
the population and the development of commerce
require the use of larger tracts of land for buildings, a
vegetable garden belongs to a house and, in the case of
a convent, it use is limited to the necessities of the priest,
which comes under the exemption.
lawphi1.net

In regard to the lot which formerly was the cemetery,

while it is no longer used as such, neither is it used for

commercial purposes and, according to the evidence, is

now being used as a lodging house by the people who
participate in religious festivities, which constitutes an
incidental use in religious functions, which also comes
within the exemption.
The judgment appealed from is reversed in all it parts
and it is held that both lots are exempt from land tax and
the defendants are ordered to refund to plaintiff whatever
was paid as such tax, without any special
pronouncement as to costs. So ordered.
Johnson, Street, Villamor, Ostrand, Johns and Villa-Real,
JJ., concur.

G.R. No. L-26341

November 27, 1968

ILOILO DOCK & ENGINEERING CO., petitioner,

vs.
WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION COMMISSION and
IRENEA M. PABLO, for herself and in behalf of her
minor children EDWIN, EDGAR and EDNA, all
surnamed PABLO, respondents.
Luisito C. Hofilena for petitioner.
Villavieja and Villanueva for respondent Workmen's
Compensation Commission.

Gualberto C. Opong for respondent Irenea M. Pablo and

her minor children.
CASTRO, J.:
This is an appeal by the Iloilo Dock and Engineering
Company (hereinafter referred to as the IDECO) from the
decision dated February 28, 1966 of the Workmen's
Compensation Commission (hereinafter referred to as
the Commission) affirming the decision of the Regional
Office VII in Iloilo City, and ordering the IDECO to pay to
the widow and children of Teodoro G. Pablo (Irenea M.
Pablo and the minors Edwin, Edgar and Edna, all
surnamed Pablo) the sum of P4,000, to pay to the widow
P89 as reimbursement for burial expenses and P300 as
attorney's fees, and to pay to the Commission the
amount of P46 as fees pursuant to section 55 of the
Workmen's Compensation Act, as amended.
At about 5:02 o'clock in the afternoon of January 29,
1960, Pablo, who was employed as a mechanic of the
IDECO, while walking on his way home, was shot to
death in front of, and about 20 meters away from, the
main IDECO gate, on a private road commonly called the
IDECO road. The slayer, Martin Cordero, was not heard
to say anything before or after the killing. The motive for
the crime was and still is unknown as Cordero was
himself killed before he could be tried for Pablo's death.
At the time of the killing, Pablo's companion was Rodolfo
Galopez, another employee, who, like Pablo, had
finished overtime work at 5:00 p.m. and was going home.

From the main IDECO gate to the spot where Pablo was
killed, there were four "carinderias" on the left side of the
road and two "carinderias" and a residential house on
the right side. The entire length of the road is nowhere
stated in the record.
According to the IDECO, the Commission erred (1) in
holding that Pablo's death occurred in the course of
employment and in presuming that it arose out of the
employment; (2) in applying the "proximity rule;" and (3)
in holding that Pablo's death was an accident within the
purview of the Workmen's Compensation Act.
The principal issue is whether Pablo's death comes
within the meaning and intendment of that "deceptively
simple and litigiously prolific",1 phrase The two
components of the coverage formula "arising out of"
and "in the course of employment."2 The two
components of the coverage formula "arising out of"
and "in the course of employment" are said to be
separate tests which must be independently
satisfied;3 however, it should not be forgotten that the
basic concept of compensation coverage is unitary, not
dual, and is best expressed in the word, "workconnection," because an uncompromising insistence on
an independent application of each of the two portions of
the test can, in certain cases, exclude clearly workconnected injuries.4 The words "arising out of" refer to
the origin or cause of the accident, and are descriptive of
its character, while the words "in the course of" refer to

the time, place and circumstances under which the

accident takes place.5
As a matter of general proposition, an injury or accident
is said to arise "in the course of employment" when it
takes place within the period of the employment, at a
place where the employee reasonably may be, and while
he is fulfilling his duties or is engaged in doing something
incidental thereto.6
The general rule in workmen's compensation law known
as the "going & coming rule," simply stated, is that "in the
absence of special circumstances, an employee injured
in, going to, or coming from his place of work is excluded
from the benefits of workmen's compensation acts."7 This
rule, however, admits of four well-recognized exceptions,
to wit: (1) where the employee is proceeding to or from
his work on the premises of his employer; (2) where the
employee is about to enter or about to leave the
premises of his employer by way of the exclusive or
customary means of ingress and egress; (3) where the
employee is charged, while on his way to or from his
place of employment or at his home, or during his
employment, with some duty or special errand connected
with his employment; and (4) where the employer, as an
incident of the employment, provides the means of
transportation to and from the place of employment.8

We address ourselves particularly to an examination and

consideration of the second exception, i.e., injuries
sustained off the premises of the employer, but while
using a customary means of ingress and egress.
This exception, known as the "proximity rule," was
applied in Philippine Fiber Processing Co., Inc. vs.
Ampil.9There, the employee, at about 5:15 a.m., while
proceeding to his place of work and running to avoid the
rain, slipped and fell into a ditch fronting the main gate of
the employer's factory, as a result of which he died the
next day. The sole question was whether or not the
accident which caused the employee's death arose out
of and in the course of his employment. This Court ruled
in favor of the claimant thus:
The very case of Afable vs. Singer Sewing Machine
Co. invoked by the petitioner intimated that "we do
not of course mean to imply that an employee can
never recover for injuries suffered while on his way
to or from work. That depends on the nature of his
employment." Considering the facts found by the
Commission, namely, that the deceased Angel
Ariar was not under any shift routine; that his
assignment covered the entire working hours of the
factory; that the first working hour starts at 6:00
o'clock in the morning; that it takes at least thirty
minutes before the machine operates at full speed
or load; that the spot where he fell (ditch fronting
petitioner's factory or sidewalk of its premises), is
immediately proximate to his place of work, the

accident in question must be deemed to have

occurred within the zone of his employment and
therefore arose out of and in the course thereof. In
Salilig vs. Insular Lumber Co., G.R. No. 28951,
September 10, 1928, referred to in the Comments
on the Workmen's Compensation Commission Act
by Morabe and Inton, 1955 edition, compensation
was allowed for injury received by a laborer from
an accident in going to his place of work, along a
path or way owned by his employer and commonly
used by the latter's laborers.
In contrast is Pampanga Sugar Development Co., Inc.
vs. Quiroz,10 which concerned injuries sustained by a
centrifugal operator. He had reported for work at 9:30
p.m. (March 7, 1958) and was dismissed at 5:30 the
following morning. Soon "after he stepped out of the
company gate, and while standing about 2- meters
from it between the shoulder of the highway and a
railroad that came from inside the compound and
intersected the highway, waiting for a ride home, he was
bumped by a jeepney, as a result of which he sustained"
injuries. In holding that these injuries were "not produced
by an accident "arising out of and in the course of
employment," " this Court reasoned thus:
The compensability of an injury suffered by an
employee proceeding to or coming from his work
depends upon whether or not it is "workconnected." As Chief Justice Kenison of New
Hampshire has put it, "the fact that the employee is

