SECOND DIVISION
[G.R. No. 127932.
December 7, 2001]
VIRGINIA M. ANDRADE, petitioner, vs. COURT OF APPEALS
and DOMINADOR S. WINGSING, respondents.
D E C I S I O N
DE LEON, JR., J.:
Before us is a petition for review
on certiorari seeking nullification of the Decision[1] and Resolution[2] dated September 28, 1995
and January 23, 1997, respectively, of the Court of Appeals[3] reversing the Decision[4] dated August 31, 1990 of
the Regional Trial Court, Branch 106, Quezon City which adjudged private
respondent Dominador S. Wingsing liable to petitioner Virginia M. Andrade for
actual and compensatory damages, attorney’s fees and the costs of suit.
The pertinent facts are as
follows:
On July 6, 1971, petitioner was
appointed as permanent teacher in the Division of City Schools, Manila. She was initially assigned as English
teacher at the Araullo High School, Manila.
On June 14, 1985, two (2) days
before the opening of classes for the
school year 1985-1986, petitioner inquired from the English Department Head,
Virginia E. Fermin, about her teaching load, and in response thereto, she was
referred to private respondent Dominador Wingsing, Principal of the Araullo High School. However, a subsequent visit by petitioner to
private respondent Wingsing on June 19, 1985 yielded negative results as the
latter merely referred back the petitioner to English Department Head Fermin.
Irked by the manner by which she
was being referred back and forth from one person to another, the petitioner
wrote on July 17, 1985 to Arturo F. Coronel, Assistant Schools Division
Superintendent of the Division of City Schools, Manila, requesting that she be
given a teaching assignment.[5] In an indorsement dated
July 30, 1985, addressed to Superintendent Coronel, private respondent Wingsing
cited three (3) reasons why petitioner Andrade was not given any teaching load:
(1) drastic drop of enrollment; (2) she was declared an excess teacher; and (3)
she ranked lowest in her performance rating.[6] Hence, on August 22, 1985,
Superintendent Coronel informed the petitioner, through private respondent Wingsing,
that the petitioner would be
designated to a non-teaching
position in the meantime that
arrangements were being made for her eventual reassignment to other schools
where her services may be needed.[7]
On October 4, 1985, petitioner
made a request to Benedicto M.
Hormilla, Chief of Personnel Services of the Division of City Schools of
Manila, that she be transferred from Araullo High School to Ramon Magsaysay
High School in Manila,[8] and said request was
favorably acted upon by Superintendent Coronel.[9] Petitioner then reported
for work on October 9, 1985 at the Ramon Magsaysay High School,[10] but in a letter of the same
date, petitioner relayed that she is withdrawing her request for transfer and
indicated her intention of remaining at the Araullo High School.[11] Thereafter, petitioner
discovered that her name has been deleted from the regular monthly payroll and
transferred to a special voucher list.
Feeling aggrieved, petitioner
filed an action for damages with mandatory injunction[12] against private respondent Dominador S. Wingsing, English Department
Head Virginia E. Fermin and Assistant Schools Division Superintendent Arturo F.
Coronel before the Regional Trial Court (RTC),[13] Quezon City. Petitioner claimed that Wingsing, Fermin and Coronel
conspired in depriving her of her teaching load and humiliated her further by
excluding her name from the regular monthly payroll.
In his answer, private respondent
Wingsing disclaimed any intention to maliciously deprive the petitioner of her
teaching load. He explained that the
decrease in the enrollment for the school year 1985-1986 necessitated that a
number of teachers be declared in a
list as excess teachers, and as petitioner had the lowest performance rating,
she was included in the said list.
Nonetheless, respondent Wingsing asserted that due consideration was
extended to petitioner upon instruction from Superintendent Coronel to provide
her with a non-teaching job in the meantime that her next assignment was being
determined. However, petitioner declined his offer to handle Developmental
Reading lessons and
to function as an Assistant Librarian. As for the deletion of petitioner’s name
from the regular monthly payroll,
respondent Wingsing declared that he and his co-defendants were merely
exercising and doing their duties in accordance with the existing school
policies, rules and regulations.
On August 31, 1990, the trial
court rendered its Decision absolving Virginia Fermin and Arturo Coronel, but
held herein respondent Wingsing liable to petitioner for:
1. Actual and compensatory damages in the amount of Ninety Three Thousand Five Hundred Seventy-five and 99/100 Pesos (P93,575.99);
2. Attorney’s fees in the sum of Ten Thousand Pesos (P10,000.00); and
3. Costs of suit.
Aggrieved by the said decision,
private respondent Wingsing appealed to the Court of Appeals,[14] maintaining the necessity of declaring excess teachers,
including the petitioner, during the subject school year and invoking
regularity in the performance of his functions as principal of the Araullo High
School. Finding merit in his argument,
the appellate court on September 28, 1995 reversed the decision of the trial
court and dismissed the complaint of petitioner.
