The series of events that touched off these cases started with the so-called "mass action" undertaken by some 800 public school teachers, among them members of the petitioning associations in both cases, on September 17, 1990 to "dramatize and highlight"^[1] the teachers' plight resulting from the alleged failure of the public authorities to act upon grievances that had time and again been brought to the latter's attention.

The petition in G.R. No. 95590 alleges in great detail the character and origins of those grievances as perceived by the petitioners, and the attempts to negotiate their correction;^[2] these are more briefly, but quite adequately and with no sacrifice of relevant content, set forth in the petition in G.R. No. 95445, portions of which are quoted hereunder without necessarily affirming their objective truth or correctness:

"3. Together with other teachers embracing the Teachers and Employees Consultative Council (TECC) and the Alliance of Concerned Teachers, the petitioners, in accordance with their Constitution and By-Laws, resolved to engage in mass concerted actions, after peaceful dialogues with the heads of the Department of the Budget and Management, Senate and House of Representatives in public hearings as well as after exhausting all administrative remedies, to press for, among other things, the immediate payment of due chalk, clothing allowances, 13th month pay for 1989 arising from the implementation of the Salary of Standardization Law, the recall of DECS Order 39 s. 1990 directing the oversizing of classes and overloading of teachers pursuant to the cost-cutting measures of the government, the hiring of 47,000 new teachers to ease the overload of existing teachers, the return of the additional 1% real property taxes collected by local government units to education purposes to be administered by the Local School Boards, and consequent recall of DBM Circulars Nos. 90-4 and 9011 and local budget circular No. 47 consistent with RA 5447 and the new Constitution mandating that education shall enjoy the highest budgetary priority in the national budget, and other equally important demands; The dialogues and conferences initiated by the petitioners and other teacher organizations were as early as March 14, 1989, March 14, 1990, April 23, 1990, May 28, 1990, June 5, 1990, September 3, 1990 and September 14, 1990 with the Civil Service Commission, the Senate and House of Representatives, Department of Budget and Management and the Department of Education, Culture and Sports, but all these did not result in the granting of the demands of the petitioners, leaving them with no other recourse but to take direct mass action such as the one they engage in three weeks ago.

4.  On September 14, 1990, the petitioners and other teachers in other cities and municipalities in Metro Manila, staged a protest rally at the DECS premises without disrupting classes as a last call for the government to negotiate the granting of demands.  No response was made by the respondent Secretary of Education, despite the demonstration so the petitioners began the ongoing protest mass actions on September 17, 1990.  ***"^[3]

September 17, 1990 fell on a Monday, which was also a regular school day.  There is no question that the some 800 teachers who joined the mass action did not conduct their classes on that day; instead, as alleged in the petition in G.R. No. 95590,^[4] they converged at the Liwasang Bonifacio in the morning whence they proceeded to the National Office of the Department of Education, Culture and Sports (DECS) for a whole-day assembly.  At about 1:00 o'clock p.m., three representatives of the group were allowed to see the respondent Secretary of Education who "*** brushed aside their grievances," warned them that they would lose their jobs for going on illegal and unauthorized mass leave.  Upon leaving said respondent's presence, they were handed an order directing all participants in the mass action to return to work in 24 hours or face dismissal, and a memorandum directing the DECS officials concerned to initiate dismissal proceedings against those who did not comply and to hire their replacements.^[5] Those directives notwithstanding, the mass actions continued into the week, with more teachers joining in the days that followed.  In its issue of September 19, 1990, the newspaper Manila Standard reported that the day previous, the respondent Secretary of Education had relieved 292 teachers who did not return to their classes.  The next day, however, another daily, Newsday, reported that the Secretary had revoked his dismissal order and instead placed 56 of the 292 teachers under preventive suspension, despite which the protesters' numbers had swelled to 4,000.^[6]

