G.R. No.

L-55300
March 15, 1990
FRANKLIN G. GACAL and CORAZON M. GACAL, the latter assisted by her husband, FRANKLIN G.
GACAL, petitioners, vs.
PHILIPPINE AIR LINES, INC., and THE HONORABLE PEDRO SAMSON C. ANIMAS, in his capacity as
PRESIDING JUDGE of the COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE OF SOUTH COTABATO, BRANCH I,
respondents.
Facts:

Plaintiffs Franklin G. Gacal and his wife, Corazon M. Gacal, Bonifacio S. Anislag and his
wife, Mansueta L. Anislag, and the late Elma de Guzman, were then passengers boarding
defendant's BAC 1-11 at Davao Airport for a flight to Manila, not knowing that on the
same flight, Macalinog, Taurac Pendatum known as Commander Zapata, Nasser Omar,
Liling Pusuan Radia, Dimantong Dimarosing and Mike Randa, all of Marawi City and
members of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), were their co-passengers,
three (3) armed with grenades, two (2) with .45 caliber pistols, and one with a .22
caliber pistol.
Ten (10) minutes after take off at about 2:30 in the afternoon, the hijackers brandishing
their respective firearms announced the hijacking of the aircraft and directed its pilot to
fly to Libya.
The pilot explained, especially to the hijackers leader, Commander Zapata, of the
inherent fuel limitations of the plane and that they are not rated for international
flights. The hijackers directed the pilot to fly to Sabah. With the same explanation, they
relented and directed the aircraft to land at Zamboanga Airport, Zamboanga City for
refueling.
The aircraft landed at 3:00 o'clock in the afternoon of May 21, 1976 at Zamboanga
Airport. When the plane began to taxi at the runway, it was met by two armored cars of
the military with machine guns pointed at the plane, and it stopped there.
The rebels demanded that a DC-aircraft take them to Libya with the President of the
defendant company as hostage and that they be given $375,000 and six (6) armalites,
otherwise they will blow up the plane if their demands will not be met by the
government and Philippine Air Lines.
Meanwhile, the passengers were not served any food nor water and it was only on May
23, a Sunday, at about 1:00 o'clock in the afternoon that they were served 1/4 slice of a
sandwich and 1/10 cup of PAL water.
Thereafter, relatives of the hijackers were allowed to board the plane but immediately
after they alighted therefrom, an armored car bumped the stairs. That commenced the

battle between the military and the hijackers which led ultimately to the liberation of
the surviving crew and the passengers, with the final score of ten (10) passengers and
three (3) hijackers dead on the spot and three (3) hijackers captured.
City Fiscal Franklin G. Gacal was unhurt. Mrs. Corazon M. Gacal suffered injuries in the
course of her jumping out of the plane. Assistant City Fiscal Bonifacio S. Anislag also
escaped unhurt but Mrs. Anislag suffered a fracture at the radial bone of her left elbow
for which she was hospitalized and operated on at the San Pedro Hospital, Davao City,
and therefore, at Davao Regional Hospital, Davao City, spending P4,500.00. Elma de
Guzman died because of that battle.
The Gacal spouses are seeking actual damages in the amount of P245.60 for hospital
and medical expenses of Mrs. Gacal; P8,995.00 for their personal belongings which were
lost and not recovered; P50,000.00 each for moral damages; and P5,000.00 for
attorney's fees, apart from the prayer for an award of exemplary damages.