The appellate court in its
Resolution dated January 23, 1997 denied petitioner’s motion for
reconsideration. The petitioner now
challenges the correctness of the Court of Appeal’s decision via the
instant petition.
Petitioner contends that public
respondent Court of Appeals erred in applying the Orcino Doctrine[15] and that Sec. 31 of P.D. No. 807, otherwise known as the Civil Service
Commission,[16] Sec. 6 of R.A. No. 4670, otherwise known as The
Magna Carta for Public School Teachers[17] and R.A. No. 2260, as
amended [18] should be the applicable
laws.
Petitioner asserts that private
respondent Wingsing failed to comply with the said laws considering that no performance evaluation plan which can be
the basis for personal action was ever presented in evidence to justify the
latter’s actions. What was shown were
performance rating sheets and the Certification on the Audit of Teachers,
allegedly prepared by petitioner’s co-teachers and personnel from the Office of
the Research and Evaluation Services, which petitioner Andrade did not conform
to nor sign. And assuming that the
above-cited documents were valid and credible, petitioner nonetheless argues
that she had not been informed periodically by private respondent Wingsing of
her performance ratings, nor was she warned that she needed to improve her
performance.
Petitioner also doubts the
veracity of private respondent Wingsing’s claim that there was a reduction of
classes for the school year 1985-1986
as reason for her being declared as an excess teacher since Araullo High School
even hired three (3) more new teachers that
school year. To underscore her
claim that she had been singled out, petitioner asserts that, contrary to the
declaration of respondent Wingsing, there was no other person declared as an
excess teacher in Araullo High School
for that school year.
Petitioner likewise argues that
the procedure for transferring teachers to other work stations as laid down in
Republic Act No. 4670 was not observed when private respondent tried to effect
her transfer from Araullo High School to Ramon Magsaysay High School. Although petitioner admits that she
initiated the request for transfer, she claims
that she was misled by respondent Wingsing regarding the availability of
a teaching position in the Ramon Magsaysay High School. Even then, upon learning that there was no
vacancy in the Ramon Magsaysay High
School, she immediately withdrew her request for transfer and returned to
Araullo High School. As the order to
transfer has not been revoked, she thereafter questioned its validity before
the Regional Director and the Secretary of the Department of Education, Culture
and Sports. Petitioner argues that her
failure to report for work on the first day of classes at the Ramon Magsaysay
High School did not justify her exclusion from the teachers’ regular monthly
payroll. She points out that as
clarified by Chief Accountant Priscilla Fabian, Accounting Section of the
Division of City Schools, a minimum of three (3) days is usually given to
teachers or personnel who fail to report for duty on the first day of classes
before such employee can be deleted from the regular monthly payroll. She claims that this 3-day period was not
extended to her before her name was deleted from the regular monthly payroll.
The petition is not meritorious.
It must be noted that the present
petition originated from an action for damages for alleged withholding of
petitioner’s teaching load and deletion of her name from the regular monthly
payroll caused by private respondent Dominador S. Wingsing, Virginia E. Fermin
and Arturo F. Coronel. From the initial
pleading and the testimony of petitioner Andrade, it appeared that her claim for damages was based on
Article 19 of the New Civil Code which provides that:
“Every person must, in the exercise of his rights and in the performance of his duties, act with justice, give everyone his due, and observe honesty and good faith.”
While Article 19 of the New Civil
Code may have been intended as a declaration of principle, the “cardinal law on
human conduct” expressed in said article has given rise to certain rules, e.g.,
that where a person exercises his rights but does so arbitrarily or unjustly or
performs his duties in a manner that is not in keeping with honesty and good
faith, he opens himself to civil liability. The elements of abuse of
one’s rights under the said
Article 19 are the following: (1) there
is a legal right or duty; (2) which is exercised in bad faith; (3) for the sole
intent of prejudicing or injuring another.[19] In this regard, it appeared that the complaint of petitioner Andrade failed to meet the
second and third requirements.
A careful review of the records
reveals that the declaration of petitioner as an excess teacher was not
motivated by any personal desire on the part of respondent Wingsing to cause her undue misery or
injury, but merely the result of the valid exercise of authority. The
decrease in the enrollment for the school year 1985-1986 in the Araullo
High School resulted in a number of
teachers being declared as excess
teachers in the following subjects: Social Studies, 1; Math, 2, and English, 1.[20] In exercising his judgment, the evidence reveals
that respondent Wingsing was not at all dictated by whim or fancy, nor of spite
against the petitioner but was rather guided by the following factors:
qualification to teach, seniority, teaching performance and attitude towards
the school community. For two (2)
consecutive years petitioner received an unsatisfactory rating, the lowest,
from two (2) English Department Heads, namely: Herminia Valdez and Virginia
Fermin.[21] Petitioner knew about her poor rating, but she
refused to acknowledge it. She did not question nor contest the same. Homeroom teacher Zaida Perez[22] and Remedios P. Rutaquio,[23] a retired Supervisor of
English, Division of City Schools, Manila, both testified that petitioner
frequently absented herself from classes.
