A serious miscarriage of justice (2)

(Continued from last Friday, Jan. 31)

For doing his duty as labor arbiter of the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC), Ariel Cadiente Santos was sued for graft by the defendant employer for allegedly giving undue advantage to a dismissed employee.  At the same time, he filed an administrative complaint against Santos with the Office of the Ombudsman.

What was Santos’ alleged sin? He issued a writ of execution to enforce a decision by another arbiter that he replaced on the subject case. The NLRC had affirmed the decision when the employer appealed the decision before the Supreme Court, which also affirmed it and, when it became final and executory, sent it back to Santos for execution.

So on July 15, 1993, Santos issued the writ of execution. The case had been pending since 1979. On July 29, 1993, the NLRC issued a temporary restraining order (TRO).

When Santos learned of the issuance of the TRO, he stopped the implementation of the writ of execution. Until now—meaning,  decades after the Supreme Court decision—the dismissed employee—has not been paid the back wages and other benefits.

Note again: The employer sued Santos before the Sandiganbayan for allegedly giving undue advantage to his dismissed employee by issuing a writ of execution (July 15, 1993) for the Supreme Court decision in spite of a TRO issued by the NLRC (July 29, 1993).

The Office of the Ombudsman dismissed the administrative complaint against Santos and even commended him for “trying to uphold the constitutional mandate on the speedy disposition of cases.” The Ombudsman added: “We appreciate (Santos’) efforts of executing the decision with dispatch as the case has been pending since 1979 and has been handled by different Labor Arbiters.”

Nevertheless, the Sandiganbayan convicted Santos as charged—note again, for giving “undue advantage” to the dismissed employee by issuing the writ of execution enforcing a Supreme Court decision “in spite of a TRO from the NLRC.”

But the TRO came after the writ had been issued. The Sandiganbayan said Santos should have known that the NLRC was about to issue the TRO. How could he have known? Nobody had told him that the NLRC was about to issue a TRO.

Santos appealed his conviction before the Supreme Court but the latter, without looking at the facts, affirmed the conviction. Santos filed a motion for reconsideration, pleading for the honorable justices to look at the documentary evidence. But the justices dismissed the second motion for reconsideration.

Many times, courts set aside technicalities “in the interest of justice,” but in the case of Santos, the Supreme Court justices did not even want to look at the evidence and the facts so that they could better dispense justice. Was that interlocutory order written by the justices themselves or by some assistant or clerk of court?

To make matters worse, the chair of the NLRC immediately dismissed Santos (even while his case was still pending in the Supreme Court), stopped the payment of his salary and ordered the non-implementation of Santos’ decisions in labor cases.

Without a job and without any income to support his family, Santos applied for his retirement pay with the Government Service Insurance System. But the GSIS denied the payment of Santos’ retirement benefits—for which Santos paid the monthly premiums for 28 years—citing Section 13 of Republic Act No. 3019 which states: “Suspension and loss of benefits. Any public officer against whom any criminal prosecution under a valid information under this Act has been filed… shall be suspended from Office. Should he be convicted by final judgment, he shall lose all retirement or gratuity benefits under any law.”

In a letter to the GSIS Committee on Claims, Santos took exception to the “automatic and self-executing application of Section 13 of RA 3019.”

He said the dispositive portion of the Sandiganbayan’s decision convicting him, as affirmed by the Supreme Court, “does not contain the accessory penalty of forfeiture of retirement benefits.” He said that the Court, in various instances, “stated the rule that the dispositive portion of a decision (should contain) the judgment of the Court which is to be the subject of execution.”

The act of the GSIS, an administrative agency, in automatically applying an administrative provision, is in effect a judicial act which effectively amends, alters or modifies the decision of the Supreme Court without due process of law. The Supreme Court decision merely contains the accessory penalty of perpetual disqualification from public office. But the GSIS, acting on its own, also included the accessory penalty of forfeiture of retirement benefits.

“There is presumption in the regularity of performance of the (Supreme Court),” Santos said in his letter, “and if it opted not to include forfeiture of retirement benefits, the same had been studied thoroughly, taking into account that there is no allegation against the undersigned that he stole money but allegedly merely breached some ethical conduct.”

In other words, for Section 13 of RA 3019, an administrative provision,  to apply,  it should be addressed for judicial action by the Court. The GSIS’ exercise of such judicial action is tantamount to usurpation of authority by an executive agency.

I emphasize: Santos has not stolen a single centavo. There are many government officials who have stolen hundreds of millions of pesos but who have not been penalized with forfeiture of retirement benefits. Why punish Santos, who spent almost a lifetime paying premiums to the GSIS, with the denial of his retirement pay? GSIS officials pay themselves million-peso bonuses but are stingy with paying jobless members their retirement benefits.

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A serious miscarriage of justice