MONALIZA PLACEMENT AGENCY, PETITIONER, VS. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION (SECOND DIVISION)AND GIL B. HERNANDEZ, RESPONDENTS.

Monaliza Placement Agency versus National Labor Relations Commission

The Case

This is a petition for certiorari brought by Monaliza Placement Agency against the National Labor Relations Commission, Second Division, and its former overseas worker Gil B. Hernandez. The agency asks the Supreme Court to strike down, as tainted with grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction, the Commission's decision affirming the Labor Arbiter's award of unearned wages, salary differentials, and refund of placement fee in favor of Hernandez. The case matters because it gathers in one decision the working rules every Bar candidate needs on illegal dismissal of overseas Filipino workers: the employer's burden to prove a valid cause, the statutory formula for monetary relief under the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act, and the employer's burden to prove payment of money claims.

Procedural History

Hernandez filed a complaint for illegal dismissal, payment of salary for the unexpired portion of contract, moral and exemplary damages, and attorney's fees before the arbitration branch of the National Labor Relations Commission, naming the placement agency, its president, and the foreign recruitment office as defendants. After conciliation failed, the Labor Arbiter directed the parties to submit position papers, warning that no extension would be allowed. The defendants instead moved for an extension, which the Labor Arbiter denied, considering the case submitted for decision. The Labor Arbiter then rendered judgment holding the agency and its officers jointly and solidarily liable for six months of salaries, salary differentials, unpaid overtime, and refund of the placement fee with interest. The agency appealed to the National Labor Relations Commission, which dismissed the appeal and affirmed the judgment with modification, deleting the overtime award and adjusting the differentials. The agency's motion for reconsideration was denied. The agency then came to the Supreme Court by petition for certiorari.

Facts

Sometime in March 2003, Monaliza Placement Agency and its president, Catherine Khaled, recruited Gil B. Hernandez to work as a cargo and trailer driver for their foreign principal in Dammam, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Hernandez paid twelve thousand pesos as placement fee, two thousand six hundred pesos as medical fees, and one thousand pesos for the trade test. His employment contract promised a basic monthly salary of three hundred forty US dollars for two years, with overtime and holiday premiums. He departed Manila on March 11, 2003.

Upon arrival, he was first assigned as a laborer for one month and paid only nine hundred Saudi Rials, or about two hundred forty US dollars. He was then assigned as a trailer driver in Jeddah for two months, and thereafter sent back to Dammam, where for the next four months he worked fifteen hours a day without a day off, still at nine hundred Saudi Rials a month. In October 2003, he reminded his foreign employer that the contract terms were not being observed, but received no explanation. On October 15, 2003, the employer's representative, Saeed Alqahtani, told him not to report for work anymore as he would be sent home. On October 21, 2003, despite his pleas, he was repatriated to the Philippines.

Before the Labor Arbiter, the agency failed to file its position paper on time and filed it only after the case had been submitted for decision. The Labor Arbiter decided in Hernandez's favor. On appeal, the Commission received the agency's evidence but still ruled for Hernandez, finding that his repatriation was not voluntary and that the claim of homesickness was contrary to human experience.

Issues

• Whether or not the National Labor Relations Commission committed grave abuse of discretion in affirming the finding that Hernandez was illegally dismissed and in awarding him unearned wages for six months and refund of his placement fee with interest.
• Whether or not the National Labor Relations Commission committed grave abuse of discretion in awarding Hernandez six hundred US dollars as salary differentials.

Applicable Provisions

Section 10 of Republic Act Number 8042, the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995, provides:

In case of termination of overseas employment without just, valid or authorized cause as defined by law or contract, the worker shall be entitled to the full reimbursement of his placement fee with interest of 12% per annum, plus his salaries for the unexpired portion of his contract or for three months for every year of the unexpired term, whichever is less.

This is the provision the Court applies in fixing the monetary consequences of the illegal dismissal, namely the refund of the placement fee with twelve percent interest and the salaries for the unexpired portion of the contract.

The same Section 10 also fixes the solidary liability of the recruitment agency, thus:

The liability of the principal/employer and the recruitment/placement agency for any and all claims under this section shall be joint and several.

This is the basis for holding the placement agency answerable, together with its foreign principal, for the awards in favor of the worker.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that no grave abuse of discretion attended the Commission's findings. The repatriation was not voluntary; it was a ploy or contrivance to effect a dismissal without cause. When Hernandez reminded his employer of the stipulated salary, the employer was irked and told him through its representative not to report for work anymore. The Court found it odd that a worker of almost seven months would ask to go home out of homesickness, since homesickness occurs in the initial months abroad and is thereafter overcome by the desire to earn for one's family. The dismissal being without just, valid, or authorized cause, the Court applied Section 10 of Republic Act Number 8042. Since Hernandez had worked almost seven months of a two-year contract, the Court upheld the award of salaries for the unexpired portion equivalent to six months, or two thousand forty US dollars, computed at three hundred forty US dollars monthly, plus refund of the twelve thousand peso placement fee with twelve percent interest per annum.

On the second issue, the Court held that the award of six hundred US dollars as salary differentials was proper. The agency claimed that Hernandez had been paid in full, but the Court ruled that a party who alleges payment as a defense has the burden of proving it, and in labor cases that burden rests on the employer, because the payrolls and personnel records are in the employer's custody and control, not the worker's. The agency's financial statement, check, and affidavit did not prove that Hernandez received the stipulated three hundred forty US dollars monthly. Having received only nine hundred Saudi Rials, or about two hundred forty US dollars, for the six full months he worked, he was underpaid by one hundred US dollars a month, or six hundred US dollars in all.

Doctrine

First, in an illegal dismissal case the burden of proof rests on the employer to show, with clear and convincing evidence, that the dismissal was for a valid cause. Second, a repatriation contrived by the foreign employer to rid itself of a worker who insists on his contract is a dismissal without just, valid, or authorized cause, and the worker is entitled under Section 10 of Republic Act Number 8042 to full reimbursement of his placement fee with twelve percent interest per annum, plus salaries for the unexpired portion of his contract or for three months for every year of the unexpired term, whichever is less. Third, the principal employer and the recruitment or placement agency are jointly and severally liable for these claims. Fourth, a party who alleges payment as a defense bears the burden of proving it, and in labor cases that burden lies on the employer, whose records control the proof.

Disposition

The Supreme Court denied and dismissed the petition for lack of merit, with costs against the petitioner, thereby sustaining the Commission's awards in favor of Hernandez.

Remember This

Memorize this line: a contrived repatriation is illegal dismissal, and the employer who pleads payment must prove it. Examiners use this case for the Section 10 formula on unexpired contract salaries and placement fee refund, and for the rule that the burden of proving payment of monetary claims rests on the employer.