Manuel vs nc construction supply

282 SCRA 326 Labor Law Labor Relations Termination;Due Process Just Causes
Political Law Constitutional Law Right to Counsel
In June 1995, the security guards of N.C. Construction Supply caught an employee stealing from the
company premises. The said employee then admitted that the incident was part of a series of theft
involving four other employees, namely, Eddie Manuel, Romeo Bana, Rogelio Pagtama, Jr., and Joel
Rea. The four were then invited to the police station for questioning. The owner of N.C. Construction sent
his lawyer, Atty. Ramon Reyes to interrogate the four employees.
Manuel et al admitted the crime imputed against them before Atty. Reyes. They agreed that in exchange
for N.C. Construction not filing a case, they will resign as employees instead. But after resigning, the four
former employees sued N.C. Construction for illegal dismissal. They now claim that their admission made
in the police station before Atty. Reyes was coerced by the lawyer and that they were without the
assistance of counsel which is violative of their constitutional rights.
ISSUE: Whether or not Manuel et al were dismissed without valid cause.
HELD: No. Manuel et al were positively identified by witnesses as part of the series of theft. This was not
sufficiently controverted by them. Under Article 282 of the Labor Code, such act authorizes the
employer to terminate the services of an employee for loss of trust and confidence, provided that the loss
of confidence arises from particular proven facts.
What is the quantum of proof needed?
Substantial evidence or such relevant evidence which a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to
justify a conclusion and not proof beyond reasonable doubt as in criminal case.
Anent the issue of threat and intimidation, there was no sufficient proof presented by Manuel et al to
prove that the lawyer coerced them to make the admission.
Anent the issue that Atty. Reyess interrogation of them without the presence of counsel if violative of their
constitutional rights, such argument is misplaced. The right to counsel accorded by the Constitution only
applies to criminal cases and only on custodial investigations. In this case, this is not a criminal case and
Manuel et al were not under custodial investigation when they were interrogated by Atty. Reyes. It is also
of no moment that Atty. Reyess interrogation happened in a police station. What Atty. Reyes did was a
private administrative investigation for the interest of his employer, the N.C. Construction.
However, Manuel et al are entitled to damages (P1,000.00 each) because it appears that although they
were dismissed for a just cause, their dismissal was without the proper procedure (twin-notice rule not
observed by NC Construction). The two-notice rule provides:
The employer must furnish the worker with two written notices before termination of employment can be
legally effected:
(1) notice which apprises the employee of the particular acts or omissions for which his dismissal is
sought, and
(2) the subsequent notice which informs the employee of the employers decision to dismiss him.

Arco Metal vs. Samahan ng Manggagawa sa Arco

G.R. No. 170734
Facts:
Petitioner is a company engaged in the manufacture of metal products, whereas respondent
is the labor union of petitioners rank and file employees. Sometime in December 2003,
petitioner paid the 13th month pay, bonus, and leave encashment of three union members
in amounts proportional to the service they actually rendered in a year, which is less than a
full 12 months. Respondent protested the prorated scheme, claiming that on several
occasions petitioner did not prorate the payment of the same benefits to 7 employees who
had not served for the full 12 months. The payments were made in 1992, 1993, 1994,

1996, 1999, 2003, and 2004. According to respondent, the prorated payment violates the
rule against diminution of benefits under Article 100 of the Labor Code. Thus, they filed a
complaint before the NCMB. The parties submitted the case for voluntary arbitration.
The voluntary arbitrator, Mangabat, ruled in favor of petitioner and found that the giving of
the contested benefits in full, irrespective of the actual service rendered within one year has
not ripened into a practice. He noted the affidavit of Baingan, manufacturing group head
of petitioner, which states that the giving in full of the benefit was a mere error. He also
interpreted the phrase for each year of service found in the pertinent CBA provisions to
mean that an employee must have rendered one year of service in order to be entitled to
the full benefits provided in the CBA.
The CA ruled that the CBA did not intend to foreclose the application of prorated payments
of leave benefits to covered employees. The appellate court found that petitioner, however,
had an existing voluntary practice of paying the aforesaid benefits in full to its employees,
thereby rejecting the claim that petitioner erred in paying full benefits to its seven
employees. The appellate court noted that aside from the affidavit of petitioners officer, it
has not presented any evidence in support of its position that it has no voluntary practice of
granting the contested benefits in full and without regard to the service actually rendered
within the year. It also questioned why it took petitioner 11 years before it was able to
discover the alleged error.
Issue: WON the grant of 13th month pay, bonus, and leave encashment in full regardless
of actual service rendered constitutes voluntary employer practice and, consequently, the
prorated payment of the said benefits does not constitute diminution of benefits under
Article 100 of the Labor Code.
Held:
Petitioner claims that its full payment of benefits regardless of the length of service to the
company does not constitute voluntary employer practice. It points out that the payments
had been erroneously made and they occurred in isolated cases in the years 1992, 1993,
1994, 1999, 2002 and 2003. According to petitioner, it was only in 2003 that the
accounting department discovered the error when there were already 3 employees involved
with prolonged absences and the error was corrected by implementing the pro-rata payment
of benefits pursuant to law and their existing CBA. It adds that the seven earlier cases of
full payment of benefits went unnoticed considering the proportion of one employee
concerned (per year) vis vis the 170 employees of the company. Petitioner describes the
situation as a clear oversight which should not be taken against it. To further bolster its
case, petitioner argues that for a grant of a benefit to be considered a practice, it should
have been practiced over a long period of time and must be shown to be consistent,
deliberate and intentional, which is not what happened in this case. Petitioner tries to make
a case out of the fact that the CBA has not been modified to incorporate the giving of full
benefits regardless of the length of service, proof that the grant has not ripened into
company practice.
Any benefit and supplement being enjoyed by employees cannot be reduced, diminished,
discontinued or eliminated by the employer. The principle of non-diminution of benefits is
founded on the Constitutional mandate to protect the rights of workers and promote their
welfare, and to afford labor full protection. Said mandate in turn is the basis of Article 4
of the Labor Code which states that all doubts in the implementation and interpretation of
this Code, including its implementing rules and regulations shall be rendered in favor of