On the record, what did happen was that, based on reports submitted by the principals of the various public schools in Metro-Manila, the respondent Secretary of Education had filed motu proprio administrative complaints against the teachers who had taken part in the mass actions and defied the return-to-work order on assorted charges like grave misconduct, gross neglect of duty, gross violation of the Civil Service Law, absence without official leave, etc., and placed them under 90-day preventive suspension.  The respondents were served copies of the charge sheets and given five (5) days to submit answer or explanation.  Later, on October 8, 1990, the respondent Secretary constituted an investigating committee of four (4) to determine and take the appropriate course of action on the formal charges and designated the special prosecutors on detail with the DECS to handle their prosecution during the formal hearings.^[7]

On October 11, 1990, the respondent Secretary of Education rendered the first of his now-questioned decisions on the administrative complaints.  In Case No. DECS 90-002, he found twenty (20) respondent teachers guilty of the charges preferred against them and dismissed them from office, effective immediately.^[8] In the other investigations that followed and as of December 3, 1990, 658 teachers were dismissed, 40 were suspended for one (1) year, 33 for nine (9) months, and 122 for six (6) months; 398 were exonerated.^[9]

Earlier, on September 19, 1990, the petitioners in G.R. No. 95445 had filed with the Regional Trial Court of Manila, Branch 18, a petition^[10] for prohibition, declaratory relief and preliminary mandatory injunction to restrain the implementation of the return-to-work order of September 17, 1990 and the suspension or dismissal of any teacher pursuant thereto and to declare said order null and void.  Issuance ex parte of a temporary restraining order was sought, but seeing no compelling reason therefor, the Regional Trial Court instead set the application for preliminary injunction for hearing, and heard the same, on September 24, 1990.  Thereafter and following the submission of memorandums by the parties, said Court rendered judgment declaring the assailed return-to-work order valid and binding, and dismissing the petition for lack of merit.^[11]

Review of said judgment is sought in G.R. No. 95445.

G.R. No. 95590 is a parallel original proceeding for prohibition, mandamus and certiorari grounded on the same state of facts and instituted for substantially the same purpose, i.e., the invalidation of the return-to-work order of the respondent Secretary of Education and all orders of suspension and/or dismissal thereafter issued by said respondent against the teachers who had taken part in the mass actions of September 17, 1990 and the days that followed.

Both cases were ordered consolidated by Resolution issued on October 25, 1990,^[12] and separate comments were filed by the Solicitor General on behalf of the public respondents, in G.R. No. 95445 on October 31, 1990, and in G.R. No. 95590 on December 5, 1990.^[13] On November 20, 1990 the parties were heard in oral argument on the petitioners' united pleas for a temporary restraining order/mandatory injunction to restore the status quo ante and enjoin the public respondents from continuing with the issuance of suspension orders and proceeding with the administrative cases against the teachers involved in the mass actions.

Said pleas were denied by the Court in its Resolution of December 18, 1990,^[14] and a motion for reconsideration filed by the petitioners in G.R. No. 95590 was likewise denied.

In two separate but identically-worded motions filed on their behalf by Atty. Froilan M. Bacungan,^[15] the following persons, to wit:  Florita D. Guazon, Elisea G. Lazo, Gonzala G. Sioson, Esperanza Valero, Nenita Pangilinan, Ramon David, Aurora Bosi, Encarnita David, Socorro Sentin, Crispulo Santos, Rodriguez Bagana, Rodolfo D. Bacsal, Ruben Bersamina, Rodolfo Arroyo, Irene Gadil, Rebecca Roldan, Rosita Samson, Priscilla Avendia, Arturo Cabuhat, Rosalinda Caoili, Angelina Corpuz, Purisima Leria, Elsie Somera, Dedaica Jusay, Teresita partoza, Gloria Salvador, Catherine San Agustin, Nestor Aguirre, Lorenza Real, Celia Ronquillo, Vicente Carranza, Jessie Villanueva, Yolanda Alura, Clara Alvarez, Danilo Llamas, Ladera Panita, Myrna Sena, Zenaida Ligon, Daisy S. Conti, Danilo Caballes, Susan Maragat, Roberto Manlangit and Elizabeth T. Aguirre, seek leave to withdraw as parties in G.R. No. 95590.  These movants claim that they are such parties although not individually so named in the petition in said case, being among those referred to in its title as "other similarly situated public school teachers too numerous to be impleaded," who had been administratively charged, then preventively suspended and/or dismissed in the wake of the mass actions of September 1990.  They assert that since this Court is not trier of facts, they have opted to appeal the questioned decisions or actuations of the respondent Secretary of Education to the Civil Service Commission where they believe they will have "* * all the opportunity to introduce evidence on how (Secretary) Carino violated their constitutional rights to due process of law * * security of tenure and * * peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances * *."

