483 Phil. 110
CORONA, J.:
WHEREFORE, premises considered, the claim of the Union for reinstatement of the individual complainants it represent as well as the claims for payment of backwages, other benefits and damages are hereby, as they should be dismissed, for lack of merit.Two other petitions for certiorari relative to CA-G.R. SP No. 51219 and CA-G.R. SP No. 51220 filed by the union and a certain Lydia Domingo were also dismissed by the CA for lack of merit.
The charges for unfair labor practice filed by the Union against the respondent Bank is likewise dismissed for lack of factual and legal basis.[1]
In its final report and recommendation, the OCA found that:
- Decision for reinstatement is inappelable (sic) per Article 223 of the Labor Code.
- Decision for reinstatement has long been final and executory.
- No supervening event after it became final and executory.
- Petition for certiorari of PVB was filed after the issuance of 1st Writ of Execution which was only forum-shopping.
- Compromise Agreement was legal and binding, when in fact, subject of the Agreement was the issue of reinstatement which they declared NULL and VOID. No common sense. It sounds stupid.
- The fact that PVB entered into Compromise Agreement with some union members was a clear manifestation that PVB had already accepted, respected and complied [with] the September 14, 1993 NLRC Decision.[2]
Preliminarily, the complaint against Justice Agnir may no longer be given due course. At the time of the filing of the complaint, Justice Agnir is no longer a member of the judiciary having compulsorily retired on September 29, 2002.We agree with the recommendation.
For determination is whether the respondent justices and clerk of court committed gross ignorance of law that may warrant an administrative sanction.
Even a cursory reading of the complaint would show that it pertains to respondent justices’ appreciation of the evidence before them and the interpretation, as well as the application, of the laws and jurisprudence in relation thereto. The remedy of the complainant is judicial and not the filing of this administrative case.
The Supreme Court has already ruled on the matter and made a pointed observation in the case of IN RE: JOAQUIN T. BORROMEO (Adm. Matter No. 93-7-696-0, February 21, 1995). Said the Supreme Court:Now, the Court takes judicial notice of the fact that there has been of late a regrettable increase in the resort to, administrative prosecution – or the institution of a civil or criminal action – as a substitute for or supplement to appeal. Whether intended or not, such a resort to these remedies operates as a form of threat or intimidation to coerce judges into timorous surrender of their prerogatives, or a reluctance to exercise them. With rising frequency, administrative complaints are being presented to the Office of the Court Administrator; criminal complaints are being file[d] with the Office of the Ombudsman or the public prosecutor’s office; civil actions for recovery of damages commenced in the Regional Trial Courts against trial judges, and justices of the Court of Appeals and even of the Supreme Court.The Court has reiterated this doctrine in later cases and pronounced that “an administrative complaint is not the appropriate remedy for every act of a Judge deemed aberrant or irregular where a judicial remedy exists and is available, such as a motion for reconsideration, or an appeal. Obviously, if subsequent developments prove the Judge’s challenged act to be correct, there would be no occasion to proceed against him at all” (Santos vs. Orlino, Adm. Matter No. Rtj-98-1418, September 25, 1998).The question then, is whether or not these complaints are proper; whether or not in lieu of the prescribed recourses for appeal or review of judgments and orders of courts, a party may file an administrative or criminal complaint against the judge for rendition of an unjust judgment, or, having opted for appeal, may nonetheless simultaneously seek also such administrative or criminal remedies.
- Common Basis of Complaints Against Judges
Many of these complaints set forth a common indictment that the respondent Judges or Justices rendered manifestly unjust judgments or interlocutory orders –i.e., judgments or orders which are allegedly not in accord with the evidence, or with law or jurisprudence, or are tainted by grave abuse of discretion – thereby causing injustice, and actionable and compensable injury to the complainants (invariably losing litigants). Resolution of complaints of this sort quite obviously entails a common requirement for the fiscal, the Ombudsman or the Trial Court, a review of the decision or order of the respondent Judge or Justice to determine its correctness or erroneousness, as basic premise for a pronouncement of liability.- Exclusivity of Specific Procedures for Correction of Judgments and Orders
Given the nature of the judicial function, the power vested by the Constitution in the Supreme Court and the lower courts established by law, the question submits to only one answer: the administrative or criminal remedies are neither alternative nor cumulative to judicial review where such review i[s] available, and must wait on the result thereof.
Simple reflection will make this proposition amply clearly, and demonstrate that any contrary postulation can have only intolerable legal implications. Allowing a party who feels aggrieved by a judicial order or decision not yet final and executory to mount an administrative, civil, or criminal prosecution for unjust judgment against the issuing judge would, at a minimum and as an indispensable first step, confer the prosecutor (or Ombudsman) with an incongruous function pertaining, not to him, but to the courts; the determination of whether the questioned disposition is erroneous in its findings of fact or conclusions of law, or both. If he does proceed despite that impediment, whatever determination he makes could well set off a proliferation of administrative or criminal litigation, a possibility hereafter more fully explored.