labor. Jurisprudence is replete with cases which recognize the right of employees to
benefits which were voluntarily given by the employer and which ripened into company
practice. Thus in Davao Fruits Corporation v. Associated Labor Unions, et al. where an
employer had freely and continuously included in the computation of the 13th month pay
those items that were expressly excluded by the law, we held that the act which was
favorable to the employees though not conforming to law had thus ripened into a practice
and could not be withdrawn, reduced, diminished, discontinued or eliminated.
In the years 1992, 1993, 1994, 1999, 2002 and 2003, petitioner had adopted a policy of
freely, voluntarily and consistently granting full benefits to its employees regardless of the
length of service rendered. True, there were only a total of seven employees who benefited
from such a practice, but it was an established practice nonetheless. Jurisprudence has not
laid down any rule specifying a minimum number of years within which a company practice
must be exercised in order to constitute voluntary company practice. Thus, it can be 6
years, 3 years, or even as short as 2 years. Petitioner cannot shirk away from its
responsibility by merely claiming that it was a mistake or an error, supported only by an
affidavit of its manufacturing group head.
In cases involving money claims of employees, the employer has the burden of proving
that the employees did receive the wages and benefits and that the same were
paid in accordance with law.
Petition denied

Philippine Association of Service Exporters, Inc. v. Torres

G.R. No. 101279 August 6, 1992
Grio-Aquino, J.
FACTS:
As a result of published stories regarding the abuses suffered by Filipino housemaidsemployed in Hong
Kong, then DOLE Secretary Ruben Torres issued Department Order No.16, Series of 1991, temporarily
suspending the recruitment by private employment agenciesof Filipino domestic helpers going to
Hong Kong. The DOLE itself, through the POEA took over the business of deploying such Hong
Kong-bound workers. The POEA Administrator alsoissued Memorandum Circular No. 37, Series of
1991, on the processing of employmentcontracts of domestic workers for Hong Kong.PASEI filed a
petition for prohibition to annul the aforementioned DOLE and POEA circularsand to prohibit their
implementation on the grounds that DOLE and POEA acted with graveabuse of discretion and/or in
excess of their rule-making authority in issuing said
circulars;t h a t t h e a s s a i l e d D O L E a n d P O E A c i r c u l a r s a r e c o n t r a r y t o t h e
C o n s t i t u t i o n , a r e unreasonable, unfair and oppressive; and that the requirements of publication
and filing withthe Office of the National Administrative Register were not complied with.
HELD:
The second and first grounds are unmeritorious. Article 36 of the Labor Code grantsthe Labor Secretary
the power to restrict and regulate recruitment and placement
activities.I t r e a d s : T h e S e c r e t a r y o f L a b o r s h a l l h a v e t h e p o w e r t o r e s t r i c t a n
d r e g u l a t e t h e recruitment and placement activities of all agencies within the cove
r a g e o f t h i s t i t l e [Regulation of Recruitment and Placement Activities] and is hereby authori
zed to issueorders and promulgate rules and regulations to carry out the objectives and implement
theprovisions of this title. On the other hand, the scope of the regulatory authority of
thePOEA, which was created by Executive Order No. 797 to take over the functions of
theOverseas Employment Development Board, the National Seamen Board, and the
overseasemployment functions of the Bureau of Employment Services, is broad and far-ranging
fora m o n g t h e f u n c t i o n s i n h e r i t e d b y t h e