An opposition to the first motion was filed^[16] which, briefly, contended that, as this Court had already found that the petitioners had gone on an unlawful strike and that public respondent Carino's acts were prima facie lawful, the motion was either an attempt at forum-shopping or meant to avoid the "inevitable outcome" of issues already pending final determination by the Court.

The Court's Resolution of December 18, 1990, supra, denying the petitioners' plea for restoration of the status quo ante and to restrain/enjoin further suspensions of, and the initiation or continuation of, administrative proceedings against the teachers involved, is based on the following postulates:

(1)  the undenied -- indeed, the pleaded and admitted -- fact that about 800 teachers, among them the individual petitioners and other unnamed but "similarly situated" members of the petitioning associations in both cases, unauthorizedly absented themselves from their classes on a regular schoolday, September 17, 1990, in order to participate in a "mass action" to dramatize their grievances concerning, in the main, the alleged failure of the public authorities, either to implement at all or to implement in a just and correct manner, certain laws and measures intended to benefit them materially;

(2)   the fact, too, that in the days that followed, more mass actions for the same purpose were undertaken, notwithstanding a return-to-work order issued by the respondent Secretary of Education; more teachers joined the so-called "peaceful assemblies" on September 18, 1990 and the number rising to 4,000 on September 19, 1990;^[17]

(3)   that from the pleaded and admitted facts, these "mass actions" were to all intents and purposes a strike; they constituted a concerted and unauthorized stoppage of, or absence from, work which it was the teachers' duty to perform, undertaken for essentially economic reasons;

(4)   that this Court had already definitively ruled that employees in the public (civil) service, unlike those in the private sector, do not have the right to strike, although guaranteed the right to self-organization, to petition Congress for the betterment of employment terms and conditions and to negotiate with appropriate government agencies for the improvement of such working conditions as are not fixed by law;^[18]

(5)   that upon the foregoing premises, it was prima facie lawful and within his statutory authority for the respondent Secretary of Education to take the actions complained of, to wit:  issue a return-to-work order, prefer administrative charges against, and place under preventive suspension, those who failed to comply with said order, and dismiss from the service those who failed to answer or controvert the charges;^[19]

The Court has not since been presented with any consideration of law or established fact that would impair the validity of these postulates or preclude continued reliance thereon for the purpose of resolving the present petitions on their merits.

The underlying issue here is due process; not whether the petitioners have a right to strike, which it is clear they do not, however justifiable their reasons, nor whether or not there was in fact such a strike, it being equally evident from the pleadings that there was, and there being no dispute about this.  What, therefore, is brought before the Court is the question of whether or not any rights of the petitioners under the due process clause of the Constitution as it applies to administrative proceedings were violated in the initiation, conduct, or disposition of the investigations complained of.

Indeed, what the petitioners in G.R. No. 95590 proclaim about denial of due process being their "paramount complaint" * * * "central to their prayer for interlocutory relief"^[20] could as well be said of the merits of their main cause as of their plea for a restraining order pendente lite or a preliminary injunction.

There are, however, insuperable obstacles to the Court's taking up that issue and resolving it in these cases.  Said issue is not ripe for adjudication by this Court in the exercise of its review jurisdiction; and this, for the obvious reason that it is one of fact.  The petitions and subsequent pleadings of the petitioners allege facts and circumstances which, it is claimed, show denial of due process, citing as supposedly "representative samples"^[21] among others:  (a) that teachers were dismissed on the sole basis of unsworn reports of their principals and without evidence of their alleged failure to obey the return-to-work order; (b) that the charge sheets failed to specify the particular charges or offenses allegedly committed; (c) that some teachers were not furnished sworn complaints, and others were suspended without any formal charges; (d) that teachers who attempted to return within a reasonable time after notice of the return-to-work order were not accepted back; and similar allegations.

