del Rosario v. ABS-CBN

Facts: ABS-CBN is a domestic corporation that owns a wide network of television and radio stations. Their franchise expired on May 5, 2020. During the production of shows and the live coverage of events, ABS-CBN hired three different groups of employees to work in such productions.

Sometime in 2002, ABS-CBN adopted a system known as the Internal Job Market (IJM) System. The IJM scheme led to the creation of a work pool of accredited technical or creative manpower who offered their services for a fee. The workers were regarded as independent contractors, not regular employees. The workers were asked to sign a contract that would place them all under the IJM Work Pool. They were included in the pool without their consent or over their vehement objections. Each of the workers was given an hourly rate. They did not receive overtime pay, premium pay, and holiday pay for the work they rendered during rest days, special holidays, and regular holidays. 

The workers formed the ABS-CBN IJM Workers' Union. They started demanding recognition as regular employees. Thus, in the later part of 2002 up to the first quarter of 2003, the workers filed cases for regularization before the LA. They were made to sign a document which relegated the workers to mere talents. 

Sometime in 2007, ABS-CBN required the workers in ABS-CBN Corporation v. Payonan, et at. to sign an employment contract, which stated that they were "freelance employees.” Those who refused to sign were deprived of their benefits.  

In May 2010, ABS-CBN purportedly coerced the union members to sign a contract and waive their claims for regularization. Because the workers refused to comply, ABS-CBN effected a series of mass dismissals of workers on various dates from June to September 2010. Those who refused to sign the said contract were terminated from their employment. No notice of termination was given to the workers. These series of summary dismissals sprung numerous complaints filed before the LA for illegal dismissal with claims for monetary benefits, ranging from overtime pay, holiday pay, holiday premium, rest day premium, 13th month pay, night shift differential, and payment of moral, exemplary damages and attorney's fees.

Issues:

1. Whether or not the petitions should be dismissed on procedural grounds due to the failure of the workers to file a motion for reconsideration against the NLRC ruling in G.R. No. 222057;
2. Whether or not the workers are guilty of forum shopping by instituting  the  case   for  illegal  dismissal,   notwithstanding the pendency of the regularization case;
3. Whether or not the ruling of the Court in Jalog, et al. v. NLRC, should be applied in resolving the instant petitions due to the similarity of facts and circumstances between the said case and the instant petitions;
4. Whether or not the workers are regular employees of ABS-CBN;
5. Whether or not the workers in G.R. Nos. 202495 & 202497 and G.R. No. 202481 are entitled to the benefits under the CBA with ABS-CBN; and
6. Whether or not the workers  in G.R.  No.  222057;   G.R.   No.   224879;   G.R.  No.   225874; G.R. No. 219125; G.R. No. 225101; and G.R. No. 210165 were illegally dismissed by ABS-CBN.

Held:

Procedural Issues:

1. The failure to file a motion for reconsideration shall not be deemed fatal to the cause of the workers. As a general rule, the filing of a motion for reconsideration is an indispensable condition for filing a special civil action for certiorari. One exception is: where the questions raised in the certiorari proceedings have been duly raised and passed upon by the lower court, or are the same as those raised and passed upon in the lower court. The issues raised before the NLRC, which pertain to the existence of an employment relationship between ABS-CBN and the workers and the fact of illegal dismissal, were the very same questions raised in the special civil action for certiorari before the CA. 

2. The workers are not guilty of forum shopping. Although it is true that the parties in the regularization and the illegal dismissal cases are identical, the reliefs sought and the causes of action are different. The test to determine whether the causes of action are identical is to' ascertain whether the same evidence would support both actions, or whether there is an identity in the facts essential to the maintenance of the two actions. If the same facts or evidence would support both actions, then they are considered the same; a judgment in the first case would be a bar to the subsequent action. This is absent here. The facts or the pieces of evidence that would determine whether the workers were illegally dismissed are not the same as those that would support their clamor for regularization.

Substantive Issues:

3. Jalog is not binding on the workers. Essentially, the phrase stare decisis et non quieta movere literally means "stand by the decisions and disturb not what is settled." This legal concept ordains that for the sake of certainty, a conclusion reached in one case should be applied to those that follow, if the facts are substantially the same, even though the parties may be different. Simply stated, like cases ought to be decided alike.

4. The workers are employees of ABS-CBN. In ascertaining the existence of an employer-employee relationship, the Court has invariably adhered to the four-fold test, which pertains to: (i) the selection and engagement of the employee; (ii) the payment of wages; (iii) the power of dismissal; and (iv) the power of control over the employee's conduct, or the so-called "control test.” In the case of Begino, the Court has ruled that  that cameramen/editors and reporters are employees of ABS-CBN following the four-fold test. The Begino ruling is applicable here.

5. The workers are regular employees. The Labor Code classifies four (4) kinds of employees, as follows: (i) regular employees, or those who have been engaged to perform activities which are usually necessary or desirable in the usual business or trade of the employer; (ii) project employees, or those whose employment has been fixed for a specific project or undertaking, the completion or termination of which has been determined at the time of the employees' engagement; (iii) seasonal employees, or those who perform services which are seasonal in nature, and whose employment lasts during the duration of the season; and (iv) casual employees, or those who are not regular, project, or seasonal employees. Jurisprudence added a fifth kind — fixed-term employees, or those hired only for a definite period of time. 

The principal test is whether or not the project employees were assigned to carry out a specific project or undertaking, the duration and scope of which were specified at the time the employees were engaged for that project.

6. The workers are not program/project employees of ABS-CBN. The business of creating and producing television shows is heavily dependent on viewer preference and advancements in modern technology. Given the numerous television programs aired in a network, it is not surprising to find one that would last for many years, and one that is terminated in a short span of months. Indeed, it is economical for the broadcasting networks to maintain shows which earn, and to end those which do not. More so, it is nearly impossible to predict beforehand the success and 'the lifespan of each program.

7. The IJM System of ABS-CBN is a work pool of regular employees. The Court finds that a work pool indeed existed, but its members, consistent with the rulings in Begino and Nazareno, were regular employees, and not independent contractors.

8. The workers in the regularization cases are entitled to all the benefits under the CBA. In Fulache v. ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. and Nazareno, the Court categorically declared that the workers, who were production assistants, cameramen, assistant editor/teleprompter operators, video editors, and VTR operators, being regular employees of ABS-CBN, are part of the bargaining unit of ABS-CBN's rank-and-file employees. As such, they are entitled to the CBA benefits as a matter of law and contract.

9. The workers in the illegal dismissal cases are entitled to reinstatement and backwages and other benefits. The necessary consequence of a declaration that the workers are regular employees is the correlative rule that the employer shall not dismiss them except for a just or authorized cause provided in the Labor Code. This is the essence of the tenurial security guaranteed by the law: "An employee who is unjustly dismissed from work shall be entitled to reinstatement without loss of seniority rights and other privileges, and to his full back wages, inclusive of allowances, and to his other benefits or their monetary Equivalent computed from the time his compensation was withheld from him up to the time of his actual reinstatement."