Paredes v. Feed the Children Philippines, Inc.

Facts:

Respondent Feed the Children Philippines, Inc. (FTCP) is a non-stock, non-profit, and non-government organization duly incorporated under the Philippine laws in 1989. Respondents Dr. Virginia Lao, Hercules Paradiang and Benjamin Escobia were members of the FTCP Board of Trustees (Board) and Executive Committee (Execom) of FTCP.

Petitioner Rosalinda Paredes was FTCP's National Director. Her functions and duties include project management, fund accessing, income generation, financial management, and administration of the organization. She also signed all the FTCP checks and approved all requisitions and disbursements of FTCP funds.  As per FTCP's By-laws, it was also her duty to execute all resolutions and/or decisions of the Board.

Petitioner was first hired by FTCP in 1999 as Country Director. Her contract was renewed several times until her last contract for the period from October 1, 2004 to September 30, 2007. Her initial salary was US$1000.00 and then later, she was paid 70,000.00 aside from other benefits and allowances.

On August 12, 2005, forty-two (42) FTCP employees signed a petition letter addressed to the Board expressing their complaints against alleged detestable practices of petitioner, to wit: seeking exemption from policies which she herself had approved; withholding organization funds despite approval of its release; procuring health insurance for herself without paying her share of the premium; and receiving additional fees contrary to the terms of her contract.

The next day, August 13, 2005, the staff of FTCP called Lao to a meeting to submit their petition. The group was edgy and demanded for outright solution. However, the three Board members told them that they should follow a process.

Petitioner learned from Atty. Chatto that Program Manager Primitivo Fostanes and his co-employees prepared a petition questioning her leadership and management of FTCP. She filed an administrative complaint against Fostanes on August 24, 2005, but the same was not acted upon.

When the Board convened for a meeting on August 28, 2005, petitioner was not allowed to participate. She was only allowed to join the meeting after three hours. As ex officio member of the Board and as head of the secretariat, she was always present in every meeting to discuss her reports, programs and proposals.

The Board resolved to suspend petitioner because of her indifferent attitude and unjustified refusal to submit to an audit. Before it could be implemented, respondent FTCP received her resignation letter.

Petitioner filed a Complaint for illegal dismissal, claiming that she was forced to resign, thus, was constructively dismissed. LA ruled in favor of the respondents.

Petitioner appealed the decision to the NLRC. The NLRC reversed and set aside the decision of the LA and ruled in her favor.

Issues:

I. W/N the CA contravenes the law and jurisprudence when it granted the petition for certiorari that raised questions factual in nature and when it sweepingly applied the ruling in St. Martin Funeral Homes to justify its act of delving into the findings of the NLRC which were outside the scope of extraordinary remedy of certiorari.

II. W/N the CA grossly contradicts the law and jurisprudence on constructive dismissal and ignored, misunderstood or misinterpreted cogent facts and circumstances which, if considered, would change the outcome of the case when it ruled that petitioner voluntarily resigned and was not constructively dismissed.

III. W/N the CA effectively reverses the law and jurisprudence on damages and recognized money claims in labor cases when it condemned petitioner to pay respondents' claims for damages that were not duly proven by the latter and that clearly did not arise from an employer-employee relationship.

IV. W/N the CA violates the Constitution, the law and the prevailing jurisprudence when it resolved the lingering doubts that remain in the present case, as those arising from evidence and from interpretation of agreements and writings, against labor.

Held:

Partly meritorious.

Judicial review of labor cases does not go beyond the evaluation of the sufficiency of the evidence upon which its labor officials' findings rest. As such, the findings of facts and conclusion of the NLRC are generally accorded not only great weight and respect but even clothed with finality and deemed binding on this Court as long as they are supported by substantial evidence.

After judicious review on the records of the case, this Court deems it proper to disregard the findings of fact of the NLRC. This Court finds that the NLRC committed grave abuse of discretion when it ruled for the petitioner without substantial evidence to support its findings of facts and conclusion.

Since petitioner admittedly resigned, it is incumbent upon her to prove that her resignation was involuntary and that it was actually a case of constructive dismissal with clear, positive and convincing evidence.

Case law holds that constructive dismissal occurs when there is cessation of work because continued employment is rendered impossible, unreasonable or unlikely; when there is a demotion in rank or diminution in pay or both; or when a clear discrimination, insensibility, or disdain by an employer becomes unbearable to the employee. The test is whether a reasonable person in the employee's position would have felt compelled to give up his position under the circumstances.

In this case, petitioner cannot be deemed constructively dismissed. She failed to present clear and positive evidence that respondent FTCP, through its Board of Trustees, committed acts of discrimination, insensibility, or disdain towards her which rendered her continued employment unbearable or forced her to terminate her employment from the respondent. As settled, bare allegations of constructive dismissal, when uncorroborated by the evidence on record, cannot be given credence.

There was no urgency for petitioner to submit her resignation letter. In fact, the day before it was given, she and other management staff requested for a dialogue with the Board to address the issue regarding the management and financial audit. It is, therefore, improbable that her continued employment is rendered impossible or unreasonable.

We are not persuaded that her exclusion to the meeting constituted discrimination or harassment. A careful perusal of the minutes would reveal that the Board convened to deliberate on the solution to the apparent conflict between petitioner and the staff since they have insufficient grievance mechanism for issues involving top management. She could not fault the Board to not include her in that particular meeting since she was a party involved and to avoid possible influence that she could have exerted.

We held that the act of the employer moving the effectivity of the resignation is not an act of harassment. The 30-day notice requirement for an employee’s resignation is actually for the benefit of the employer who has the discretion to waive such period. Its purpose is to afford the employer enough time to hire another employee if needed and to see to it that there is proper turn-over of the tasks which the resigning employee may be handling.

Such rule requiring an employee to stay or complete the 30-day period prior to the effectivity of his resignation becomes discretionary on the part of management as an employee who intends to resign may be allowed a shorter period before his resignation becomes effective.

Applying the rule of noscitur a sociis in clarifying the scope of Article 217, it is evident that paragraphs 1 to 5 refer to cases or disputes arising out of or in connection with an employer-employee relationship. In other words, the money claims within the original and exclusive jurisdiction of labor arbiters are those which have some reasonable causal connection with the employer-employee relationship.

This claim is distinguished from cases of actions for damages where the employer-employee relationship is merely incidental and the cause of action proceeds from a different source of obligation. Thus, the regular courts have jurisdiction where the damages claimed for were based on: tort, malicious prosecution, or breach of contract, as when the claimant seeks to recover a debt from a former employee or seeks liquidated damages in the enforcement of a prior employment contract.

It is settled that the law serves to equalize the unequal. The labor force is a special class that is constitutionally protected because of the inequality between capital and labor. This constitutional protection presupposes that the labor force is weak. However, the level of protection to labor should vary from case to case; otherwise, the state might appear to be too paternalistic in affording protection to labor.

WHEREFORE, the petition for review on certiorari, dated October 23, 2008, of petitioner Rosalinda G. Paredes is hereby PARTLY GRANTED. Accordingly, the ruling of the Court of Appeals in its Decision dated March 25, 2008, that petitioner was not constructively dismissed, is hereby AFFIRMED. However, the awards of P34,438.37 and Pl09,208.36 for the unpaid debt of petitioner and reimbursement of the FTCP Provident Fund, respectively, are hereby SET ASIDE.