Philippine Blooming Employees

Blooming Mills (1973)

G.R. No. L-31195
June 5, 1973

Organization

v.

Philippine

Facts
Philippine Blooming Employees Organization (PBMEO) decided to stage
a mass demonstration in front of Malacaang to express their
grievances against the alleged abuses of the Pasig Police.
After learning about the planned mass demonstration, Philippine
Blooming Mills Inc., called for a meeting with the leaders of the PBMEO.
During the meeting, the planned demonstration was confirmed by the
union. But it was stressed out that the demonstration was not a strike
against the company but was in fact an exercise of the laborers
constitutional right to freedom of expression, freedom of speech and
freedom for petition for redress of grievances.
The company asked them to cancel the demonstration for it would
interrupt the normal course of their business, which may result in the
loss of revenue. This was backed up with the threat of the possibility
that the workers would lose their jobs if they pushed through with the
rally.
A second meeting took place where the company reiterated their
appeal that while the workers may be allowed to participate, those
from the 1st and regular shifts should not absent themselves to be able
to participate in the demonstration, otherwise, they would be
dismissed. Since it was too late to cancel the plan, the rally took place
and the officers of the PBMEO were eventually dismissed for a violation
of the No Strike and No Lockout clause of their Collective Bargaining
Agreement.
The lower court decided in favor of the company and the officers of the
PBMEO were found guilty of bargaining in bad faith. Their motion for
reconsideration was subsequently denied by the Court of Industrial
Relations for being filed two days late.
Issue: Whether or not the workers who joined the demonstration
violated the CBA.
Held: No
The rights of free expression, free assembly and petition, are not only
civil rights but also political rights essential to man's enjoyment of his
life, to his happiness and to his full and complete fulfillment. Thru
these freedoms the citizens can participate not merely in the periodic

establishment of the government through their suffrage but also in the

administration of public affairs as well as in the discipline of abusive
public officers. The citizen is accorded these rights so that he can
appeal to the appropriate governmental officers or agencies for redress
and protection as well as for the imposition of the lawful sanctions on
erring public officers and employees.
In the hierarchy of civil liberties, the rights of free expression and of
assembly occupy a preferred position as they are essential to the
preservation and vitality of our civil and political institutions.
The court stated that the primacy of human rights over property rights
is recognized. Because these freedoms are "delicate and vulnerable, as
well as supremely precious" and the "threat of sanctions may deter
their exercise almost as potently as the actual application of
sanctions," they "need breathing space to survive," permitting
government regulation only "with narrow specificity."
Property and property rights can be lost thru prescription; but human
rights are imprescriptible. If human rights are extinguished by the
passage of time, then the Bill of Rights is a useless attempt to limit the
power of government and ceases to be an efficacious shield against
the tyranny of officials.
It was also pointed out in the case that the freedoms of speech and of
the press as well as of peaceful assembly and of petition for redress of
grievances are absolute when directed against public officials or "when
exercised in relation to our right to choose the men and women by
whom we shall be governed.
As to the case itsel, the SC held that the petitioners did not violate the
CBA with Phil Blooming mills. The demonstration held petitioners
before Malacaang was against alleged abuses of some Pasig
policemen, not against their employer. Said demonstration was purely
and completely an exercise of their freedom expression in general and
of their right of assembly and petition for redress of grievances. It was
the duty of herein private respondent firm to protect herein petitioner
Union and its members from the harassment of local police officers.
They should have protected their employees. To regard the
demonstration against police officers, not against the employer, as
evidence of bad faith in collective bargaining and hence a violation of
the collective bargaining agreement, stretches unduly the compass of
the collective bargaining agreement, thereby making it "a potent
means of inhibiting speech" and therefore inflicts a moral as well as
mortal wound on the constitutional guarantees of free expression, of
peaceful assembly and of petition. The mass demonstration staged by

the employees could not have been legally enjoined by any court,
because such an injunction would be trenching upon the freedom
expression of the workers, even if it legally appears to be illegal
picketing or strike.