These are however denied and disputed by the public respondents, who set forth their own version, initially in their separate Comments in both cases and, later and in greater detail, in their Consolidated Memorandum of December 3, 1990, supra, from which the following passages are quoted:

"Petitioners in G.R. No. 95545 and G.R. No. 95590 admit engaging in strike (referred by semantic interplay as "concerted activity" or "mass action") directed against public respondent Carino beginning September 17, 1990 (MPSTA Petition, pp. 3, 9; ACT Petition, pp. 15-16).

To avoid the disruption of classes, public respondent Carino, also on September 17, 1990, issued a 'return to work order' reminding striking workers that in law, they cannot engage in strike and warning them that dismissal proceedings will be instituted against them if they do not return to work within 24 hours from their walkout (MPSTA Petition, p. 4; ACT Petition, p. 15) and a memorandum to DECS officials instructing them to notify the striking teachers to return to work within 24 hours from their walkout and to initiate dismissal proceedings against those who defy the return to work order as well as to hire temporary replacements (MPSTA Petition, p. 4; ACT Petition, pp. 15-16).

The striking teachers who did not heed the return-to-work order were administratively charged and preventively suspended for ninety days for grave misconduct, gross neglect of duty, insubordination, refusal to perform official duty, absence without leave beginning September 17, 1990 and other violations of Civil Service Law, rules and regulations.  All the striking teachers were served with the suspension orders and the charge sheets notifying them of the charges and giving them five (5) days from receipt of the charge sheets within which to file their respective answers.

With  the filing of the administrative complaints and the receipt of the answers of some of the teachers involved, public respondent Carino on October 8, 1990 issued a Memorandum forming an Investigation Committee composed of Atty. Reno Capinpin of DECS Administrative Services as Chairman; Dr. Alberto Mendoza, representing the Division Supervisors, Atty. Evangeline de Castro, representing the City Superintendent of Schools of Manila, and Atty. Isaias Melegrito, representing the National PPSTA Organization, as members.  Copy of the aforesaid Memorandum is hereto attached as Annex "1".

The committee was authorized to meet everyday, even as Special Prosecutors from the Department of Justice on detail with the DECS were designated to handle the prosecution during the formal hearings (Ibid.).

Petitioners in 'G.R. No. 95545' and 'G.R. No. 95590' admit having received the charge sheets and notices of preventive suspension wherein they were given five days from receipt of the charges within which to file their answers (MPSTA Petition, p. 4; ACT Petition, p. 16, Annexes 'X' to 'AA').

* * *.

* * * Many striking teachers received their preventive suspension orders and the charge sheets from their respective principals when they visited their schools.  Many refused to receive and sign receipt therefore; others tore up the preventive suspension orders and charge sheets in front of their principals.  Instead, they took the occasion to belittle and insult the substitute teachers who took over their classrooms temporarily.

The striking teachers were given a period of five days to file their Answers in line with Sec. 8, Rule III of Rules on Administrative Disciplinary Cases in CSC Memorandum Circular No. 46, S. 1989.  The motion for extension of time to file Answer was denied by DECS Task Force because it was dilatory -- the alleged reason being that Atty. Fabros is handling 2,000 cases of teachers.  The DECS was constrained by Sec. 38(d) of P.D. 807 and Sec. 8 of the Memorandum Circular mentioned which mandate that administrative cases must be the decided within 30 days from the filing of the charges.  Another reason was that many refused to receive the notice of charges.  Also, to delay the resolution of the cases was to their disadvantage.

Moreover, another reason proferred was that the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Manila still had to act on the petition before it.  However, the Motion was filed AFTER the RTC Manila had already dismissed the Petition.

