FABELA vs SAN MIGUEL CORPORATION Case Digest

[G.R. No. 150658 February 9, 2007] NOELITO FABELA, MARCELO DELA CRUZ III, ROGELIO LASAT, HENRY MALIWANAG, MANUEL DELOS SANTOS, and ROMMEL QUINES, Petitioners, vs. SAN MIGUEL CORPORATION and ARMAN HICARTE, Respondents. FACTS: Petitioners were hired by respondent San Miguel Corporation (SMC) as Relief Salesmen for the Greater Manila Area (GMA) under separate but almost similarly worded Contracts of Employment with Fixed Period. After having entered into successive contracts of the same nature with SMC, the services of petitioners were terminated after SMC no longer agreed to forge another contract with them. Respondent SMC claimed that the hiring of petitioners was not intended to be permanent, as the same was merely occasioned by the need to fill in a vacuum arising from SMCs gradual transition to a new system of selling and delivering its products. Respondents explained that SMC previously operated under the Route System, but began implementing in 1993 the Pre-Selling System in which the salesmen under the earlier system would be replaced by Accounts Specialists which called for upgraded qualifications. While some of the qualified regular salesmen were readily upgraded to the position of Accounts Specialist, respondents claimed that SMC still had to sell its beer products using the conventional routing system during the transition stage, thus giving rise to the need for temporary employees; and the members of the regular Route Crew then existing were required to undergo a training program to determine whether they possessed or could be trained for the necessary attitude and aptitude required of an Accounts Specialist, hence, the hiring of petitioners and others for a fixed period, coterminus with the completion of the transition period and Training Program for all prospective Accounts Specialists. Claiming that they were illegally dismissed, petitioners filed complaints for illegal dismissal against respondents. ISSUE: Whether or not petitioners were validly hired for a fixed period. HELD: The SC held that under article 280 of the Labor Code, there are two kinds of regular employees, namely: (1) those who are engaged to perform activities which are necessary or desirable in the usual business or trade of the employer, and (2) those casual employees who have rendered at least one year of service, whether continuous or broken, with respect to the activity in which they are employed. Article 280 also recognizes project employees, those whose employment has been fixed for a specific project or undertaking. Project employment is distinct from casual employment referred to in the second paragraph of Article 280 for the proviso that any employee who has rendered at least one year of service . . . shall be considered a regular employee does not apply to project employees, but only to casual employees. Although Article 280 does not

expressly recognize employment for a fixed period, which is distinct from employment which has been fixed for a specific project or undertaking, it has been clarified that employment for a fixed period is not in itself illegal. Even if the duties of an employee consist of activities usually necessary or desirable in the usual business of the employer, it does not necessarily follow that the parties are forbidden from agreeing on a period of time for the performance of such activities through a contract of employment for a fixed term. Unfortunately, respondents contention that there are fixed periods stated in the contracts of employment does not lie. Brent instructs that a contract of employment stipulating a fixed-term, even if clear as regards the existence of a period, is invalid if it can be shown that the same was executed with the intention of circumventing security of tenure, and should thus be ignored. Indeed, substantial evidence exists in the present case showing that the subject contracts were utilized to deprive petitioners of their security of tenure.The contract of employment of petitioner Fabela, for instance, states that the transition period from the Route System to the Pre-Selling System would be twelve (12) months from April 4, 1995. It bears noting, however, that petitioner Fabela, besides being hired again for another fixed period of four (4) months after the lapse in April 1996 of the one-year contract, had already been working for respondent SMC on a fixed-term basis as early as 1992, or one year before respondent SMC even began its shift to the Pre-selling System in 1993. Thus, there is sufficient basis to believe that the shift of SMC to the Pre-Selling System was not the real basis for the forging of fixed-term contracts of employment with petitioners and that the periods were fixed only as a means to preclude petitioners from acquiring security of tenure. A fixed-term employment is valid only under certain circumstances, such as when the employee himself insists upon the period, or where the nature of the engagement is such that, without being seasonal or for a specific project, a definite date of termination is a sine qua non. Petition is granted.

G.R. No. 70705 August 21, 1989 MOISES DE LEON, petitioner, vs. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION and LA TONDEA INC., respondents.