Assistant Principal Romeo F. Amparado likewise testified that petitioner
was often the subject of complaints from school personnel and students, one of
which involved the slapping of a student
without provocation, for
which petitioner was suspended for one
month without pay.[24] Petitioner Andrade was
therefore declared as an excess
teacher, as rightfully recommended by private respondent, the latter being the school principal. It was a judgment made in good faith by
respondent.
Contrary to the claim of
petitioner, there were no new teachers hired that school year in Araullo High
School; rather, existing substitute teachers were merely given permanent
designation or assigned new subjects, significantly, prior to the teachers’
audit or to the declaration of excess teachers on July 27, 1985. Thus, Teresita Luz was appointed regular
substitute teacher on June 6, 1985; Linda Fincalero was appointed English
teacher on May 31, 1985, while Estelita A. Durucan, a history teacher was made
to teach English at about the same date.[25] Moreover, the
said three (3) teachers were appointed to teach the English subject
after petitioner Andrade refused to teach the said subject when it was offered
to her. Private respondent Wingsing
testified in that regard, to wit:
ATTY ESTRADA:
Q Mr. Witness, showing to you a document marked as Exhibit M. In this particular document, one teacher Estella Durupan, a history major and minor in English was given a teaching load in English?
A Correct.
Q My question is – if there is a scarcity of teaching loads in the Division of schools , why was it that a History teacher was assigned to English?
A Because that position was already offered to Mrs. Andrade and she informed me that her knowledge and intelligence does not fit that position, so it was given to an English minor.
xxx xxx xxx
Q Mr. Wingsing, why was Mrs. Durupan, a Social Study (sic) teacher assigned as Development teacher to teach English subject?
A Because Mrs. Durupan is a minor in English subject and when we offered the teaching of the developmental reading to Mrs. Andrade, she did not like to accept it, so we have to assign it to a teacher who is a minor in English subject.
xxx xxx xxx
ATTY. NALAPO:
Q Mr. Wingsing, why was Linda Fingalero assigned on May 31 instead of Mrs. Andrade?
A Linda Fingalero was formerly
assigned as a substitute teacher to the class of Mrs. Andrade because Mrs.
Andrade comes off and on and she was not handling the two or three classes from
2:30 to 3:30 so our request from the superintendent for additional teacher in
1984, Mrs. Fingalero was a substitute teacher. So at the termination of the schoolyear 1984-1985, her
assignment at Araullo was terminated. xxx[26]
Entrenched is the rule that bad
faith does not simply connote bad judgment or negligence; it imputes a
dishonest purpose or some moral obliquity and conscious doing of a wrong; a
breach of sworn duty through some motive or intent or ill will; it partakes of
the nature of fraud.[27] In the case at bar, we find that there was no
“dishonest purpose,” or “some moral obliquity,” or “conscious doing of a
wrong,” or “breach of a known duty,” or “some motive or interest or ill will”
that can be attributed to the private respondent. It appeared that efforts
to accommodate petitioner were made as she was offered to handle two (2)
non-teaching jobs, that is, to handle Developmental Reading lessons and be an
assistant Librarian, pending her re-assignment or transfer to another work
station, but she refused. The same
would not have been proposed if the intention of private respondent were to
cause undue hardship on the petitioner.
Good faith is always presumed unless convincing evidence to the contrary
is adduced. It is incumbent upon the party alleging bad faith to sufficiently
prove such allegation. Absent enough
proof thereof, the presumption of good faith prevails. In the case at bar, the burden of proving
alleged bad faith therefore was with petitioner but she failed to discharge
such onus probandi. Without a
clear and persuasive evidence of bad faith, the presumption of good faith in
favor of private respondent stands.[28]
With regards to the deletion of
petitioner’s name from the regular monthly payroll of teachers, we find the
same to be merely the result of a school policy being implemented by the school
personnel. Private respondent Wingsing
had nothing to do with the preparation of the payroll as it was the school
payroll clerk who prepared the same. As
explained by payroll clerk Aida Soliman, petitioner’s name was not deleted from
the regular monthly payroll but merely transferred to the last page of the roll
since she failed to submit her Form 48 or Daily Time Record (DTR) sheet on
time. The move was made so that the
other teachers would not be unduly prejudiced by the delayed release of
petitioner’s salary, which as a policy was the consequence for late submission
of DTRs.[29] There was no showing that private respondent had a
hand in this situation as Aida Soliman likewise revealed that the decision to
transfer petitioner’s name on the last page of the payroll was made on the instruction
of the Accounting Services upon discovery that she did not report to work on
the first day of class. Indeed, after
being declared as an excess teacher and having declined her transfer to Ramon
Magsaysay High School, petitioner’s status could only be described as
“floating.” She should have expected
that there would be changes in her situation, and that she should not have
immediately blamed it on others, more particularly on private respondent.
