Holy Child Catholic School v. Hon. Sto. Tomas

Facts: On May 31, 2002, a petition for certification election was filed by private respondent HCCS-TELU-PIGLAS, alleging that: PIGLAS is a legitimate labor organization duly registered with DOLE, representing HCCS-TELU-PIGLAS; HCCS is a private educational institution duly registered and operating under Philippine laws; there are approximately 120 teachers and employees comprising the proposed appropriate bargaining unit; and HCCS is unorganized, there is no collective bargaining agreement or a duly certified bargaining agent or a labor organization certified as the sole and exclusive bargaining agent of the proposed bargaining unit within one year prior to the filing of the petition. Among the documents attached to the petition were the certificate of affiliation with PIGLAS-KAMAO issued by BLR, charter certificate issued by PIGLAS-KAMAO, and certificate of registration of HCCS-TELU as a legitimate labor organization issued by the DOLE. 

Petitioner HCCS consistently noted that it is a parochial school with a total of 156 employees. It insisted that, for not being in accord with Article 245 of the Labor Code, private respondent is an illegitimate labor organization lacking in personality to file a petition for certification election. Private respondent, however, countered that petitioner failed to substantiate its claim that some of the employees included in the petition for certification election holds managerial and supervisory positions.

Med-Arbiter Daquigan denied the petition for certification election on the ground that the unit which private respondent sought to represent is inappropriate. Private respondent appealed before the SOLE, who ruled against the dismissal of the petition and directed the conduct of two separate certification elections for the teaching and the non-teaching personnel. Petitioner filed an MR which was denied. Petitioner filed before the CA a Petition for Certiorari with TRO and Preliminary Injunction. CA eventually dismissed the petition. MR was also denied. 

Issues: 

1. Whether the CA erred in holding that the case in Toyota Motor Phil. Co., v. Toyota Motor Phil. Co., Labor Union does not apply in the case at bar despite the commingling of both supervisory or managerial and rank-and-file employees in the respondent union; and 
2. Whether the CA erred in its conflicting ruling allowing the conduct of certification election by upholding that the respondent union represented a bargaining unit despite its own findings that there is no mutuality of interest between the members of respondent union applying the test laid down in the case of UP v. Ferrer-Calleja.

Held: 

1. No. Toyota and Dunlop no longer hold true under the law and rules governing the instant case. The petitions for certification election involved in Toyota and Dunlop were filed on November 26, 1992 and September 15, 1995, respectively; hence, the 1989 Rules and Regulations Implementing R.A. No. 6715 (1989 Amended Omnibus Rules) was applied. In contrast, D.O. No. 9 is applicable in the petition for certification election of private respondent as it was filed on May 31, 2002.

2. No. The concepts of a union and of a legitimate labor organization are different from, but related to, the concept of a bargaining unit. In case of alleged inclusion of disqualified employees in a union, the proper procedure for an employer like petitioner is to directly file a petition for cancellation of the union’s certificate of registration due to misrepresentation, false statement or fraud under the circumstances enumerated in Article 239 of the Labor Code, as amended.

The purpose of a certification election is precisely to ascertain the majority of the employees’ choice of an appropriate bargaining unit – to be or not to be represented by a labor organization and, if in the affirmative case, by which one.