490 Phil. 631
CARPIO, J.:
Secretary Cariño likewise issued a memorandum to the DECS officials, as follows:
TO :ALL PUBLIC SCHOOL
TEACHERS AND OTHER
DECS PERSONNELSUBJECT :RETURN TO WORK ORDER
Under civil service law and rules, strikes, unauthorized mass leaves and other forms of mass actions by civil servants which disrupt public services are strictly prohibited.
Those of you who are engaged in the above-mentioned prohibited acts are therefore ordered, in the interest of public service, to return to work within 24 hours from your walkout otherwise dismissal proceedings shall be instituted against you.[3]
Petitioners disregarded the directives of Secretary Cariño. Consequently, Secretary Cariño filed administrative charges against petitioners for grave misconduct, gross neglect of duty, and gross violation of Civil Service laws and rules. Secretary Cariño also charged petitioners with refusal to perform official duty, gross insubordination, conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service and absence without leave. Secretary Cariño gave petitioners five days to answer the charges, to secure the assistance of counsel, and to elect a formal investigation. However, petitioners failed to answer despite notice.
TO :REGIONAL DIRECTORS
DIVISION SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT
AND OTHER DECS OFFICIALS
CONCERNEDSUBJECT :TEACHERS AND EMPLOYEES MASS ACTION
Please inform immediately all DECS teachers and employees who have started a mass protest action to the prejudice of the public service that they will be dismissed if they do not return to their jobs within twenty-four (24) hours from their walkout.
Regional Directors and division superintendent are hereby directed to accordingly initiate, in the interest of public service, dismissal proceedings against those who continue with their action and hire their replacements.[4]
WHEREFORE, the instant petition for certiorari cannot be given due course as it is hereby DISMISSED for lack of merit.Petitioners filed a motion for reconsideration which the Court of Appeals denied in its 29 February 2000 Resolution.
SO ORDERED.[5]
FIRSTLY, although the constitutional right of the people to form association[s] embraces both public and private sectors, pursuant to Article XIII, Section 3, 1987 Constitution, the right to strike is not extended to government employees under the Civil Service Law (P.D. No. 807). Under Republic Act 875, workers, including those from the government-owned and controlled-corporations, are allowed to organize but they are prohibited from striking. xxx
SECONDLY, during the deliberation of the 1987 Constitutional Commission, specifically on the Committee on Labor (Alliance of Government Workers, et al. vs. Hon. Minister of Labor etc., 124 SCRA 1), acting Commissioner of Civil Service Eli Rey Pangramuyen stated:“It is the stand, therefore, of this Commission that by reason of the nature of the public employer and the peculiar character of the public service, it must necessarily regard the right to strike given to unions in private industry as not applying to public employees and civil service employees. xxxTHIRDLY, petitioners’ contention that respondent Commission on Civil Service gravely erred when it affirmed the decision of the then DECS Secretary, invoking violations of constitutional due process, is without merit.
xxx”
xxx In the case at bench, it has been shown that petitioners admitted joining the mass action and despite threats of dismissal, they disobeyed the return to work order within 24 hours from their walk-out. Petitioners were given an opportunity to present their side. They did not only refuse to answer the charges filed against them. They also opted to shy away from the investigation conducted. xxx
xxx
FINALLY, the facts of the case clearly demonstrate strong basis for the administrative charge[s] and justifies the subsequent penalty imposed upon herein petitioners. Indeed, petitioners’ contention that they did not strike but merely joined the mass action exercising their constitutional right to assemble, is a question of semantics. In the case of MPSTA vs. Hon. Perfecto Laguio, (G.R. No. 95445), and also in ACT vs. Hon. Cari[ñ]o, et al., G.R. No. 95590, the Supreme Court held that “mass actions and peaceful assemblies amounted to a strike in every sense of the term, constituting as they did, concerted and unauthorized stoppage of, or absence from work which it was said teacher’s sworn duty to perform.” xxx[6]
THE COURT OF APPEALS COMMITTED A MOST GRIEVOUS ERROR WHEN IT DID NOT EXPRESSLY RULE ON THE ISSUE OF THE RIGHT OF PETITIONERS TO BACKWAGES AND IN EFFECT AFFIRMED THE TERRIBLY WRONG RULING OF THE CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION THAT PETITIONERS HAVE NO RIGHT TO BACKWAGES.[7]
This Court has also resolved the issue of whether back wages may be awarded to the teachers who were ordered reinstated to the service after the dismissal orders of Secretary Cariño were commuted by the Civil Service Commission to six (6) months’ suspension. The issue was resolved in the negative in Bangalisan vs. Court of Appeals on the ground that the teachers were neither exonerated nor unjustifiably suspended. The Bangalisan case also ruled that the immediate implementation of the dismissal orders, being clearly sanctioned by law, was not unjustified. The Court held that as regards the payment of back salaries during the period of suspension of a member of the civil service who is subsequently ordered reinstated, the payment of back wages may be decreed if “he is found innocent of the charges which caused the suspension and when the suspension is unjustified.”The facts in this case are substantially the same as those in Bangalisan v. Court of Appeals,[12] De la Cruz v. Court of Appeals,[13] Alipat v. Court of Appeals[14] and Secretary of Education, Culture and Sports v. Court of Appeals.[15] In these cases, the Court categorically declared that the payment of back wages during the period of suspension of a civil servant who is subsequently reinstated is proper if he is found innocent of the charges and the suspension is unjustified. These two circumstances are absent in the present case. When a court has laid down a principle of law as applicable to a certain state of facts, it will adhere to that principle and apply it to all future cases where the facts are substantially the same.[16]
Citing the Bangalisan ruling, this Court in Jacinto vs. Court of Appeals held that when the teachers have given cause for their suspension – i.e., the unjustified abandonment of classes to the prejudice of their students – they were not fully innocent of the charges against them although they were eventually found guilty only of conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service and not grave misconduct or other offense warranting their dismissal from the service; “being found liable for a lesser offense is not equivalent to exoneration.”[11]