P O E A f r o m t h e d e f u n c t B u r e a u o f E m p l o y m e n t Services was the power and duty to establish

and maintain a registration and/or licensingsystem to regulate private sector participation in
the recruitment and placement of workers,locally and overseas; it assumed
from the defunct Overseas Employment DevelopmentBoard the power and duty to recruit and
place workers for overseas employment of Filipinocontract workers on a government to government
arrangement and in such other sectors aspolicy may dictate; and from the National Seamen
Board, the POEA took over to regulate and supervise the activities of agents or representatives of
shipping companies in the hiringof seamen for overseas employment; and secure the best possible terms
of employment forcontract seamen workers and secure compliance therewith.Said administrative
issuances merely restricted the scope or area of PASEIs businessoperations by excluding therefrom
recruitment and deployment of domestic helpers forHong Kong till after the establishment of the
mechanisms that will enhance the protectionof Filipino domestic helpers going to Hong Kong. In
fine, other than the recruitment anddeployment of Filipino domestic helpers for Hong Kong, PASEI
may still deploy other class of Filipino workers either for Hong Kong and other countries and all
other classes of Filipinoworkers for other countries. Said administrative issuances, are intended to
curtail, if not
toe n d , r a m p a n t v i o l a t i o n s o f t h e r u l e a g a i n s t e x c e s s i v e c o l l e c t i o n s o f p l a c e m e n t a n
d documentation fees, travel fees
and other charges committed by private employmentagencies recruiting and deploying
domestic helpers to Hong Kong. They are
reasonable,v a l i d a n d j u s t i f i e d u n d e r t h e g e n e r a l w e l f a r e c l a u s e o f t h e C o n s t i
t u t i o n , s i n c e t h e recruitment and deployment business, as it is conducted today,
is affected with publicinterest.

Magallanes vs. Sun Yat Sen Elementary School

AZUCENA MAGALLANES, EVELYN BACOLOD and HEIRS OF JUDITH COTECSON, petitioners, vs. SUN YAT SEN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL,
PAZ GO, ELENA CUBILLAN, WILLY ANG GAN TENG, BENITO ANG, and TEOTIMO TAN, respondents.
G.R. No. 160876
January 18, 2008
SANDOVAL-GUTIERREZ, J.:
FACTS:
Petitioners were all employed as teachers in the Sun Yat Sen Elementary School in Surigao City. Go and Cubillan are principals of
the said school. Ang Gan Teng and Ang are its directors, while Tan is the school treasurer. They are all respondents herein. In
1994, respondents terminated the services of petitioners. Thus, they filed complaints against respondents for illegal dismissal,
among others.
The LA held that petitioners were illegally dismissed from the service. The NLRC, however, reversed the LAs judgment holding
that petitioners are contractual employees and that respondents merely allowed their contracts to lapse. On appeal, the CA
reversed and set aside the decision of NLRC. Respondents filed with SC a petition for certiorari but was dismissed for lack of
merit. Meanwhile in October 2000, petitioners filed with the LA a motion for execution of his Decision as modified by the CA. The
LA computed the petitioners monetary awards reckoned from the time of their illegal dismissal in June 1994 up to October 1999.
The NLRC modified the LAs computation and ruled that the monetary awards due to petitioners should be computed from June
1994 up to June 1995. Petitioners then filed a petition for certiorari with the CA but the petition was dismissed outright for their
failure to attach to their petition copies of the pleadings filed with the LA. Petitioners filed a motion for reconsideration but
indicated a wrong case number. On realizing their mistake, petitioners then filed with the Seventh Division a Motion to Transfer
the Case to it but the same was denied on the ground, among others, that the motion is "non-existent" since it does not bear the
correct case number. Petitioners filed a motion for reconsideration, but it was denied
ISSUE: WON the CA erred in holding that affixing a wrong docket number on a motion renders it "non-existent
RULING:

The Court of Appeals (Seventh Division) is correct when it ruled that petitioners motion for reconsideration of its Resolution x x x
is "non-existent." Petitioners counsel placed a wrong case number in their motion x x x. In Llantero v. Court of Appeals, we ruled
that where a pleading bears an erroneous docket number and thus "could not be attached to the correct case," the said pleading
is, for all intents and purposes, "non-existent." As aptly stated by the Special Sixteenth Division, it has neither the duty nor the
obligation to correct the error or to transfer the case to the Seventh Division. x x x we ruled that the duty to correct the mistake
falls solely on the party litigant whose fault caused the anomaly. To hold otherwise would be to impose upon appellate courts the
burden of being nannies to appellants, ensuring the absence of pitfalls that hinder the perfection of petitions and appeals.
Strictly speaking, it is a dogma that the mistake or negligence of counsel binds the clients4 and appellate courts have no share in
that burden.