travelling to or from work on a public highway does

not necessarily exclude coverage (Brousseau vs.
Blackstone Mills, 130 A 2d 543, 545). Conversely, it
is not enough to say that the employee would not
have been on the public highway had it not been
for his job, since the same can usually be said of
the general public (Payne & Dolan vs. Industrial
Commission, 46 NE 2d 925). The law, in effect,
insures the employee against losses arising from
the perils of his work. In other words, the
Workmen's Compensation Act covers occupational
injuries, which, as such, must have a causative
connection with something, not merely in common
with the public, but peculiar to the employment. In
order to warrant recovery for off-the-premises
injuries, it must be shown that there has been a
very special danger, some particular risk which the
employer could have caused or allowed to exist.
Hence,
It is significant that practically all successful
off-the-premises cases have involved normal
route of access to the plant, or an icy
sidewalk adjacent to the premises and
therefore identified with the premises in the
sense that the employer should have
removed the ice. (Emphasis ours.)
It is true that in Philippine Fiber Processing Co. v.
Ampil, G.R. No. L-8130 (June 30, 1956), we held
the employer liable for an injury sustained by an

employee who, as he was running to his place of

work to avoid the rain, slipped and fell into a ditch
in front of the factory's main gate and near the
same. The ditch was, however, in itself an obvious
hazard which, owing to its proximity to the gate, the
employer should have taken measures to remove.
Thus, thru his inaction, he had contributed, in a
special way, to the occurrence of the accident.
In the case at bar, no such special circumstance
appears to exist. There is no particular causative
connection between the injury sustained by the
employee and either his work or his employer.
Although, as stated in the decision appealed from,
the record does not show that the company "had
taken measures to make the waiting place safe for
the employees," neither does the record show
either that the accident occurred at the usual
waiting place of the employees, or that said place
was particularly unsafe.
Our Workmen's Compensation Act being essentially
American in origin and text, it is not amiss to pay
deference to pertinent American jurisprudence. In the
precise area of law here involved, we can draw guidance
from an affluence of Federal and State precedents.
From Samuel B. Horovitz' Injury and Death under
Workmen's Compensation Laws (1944), pp. 159 to 165,
we glean the following observations:

Suppose, however, that the injury occurs on the

way to work or on the way home from work. Injuries
going to or from work have caused many judicial
upheavals.
The question here is limited to whether the injuries
are "in the course of" and not "out of" the
employment. How the injury occurred is not in
point. Street risks, whether the employee was
walking or driving, and all other similar questions
deal with the risk of injury or "out of" the
employment. "In the course of" deals mainly with
the element of time and space, or "time, place and
circumstances."
Thus, if the injury occurred fifteen minutes before
working hours and within one hundred feet of the
employer's premises, on sidewalks or public roads,
the question of "in the course of" the employment is
flatly raised.
Some of our states refuse to extend this definition
of "in the course of" to include these injuries. Most
of the states will protect the employee from the
moment his foot or person reaches the employer's
premises, whether he arrives early or late. These
states find something sacred about the
employment premises and define "premises" very
broadly, not only to include premises owned by the
employer, but also premises leased, hired,
supplied or used by him, even private alleyways

merely used by the employer. Adjacent private

premises are protected by many states, and a few
protect the employee even on adjacent public
sidewalks and streets. Where a city or any
employer owns or controls an island, all its streets
are protected premises.
There is no reason in principle why states should
not protect employees for a reasonable period of
time prior to or after working hours and for
a reasonable distance before reaching or after
leaving the employer's premises. The Supreme
Court of the United States has declared that it will
not overturn any state decision that so enlarges the
scope of its act. Hence, a deaf worker, trespassing
on railroad tracks adjacent to his employer's brickmaking premises (but shown by his superintendent
the specific short crossing over the track), and
killed by a train, was held to be in the course of his
employment when hit by an oncoming train fifteen
minutes before his day would have begun. So long
as causal relation to the employment is discernible,
no federal question arises.
The narrow rule that a worker is not in the course
of his employment until he crosses the employment
threshold is itself subject to many exceptions. Offpremises injuries to or from work, in both liberal
and narrow states, are compensable (1) if the
employee is on the way to or from work in a vehicle
owned or supplied by the employer, whether in a

public (e.g., the employer's street car) or private

conveyance; (2) if the employee is subject to call at
all hours or at the moment of injury; (3) if the
employee is travelling for the employer, i.e.,
travelling workers; (4) if the employer pays for the
employee's time from the moment he leaves his
home to his return home; (5) if the employee is on
his way to do further work at home, even though on
a fixed salary; (6) where the employee is required
to bring his automobile to his place of business for
use there. Other exceptions undoubtedly are
equally justified, dependent on their own peculiar
circumstances.
Schneider (supra, at p. 117) makes this significant
statement:
The proximity rule exception to the general going
and coming rule is that an employee is generally
considered to be in the course of his employment
while coming to or going from his work, when,
though off the actual premises of his employer, he
is still in close proximity thereto, is proceeding
diligently at an appropriate time, by reasonable
means, over the natural, practical, customary,
convenient and recognized way of ingress, or
egress either on land under the control of the
employer, or on adjacent property with the express
or implied consent of the employer.

On pp. 98 to 99 of 85 ALR, we find the following

disquisition:
The compensation acts have been very generally
held not to authorize an award in case of an injury
or death from a peril which is common to all
mankind, or to which the public at large is exposed.
28 R.C. L. 804. And they do not as a general rule
cover injuries received while going to or from work
on public streets, where the employee has not
reached, or has left the employer's premises. The
question whether an injury arises out of and in the
course of the employment, however, is one
dependent upon the facts of each case, and in
some cases, where an injury occured while the
employee was going to or from work, but was in the
street in front of the employer's premises, it has
been held compensable.
Thus, in the reported case (Barnett v. Brtiling
Cafeteria Co., ante, 85) the injury was held to have
arisen out of and in the course of the employment,
where the employee slipped on ice on the sidewalk
immediately in front of the employer's place of
business, while on her way to report for duty, and
just before entering by the only entrance to her
place of employment. The court here recognized
the general rule that, if an employee is injured while
going to or from his work to his house, or to or from
some point not visited for the discharge of a duty
arising out of the employment, or while in the use

of a public highway, he does not come within the

protection of the Workmen's Compensation Act, but
stated that there is an exception to this rule
and that the employment is not limited by the
actual time when the workman reaches the scene
of his labor and begins it, or when he ceases, but
includes a reasonable time and opportunity before
and after, while he is at or near his place of
employment. The court reasoned that in the case
at bar, although the employee had not entered the
employer's place of business, and the sidewalk
was a public highway so much therefore as was in
front of the employer's place of business was a
necessary adjunct, used in connection with the
business, and that the sidewalk was to a limited
degree and purpose a part of the employer's
premises.
In Industrial Commission v. Barber (1927) 117 Ohio
St 373, 159 NE 363, the injury was held to have
arisen in the course of the employment where an
employee, about five minutes before the hour when
he was to go on duty, was struck by an automobile
owned and driven by another employee, within a
short distance from the employer's plant, which
was located at the dead end of a street maintained
by the employer from its plant to the intersection
with another street, and, although the street was a
public one, it led nowhere except to the employer's
plant, and all of its employees were obliged to use
it in going to and from their work. The court stated

that where the conditions under the control of an

industrial plant are such that the employee has no
option but to pursue a given course with reference
to such conditions and environments, the
pursuance of such course is an implied obligation
of the employer in his contract with such employee,
and that when he, for the purpose of entering his
employment, has entered into the sphere or zone
controlled by his employer and is pursuing a course
with reference to which he has no option, he is then
not only within the conditions and environments of
the plant of his employer, but is then in the course
of his employment; and that, when he receives an
injury attributable to such conditions and
environments, there is a direct causal connection
between his employment and his injury, and the
injury falls within the class of industrial injuries for
which compensation has been provided by the
Workmen's Compensation Law.
99 C.J.S., at pp. 807-814, has this to say:

