Republic
of the
PhilippinesSUPREME
COURTBaguioFIRST
DIVISION
PURE BLUE
INDUSTRIES, INC.,
Petitioner,
G. R. No. 115879
April 16, 1997
-versus-
NATIONAL
LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSIONand
EMPLOYEES OF PURE BLUE INDUSTRIES, INC.,
represented by SABADO SANTOS,
Respondents.
D
E C I S I O N
KAPUNAN, J.:
Twice thwarted,
petitioner Pure Blue Industries,
Inc. comes to this Court through a Petition for Certiorari under Rule
65
of the Revised Rules of Court to nullify the resolutions issued by the
NLRC dated 29 November 1993 and 8 April 1994, dismissing petitioner's
appeal
and denying its motion for reconsideration, respectively.
Petitioner is a
corporation engaged in the industrial
laundry business. It offers services such as garment washing,
bleaching,
pressing, dyeing and finishing.[1]
Employed with petitioner as machine operators, stone preparators,
utility
helpers, drivers, duality controllers and retouchers were the private
respondents.[2]
In December 1990,
private respondents demanded
from petitioner the payment of their thirteenth month pay, wage
increases
and other benefits under existing laws.[3]
Petitioner, however, failed to comply.cralaw:red
On 27 December
1990, petitioner terminated private
respondents' services. Private respondents contended that their
dismissal
was brought about by their decision to join a union [PSSLU] and enlist
its assistance to obtain the aforementioned claims. When petitioner got
wind of private respondents' plan, it allegedly forced them to sign
employment
contracts for casual and contractual workers. Private respondents
refused,
hence, they were summarily dismissed.[4]
Consequently, on
3 January 1991, private respondents
filed a complaint with the NLRC for illegal dismissal, underpayment of
wages, non-payment of overtime pay, night differential pay, premium for
rest day and holiday, service incentive leave and thirteenth month pay.[5]
For its part,
petitioner indignantly denied that
private respondents were dismissed. Although it admitted its failure to
pay their [private respondents'] thirteenth-month pay, petitioner
claimed
that it was financially hard up and thus could not immediately comply
with
its obligation. Petitioner then countered by filing a
Complaint-Affidavit
dated 28 January 1991 against private respondents for abandonment. It
alleged
that private respondents left their jobs on 22 December 1990 after
petitioner
failed to produce their thirteenth month pay.[6]
On 25 November
1991, Labor Arbiter Manuel P. Asuncion
rendered a decision in favor of private respondents. He declared that:
The complainants' entitlement to the wage
differentials
and 13th month pay is not disputed by the respondents. An exemption
from
the coverage of the Wage Orders NCR No. 01 and NCR No. 01-A is pending
action before the Regional Tripartite Wage and Productivity Board,
hence,
this Office must desist from acting on the issue. The 13th month pay is
due for payment a long time ago. Satisfaction must be enforced.
There are information on the record
which
dispute
the claim of the respondents that the complainants abandoned their job.
For one, it defies reason that a group of people would leave their job
and then fight adds (sic) to win them back. In abandonment,
the
intent to return to the job is absent, but here, that was manifested as
the desire of all. And they submitted their grievances, almost
immediately,
after they were terminated. They just allowed the new year celebration
to pass and they filed the complaint. The complaint-affidavit of the
respondent
was filed only as an after thought (sic). It was prepared
almost
one month after the complaint was filed with this Office. Its alleged
filing
is evendoubtful (sic), because, there was no indication in the
complaint-affidavit
submitted that it was received by any section in the Department.
Indications
are, that the respondents terminated the complainants' employment and
illegally
at that. There was no cause on the part of the complainants to deserve
such action. If there was any, the respondents should have notify
(sic)
the complainants of the nature of their infractions, and, thereafter,
conduct
an investigation on the matter. Obviously, this procedure was not
undertaken.
On the other hand, it is something for thought that the dismissal came
right after the complainants made demands for the correct payment of
their
benefits. That makes the dismissal all the more uncalled for.
WHEREFORE, the respondents are hereby
ordered
to reinstate the complainants to their former positions, without loss
of
seniority rights and other benefits and with full backwages from the
date
their salaries were withheld, until they are actually reinstated.
Respondents
are further directed to pay the complainants their 13th month benefits
for 1990, the claim for salary differential must be set aside because
the
respondents' application for exemption is still pending action before
the
Regional Tripartite Wage and Productivity Board. The rest of the
complaints
are dismissed for lack of merit.
SO ORDERED.[7]
Petitioner's
appeal to the NLRC was likewise unsuccessful.