Nevertheless, answers to the administrative complaints started pouring in at the DECS, as prepared personally by the striking teachers or by their lawyers.

After initial assessments of the reports coming in from the principals of the schools concerned and the answers of the striking teachers, the DECS Special Task Force prepared on October 9, 1990 and submitted to respondent Secretary Carino the Guidelines and Criteria as to the nature of the evidence to be assessed and the corresponding penalty to be imposed against the striking teachers, which was approved by respondent Secretary Carino on the same day.  A copy of the aforesaid Guidelines and Criteria is hereto attached as Annex '2'.  Thereafter, the DECS Special Task Force proceeded with its task of investigating the cases against the striking teachers.

Those who refused to sign the DECS return-to-work order, the preventive suspension orders and the charge sheets, some even tearing up the documents presented to them by their principals were considered by the DECS Special Task Force as having waived their right to be heard; their cases had to be resolved on the basis of the records.  Nevertheless, the DECS Special Task Force summoned the principals concerned, who then testified under oath confirming their reports on the absences of the striking teachers.  Some clarificatory questions were asked of them on the manner of the service of the DECS orders and the situation obtaining in their schools.

For those who answered the charge sheets, the DECS Special Task Force set the administrative cases for hearing.  Many of the striking teachers refused to appear at the hearings but preferred to submit their case on the basis of their answers.

With regard to those who attended the hearings, each of the absent or striking teachers was investigated and asked questions under oath on their answers and the reasons for their absences and/or joining the teachers' strike.  Some teachers reiterated their answers to the charge sheets, either giving justifiable reasons for their absences on the days mentioned or maintaining their stubborn stand that they have all the right to absent themselves from classes in the exercise of their constitutional right to join mass action to demand from the government what are supposedly due them.  Still the DECS Special Task Force was not satisfied with their written answers and explanation during the hearings.  The principals of the striking teachers were summoned and they confirmed under oath their reports of absences and/or on teachers joining the strike.

After having conducted fully their investigations, the DECS Special Task Force submitted in series their investigation reports and recommendation for each category of striking teachers to respondent Secretary Carino.  The investigation reports, together with their supporting documents, submitted by the DECS Special Task Force indicated clearly the manner and conduct of the administrative hearings, the nature and weight of the evidence adduced, and the corresponding penalty or exoneration recommended.

On the bases of the investigation reports and recommendations of the DECS Special Task Force, and after evaluating the reports and its documents attached, respondent Secretary Carino promulgated the decisions either for exoneration, suspension or dismissal.  Copies of the DECS decisions of exoneration, suspension or dismissal were forwarded to the principals of the striking teachers concerned.  Those exonerated were allowed to resume their duties and received their back salaries.  Some of the teachers either suspended or dismissed have already received the copies of the decisions, either personally or through mail.

* * *"^[22]

This copious citation is made, not to suggest that the Court finds what is stated therein to be true and the contrary averments of the petitions to be false, but precisely to stress that the facts upon which the question of alleged denial of due process would turn are still in issue, actively controverted, hence not yet established.

It is not for the Court, which is not a trier of facts, as the petitioners who would now withdraw correctly put it, to make the crucial determination of what in truth transpired concerning the disputed incidents.  Even if that were within its competence, it would be at best a monumental task.  At any rate, the petitioners cannot -- as it seems they have done -- lump together into what amounts to a class action hundreds of individual cases, each with its own peculiar set of facts, and expect a ruling that would justly and correctly resolve each and everyone of those cases upon little more than general allegations, frontally disputed as already pointed out, of incidents supposedly "representative" of each case or group of cases.

This case illustrates the error of precipitate recourse to the Supreme Court, especially when numerous parties disparately situated as far as the facts are concerned gather under the umbrella of a common plea, and generalization of what should be alleged with particularity becomes unavoidable.  The petitioners' obvious remedy was NOT to halt the administrative proceedings but, on the contrary, to take part, assert and vindicate their rights therein, see those proceedings through to judgment and if adjudged guilty, appeal to the Civil Service Commission; or if, pending said proceedings, immediate recourse to judicial authority was believed necessary because the respondent Secretary or those acting under him or on his instructions were acting without or in excess of jurisdiction, or with grave abuse of discretion, to apply, not directly to the Supreme Court, but to the Regional Trial Court, where there would be an opportunity to prove the relevant facts warranting corrective relief.