It is laid down as a general rule, known as the

"going and coming" rule, that, in the absence of
special circumstances, and except in certain
unusual circumstances, and where nothing else
appears, harm or injury sustained by an employee
while going to or from his work is not compensable.
Such injury, or accident, is regarded by the weight
of authority of many courts as not arising out of his
employment, and as not being, or not occurring, in
the course thereof.
However, this rule is not inflexible, is not of
inevitable application, and is subject to
qualifications, and to exceptions which depend on
the nature, circumstances, and conditions of the
particular employment, the circumstances of the
particular case, and the cause of the injury.
Jaynes vs. Potlach Forests11 expresses with enlightening
clarity the rationale for extending the scope of "course of
employment" to certain "off-premises" injuries:
We are urged here to again recognize and apply
the distinction between off-premises injuries which
occur on private property and those which occur on
public streets and highways. The extension of the
course of employment to off-premises injuries is
not based upon the principle which would justify a
distinction upon the narrow ground of private and
public property; it is not sound to say that while an
employee is on public highway he is always there

as a member of the public and in nowise in the

exercise of any right conferred by his contract to
employment; nor is it a complete answer to say that
while he is on his employer's premises his
presence there is by contract right, otherwise he
would be a trespasser. The question of whether or
not one is a covered employee should not be
resolved by the application of the law relating to
rights to enter upon lands, or by law of trespass,
licensee, invitee or otherwise.
A substantial and fair ground to justify the
extension of the course of employment beyond the
premises of the employer is to extend its scope to
the necessary risks and hazards associated with
the employment. These risks may or may not be on
the premises of the employer and for this reason
there is no justification to distinguish between
extended risks on public highways and private
pathways. In fact it is at most a distinction without a
difference. Under the better reasoned cases the
technical status as public or private is obviously of
no moment or in any event in and of itself is not
conclusive.
Likewise enlightening is the following explanation of the
premises rule exceptions:
We have, then a workable explanation of the
exception to the premises rule: it is not nearness,
or reasonable distance, or even the identifying or

surrounding areas with the premises; it is simply

that, when a court has satisfied itself that there is a
distinct "arising out of" or causal connection
between the conditions under which claimant must
approach and leave the premises and the
occurrence of the injury, it may hold that the course
of employment extends as far as those conditions
extend. (Larson's Workmen's Compensation Law,
1965 ed., vol. 1, pp. 210-211)
We now direct our attention to the cause of the
employee's death: assault.
An "assault," although resulting from a deliberate act of
the slayer, is considered an "accident" within the
meaning of sec. 2 of the Workmen's Compensation Act,
since the word "accident" is intended to indicate that "the
act causing the injury shall be casual or unforeseen, an
act for which the injured party is not legally
responsible."12
In the cases where the assault was proven to have been
work-connected, compensation was awarded. In Nava,
supra, the helmsman of a boat was engaged in hauling
the ship's cable and in coiling the cable partly occupied
by a folding bed of one of the passengers. This
passenger, upon being asked, declared his ownership of
the bed. Nava expressed his intention of pushing it out of
the way and proceeded to do so. Angered by this, the
passenger exchanged hot words with Nava, and then,
with a piece of wood, jabbed Nava at the pit of the

stomach. At this point, the passenger's brother ran up to

Nava and stabbed him to death. The death was
adjudged compensable.
In Bohol Land Transportation Co. vs. Vda. de
Mandaguit,13 the truck which Mandaguit was driving
collided with a cyclist going in the opposite direction. The
latter turned around and immediately pursued the bus.
He overtook it a few minutes later when it stopped to
take on passengers. The driver then disembarked from
the bus to wash his hands at a drugstore nearby. The
cyclist followed him there and knifed him to death. We
affirmed the grant of compensation upon the finding that
the death arose out of and in the course of employment.
In Galicia vs. Dy Pac,14 the employee, Pablo Carla, was
asked to work in lieu of another employee who had been
suspended from work upon request of his labor union;
while Carla was working, the suspended employee
asked him to intercede for him, but Carla refused; an
altercation resulted; shortly thereafter the suspended
employee stabbed Carla to death. The death was held
compensable because "the injury sustained by the
deceased was caused by an accident arising out of his
employment since the evidence is clear that the fight
which resulted in the killing of the deceased had its origin
or cause in the fact that he was placed in the job
previously occupied by the assailant."
In the three cases above-cited, there was evidence as to
the motive of the assailant.

In A. P. Santos, Inc. vs. Dabacol,15 the death of an

employee-driver who, while driving a cab, was killed by
an unidentified passenger, was held compensable by the
Commission. However, the question of whether the
assault arose out of the employment, was not raised on
appeal to this Court.
In Batangas Transportation Company vs. Vda. de
Rivera,16 that question was raised. While the employeedriver was driving a bus, a passenger boarded it and sat
directly behind the driver. After about thirty minutes,
during which the passenger and the driver never so
much as exchanged a word, the passenger shot the
driver to death and then fled. There was no competent
proof as to the cause of the assault, although there were
intimations that the incident arose from a personal
grudge. The majority decision17 ruled the death
compensable. The bases: (1) Once it is proved that the
employee died in the course of the employment, the
legal presumption, in the absence of substantial
evidence to the contrary, is that the claim "comes within
the provisions of the compensation law" (sec. 43), in
other words, that the incident arose out of the workman's
employment. (2) Doubts as to rights to compensation are
resolved in favor of the employee and his dependents.
(3) The Commissioner's declaration on the workconnection might be binding on the Court. (4) There are
employments which increase the risk of assault on the
person of the employee and it is in that sense that an
injury or harm sustained by the assaulted worker arises
out of the employment, because the increased risk to

assault supplies the link or connection between the injury

and the employment. Among the jobs enumerated as
increasing the risk of assault are (a) jobs having to do
with keeping the peace or guarding property; (b) jobs
having to do with keeping or carrying of money which
subject to the employee to the risk of assault because of
the increased temptation to robbery; (c) jobs which
expose the employee to direct contact with lawless and
irresponsible members of the community, like that of a
bartender; and (d) work as bus driver, taxi driver or street
car conductor.
It has been said that an employment may either increase
risk of assault because of its nature or be the subjectmatter of a dispute leading to the assault. The first kind
of employment, the so-called "increased risk" jobs
comprehend (1) jobs involving dangerous duties, such as
that of guarding the employer's property, that of carrying
or keeping money, that where the employee is exposed
to lawless or irresponsible members of the public, or that
which subjects him to increased or indiscriminate contact
with the public, such as the job of a street car conductor
or taxi-driver;18 (2) jobs where the employee is placed in
a dangerous environment;19 and (3) jobs of employees
whose work takes them on the highway. On the other
hand, the employment itself may be the subject-matter of
a dispute leading to the assault as where a supervisor is
assaulted by workmen he has fired, or where the
argument was over the performance of work or
possession of tools or the like, or where the violence was
due to labor disputes.20