Facts: Petitioner was employed by private respondent La Tonde;a Inc. on December 11, 1981, at the Maintenance Section of its Engineering Department in Tondo, Manila. His work consisted mainly of painting company building and equipment, and other odd jobs relating to maintenance. He was paid on a daily basis through petty cash vouchers. In the early part of January, 1983, after a service of more than one (1) year, petitioner requested from respondent company that he be included in the payroll of regular workers, instead of being paid through petty cash vouchers. Private respondent's response to this request was to dismiss petitioner from his employment on January 16, 1983. Having been refused reinstatement despite repeated demands, petitioner filed a complaint for illegal dismissal, reinstatement and payment of backwages before the Office of the Labor Arbiter of the then Ministry now Department of Labor and Employment. Petitioner alleged that he was dismissed following his request to be treated as a regular employee; that his work consisted of painting company buildings and maintenance chores like cleaning and operating company equipment, assisting Emiliano Tanque Jr., a regular maintenance man; and that weeks after his dismissal, he was re-hired by the respondent company indirectly through the Vitas-Magsaysay Village Livelihood Council, a labor agency of respondent company, and was made to perform the tasks which he used to do. Emiliano Tanque Jr. corroborated these averments of petitioner in his affidavit. On the other hand, private respondent claimed that petitioner was not a regular employee but only a casual worker hired allegedly only to paint a certain building in the company premises, and that his work as a painter terminated upon the completion of the painting job.

Issue: Whether or not a casual employee who perform odd jobs from time to time as assigned aside from the performing his original task in for being employed for more one year can be considered as regular employee?

Held:

The Court held, the law on the matter is Article 281 of the Labor Code which defines regular and casual employment as follows:

Art. 281. Regular and casual employment. The provisions of a written agreement to the contrary notwithstanding and regardless of the oral agreements of the parties, an employment shall be deemed to be regular where the employee has been engaged to perform activities which are usually necessary or desirable in the usual business or trade of the employer, except where the employment has been fixed for a specific project or undertaking the completion or termination of which has been determined at the time of the engagement of the employee or where the work or services to be performed is seasonal in nature and the employment is for the duration of the season.

An employment shall be deemed to be casual if it is not covered by the preceding paragraph: Provided, That any employee who has rendered at least one year of service, whether such service is continuous or broken, shall be considered a regular employee with respect to the activity in which he is employed and his employment shall continue while such actually exists.

This provision reinforces the Constitutional mandate to protect the interest of labor. Its language evidently manifests the intent to safeguard the tenurial interest of the worker who may be denied the rights and benefits due a regular employee by virtue of lopsided agreements with the economically powerful employer who can maneuver to keep an employee on a casual status for as long as convenient. Thus, contrary agreements notwithstanding, an employment is deemed regular when the activities performed by the employee are usually necessary or desirable in the usual business or trade of the employer. Not considered regular are the so-called "project employment" the completion or termination of which is more or less determinable at the time of employment, such as those employed in connection with a particular construction project and seasonal employment which by its nature is only desirable for a limited period of time. However, any employee who has rendered at least one year of service, whether continuous or intermittent, is deemed regular with respect to the activity he performed and while such activity actually exists.

The primary standard, therefore, of determining a regular employment is the reasonable connection between the particular activity performed by the employee in relation to the usual business or trade of the employer. The test is whether the former is usually necessary or desirable in the usual business or trade of the employer. The connection can be determined by considering the nature of the work performed and its relation to the scheme of the particular business or trade in its entirety. Also, if the employee has been performing the job for at least one year, even if the performance is not continuous or merely intermittent, the law deems the repeated and continuing need for its performance as

sufficient evidence of the necessity if not indispensability of that activity to the business. Hence, the employment is also considered regular, but only with respect to such activity and while such activity exists.

In the case at bar, the respondent company, which is engaged in the business of manufacture and distillery of wines and liquors, claims that petitioner was contracted on a casual basis specifically to paint a certain company building and that its completion rendered petitioner's employment terminated. This may have been true at the beginning, and had it been shown that petitioner's activity was exclusively limited to painting that certain building, respondent company's theory of casual employment would have been worthy of consideration.

