G.R. No. L-62207, December 15, 1986
Juan Bonifacio, petitioner-appellant, vs. Government Service Insurance System [Ministry of Education & Culture] and Employees’ Compensation Commission, respondents-appellees.

FACTS

The late Lourdes Bonifacio was a classroom teacher in Catanduanes from 1965 until her death on October 5, 1978. Her death was caused by carcinoma of the breast with metastases to the gastrointestinal tract and lungs. She had undergone a radical mastectomy in 1973, and subsequent operations in 1976 and 1978 revealed the cancer had metastasized extensively.
Petitioner Juan Bonifacio, her spouse, filed a claim for death benefits under P.D. No. 626, as amended (the Labor Code provisions on Employees’ Compensation). The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) denied the claim, ruling that breast cancer with metastases was not an occupational disease for a teacher, nor was the risk of contracting it increased by her working conditions. The Employees’ Compensation Commission (ECC) affirmed the denial on appeal.

ISSUE

Whether the death of Lourdes Bonifacio, a public school teacher, from breast cancer with metastases is compensable under P.D. No. 626, as amended.

RULING

The Supreme Court dismissed the petition and affirmed the decisions of the GSIS and ECC, denying the claim. The legal logic is anchored on the fundamental shift in the compensation regime under the present Labor Code from the old Workmen’s Compensation Act.
Under Article 167(1) of the Labor Code, as amended, for a sickness to be compensable, it must either be an occupational disease listed by the ECC, or any illness where the employee proves that the risk of contracting it was increased by the working conditions. The Court noted that carcinoma of the breast with metastases is not listed as an occupational disease for teachers under the ECC’s Annex “A.” The listed occupational cancers (e.g., of the stomach, lungs, or liver) are specifically associated with exposures in industries like woodworking or vinyl chloride manufacturing, not teaching.
Since the disease was not occupational, the burden shifted to the claimant to prove that the teacher’s working conditions increased the risk of contracting breast cancer. The petitioner failed to discharge this burden. The Court cited uncontroverted medical reports indicating that breast cancer is epidemiologically linked to estrogenic hormones and typically metastasizes to bones and lungs, with no established causal connection to the conditions of teaching. The petitioner’s argument that the ECC ignored Supreme Court pronouncements was misplaced, as those prior rulings applied the old law’s presumption of compensability and rule on aggravation, which expressly favored the employee.
The Court clarified that P.D. No. 626 abolished that favorable presumption. The burden of proving work-connection now rests on the employee for non-listed illnesses. While doubts in implementation should be resolved in favor of labor, the Court found no ambiguity in the applicable provisions of the Labor Code in this case. Therefore, absent proof that teaching increased the risk of breast cancer, the claim was correctly denied.