In Rivera, supra, the unexplained assault on the

employee was considered to have arisen out of the
employment because it occurred in the course of
employment. This Court relied on the presumption of law
that in any proceeding for the enforcement of a claim, the
claim is presumed to come within the provisions of the
Act.21According to this Court, "this statutory presumption
was copied from New York." Concerning the
corresponding New York provision of law, Larson has this
to say:
In a few jurisdictions, notably New York and
Massachusetts, a statutory presumption in favor of
coverage has figured in unexplained-accident
cases. The Massachusetts statute provides:
In any claim for compensation, where the
employee has been killed, or is physically or
mentally unable to testify, it shall be
presumed, in the absence of substantial
evidence to the contrary, that the claim comes
within the provisions of this chapter, that
sufficient notice of the injury has been given,
and that the injury or death was not
occasioned by the wilful intention of the
employee to injure or kill himself or another.
This provision was largely copied from the New
York section on presumptions, except that the New
York act creates the presumption in all cases, not

merely those involving an employee's death or

inability to testify.
The sweeping inclusiveness of this language might
seem at first glance to mean that the mere making
of a claim is also the making of a prima facie case,
as long as death or injury is shown to have
occurred. The New York and Massachusetts courts
have not so interpreted these statutes, however. It
seems to be necessary to establish some kind of
preliminary link with the employment before the
presumption can attach. Otherwise, the claimant
widow would have merely to say, "My husband,
who was one of your employee, has died, and I
therefore claim death benefits," whereupon the
affirmative burden would devolve upon the
employer to prove that there was no connection
between the death and the environment.
It is not yet entirely clear what initial demonstration
of employment-connection will give the
presumption a foothold. Apparently, the idea is to
rule out cases in which claimant can show neither
that the injury occurred in the course of
employment nor that it arose out of it, as where he
contracted a disease but has no evidence to show
where he got it. If there is evidence that the injury
occurred in the course of employment, the
presumption will usually supply the "arising-out-ofemployment" factor." Larson's Workmen
Compensation Law (1965) vol. 1, pp. 123-124.

We also quote from the decision of the Court of Appeals

of New York in Daus vs. Gunderman & Sons:22
The statute is not intended to relieve completely an
employee from the burden of showing that
accidental injuries suffered by him actually were
sustained in the course of his employment. "It is not
the law that mere proof of an accident, without
other evidence, creates the presumption under
section 21 of the Workmen's Compensation Law
(Consol. Law, c. 67) that the accident arose out of
and in the course of the employment. On the
contrary, it has been frequently held, directly and
indirectly, that there must be some evidence from
which the conclusion can be drawn that the injuries
did arise out of and in the course of the
employment." Proof of the accident will give rise to
the statutory presumption only where some
connection appears between the accident and the
employment.
Likewise of relevance is the following treatise:
The discussion of the coverage formula, "arising
out of and in the course of employment," was
opened with the suggestion that, while "course"
and "arising" were put under separate headings for
convenience, some interplay between the two
factors should be observed in the various
categories discussed.

A few examples may now be reviewed to show that

the two tests, in practice, have not been kept in airtight compartments, but have to some extent
merged into a single concept of work-connection.
One is almost tempted to formulate a sort of
quantum theory of work-connection: that a certain
minimum quantum of work-connection must be
shown, and if the "course" quantity is very small,
but the "arising" quantity is large, the quantum will
add up to the necessary minimum, as it will also
when the "arising" quantity is very small but the
"course" quantity is relatively large.
But if both the "course" and "arising" quantities are
small, the minimum quantum will not be met.
As an example of the first, a strong "arising" factor
but weak "course" factor, one may cite the cases in
which recoveries have been allowed off the
employment premises, outside business hours,
when an employee going to or coming from work is
injured by a hazard distinctly traceable to the
employment, such as a traffic jam overflowing from
the employment premises, or a rock flying through
the air from a blast on the premises. Here, by
normal course of employment standards, there
would be no award, since the employee was not on
the premises while coming or going. Yet
the unmistakable character of the causal relation of
the injury to the employment has been sufficient to
make up for the weakness of the "course" factor.

Another example of the same kind of balancing-out

is seen in the line of cases dealing with injury to
travelling men or loggers while sleeping in hotels or
bunkhouses. It was shown in the analysis of these
cases that, although the "course" factor is on the
borderline when the employee is sound asleep at
the time of injury, a strong causal relation of the
injury to the conditions of employment as where
a fellow-logger runs amok, or a straw falls into the
bunkhouse-inmate's throat from the mattress
above, or the employee is trapped in a burning
hotel will boost the case over the line to
success; while a weak causal connection, as where
the salesman merely slips in a hotel bath, coupled
with a weak "course" factor due to the absence of
any direct service performed for the employer at
the time, will under present decisions add up to a
quantum of work-connection too small to support
an award. It was also shown that when the
"course" element is strengthened by the fact that
the employee is at all times on call, the range of
compensable sources of injury is broader than
when the employee, although living on the
premises is not on call.
A somewhat similar balancing-out process is seen
in the holding that a borderline course-ofemployment activity like seeking personal comfort
or going to and from work falls short of
compensability if the method adopted is unusual,
unreasonable and dangerous, while no such

restriction applies to the direct performance of the

work.
As an example of the reverse situation, a strong
"course" element and a weak "arising" element;
one may recall the "positional" cases discussed in
section 10, as well as the unexplained-fall and
other "neutral-cause" cases. Here the course of
employment test is satisfied beyond the slightest
doubt: the employee is in the midst of performing
the active duties of his job. But the causal
connection is very weak, since the source of the
injury whether a stray bullet, a wandering
lunatic, and unexplained fall or death, or a
mistaken assault by a stranger is not distinctly
associated with employment conditions as such,
and is tied to the employment only by the argument
that the injury would not have occurred to this
employee but for the obligation of the employment
which placed him in the position to be hurt. Yet,
since the "course" element is so strong, awards are
becoming increasingly common on these facts.
Incidentally, it may be observed that this "quantum"
idea forms a useful yardstick for measuring just
how generous a court has become in expanding
compensation coverage; for if a court makes an
award when a case, by the above standards, is
weak both on course of employment and on causal
connection, one can conclude that the court is
capable of giving the act a broad construction.

Thus, an award was made in Puffin v. General

Electric, where the course element was weak (rest
period) and the causal element was weak (setting
fire to own sweater while smoking). Both factors
were likewise very weak in O'Leary v. Brown
Pacific-Maxon Inc., where the course of
employment consisted of a recreation period
interrupted by a rescue of a stranger, and the
arising factor consisted of drowning in a channel
where decedent was prohibited from going. And, in
Martin v. Plaut, the course of employment factor
was weak (a cook dressing in the morning) and the
causal factor was also weak (an unexplained fall);
yet an award was made in New York.
But another New York case shows that the
simultaneous weakness of course and arising
factors may reach the point where the requisite
quantum is not found. In Shultz v. Nation
Associates, compensation was denied to an
employee who while combing her hair preparatory
to going to lunch negligently struck her eye with the
comb. Here we see thinness on all fronts: as to
course of employment time factor, we have a lunch
period; as to the course of employment activity
factor, we have care of personal appearance; and
as to the causal factor, we have negligence of the
employee. Each weakness standing alone lunch
period, care of appearance, negligence would
not be fatal; there are many awards in which one or
another of these is present. But when all are

present, while an award is not impossible and

could be defended on a point by point basis, it
cannot be relied upon in most jurisdictions by the
prudent lawyer. Larson's Workmen's
Compensation Law 1965 ed. Vol. 1, pp. 452.97 to
452.100.