On 29 November 1993, the NLRC issued a resolution affirming the Labor
Arbiter's
decision and dismissing petitioner's appeal for lack of merit.[8]
Unwilling to concede, petitioner filed a motion
for reconsideration but the same was denied in the NLRC's resolution
dated
8 April 1994.
Hence the present
recourse.cralaw:red
Petitioner
submits the following issues for resolution:
ISSUES
Hereunder are the
issues that Petitioner submits
to the Honorable Supreme Court for consideration:
(a) Are the Private Respondents really
dismissed
from employment by the Petitioner;
(b) Is the Decision dated November 25,
1991
[Annex
"C"] rendered by Labor Arbiter Manuel Asuncion, supported by evidence;
(c) Are the Resolutions dated November
29,
1993
[Annex "F"] and dated April 7, 1994 [Annex "H"] issued by Public
Respondent
NLRC, supported by evidence;
(d) Has Public Respondent NLRC
committed
grave
abuse of discretion in issuing said Resolutions [Annex "F" and Annex
"H"].[9]
Simply put,
however, the real issue for our determination
is whether or not private respondents abandoned their employment as
alleged
by petitioner.
It is elementary
that a special civil action for
certiorari is limited to correcting errors of jurisdiction or grave
abuse
of discretion. Accordingly, borne out of this principle, is the
time-tested
rule that findings of facts of administrative agencies [in this case
the
NLRC], when supported by substantial evidence, are final and binding
upon
this Court.[10]
Whether or not an
employee has abandoned his job
is essentially a factual issue[11]
and in the case at bar, after a prudent study of the contentions of
both
sides, we find no cogent reason to disturb the findings of the Labor
Arbiter
which have been affirmed by the NLRC.cralaw:red
Petitioner admits
that it is quite aware of the
foregoing doctrines. Nonetheless, it takes exception to the same by
contending
that the decision of the Labor Arbiter and the NLRC [declaring
unmeritorious
petitioner's claim of abandonment and instead finding private
respondents
to have been illegally dismissed] was not supported by substantial
evidence,
being based merely on speculations and erroneous findings of facts. It
asserts that:
In order to support his patently
erroneous
findings
of facts, Labor Arbiter Manuel Asuncion engaged in purely baseless
speculations
by saying that, "For one, it defies reason that a group of people would
leave their job and then fight odds to win them back."[12]
and concludes
therefrom that the decision of the
Labor Arbiter and corresponding resolutions of the NLRC were rendered
with
grave abuse of discretion.
Jurisprudence has
established able judicial yardsticks
to determine whether or not an employee has abandoned his work. In
Labor
v. NLRC,[13]
We held:
To constitute abandonment, two elements
must
concur: [1] the failure to report for work or absence without valid or
justifiable reason; and [2] a clear intention to sever the
employer-employee
relationship, with the second element as the more determinative factor
and being manifested by some overt acts. Mere absence is not
sufficient.
It is the employer who has the burden of proof to show a deliberate and
unjustified refusal of the employee to resume his employment without
any
intention of returning. Gold City failed to discharge this burden. It
did
not adduce any proof of some overt act of the petitioners that clearly
and unequivocally show their intention to abandon their posts. On the
contrary,
the petitioners lost no time in filing the case for illegal dismissal
against
them, taking only four days from the time most of them were prevented
from
entering their work place on 22 August 1991 to the filing of the
complaint
on 26 August 1991. They cannot, by any reasoning, be said to have
abandoned
their work, for as we have also previously ruled, the filing by an
employee
of a complaint for illegal dismissal is proof enough of his desire to
return
to work, thus negating the employer's charge of abandonment. [Emphasis
ours].
Similarly in
Canete v. NLRC,[14]
We ruled that:
We find it incongruous for petitioner to
give
up his job after receiving a mere reprimand from his employer. What is
more telling is that on August 19, 1992 or less than a month from the
time
he was dismissed from service, petitioner immediately filed a complaint
against his employer for illegal dismissal with a prayer for
reinstatement.
Petitioner's acts negate any inference that he abandoned his work.
Abandonment
is a matter of intention and cannot be lightly inferred or legally
presumed
from certain equivocal acts. To constitute abandonment, there must be
clear
proof of deliberate and unjustified intent to discontinue the
employment.
The burden of proving abandonment of work as a just cause for dismissal
is on the employer. Private respondent failed to discharge this burden.
Measured
against these standard rules, We find no
merit in petitioner's assertions. The Labor Arbiter correctly applied
the
afore-quoted doctrines in the case at bar and We agree with the
latter's
findings that private respondents did not abandon their employment.
Petitioner tells
its tale in this wise: private
respondents left work on 19 December 1990 to pressure and "scare"
petitioner
into giving their thirteenth month pay but after a dialogue with them,
private respondents returned to work on 21 December 1990. The following
day, however, or on 22 December 1990 private respondents failed to come
back to work.[15]
Unfortunately, petitioner's story is hardly convincing and utterly
insufficient
to prove the elements of abandonment, particularly the second. We fail
to discern from such a general narration that private respondents
indeed
intended to leave their jobs permanently. If private respondents' aim
is
to secure the benefits due them from petitioner, abandonment would
surely
be an illogical and impractical recourse, especially for simple
laborers
such as private respondents. In Judric Canning Corp. v. Inciong,[16]
this Court astutely observed:
Moreover, there was no reason at all and
none
has been suggested by the petitioner, for the private respondents to
abandon
their work. No employee with a family to support, like the private
respondents,
would abandon their work knowing fully well of the acute unemployment
and
underemployment problem and the difficulty of looking for a means of
livelihood.
