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Query: Our mother (Anastacia) joined the government service at the
age of 30 as a public-school elementary teacher assigned to the
remote and mountainous barangay elementary schools in Nueva Vizcaya.
After 15 of years of service, she was transferred to the town proper
where she retired due to a serious malady. While assigned at the
mountainous towns she had to walk six kilometers daily to and from
the barangay schools and her residence at the poblacion. Her only
source of drinking water came from a deep well. Thus, she frequently
had urinary tract infections.
My mother was confined at the provincial
hospital for chronic renal failure secondary to obstructive uropathy.
Her right kidney was removed. Her left kidney also failed because of
nephrolithiasis. Her doctors considered her disability total and
permanent and she was constrained to retire. My mother filed a claim
with the Government Service Insurance System for compensation
benefits.
Her claim, however, was denied on the ground
that urolithiasis is not work-related. She sought a reconsideration,
but it was denied. On appeal, the Employees’ Compensation
Commission likewise rejected her claim. Ultimately, she died.
As heirs, we wish to pursue
our mother’s claim for compensation benefits. However, we were
advised against such plan because of expenses and uncertainty. Can
you kindly tell us about the prospects of our plan—whether or not
we are entitled to our mother’s compensation benefits?
Tacio A.
Reply
You are fortunate, for your query is in effect
answered by a recent decision of the Supreme Court in Government
Service Insurance System v. Merlita Pentecostes (G.R. No. 154385,
promulgated August 24, 2007). It affirmed a Court of Appeals
decision that Presidential Decree 626 requiring a causal relation
between the illness or disease and the working conditions need not
be established with absolute certainly. It is enough that the theory
upon which the claim is based is probable. Probability, not
certainty, is the touchstone. (Barrios v. Employees’ Compensation
Commission, 485 SCRA 320).
In its decision, the High Tribunal restated its
ruling in the case of Employment Compensation Commission v. Court of
Appeals, to wit:
“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
toward labor which the 1987 Constitution vivified and enhances.
Elsewhere 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.” (332 Phil.278).
It was underscored that substantial evidence is
the amount of relevant evidence which a reasonable mind might accept
as adequate to justify the conclusion.
The Supreme Court also recalled its exhortation
in Vicente v. Employees’ Compensation Commission (193 SCRA 190)
reiterated in the case of Employees’ Compensation Commission v.
Court of Appeals (332 Phil. 278) where it ruled that there 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.”
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Above all things, let us reflect on what our Lord and Master Jesus
Christ said: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will
never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” (John
6:35).
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