4. The "course" factor applies to time, place and

circumstances. This factor is present if the injury
takes place within the period of employment, at a
place where the employee may be, and while he is
fulfilling his duties or is engaged in doing
something incidental thereto.

In resume:

5. The rule is that an injury sustained while the

employee goes to or comes from his place of work,
is not of the employment.

1. Workmen's compensation is granted if the

injuries result from an accident which arise out of
and in the course of employment.
2. Both the "arising" factor and the "course" factor
must be present. If one factor is weak and the other
is strong, the injury is compensable, but not where
both factors are weak. Ultimately, the question is
whether the accident is work-connected.
3. In a proceeding for the enforcement of a claim,
the same is presumed to come within the
provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act.
But a preliminary link must first be shown to exist
between the injury and the employment. Thus if the
injury occurred in the course of employment, it is
presumed to have arisen out of the employment.

6. The exception to the rule is an injury sustained

off the employee's premises, but while in close
proximity thereto and while using a customary
means of ingress and egress. The reason for
extending the scope of "course of employment" to
off-premises injuries is that there is a causal
connection between the work and the hazard.
7. An "assault" may be considered an "accident"
within the meaning of the Workmen's
Compensation Act. The employment may either
increase risk of assault because of its nature or be
the subject-matter of a dispute leading to the
assault.
From the milestones, we now proceed to take our
bearings in the case at bar, having in mind always that
no cover-all formula can be spelled out with specificity,
that the particular facts and circumstances of each case
must be inquired into, and that in any perceptive inquiry,
the question as to where the line should be drawn

beyond which the liability of the employer cannot

continue has been held to be usually one of fact.
We shall first dwell on the question of ownership of the
private road where Pablo was killed. In granting
compensation, the Commission said that "the road
where the deceased was shot was of private ownership,
was called the IDECO road, and led straight to the main
IDECO gate, thus raising the reasonable assumption that
it belonged" to the IDECO. The Commission reasoned
out that "even if the ownership of the road were open to
question, there was no doubt that its private character
was obviously exploited by the respondent for the
purpose of its own business to such an extent as to
make it to all intents and purposes an extension of its
premises," so that the "shooting of the deceased may be
considered to have taken place on the premises, and
therefore within the employment;" and that "while
respondent allowed its name to be used in connection
with the private road for the ingress and egress of the
employees it did not apparently take the necessary
precaution to make it safe for its employees by
employing security guards."
But the IDECO denies ownership of the road. In its
memorandum filed with the Regional Office, IDECO
averred that Pablo's death did not originate from his work
as to time, place and circumstances. This, in effect, is a
denial of ownership of the road. The decision of the
Regional Office does not state that the road belongs to
the IDECO. All that it says is that Pablo was shot "barely

two minutes after he was dismissed from work and while

walking along the IDECO road about twenty (20) meters
from the gate." In its "motion for reconsideration and/or
review," the IDECO emphasized that "the place where
the incident happened was a public road, not less than
twenty (20) meters away from the main gate of the
compound, and therefore not proximate to or in the
immediate vicinity of the place of work." Again, the
ownership of the road was implicitly denied. And in its
"motion for reconsideration and/or appeal to the
Commission en banc," the IDECO alleged outright that
the "road where the incident took place, although of
private ownership, does not belong to IDECO. There is
absolutely no evidence on record that shows IDECO
owns the road." If the road were owned by the IDECO,
there would have been no question that the assault
arose "in the course of employment."23 But if it did indeed
own the road, then the IDECO would have fenced it, and
place its main gate at the other end of the road where it
meets the public highway.
But while the IDECO does not own the private road, it
cannot be denied that it was using the same as the
principal means of ingress and egress. The private road
leads directly to its main gate.24 Its right to use the road
must then perforce proceed from either an easement of
right of way or a lease. Its right, therefore, is either a
legal one or a contractual one. In either case the IDECO
should logically and properly be charged with security
control of the road. The IDECO owed its employees a
safe passage to its premises. In compliance with such

duty, the IDECO should have seen to it not only that road
was properly paved and did not have holes or ditches,
but should also have instituted measures for the proper
policing of the immediate area. The point where Pablo
was shot was barely twenty meters away from the main
IDECO gate, certainly nearer than a stone's throw
therefrom. The spot is immediately proximate to the
IDECO's premises. Considering this fact, and the further
facts that Pablo had just finished overtime work at the
time, and was killed barely two minutes after dismissal
from work, the Ampil case is squarely applicable here.
We may say, as we did in Ampil, that the place where the
employee was injured being "immediately proximate to
his place of work, the accident in question must be
deemed to have occurred within the zone of his
employment and therefore arose out of and in the course
thereof." Our principal question is whether the injury was
sustained in the course of employment. We find that it
was, and so conclude that the assault arose out of the
employment, even though the said assault is
unexplained.
American jurisprudence supports this view.
In Bountiful Brick Company vs. Giles,25 the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled:
Employment includes both only the actual doing of
the work, but a reasonable margin of time and
space necessary to be used in passing to and from
the place where the work is to be done. If the

employee to be injured while passing, with the

express or implied consent of the employer, to or
from his work by a way over the employer's
premises, or over those of another in such
proximity and relation as to be in practical effect a
part of the employer's premises, the injury is one
arising out of and in the course of employment as
much as though it had happened while the
employee was engaged in his work at the place of
its performance. In other words, the employment
may begin in point of time before the work is
entered upon and in point of space before the
place where the work is to be done is reached.
Probably, as a general rule, employment may be
said to begin when the employee reaches the
entrance to the employer's premises where the
work is to be done; but it is clear that in some
cases the rule extends to include adjacent
premises used by the employee as a means of
ingress and egress with the express or implied
consent of the employer.
The above ruling is on all fours with our facts. Two
minutes from dismissal and twenty meters from the main
IDECO gate are "a reasonable margin of time and space
necessary to be used in passing to and from" the
IDECO's premises. The IDECO employees used the
private road with its consent, express or implied. Twenty
meters on that road from the main gate is in close
proximity to the IDECO's premises. It follows that Pablo's
death was in the course of employment.

In Carter vs. Lanzetta,26 it was held that "such statutes

envision extension of coverage to employees from the
time they reach the employer's premises until they
depart therefrom and that hours of service include a
period when this might be accomplished within a
reasonable interval;" and that "under exceptional
circumstances, a continuance of the course of
employment may be extended by allowing the employee
a reasonable time not only to enter or leave the premises
but also to surmount certain hazards adjacent thereto."
The private road led directly to the main IDECO gate.
From this description, it would appear that the road is a
dead-end street. In Singer vs. Rich Marine Sales,27 it was
held that, where the employee, while returning to work at
the end of the lunch period, fell at the curb of the
sidewalk immediately adjacent to the employer's
premises and one other located thereon, and the general
public used the street only in connection with those
premises, and the employer actually stored boats on the
sidewalk, the sidewalk was within the precincts of
employment. In that case there were even two business
establishments on the dead-end street. Here, it is
exclusively the IDECO premises which appear to be at
the end of the private road.