Although there might have been a
delay in the receipt of petitioner’s salary, we find that it was not as grave
as she painted it out to be considering that
she was nonetheless paid her salary until October 15, 1986. The only reason why she failed to receive
her salary and benefits from October 16, 1986 to June 1988 was because she did not report for work during
the said period due to her unjustified refusal to accept her assignment.
WHEREFORE, the challenged Decision of the Court of Appeals in CA
G.R. CV NO. 30213 is AFFIRMED in toto.
SO ORDERED.
Bellosillo, (Chairman), Mendoza,
and Quisumbing, JJ., concur.
Buena, J., on official leave.
[1] Penned by Associate
Justice Ruben T. Reyes and concurred in by Associate Justices Gloria C. Paras and
Consuelo Ynares Santiago (now Associate Justice of the Supreme Court) in
CA-G.R. CV NO. 30213; Rollo, pp. 26-42.
[2] Rollo, p. 44.
[3] Fourth Division.
[4] Original Records,
pp. 139-145.
[5] Exh. “G”.
[6] Exh. “21”.
[7] Exh. “23”.
[8] Exh. “63”.
[9] In a letter dated
October 7, 1985.
[10] Exh. “25”.
[11] Exh. “H”.
[12] Civil Case No.
Q-45615.
[13] Branch 106.
[14] CA-G.R. CV No.
30213.
[15] 190 SCRA 815 [1990].
A declared excess teacher can be re-assigned for she “cannot merely be twidling
her thumbs while being paid her usual salaries.”
[16] xxx: “No performance
evaluation shall be given, or used as a bases for personal action, except under
an approved performance evaluation plan:
Provided, that each employee shall
be informed periodically by his supervisor of his performance evaluation.
[17] Consent
for Transfer – Transportation Expenses. – Except for cause and as herein
otherwise provided, no teacher shall be transferred without his consent from
one station to another.
Where the exigencies of the service require the transfer of a teacher from one station to another, such transfer may be effected by the school superintendent who shall previously notify the teacher concerned of the transfer and the reason or reasons therefor. If the teacher believes there is no justification for the transfer, he may appeal his case to the Director of Public Schools or the Director of Vocational Education, as the case may be. Pending his appeal and the decision thereon, his transfer shall be held in abeyance: Provided, however, That no transfers whatever shall be made three months before any local or national election.
Necessary transfer expenses of the teacher and his family
shall be paid for by the Government if his transfer is finally approved.
[18] Section
1. There shall be established a performance rating system which shall be
administered in accordance with rules, regulations and standards established by
the COMMISSION for all officers and employees in the competitive and
non-competitive services. Such performance
rating system shall be administered in such manner as to continually foster the
improvement of individual employee performance by providing effective
supervision and counseling through the identification of the employee’s weak
and strong points as well as to develop standards of satisfactory performance,
strengthen supervisor-employee relations, and objectify the application of
personnel policies in selection, placement and promotion, reduction in force
and other processes of personnel administration.
Section 2. Each department or agency may, after consultation with and approval by the Commission, establish and use one or more performance rating plans appropriate to the various groups of positions in the Department or agency concerned. No performance rating shall be given, or used as a basis for any personnel action except under a performance rating plan accomplished on the prescribed forms and in accordance with standards and procedures approved by the COMMISSION. Provided, that each employee shall be informed periodically by his supervisor of his performance rating.
Section 3 (d)(4)
Unsatisfactory. An employee
shall be given this rating when he fails to meet the minimum performance
requirements of the duties of his position.
Before an employee is rated unsatisfactory, he shall be given 60 days
prior warning to enable him to improve his performance. The warning shall be in writing and shall
state the job requirements, which the employee fails to meet satisfactorily.
[19] Sea Commercial
Company, Inc. v. Court of Appeals, 319 SCRA 210, 219 [1999].
[20] Exh. “19”.
[21] TSN, November 15,
1988, Exh. “33” and “34”.
[22] TSN, January 30,
1989.
[23] TSN, May 10, 1989.
[24] Exh. “5”.
[25] TSN, October 20,
1988, pp. 39-41.
[26] Rollo, pp.
62-63.
[27] Llorente, Jr. v. Sandiganbayan, 287 SCRA 382, 404 [1998].
[28] Heirs of Severa
Gregorio v. CA, 300 SCRA 565, 575-576 [1998].
[29] TSN, October 6,
1988.