Parties-litigant are duty bound to observe the proper order of recourse through the judicial hierarchy; they by-pass the rungs of the judicial ladder at the peril of their own causes.^[23] This Court is a court of last resort.  Its review jurisdiction is limited to resolving questions of law where there is no dispute of the facts or the facts have already been determined by lower tribunals, except only in criminal actions where capital penalties have been imposed.

WHEREFORE, both petitions are DISMISSED, without prejudice to any appeals, if still timely, that the individual petitioners may take to the Civil Service Commission on the matters complained of.  The motions to withdraw, supra, are merely NOTED, this disposition rendering any express ruling thereon unnecessary.  No pronouncement as to costs.

SO ORDERED.

Fernan, C.J., Melencio-Herrera, Paras, Gancayco, Bidin, Grino-Aquino, Medialdea, Regalado, and Davide, Jr., JJ., concur.
Gutierrez, Jr., Cruz, Feliciano, Padilla, and Sarmiento, JJ., see dissenting opinion.

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^[1] as the petition in G.R. No. 95590 puts it

^[2] Rollo, G.R. No. 95590, pp. 9-19

^[3] Rollo, G.R. No. 95445, pp. 3-4

^[4] Rollo, pp. 16-17

^[5] Annexes L and L-1, petition, G.R. No. 95590; Rollo, p. 53

^[6] Annexes M and N, petition, G.R. No. 95590; Rollo, pp. 54-55

^[7] Annexes X, Y, Z and AA, Petition; respondents' Consolidated Memorandum of December 3, 1990, pp. 3-4, and Annex 1 thereof; both in G.R. No. 95590; Rollo, pp. 71-81, 326-327, 358; see also respondents' Comment dated November 27, 1990, Rollo, pp. 104, 106-107)

^[8] Annex U, Petition, G.R. No. 95590; Rollo, pp. 67-68

^[9] Public respondents' Consolidated Memorandum; Rollo, G.R. No. 95590, pp. 324, 350

^[10] docketed as Civil Case No. 90-54468

^[11] Annex A, Petition, G.R. No. 95445; Rollo, pp. 15-18

^[12] Rollo, G.R. No. 95590, pp. 55-56

^[13] Rollo, G.R. No. 95445, pp. 73-103; Rollo, G.R. No. 95590, pp. 104-135

^[14] Rollo, G.R. No. 95590, pp. 466-482

^[15] on February 22, 1991 and April 4, 1991; Rollo, G.R. No. 95590, pp. 526-528; 534-537

^[16] on April 4, 1991, for the public respondents by the Solicitor General; no opposition was filed to the subsequent motion; it would, at any rate, have been merely redundant, both motions being identical in terms, as already stated.

^[17] pars. 3.20 and 3.21, Petition in G.R. No. 95590; Rollo, p. 17

^[18] Social Security System Employees Association (SSSEA) vs. Court of Appeals, 175 SCRA 686, citing Alliance of Government Workers vs. Minister of Labor and Employment, 124 SCRA 1

^[19] Chapters 2, 7 and 8 of Book IV, Administrative Code [E.O. 292, as amended by RA 6733; sec. 37[b], P.D. 807; sec. 28[c], RA 2260, the Civil Service Act of 1959 in relation to sec. 36 of P.D. 807; Memorandum Circular No. 30, s. 1989, of the Civil Service Commission

^[20] Motion for Reconsideration of January 4, 1991; Rollo, pp. 485,486

^[21] Motion for Reconsideration, supra; Rollo, G.R. No. 95590, pp. 491 et seq.

^[22] Rollo, G.R. No. 95590, pp. 325-327, 331-335

^[23] Enrile vs. Salazar, 186 SCRA 217, 231-232

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