We find in Jean vs. Chrysler Corporation28 a meaningful

statement of the obligation of the employer to its
employees: "That the employer owes, so to speak, a
duty of 'safe passage' to an employee to the point where
he can reach the proper arrival or departure from his
work seems without question."
We next quote extensively from Kelty vs. Travellers
Insurance Company:29
The rule has been repeatedly announced in Texas
that an injury received by an employee while using
the public streets and highways in going to or
returning from the place of employment is not
compensable, the rationale of the rule being that in
most instances such an injury is suffered as a
consequence of risk and hazards to which all
members of the travelling public are subject rather
than risk and hazards having to do with and
originating in the work or business of the
employer....
Another exception, however, which is applicable is
found in the so-called "access" cases. In these
cases a workman who has been injured at a plane
intended by the employer for use as a means of
ingress or egress to and from the actual place of
the employee's work has been held to be in the
course of his employment. The courts have said
that these access areas are so closely related to
the employer's premises as to be fairly treated as a

part of the employer's premises. We shall discuss

the principal authorities dealing with this exception
to the general rule.
The leading cases in Texas dealing with the
"access" exception, and one which we think is
controlling of this appeal, is Lumberman's
Reciprocal Ass'n v. Behnken, 112 Tex. 103, 246
S.W. 72, 28 A.L.R. 1402. In that case the employee
was employed by Hartburg Lumber Company,
which company operated and owned a sawmill in
Hartburg, Texas, which was a lumber town,
consisting solely of the employer's facilities. A
railroad track ran through the town and a part of the
lumber company's facilities was situated on either
side of the right-of-way. A public road ran parallel to
the railroad tracks which led to the various
buildings on the property of the lumber company.
This crossing was used by any member of the
public desiring to go to any part of the lumber
company facilities. On the day in question the
decedent quit work at noon, went home for lunch
and while returning to the lumber company plant for
the purpose of resuming his employment, was
struck and killed by a train at the crossing in
question. The insurance company contended (as it
does here) that the decedent's death did not
originate in the work or business of his employer
and that at the time of his fatal injuries he was not
in or about the furtherance of the affairs or
business of his employer. The Supreme Court, in

an extensive opinion, reviewed the authorities from

other states and especially Latter's Case 238
Mass. 326, 130 N. E. 637, 638, and arrived at the
conclusion that the injury and death under such
circumstances were compensable under the Texas
Act. The court held that the railroad crossing bore
so intimate a relation to the lumber company's
premises that it could hardly be treated otherwise
than as a part of the premises. The Court pointed
out that the lumber company had rights in and to
the crossing which was used in connection with the
lumber company's business, whether by
employees or by members of the public. In
announcing the "access" doctrine Justice
Greenwood said:
Was Behnken engaged in or about the
furtherance of the affairs or business of his
employer when he received the injury causing
his death? He was upon the crossing
provided as the means of access to his work
solely because he was an employee. He
encountered the dangers incident to use of
the crossing in order that he might perform
the duties imposed by his contract of service.
Without subjecting himself to such dangers
he could not do what was required of him in
the conduct of the lumber company's
business. He had reached a place provided
and used only as an adjunct to that business,
and was injured from a risk created by the

conditions under which the business was

carried on. To hold that he was not acting in
furtherance of the affairs or business of the
lumber company would be to give a strict
interpretation to this remedial statute, which
should be liberally construed with a view to
accomplish its purpose and to promote
justice.
xxx

xxx

xxx

In Texas Employer's Ins. Ass'n v. Anderson, Tex.

Civ. App., 125 S. W. 2d 674, wr. ref., this court
followed the rule announced in Behnken, supra. In
that case the employee was killed while crossing
the railroad track near his place of employment. In
discussing the question of the situs of the injury
Justice Looney said:
Its use as a means of ingress to and exit from
his place of work not only conduced his
safety and convenience, but contributed to
the promptness and efficiency with which he
was enabled to discharge the duties owing
his employer; hence the reason and
necessity for his presence upon the railroad
track (that portion of the pathway leading over
the railroad right of way) when injured, in our
opinion, had to do with, originated in and
grew out of the work of the employer; and
that, the injury received at the time, place and

under the circumstances, necessarily was in

furtherance of the affairs or business of the
employer.
Again, in Texas Employers' Ins. Ass'n v. Boecker,
Tex. Civ. App. 53 S. W. 2d 327, err. ref., this court
had occasion to follow the "access" doctrine. In that
case Chief Justice Jones quoted from the Supreme
Court of the United States in the case of Bountiful
Brisk Company, et al. v. Giles, 276 U.S. 154, 48 S.
Ct. 221, 72 L. Ed. 507, 66 A. L. R. 1402, as follows:
An employment includes not only the actual
doing of the work, but a reasonable margin of
time and space necessary to be used in
passing to and from the place where the work
is to be done. If the employee be injured
while passing, with the express or implied
consent of the employer, to or from his work
by a way over the employer's premises, or
over those of another in such proximity and
relation as to be in practical effect a part of
the employer's premises, the injury is one
arising out of and in the course of the
employment as much as though it had
happened while the employee was engaged
in his work at the place of its performance. In
other words, the employment may begin in
point of time before the work is entered upon
and in point of space before the place where
the work is to be done is reached.

The ruling enunciated above is applicable in the case at

bar. That part of the road where Pablo was killed is in
very close proximity to the employer's premises. It is an
"access area" "so clearly related to the employer's
premises as to be fairly treated as a part of the
employer's premises." That portion of the road bears "so
intimate a relation" to the company's premises. It is the
chief means of entering the IDECO premises, either for
the public or for its employees. The IDECO uses it
extensively in pursuit of its business. It has rights of
passage over the road, either legal, if by virtue of
easement, or contractual, if by reason of lease. Pablo
was using the road as a means of access to his work
solely because he was an employee. For this reason, the
IDECO was under obligation to keep the place safe for
its employees. Safe, that is, against dangers that the
employees might encounter therein, one of these
dangers being assault by third persons. Having failed to
take the proper security measures over the said area
which it controls, the IDECO is liable for the injuries
suffered by Pablo resulting in his death.
As therefore stated, the assault on Pablo is unexplained.
The murderer was himself killed before he could be
brought to trial. It is true there is authority for the
statement that before the "proximity" rule may be applied
it must first be shown that there is a causal connection
between the employment and the hazard which resulted
in the injury.30 The following more modern view was
expressed in Lewis Wood Preserving Company vs.
Jones:31

While some earlier cases seem to indicate that the

causative danger must be peculiar to the work and
not common to the neighborhood for the injuries to
arise out of and in the course of the employment
(see Maryland Casualty Co. v. Peek, 36 Ga. App.
557 [137 S.E. 121]; Hartford Accident and
Indemnity Co. v. Cox, 61 Ga. App. 420, 6 S.E. 2d
189), later cases have been somewhat more
liberal, saying that, "to be compensable, injuries do
not have to arise from something peculiar to the
employment." Fidelity & Casualty Co. of N.Y. v.
Bardon, 79 Ga. App. 260, 262, 54 S.E. 2d 443,
444. "Where the duties of an employee entail his
presence (at a place and a time) the claim for an
injury there occurring is not to be barred because it
results from a risk common to all others ... unless it
is also common to the general public without
regard to such conditions, and independently of
place, employment, or pursuit." New Amsterdam
Casualty Co. v. Sumrell, 30 Ga. App. 682, 118 S.E.
786, cited in Globe Indemnity Co. v. MacKendree,
39 Ga. App. 58, 146 S.E. 46, 47; McKiney v.
Reynolds & Manley Lumber Co., 79 Ga. App. 826,
829, 54 S.E. 2d 471, 473.
But even without the foregoing pronouncement, the
employer should still be held liable in view of our
conclusion that that portion of the road where Pablo was
killed, because of its proximity, should be considered part
of the IDECO's premises. Hence, the injury was in
the course of employment, and there automatically

arises the presumption invoked in Rivera that the

injury by assault arose out of the employment, i. e., there
is a causal relation between the assault and the
employment.

must be liberally construed to attain the purpose for

which it was enacted.32 Liberally construed, sec. 2 of the
Act comprehends Pablo's death. The Commission did
not err in granting compensation.

