BONTOC, Mountain Province—The First Division of the Court of Appeals has affirmed an earlier decision of the regional and central offices of the Civil Service Commission dismissing 12 faculty members of the state-run Mountain Province State Polytechnic College from government service.
The teachers were ordered dismissed for their involvement in a July 1, 2011 strike that aimed to undermine then-MPSPC president Dr. Nieves A. Dacyon.
In a 10-page decision signed by Associate Justices Andres B. Reyes, Jr., Romeo F. Barza and Agnes Reyes-Carpio released on Nov. 23, the appellate court also upheld accessory penalties against Terence Lief F. Fangasan, one of the 12 MPSPC faculty members that instigated a strike against the government college.
The penalties include forfeiture of their retirement benefits except for leave credits and perpetual disqualification from holding public office. They are also barred from taking the civil service examination.
“We find that the assailed decision, both of the CSC central office and CSC-CAR, made a thorough discussion on petitioner’s participation on the strike, and which cannot be simply be categorized as speculative,” the decision stated.
The CA added that the affidavits of Fang-asan’s witnesses were not excluded since they were “taken, calibrated and weighed vis-à-vis the pieces of evidence” presented by Dacyon.
Negating Fang-asan’s argument that there was no strike at the state college, the CA noted that classes and work were disrupted, and the campus was even transferred from Bontoc to Tadian.
At the same time, the court said Fang-asan could not invoke the teachers’ constitutional right to association or free expression “since there are already jurisprudence relative to the instances that transpired in the institution.”
Fangasan’s exoneration in a criminal case for grave coercion before the Municipal Trial Court in the capital town has no bearing in the administrative cases filed against him, the CA added, since the case was dismissed due to insufficiency of evidence.
In criminal cases, the appellate court noted that the quantum of evidence “is guilt beyond reasonable doubt while in administrative cases, mere substantial evidence is sufficient.”
“In the hierarchy of evidentiary values, substantial evidence is the lowest standard of proof provided under the rules of court,” the CA decision added.
On Fang-asan’s contention that the penalty of dismissal is too harsh considering “he is a breadwinner, a married man and has been in government service for 13 years,” the CA ruled the law “is solicitous to everyone regardless of his station in life, but to merely invoke being a breadwinner and a family man would open the floodgates to abuse, to the detriment of the public service.”
The decision pointed Fang-asan’s length of service could not be considered a mitigating circumstance, as he was found guilty of grave misconduct, conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service, and insubordination.