However, during petitioner's period of employment, the records reveal that the tasks assigned to him included not only painting of company buildings, equipment and tools but also cleaning and oiling machines, even operating a drilling machine, and other odd jobs assigned to him when he had no painting job. A regular employee of respondent company, Emiliano Tanque Jr., attested in his affidavit that petitioner worked with him as a maintenance man when there was no painting job.

Therefore, all things considered, the petitioners status of employment became regular hence private respondent is ordered to reinstate petitioner as a regular maintenance man and to pay petitioner backwages, ECOLA, and 13th Month Pay.

ABS-CBN BROADCASTING CORPORATION vs. MARLYN NAZARENO, MERLOU GERZON, JENNIFER DEIPARINE, and JOSEPHINE LERASAN (G.R. No. 164156, September 26, 2006)

Facts: Petitioner ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation (ABS-CBN) is engaged in the broadcasting business and owns a network of television and radio stations, whose operations revolve around the broadcast, transmission, and relay of telecommunication signals. The respondents Nazareno, Gerzon, Deiparine, and Lerasan as production assistants (PAs) on different dates were employed by the Petitioner, assigned at the news and public affairs, for various radio programs in the Cebu Broadcasting Station, with a monthly compensation of P4,000. They were issued ABS-CBN employees identification cards and were required to work for a minimum of eight hours a day, including Sundays and holidays. They were under the control and supervision of Assistant Station Manager Dante J. Luzon, and News Manager Leo Lastimosa.

On December 19, 1996, petitioner and the ABS-CBN Rank-and-File Employees executed a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) to be effective during the period from December 11, 1996 to December 11, 1999. However, since petitioner refused to recognize PAs as part of the bargaining unit, respondents were not included to the CBA.

On October 12, 2000, respondents filed a Complaint for Recognition of Regular Employment Status, Underpayment of Overtime Pay, Holiday Pay, Premium Pay, Service Incentive Pay, Sick Leave Pay, and 13th Month Pay with Damages against the petitioner before the NLRC. The Labor Arbiter directed the parties to submit their respective position paper however they failed to file their position papers within the reglementary period, Labor Arbiter Jose G. Gutierrez dismissed the complaint without prejudice for lack of interest to pursue the case. Respondents received a copy of the Order on May 16, 2001. Instead of re-filing their complaint with the NLRC within 10 days from May 16, 2001, they filed, on June 11, 2001, an Earnest Motion to Refile Complaint with Motion to Admit Position Paper and Motion to Submit Case for Resolution. The Labor Arbiter granted this motion in an Order dated June 18, 2001, and forthwith admitted the position paper of the complainants.

On July 30, 2001, the Labor Arbiter rendered judgment in favor of the respondents, and declared that they were regular employees of petitioner; as such, they were awarded monetary benefits. On appeal to the NLRC, it ruled that respondents were entitled to the benefits under the CBA because they were regular employees who contributed to the profits of petitioner through their labor. Petitioner thus filed a petition for certiorari under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court before the CA, raising both procedural and substantive issues. CA Affirmed the ruling of the NLRC.

ISSUE Whether the appellate court committed palpable and serious error of law when it affirmed the rulings of the NLRC, and entertained respondents appeal from the decision of the Labor Arbiter despite the admitted lapse of the reglementary period within which to perfect the appeal.

HELD We agree with petitioners contention that the perfection of an appeal within the statutory or reglementary period is not only mandatory, but also jurisdictional; failure to do so renders the assailed decision final and executory and deprives the appellate court or body of the legal authority to alter the final judgment, much less entertain the appeal. However, this Court has time and again ruled that in exceptional cases, a belated appeal may be given due course if greater injustice may occur if an appeal is not given due course than if the reglementary period to appeal were strictly followed. The Court resorted to this extraordinary measure even at the expense of sacrificing order and efficiency if only to serve the greater principles of substantial justice and equity.

In the case at bar, the NLRC did not commit a grave abuse of its discretion in giving Article 223 of the Labor Code a liberal application to prevent the miscarriage of justice. Technicality should not be allowed to stand in the way of equitably and completely resolving the rights and obligations of the parties. We have held in a catena of cases that technical rules are not binding in labor cases and are not to be applied strictly if the result would be detrimental to the workingman.