Case Digest: Alano v. ECC, GR NO. L-48594, March 16, 1988

 Labor Law | Policy and Definitions

  • Dedicacion de Vera, a government employee and principal of Salinap Community School, Pangasinan, was waiting for a ride to go to work when she was bumped and run over by a speeding Toyota mini-bus, resulting in her instantaneous death.
  • Her brother, Generoso C. Alano, filed a claim for income benefit on behalf of her children.
  • GSIS: Denied the claim since the injury did not meet the conditions prescribed by law for compensation.
    WoN Dedicacion de Vera's death was compensable as an employment accident under the law. YES
      This case does not come to us with a novel issue. In the earlier case of Vda. de Torbela v. Employees' Compensation Commission (96 SCRA 260,263,264) which has a similar factual background, 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 at 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.

      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.

      As to the Government Service Insurance System's manifestation, we hold that it is not fatal to this case that it was not impleaded as a party respondent. As early as the case of La O v. Employees' Compensation Commission, (97 SCRA 782) up to Cabanero v. Employees' Compensation Commission (111 SCRA 413) and recently, Clemente v. Government Service Insurance System (G.R. No. L-47521, August 31,1987), this Court has ruled that the Government Service Insurance System is a proper party in employees' compensation cases as the ultimate implementing agency of the Employees' Compensation Commission. We held in the aforecited cases that "the law and the rules refer to the said System in all aspects of employee compensation including enforcement of decisions (Article 182 of Implementing Rules)."

      WHEREFORE, the decision of the Employees' Compensation Commission appealed from is hereby SET ASIDE and the Government Service Insurance System is ordered to pay the heirs of the deceased 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.

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