Trial court: (August 26, 1980) All the damages sustained in the premises were attributed to
force majeure, hence complaints were dismissed.
September 12, 1980: Spouses Gacal filed a notice of appeal with the lower court on pure
questions of law.
October 20, 1980: Petition for review on certiorari was filed with the SC.
Petitioners: The main cause of the unfortunate incident is the gross, wanton and inexcusable
negligence of PAL personnel in their failure to frisk the passengers adequately in order to
discover hidden weapons in the bodies of the six (6) hijackers. They claimed that despite the
prevalence of skyjacking, PAL did not use a metal detector which is the most effective means of
discovering potential skyjackers among the passengers.
Respondent Airline: It averred that in the performance of its obligation to safely transport
passengers as far as human care and foresight can provide, it has exercised the utmost
diligence of a very cautious person with due regard to all circumstances, but the security checks
and measures and surveillance precautions in all flights, including the inspection of baggages
and cargo and frisking of passengers at the Davao Airport were performed and rendered solely
by military personnel who under appropriate authority had assumed exclusive jurisdiction over
the same in all airports in the Philippines. It further averred that the negotiations with the
hijackers were a purely government matter and a military operation, handled by and subject to
the absolute and exclusive jurisdiction of the military authorities. The accident that befell RPC1161 was caused by fortuitous event, force majeure and other causes beyond the control of
the respondent Airline.

Issue: Whether or not hijacking or air piracy during martial law and under the circumstances
obtaining herein, is a caso fortuito or force majeure which would exempt an aircraft from
payment of damages to its passengers whose lives were put in jeopardy and whose personal
belongings were lost during the incident.
Ruling: The Court held force there was force majeure in the instant case.
Caso fortuito or force majeure, by definition, are extraordinary events not foreseeable
or avoidable, events that could not be foreseen, or which, though foreseen, are inevitable. It is,
therefore, not enough that the event should not have been foreseen or anticipated, as is
commonly believed, but it must be one impossible to foresee or to avoid. The mere difficulty to
foresee the happening is not impossibility to foresee the same (Republic v. Luzon Stevedoring
Corporation, 21 SCRA 279 [1967]).
In order to constitute a caso fortuito or force majeure that would exempt a person from
liability under Article 1174 of the Civil Code, it is necessary that the following elements must
concur: (a) the cause of the breach of the obligation must be independent of the human will
(the will of the debtor or the obligor); (b) the event must be either unforeseeable or
unavoidable; (c) the event must be such as to render it impossible for the debtor to fulfill his
obligation in a normal manner; and (d) the debtor must be free from any participation in, or
aggravation of the injury to the creditor.
Under normal circumstances, PAL might have foreseen the skyjacking incident which
could have been avoided had there been a more thorough frisking of passengers and inspection
of baggages as authorized by R.A. No. 6235. But the incident in question occurred during
Martial Law where there was a military take-over of airport security including the frisking of
passengers and the inspection of their luggage preparatory to boarding domestic and
international flights. Military take-over was specifically announced on October 20, 1973 and
later confirmed shortly before the hijacking incident of May 21, 1976 by Letter of Instruction
No. 399 issued on April 28, 1976.
Otherwise stated, these events rendered it impossible for PAL to perform its obligations
in a nominal manner and obviously it cannot be faulted with negligence in the performance of
duty taken over by the Armed Forces of the Philippines to the exclusion of the former.
The fourth element has also been satisfied. Consequently the existence of force majeure
has been established exempting respondent PAL from the payment of damages to its
passengers who suffered death or injuries in their persons and for loss of their baggages.
Petition was dismissed for lack of merit.

G.R. No. L-10605

June 30, 1958
PRECILLANO NECESITO, ETC. vs. NATIVIDAD PARAS, ET AL.
Facts:

January 28, 1964, Severina Garces and her one-year old son, Precillano Necesito,
carrying vegetables, boarded passenger auto truck or bus No. 199 of the Philippine
Rabbit Bus Lines at Agno, Pangasinan.
The passenger truck, driven by Francisco Bandonell, then proceeded on its regular run
from Agno to Manila.
After passing Mangatarem, Pangasinan truck No. 199 entered a wooden bridge, but the
front wheels swerved to the right; the driver lost control, and after wrecking the
bridge's wooden rails, the truck fell on its right side into a creek where water was breast
deep.
The mother, Severina Garces, was drowned; the son, Precillano Necesito, was injured,
suffering abrasions and fracture of the left femur. He was brought to the Provincial
Hospital at Dagupan, where the fracture was set but with fragments one centimeter out
of line. The money, wrist watch and cargo of vegetables were lost.
Two actions for damages and attorney's fees totalling over P85,000 were filed in the
Court of First Instance of Tarlac against the carrier. The carrier pleaded that the
accident was due to "engine or mechanical trouble" independent or beyond the
control of the defendants or of the driver Bandonell.
Trial Court: The accident was exclusively due to fortuitous event, hence both actions were
dismissed. It found that found that the bus was proceeding slowly due to the bad condition of
the road; that the accident was caused by the fracture of the right steering knuckle, which was
defective in that its center or core was not compact but "bubbled and cellulous", a condition
that could not be known or ascertained by the carrier despite the fact that regular thirty-day
inspections were made. It also found that the knuckle of bus No. 199 (which is said to have
been designed and manufactured for heavy duty and may last up to ten years) that broke on
January 28, 1954, was last inspected on January 5, 1954, and was due to be inspected again on
February 5th.
Issue/s: Whether or not the carrier is liable for the manufacturing defect of the steering knuckle,

and whether the evidence discloses that in regard thereto the carrier exercised the diligence
required by law.

Ruling: The Supreme Court held in the affirmative, stating that in the American law, where the

carrier is held to the same degree of diligence as under the new Civil Code, the rule on the
liability of carriers for defects of equipment is thus expressed: "The preponderance of authority
is in favor of the doctrine that a passenger is entitled to recover damages from a carrier for an
injury resulting from a defect in an appliance purchased from a manufacturer, whenever it
appears that the defect would have been discovered by the carrier if it had exercised the degree
of care which under the circumstances was incumbent upon it, with regard to inspection and
application of the necessary tests. For the purposes of this doctrine, the manufacturer is
considered as being in law the agent or servant of the carrier, as far as regards the work of
constructing the appliance. According to this theory, the good repute of the manufacturer will
not relieve the carrier from liability" (10 Am. Jur. 205, s, 1324; see also Pennsylvania R. Co. vs.
Roy, 102 U. S. 451; 20 L. Ed. 141; Southern R. Co. vs. Hussey, 74 ALR 1172; 42 Fed. 2d 70; and Ed
Note, 29 ALR 788; Ann. Cas. 1916E 929).
The rationale of the carrier's liability is the fact that the passenger has neither choice
nor control over the carrier in the selection and use of the equipment and appliances in use
by the carrier. It is but logical, therefore, that the carrier, while not in insurer of the safety of
his passengers, should nevertheless be held to answer for the flaws of his equipment if such
flaws were at all discoverable.
In the case at bar, the record is to the effect that the only test applied to the steering
knuckle in question was a purely visual inspection every thirty days, to see if any cracks
developed. It nowhere appears that either the manufacturer or the carrier at any time tested
the steering knuckle to ascertain whether its strength was up to standard, or that it had no
hidden flaws would impair that strength. And yet the carrier must have been aware of the
critical importance of the knuckle's resistance. It has not been shown that the weakening of the
knuckle was impossible to detect by any known test; on the contrary, there is testimony that it
could be detected. The Court believes that the periodical visual inspection of the steering
knuckle as practiced by the carrier's agents did not measure up to the required legal standard
of "utmost diligence of very cautious persons" "as far as human care and foresight can
provide", and therefore that the knuckle's failure can not be considered a fortuitous event
that exempts the carrier from responsibility (Lasam vs. Smith, 45 Phil. 657; Son vs. Cebu
Autobus Co., 94 Phil., 892.)
It may be impracticable, as appellee argues, to require of carriers to test the strength of
each and every part of its vehicles before each trip but the Court believes that a due regard for
the carrier's obligations toward the traveling public demands adequate periodical tests to
determine the condition and strength of those vehicle portions the failure of which may
endanger the safe of the passengers.