As the Solicitor General stated: "To get a job is difficult; to run
from
it is foolhardy."
In addition,
strongly contradicting petitioner's
charge of abandonment, is the immediate filing by the private
respondents
of a complaint against petitioner clamoring for their jobs back. Thus,
contrary to petitioner's allegations, the Labor Arbiter's decision is
based
on plain facts and settled jurisprudence and not on mere speculation.
We agree,
likewise, with the keen observation
of the Labor Arbiter that the complaint for abandonment[17]
was filed by petitioner almost a month after the complaint for illegal
dismissal was filed by private respondents and that it was not shown
that
said complaint was actually filed with and received by the NLRC.
Petitioner's
alleged complaint, therefore, hardly bolsters its charge of abandonment.cralaw:red
Petitioner then
takes a different tack and argues
that private respondents' complaint for illegal dismissal was spurious
as shown by the failure of private respondents to specifically describe
how they were dismissed. Says petitioner:
If indeed they were dismissed, they could
have
alleged that they received a letter of termination or at least were
told
not to report for work anymore. The absence of such a material
allegation
could only mean that the Petitioner never terminated their services.
More
importantly, the absence of such a material allegation means that
Private
Respondents have not proved with substantial evidence that they were in
fact dismissed from employment.[18]
Petitioner's
contention is bereft of merit.
In their position
paper, private respondents clearly
explained how they were dismissed:
6. Respondents called the attention of
the
complainants
upon learning that they had joined the PSSLU union, and forced them to
sign a contract which they prepared, for those contractual and casual
workers,
when complainants refused to sign those papers, respondents got angry
and
terminated their services on December 27, 1990.[19]
and in their
Comment private respondents retorted
that they "simply found themselves out of (a) job as petitioner simply
refused to let them work again."[20]
Finally, in his
Counter-Affidavit, Engr. Ireneo
Leyritana, Jr., petitioner's Vice President for Production, unwittingly
revealed that:
9. On December 20, 1990, myself and the
other
officers of Pure Blue Industries, Inc. had an open dialogue with all of
them, during which, one of our financiers got disgusted with their
unreasonable
approaches and told them that they can leave if they want to. They took
that statement seriously.[21]
WHEREFORE,
premises considered, the petition for
certiorari is hereby DISMISSED. As to the award of backwages, pursuant
to Our ruling in Bustamante v. NLRC,[22]
private respondents are "entitled to their full backwages, inclusive of
allowances and other benefits or their monetary equivalent, from the
time
their actual compensation was withheld from them up to the time of
their
actual reinstatement."
SO ORDERED.cralaw:red
Padilla,
Bellosillo, Vitug and Hermosisima, Jr.,
JJ., concur.cralaw:red
__________________________
Endnotes
[1]
Rollo, pp. 3, 28.
[2]
Id., at 40.
[3]
Ibid; Id., at 15.
[4]
Id., at 20; 31-32.
[5]
Id., at 41.
[6]
Id., at 4, 26, 32.
[7]
Id., at 33-35.
[8]
Id., at 40-44.
[9]
Id., at 6.
[10]
Belaunzaran v. NLRC, G. R. No. 120038, 23 December 1996; Reno Foods,
Inc.
v. NLRC, 249 SCRA 379 [1995]; Dagupan Bus Company, Inc. v. NLRC, 191
SCRA
328 [1990].
[11]
General Textile, Inc. v. NLRC, 243 SCRA 232 [1995].
[12]
Rollo, p. 8.
[13]
248 SCRA 183 [1995]; see also De Ysasi III v. NLRC, 231 SCRA 173
[1994];
People's security, Inc. v. NLRC, 226 SCRA 146 [1993].
[14]
250 SCRA 259 [1995]; see also Jones v. NLRC, 250 SCRA 668 [1995]; Reno
Foods, Inc. v. NLRC, 249 SCRA 379 [1995]; Jardine Davies, Inc. v. NLRC,
225 SCRA 757 [1993]; Villena v. NLRC, 225 SCRA 537 [1993]; Nueva Ecija
Electric Cooperative, Inc. v. Minister of Labor, 184 SCRA 25 [1990];
Baliwag
Transit, Inc. v. Ople, 171 SCRA 250 [1989]; Santos v. NLRC, 166 SCRA
759
[1988]; Shea I Industrial [Phils.] v. NLRC, 764 SCRA 8 [1988]; Flexo
Manufacturing
Corp. v. NLRC, 135 SCRA 145 [1985].
[15]
Rollo, pp. 7; 51-52; 83.
[16]
113 SCRA 887 [1982]; see also Penaflor v. NLRC, 120 SCRA 68 [1983].
[17]
Rollo, p. 30.
[18]
Id., at 7-8.
[19]
Id., at 20.
[20]
Id., at 67.
[21]
Id., at 51-52.
[22]
G. R. No. 111651, 28 November 1996. |