University of the Philippines College of Law

CJSED2021
Case employment relationship (only of her option to retire by
ROBINA FARMS CEBU V. VILLA qualifying under the plan), and that no evidence was
Name
presented to counter her allegation that management
Topic Work After Normal Hours prevented her from going back to work.
Case  CA: dismissed appeal by RFC and treated it as an
No. | GR No. 175869 | April 18, 2016 unsigned pleading (procedural, see Issue #1), and
Date affirmed NLRC, deemingthat the advice by Ngochua and
deGuzman for Villa to resign and to request instead for
Ponent
Bersamin, J. financial assistance was a strong and unequivocal
e indication of thepetitioner’s desire to sever the employer-
employee relationship withVilla. Hence, this appeal.
RELEVANT FACTS
 Elizabeth Villa had been working as a sales clerk in ISSUE AND RATIO DECIDENDI
Robina Farms since 1981. In 2001, she tried to avail the Issue Ratio
company’s special retirement program, however on
March 2002, she received a memo from Lily Ngochua (Procedural NO.NLRC was correct in giving due course to
requiring her to explain her failure to issue invoices for ) WON Villa’s appeal.
unhatched eggs for Jan-Feb 2002, and despite her Villa’s  The requirement in Section 4a, Rule VI of
explanation, was suspended for 10 days (March 8-March appeal the Amended NLRC Rules of Procedure
19). Upon reporting back, she was advised to stop should be that the appeal be verified by the
working because her application for retirement had treated as appellant herself, is a mere formal
already been approved. Subsequently, she was informed an unsigned requirement, and is complied with when
that her application had actually been disapproved and pleading for one who has theample knowledge to
was advised to tender her resignation with request for attaching to swear to the truth of the allegations in
financial assistance. She manifested her intention to her appeal thecomplaint or petition signs the
return to work, but her gate pass was confiscated, she the same verification, or when the
was prevented from entering the premises, and was verification matterscontained in the petition have
replaced by another employee. as that in been alleged in good faith or are trueand
her position correct.
 Villa then filed a complaint for illegal suspension, illegal
paper  Being a mere formal requirement, the
dismissal, nonpayment of OT pay, and nonpayment of
service incentive leave pay. courts may evensimply order the
 Robina Farm’s version: After being found to have correction of improperly verified
violated the company rule on the timely issuanceof the pleadings, or acton the same upon
invoices that had resulted in delay in the payment of waiving the strict compliance with the
buyersconsidering that the payment had depended upon rules ofprocedure.
the receipt of the invoices, and being suspended  In contrast with petitioner’s
thereafter, Villa had returned towork and had followed up deficiencies: 1) Itbelatedly submitted
her application for retirement with Lucinade Guzman, proof of Zanoria’s authority to verify
who had then informed her that the management did thepleading (appeal) for the petitioner. 2)
notapprove the benefits equivalent to 86% of her salary It did not submit the certification ofnon-
rate applied for,but only 1/2 month for every year of forum shopping at the time of the filing of
service; and that disappointedwith the outcome, she had the appeal.
then brought her complaint against the company. o The filingof the certification with
the initiatory pleading was
 LA: Villa was not illegally dismissed, since in the
mandatory, andthe failure to do
suggestion made by Mrs. de Guzman, there was no
so could not be cured by a later
compulsion as the choice was left entirely to Villa WON
submission.
to pursue it (that if she wanted topursue her retirement
o Thenon-submission of the
despite the change in computation of benefits, she
certification, being a ground for
shouldsubmit a resignation letter and include therein a
dismissal,was fatal to the
request for financial assistance). LA ordered Villa’s
petition.
reinstatement but denied the claim for backwages and
OT pay for lack of evidence that OT work was actually WON Villa YES.
performed. was illegally  In this case, Villa was clearly not
 NLRC: reversed LA, saying that Villa was illegally dismissed admitted immediately after her 10-day
dismissed since her act of applying for the retirement suspension. Management’s acts of
plan, being subject to management’s approval, was not advising her not to report because her
indicative of her voluntary intention to sever her application for retirement was approved
 University of the Philippines College of Law
CJSED2021
(when it was not), to give a resignation
letter instead, and preventing her from
entering the premises indicated that RFC
wanted to severe the EER between it and
Villa.
 Villa’s application for early retirement did
not manifest herintention to sever the
EER. Although sheapplied for early
retirement, she did so upon the belief that
shewould receive a higher benefit based
on the petitioner’s offer. Assuch, her
consent to be retired could not be fairly
deemed to havebeen knowingly and
freely given.
Retirement is the result of a bilateral act of both the
employer and the employee based on their
voluntary agreement that upon reaching a certain
age, the employee agrees to sever his
employment. The employee’s intent is decisive.
In determining such intent, the relevant parameters
to consider are the fairness of the process
governing the retirement decision, the payment of
stipulated benefits, and the absence of badges of
intimidation or coercion.
In case of early retirement programs, the offer of
benefits must be certain while the acceptance to be
retired should be absolute. The acceptance by the
employees must be explicit, voluntary, free and
uncompelled. Employees are free to accept the
employer’s offer to lower the retirement age if they
feel they can get a better deal with the retirement
plan presented by the employer.
(Related to PARTLY. (OT pay – NO; service incentive
the leave pay – YES)
topic)WON OT PAY: Entitlement to OT pay must first be
it was established byproof that the overtime work was
correct for actually performed before theemployee may
the CA to properly claim the benefit. The burden of proving
affirm the entitlement to OT pay rests on the employee
award of OT because thebenefit is not incurred in the normal
pay and course of business. Failure toprove such actual
service performance transgresses the principles of fairplay
incentive and equity.
leave pay  NLRC’s reliance on the daily time
records(DTRs) showing that Villa had
stayed in the company’s premisesbeyond
eight hours was misplaced. The DTRs
did not substantiallyprove the actual
performance of overtime work. RFC
correctly points out that any employee
could render overtime workonly when
there was a prior authorization by
themanagement. Without the prior
authorization, therefore, Villacould not
validly claim having performed work
beyond the normalhours of work.
SERVICE INCENTIVE LEAVE PAY : Although
the grant of vacation or sick leave with pay of at
leastfive days could be credited as compliance with
the duty to pay service incentive leave, the
employer is still obliged to prove that itfully paid the
accrued service incentive leave pay to the
employee.
 In this case, RFC submitted the affidavits
ofZanoria explaining the payment of
service incentive leave after the LA had
rendered her decision.Evidence should
be presented in the proceedings
before the LA, not after the rendition of
the adverse decision by the LA or during
appeal. Such a practice of
belatedpresentation cannot be tolerated
because it defeats the
speedyadministration of justice in matters
concerning the poor workers.
RULING
CA decision affirmed, award of OT pay deleted.