We do say here that the circumstances of time, two

minutes after dismissal from overtime work, and space,
twenty meters from the employer's main gate, bring
Pablo's death within the scope of the course factor. But it
may logically be asked: Suppose it were three minutes
after and thirty meters from, or five minutes after and fifty
meters from, would the "proximity" rule still apply? In
answer, we need but quote that portion of the decision
inJean vs. Chrysler Corporation, supra, which answered
a question arising from an ingenious hypothetical
question put forth by the defendant therein:

ACCORDINGLY, the decision appealed from is affirmed,

at petitioner's cost.

We could, of course, say "this is not the case

before us" and utilize the old saw, "that which is not
before us we do not decide." Instead, we prefer to
utilize the considerably older law: "Sufficient unto
the day is the evil thereof" (Matthew 1:34),
appending, however, this admonition: no statute is
static; it must remain constantly viable to meet new
challenges placed to it. Recovery in a proper case
should not be suppressed because of a conjectural
posture which may never arise and which if it does,
will be decided in the light of then existing law.
Since the Workmen's Compensation Act is basically a
social legislation designed to afford relief to workmen, it

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Dizon, Zaldivar,

Sanchez, Fernando and Capistrano, JJ., concur.
Makalintal, J., reserves his vote.
[G.R. NO. 154385 : August 24, 2007]
GOVERNMENT SERVICE INSURANCE
SYSTEM, Petitioner, v. MERLITA PENTECOSTES,
Substituted by Jaime R. Pentecostes, Respondent.
DECISION
TINGA, J.:
In this Petition for Review1 under Rule 45 of the 1997 Rules of
Civil Procedure, petitioner Government Service Insurance
System (GSIS) assails the Decision2 dated 11 April 2002 of the
Fourteenth Division of the Court of Appeals in C.A.-G.R. SP No.
65840 and its Resolution3 dated 17 July 2002 denying its
Motion for Reconsideration.
Following are the factual and legal antecedents, as culled from
the decision of the Court of Appeals.

Respondent Merlita Pentecostes (Merlita) was 32 years old

when she joined the government service in 1980 as a public
school elementary teacher assigned to the remote and
mountainous barangay elementary schools of the towns of
Basud, Imelda, Labo and Jose Panganiban, all in the province
of Camarines Norte. In 1995, Merlita was assigned to the
urban town of Daet, Camarines Norte where she retired from
service on 24 April 1998 on account of her serious malady.
While assigned at the said mountainous towns, Merlita had to
walk six (6) kilometers daily to and from the barangay
elementary school where she taught and her temporary
residence in the poblacion.4 In said locales, Merlita's only
source of drinking water came from a deep well. Merlita
frequently experienced urinary tract infections.5
From 15 November 1997 to 8 December 1997, Merlita was
confined at the Bicol Medical Center in Naga City due to
Chronic Renal Failure secondary to Obstructive Uropathy
Secondary to Urolithiasis.6Consequently, Merlita's right kidney
was removed by way of a nephrectomy in October 1998.7
Merlita's left kidney also failed because of Nephrolithiasis
(Renal Stones or Urolithiasis). On account of her condition, she
underwent hemodialysis (a procedure where blood with the
excretory products is removed and replaced with fresh blood)
two (2) times a week which is an expensive procedure done
not to cure the disease but to ease the pain, to lessen the
retention of fluids, to minimize further complications, and to
lengthen the chance of survival of Merlita.8
Merlita's condition constrained her to retire from service in
April 1998. Her medical examiners considered her disability as
total and permanent.9 On account of her illness, Merlita filed a

claim with GSIS for compensation benefits which was denied

on the ground that Urolithiasis is not work-related. Merlita
sought reconsideration, but it was similarly denied. On appeal,
the Employees' Compensation Commission (ECC) likewise
rejected Merlita's claim,10 the pertinent portions of whose
decision read:
Viewed against the foregoing, we can safely conclude that the
development of appellant's Urolithiasis was not due to factors
present in her workplace or the nature of her employment as a
teacher. Familial or hereditary predisposition have been noted
in the development of this disease, thus, we believe that the
respondent System correctly ruled against compensability.
WHEREFORE, premises considered, the decision of the
respondent System appealed from is hereby AFFIRMED, and
the instant case is dismissed for lack of merit.11
Aggrieved, Merlita interposed an appeal in December 1999
before the Court of Appeals insisting that the conditions of her
work greatly increased the risk of contracting the ailment.12 A
couple of days later, Merlita died and was substituted by her
husband and six (6) children.13
The Court of Appeals sustained Merlita's position, reversed the
decision of the ECC, and declared her heirs entitled to the
compensation benefits under Presidential Decree (P.D.) No.
626, as amended.14The appellate court stated:
It can be stressed that Merlita Pentecostes, when she
commenced her career as a public school elementary teacher,
first as a substitute classroom teacher from 1980 to 1984,
then as a regular classroom teacher up to the time she went

out of service in 1998 because of her serious kidney disease

was, at the age of 32 years, young and in good perfect healthy
condition. In the fourteen (14) years of teaching she was
assigned in the arid, rural, tropical and mountainous
barangays of Basud, Labo, Imelda and Jose Panganiban, all
far-flung towns of Camarines Norte where the petitioner has to
regularly walk daily an exhausting, dehydrating, and lungbusting six (6) kilometers stretch to and from the barangay
elementary school and place of her temporary residence in the
Poblacion of the municipality of said towns. A daily routine for
fourteen (14) years which strained her kidneys coupled with
drinking unchlorinated and uncertain impurities-filled water
from deep and shallow water wells and the stress of working
away from the loving arms and bliss of her family who lived in
Daet, Camarines Norte. This dehydrating condition of walking
six (6) kilometers to and from the arduous and hot
mountainous barangays on the aforesaid towns of Camarines
Norte put heavy toll on petitioner's kidneys by reducing urine
volume and higher secretion and concentration of insoluble
sediments-predisposing factors which contributed and
increased the risk of petitioner's contracting Urolithiasis (a
renal disease attributed to the development of calcium,
oxalates, uric acid and/or cystine stones, in the calyces,
papillae, ureter, urinary bladder and other renal parts). This
undue strain on petitioner's kidneys predisposed petitioner to
develop this malady, Urolithiasis, which as a consequence
suppressed the kidney functions by way of renal failure. This
predisposing factor of chronic dehydration which contributed
and increased the risk of the petitioner to develop Urolithiasis
and Renal Failure has been confirmed by medical experts and
authorities in their respective fields in medicine x x x.15