Such actions are impermissible and cannot prosper. It is not, as already pointed out, within the power of public prosecutors, or the Ombudsman or his deputies, directly or vicariously, to review judgments or final orders or resolutions of the Courts of the land. The power of review – by appeal or special civil action – is not only lodged exclusively in the Courts themselves but must be exercised in accordance with a well-defined and long established hierarchy, and long-standing processes and procedures. No other review is allowed; otherwise litigation would be interminable, and vexatiously repetitive.
Further, the complaint against Division Clerk of Court Josefina C. Mallari is utterly without basis. There is no showing that she participated in the writing of the decision or the resolution of the appellate court.
EVALUATION: WHEREFORE it is respectfully recommended that the complaint against Justices Bennie Adefuin-Dela Cruz, Wenceslao Agnir and Rebecca De Guia-Salvador and Division Clerk of Court Josefina C. Mallari be DISMISSED for lack of merit.[3] (italics ours)
ACCORDINGLY, the decision of the Labor Arbiter is hereby SET ASIDE and a new one entered, finding the claim for reinstatement of the appellant to be legal and proper. Accordingly, Appellee bank therefore is hereby ordered to immediately reinstate all the members of the appellant union inclusive of those who have executed their quitclaims and release and all the rest of the PVBEU members, who will signify their intention to be reinstated from the date of this decision. In the meanwhile however, that the bank has not fully reopened and activated, all its operations departments, offices and branches, the employees’ reinstatement shall be conditioned to actual personnel requirement of the department branch office to be reopened, for which reason, preference shall be given to employees formerly occupying the position being reinstated or reactivated or at the prerogative and discretion of management, to any position in the office provided the latter is of equivalent rank and at least has the same rate of pay.[4]In opposing the NLRC ruling, PVB cited the 1990 decision of the Supreme Court in G.R. No. 67125 (PVBEU-NUBE, et al. vs. PVB, et al.) where we held that members of the union were terminated from employment by virtue of the liquidation ordered by the Monetary Board and were not illegally dismissed. They were therefore not entitled to backwages. In its decision now being assailed, the Court of Appeals held:
We cannot agree with the ratiocination of the NLRC for the following reasons:While it is true that an administrative proceeding against a judge is predicated on his continuance in office in the judiciary and that his retirement[6] or resignation will moot a pending administrative case,[7] we are unable to find anything in the records for which respondents can be held liable. Even a cursory reading of the complaint reveals that it pertains to respondents’ appreciation of evidence. Thus, it is evident that an administrative complaint is not the appropriate remedy. As a matter of public policy, the acts of a judge in his official capacity are not subject to disciplinary action even though such acts may be erroneous, provided he acts in good faith and without malice. In this case, the respondents cannot even be faulted for any error.While the PVB employees concerned should be given priority in hiring, they cannot demand it as a matter of right.
- The Supreme Court said in G.R. No. 67125 (189 SCRA 14) that the PVB employees were “not illegally dismissed but lawfully separated.” This is a pronouncement as categorical as can be, that the employment relationship between the Bank and the separated employees had definitely ceased to exist as of that time.
- The subsequent rehabilitation of PVB did not, by any test of reason “revive” what was already a “dead” employment relationship. It is therefore incorrect to say that the former employees can be reinstated because the liquidation was halted with the issuance by the Supreme Court of a writ of preliminary injunction in G.R. No. 67125. Firstly, the injunction was eventually lifted when the case was decided. Secondly, the liquidation of PVB proceeded after the Supreme Court’s pronouncement that the employees had been lawfully dismissed. The circumstance of PVB was not finally liquidated because it was eventually rehabilitated is therefore irrelevant to the issue of reinstatement.
- The rehabilitation of the Bank did not affect the Supreme Court’s pronouncement that the PVB employees were already “lawfully separated.” This is the correct interpretation of the prologue of the Supreme Court decision in G.R. No. 67125 as far as the issue of reinstatement is concerned.
- It is a well-settled doctrine that reinstatement is proper only in cases of illegal dismissal. The pronouncement of the Supreme Court that the PVB employees were “not illegally dismissed” forecloses any right of reinstatement under any circumstance.
x x x xxx xxx
Further, as earlier extensively discussed, the Supreme Court has already spoken loud and clear on G.R. No. 67125 (189 SCRA 14, 30) that the Union members were not entitled to backwages because they were lawfully separated due to the forcible closure of the Bank.[5]