xxx
Moreover, since the cause or causes of Urolithiasis is or are
still unknown, no proof can be presented because the law does
not require the impossible.16
In the instant petition, GSIS reiterates its previous submission
that Merlita failed to discharge the burden of presenting
evidence that her ailment was caused by her work.17 Moreover,
it states that the sad plight and the deterioration of the GSIS
State Insurance Fund should not be aggravated by approving
claims of ailments not intended by law to be covered.18
In her Comment19 dated 20 January 2003, Merlita maintains
that the development of urolithiasis as being secondary to
chronic renal failure has no clear etiologic factor so as to a
create a conclusive causal connection leading to the disease.
Since the cause or causes of the disease is or are still
unknown, no proof can be presented because the law does not
require the impossible.20
In a Resolution21 dated 19 March 2007, the Court noted the
death of Merlita's husband and substitute respondent, Jaime P.
Pentecostes, Sr. He was substituted by one of his children,
Jaime R. Pentecostes, Jr., as party respondent.
The sole issue before the Court is whether Merlita is entitled to
compensation benefits under P.D. No. 626, as amended.
After a thorough evaluation of the case and assessment of the
arguments of the parties, the Court finds for Merlita and
affirms the challenged decision of the Court of Appeals.

Section 1(b), Rule III implementing P.D. 626, as amended,

provides:
For the sickness and the resulting disability or death to be
compensable, the sickness must be the result of an
occupational disease listed under Annex "A" of these Rules
with the conditions set therein satisfied, otherwise, proof must
be shown that the risk of contracting the disease is increased
by the working conditions.
Under the above Rule, for Merlita's sickness and resulting
disability to be compensable, there must be proof that (a) her
sickness was the result of an occupational disease listed under
Annex "A" of the Rules of Employees' Compensation, or (b) the
risk of contracting the disease was increased by her working
conditions. This means that if the claimant's illness or disease
is not included in Annex "A," then he is entitled to
compensation only if he can prove that the risk of contracting
the illness or disease was increased by his working
conditions.22 The law does not require that the connection be
established with absolute certainty or that a direct causal
relation be shown. It is enough that the theory upon which the
claim is based is probable. Probability, not certainty, is the
touchstone.23
Pertinently, the Court stated in the case of Employees'
Compensation Commission v. Court of Appeals:24
Despite the abandonment of the presumption of
compensability established by the old law, the present law has
not ceased to be an employees' compensation law or a social

legislation; hence, the liberality of the law in favor of the

working man and woman still prevails, and the official agency
charged by law to implement the constitutional guarantee of
social justice should adopt a liberal attitude in favor of the
employee in deciding claims for compensability, especially in
light of the compassionate policy towards labor which the 1987
Constitution vivifies and enhances. Elsewise stated, a
humanitarian impulse, dictated by no less than the
Constitution itself under the social justice policy, calls for a
liberal and sympathetic approach to legitimate appeals of
disabled public servants; or that all doubts to the right to
compensation must be resolved in favor of the employee or
laborer. Verily, the policy is to extend the applicability of the
law on employees' compensation to as many employees who
can avail of the benefits thereunder.25
Concededly, Merlita's illness, urolithiasis, is not among those
listed in the table of occupational diseases embodied in Annex
"A" of the Rules on Employees' Compensation. Nevertheless,
the Court agrees with the Court of Appeals in its finding that
Merlita was able to prove by substantial evidence that her
working conditions increased the risk of contracting the
disease. Substantial evidence is the amount of relevant
evidence which a reasonable mind might accept as adequate
to justify the conclusion.26
Urolithiasis is the process of forming stones in the kidney,
bladder and/or urethra (urinary tract).27 It is the formation of
urinary calculi at any level of the urinary tract. Urinary calculi
(stones) are worldwide in its distribution but are more
common in some geographic areas as in parts of United
States, South Africa, Pakistan, India and Southeast Asia.

Nutritional and environmental factors seem to play a role in

stone formation.28 The prevalence of urinary calculi is higher in
those who live in mountainous, desert or tropical areas. Higher
temperatures increase perspiration, which may result in
concentrated urine. This promotes increased urinary
crystallization. The mineral content of water also may
contribute to the causes of stone disease. Some studies state
that excessive water hardness causes a greater incidence of
stone disease.29
The 15th Edition of Smith's General Urology states that fluid
intake and urine output may have an effect on urinary stone
disease. It also states that individuals living in hot climates are
prone to dehydration, which results in an increased incidence
of urinary stones. Although heat may cause a higher fluid
intake, sweat loss results in lowered voided volumes. Hot
climates usually expose people to more ultraviolet light,
increasing vitamin D3 production. Increased calcium and
oxalate excretion has been correlated with increased exposure
time to sunlight.30 Those who become dehydrated due to
strenuous physical activity are also particularly at risk of
developing stones.31
According to the 13th Edition of Harrison's Principles of
Internal Medicine, Vol. 2. (International Edition, 1994), urinary
stones usually arise because of the breakdown of a delicate
balance. The kidneys must conserve water, but they also must
excrete materials that have a low solubility. These two
opposing requirements must be balanced during adaptation to
diet, climate and activity.32
rbl r l l lbrr

The foregoing medical reports establish that the environment

(climate and geographical location), water or fluid intake and

activity are important factors in the development or inhibition

of urinary stone disease. The regularity of urination likewise
plays an important role since withholding urine for sometime
may disturb the balance.33 Merlita was assigned to schools
located in mountainous barangays which required her to walk
daily a considerable distance. Considering the climate, the
location of her workplace, i.e. mountainous and far-flung, and
the strenuous walk she had to daily endure, she was prone to
dehydration which could have led to the formation of urinary
stones. Additionally, in said place the only available drinking
water was the water taken from the deep well which in all
probability was hard water, containing minerals which
contribute to the formation of kidney stones. Merlita could also
have missed the important habit of
regular urination. Teachers have a tendency to sit for hours on
end, and to put off or postpone emptying their bladders when
it interferes with their teaching hours or preparation of lesson
plans.34Thus, while the Court concedes that the nature of
Merlita's work as a teacher does not per seordinarily cause
urolithiasis, the risk of contracting the same in this case was
aggravated by the peculiar conditions and location of her
workplace, which required her to undergo a five-day week
schedule of strenuous and protracted walking.
Finally, it is well to recall the Court's exhortation in Vicente v.
Employees' Compensation Commission35 reiterated in the case
of Employees' Compensation Commission v. Court of
Appeals36wherein the Court ruled that therein private
respondent's job as an NBI Engineer, which included field
work, increased her risk of contracting uterelothiasis, also a
urinary stone disease, to wit:

The court takes this occasion to stress once more its abiding
concern for the welfare of government workers, especially the
humble rank and file, whose patience, industry, and dedication
to duty have often gone unheralded, but who, in spite of very
little recognition, plod on dutifully to perform their appointed
tasks. It is for this reason that the sympathy of the law on
social security is toward its beneficiaries, and the law, by its
own terms, requires a construction of utmost liberality in their
favor. It is likewise for this reason that the Court disposes of
this case and ends a workingman's struggle for his just dues.37

WHEREFORE, the Decision dated 11 April 2002 of the

Fourteenth Division of the Court of Appeals in C.A.-G.R. SP No.
65840, ordering the Government Service Insurance System to
pay the heirs of Merlita Pentecostes compensation benefits as
provided under P.D. No. 626, as amended, is AFFIRMED.
SO ORDERED.