DANIEL MANALO, ET AL., PETITIONERS, VS. PAMPANGA SUGAR DEVELOP­MENT COMPANY, INC., RESPONDENT.

This petition for a categorical interpretation of Section 4, Commonwealth
Act No. 444, as amended (otherwise known as the Eight-Hour Labor Law), or more
specifically, the correct computation thereunder of
the premium pay due the monthly salaried employees for work performed on
Sundays and legal holidays, was brought to us by way of certiorari to review a
ruling^[1]
on the point by the Court of Industrial Relations (CIR).

Said Section 4 reads as follows:

“SEC. 4.  No person, firm, or corporation, business
establishment or place or center of labor shall compel an employee or laborer
to work during Sundays and legal holidays, unless he is paid an additional sum
of at least twenty-five per centum of his regular remuneration:  Provided, however, That this
prohibition shall not apply to public utilities performing some public service
such as supplying gas, electricity, power, water, or providing means of
transportation or communication.”

Petitioners were employees of respondent Pampanga
Sugar Develop­ment Co., Inc. (PASUDECO), operator of a sugar central in San
Fernando, Pampanga.  The nature and condition of their employment^[2]
obliged them to work every day, including Sundays and holidays.

Aggrieved by what they believed to be an unlawful failure and
unjusti­fied refusal of PASUDECO to pay their differential or premium compensation
for services duly rendered for 276 Sundays and legal holidays covered by the
period starting 1 January 1954 to 18 August 1958, and even continuously
thereafter, petitioners decided to seek judicial intervention and, accordingly,
filed on 9 May 1962 with the Pangasinan branch of the
CIR a complaint or claim against the corporation.  The claim totalling
some P15,647.68 in premium pay, aside from attorney’s
fees in the amount of P2,000.00, was arrived at by summing up petitioners’
respective wage for 276 Sundays and holidays plus 25% thereof.  In other words, each petitioner was demanding
for work done not exceeding eight hours during a Sunday or legal holiday the
equivalent of his daily wage for an ordinary working day and 25% of the same,
or 125% all in all, in addition to his monthly salary.  This was, according to them, the connotation
of the term “premium pay” under Section 4, Commonwealth Act No. 444,
as amended.

PASUDECO denied the charge of non-payment of the premium pay in
its answer filed on 27 August 1962
after its initial motion to dismiss the complaint was rejected by the
court.  Faithful compliance with the
pertinent provision of law was asserted to support its vigorous controversion of the claim.

On 28 July 1966,
the CIR rendered a decision finding PASUDECO to have already paid over and
above the monthly salary of its employees, including petitioners’, their 25%
additional compensation for Sunday and holiday work pursuant to law as well as
to a series of collective bargaining agreements between the union, of which the
latter were members, and the corporation. 
This practice, the court also discovered from the payrolls and other
records of the corporation, started since 1946 and was verified, confirmed, and
even commended by the examiners of the Department of Labor.  Holding that this 25% of petitioners’
equivalent daily wage was all that they were legally entitled to in addition to
their monthly salary, the same court, through Associate Judge Joaquin M. Salvador,
dismissed the case.  A subsequent motion
for reconsideration was denied en banc.

Petitioners attack the CIR’s finding
concerning payment thereof by respondent corporation
as a “conclusion on a wrong premise”. 
By the same token, the successive collective bargaining agreements
secured by their union and containing provisions to the same effect are
seriously spurned for being in contravention of Section 6,^[3]
also of Commonwealth Act No. 444, or null and void ab
initio and, therefore, of no binding effect to
them.

The law is plain and unambiguous. 
It directs payment for work done not exceeding eight hours during
Sundays and legal holidays by an em­ployee or laborer not falling under the
exception^[4]
“an additional sum of at least twenty-five per centum of his regular
remuneration”.  And we already said
in one case^[5]
that “(t)he minimum legal additional compensation
for work on Sundays and legal holidays is – 25% of the laborer’s regular
remuneration”.  Thus, if said
employee or laborer regularly receives P6 a day for an eight-hour work on an
ordinary day and he is made to work for eight hours on a Sunday or legal
holiday, he is entitled to his base pay of P6 plus P1.50 (25% of P6), or a
total of P7.50.  His premium pay is
P1.50, the “twenty-five per centum of his regular remuneration” of P6.  It does not include his base pay of P6.  He gets that P6 for an eight-hour work
performed any day.  And he gets
the extra P1.50 if such eight-hour work is rendered on a Sunday or legal
holiday.  This is the most logical and
reasonable import of the law.  The CIR
did not err in following it.

The same signification is contrary to petitioners’ contention,
given to the term “premium pay” by the Department of Labor, as may be
gleaned from the following formula^[6]
it devised in determining the daily wage of monthly-salaried employees, except
those employed by public utilities, working the whole year round, including
Sundays and legal holidays.

Monthly salary multiplied by 12 (months) equals yearly salary;
yearly salary divided by 380.5 (days) equals daily wage.

The figure 380.5 above is the sum of the 303 ordinary days of the
year and the 62 Sundays and legal holidays^[7]
of the same year and 15.5 (25% of 62). 
Stated otherwise, the last figure 15.5 is the difference between 380.5
(theoretically, the number of days worked by the employee in one year) and 365
days (the actual number of days in a year). 
It is, in short, the equivalent in days of the employee’s 25% premium
pay for 52 Sundays and 10 legal holidays in one year.  The premium pay is not,
therefore, 125% as petitioners want us to believe.  Thus, if the employee’s daily wage is P6, his
total premium pay for one year is P93 (P6 times 15.5).  Com­puted in another way, with the same daily
wage, his premium pay for one Sunday or legal holiday is P1.50 (25% of P6);
multiplying P1.50 by 62 (the number of Sundays and legal holidays in one year),
we get the same amount of P93.  This is
the amount of premium pay to which he is entitled in one year in addition to
his fixed yearly salary.

Petitioners postulate that the monthly salary or, for that
matter, the yearly salary applies only to the ordinary working days and does
not take into account the Sundays and legal holidays found in a given calendar
month or year.

The position thus taken by petitioners-appellants, that they are
entitled to 125% premium, or extra pay, for work done in each Sunday and
holiday, would only apply if it is shown that the monthly or yearly salaries
stipulated are intended to cover work on ordinary working days only or where
the nature or conditions of employment do not require work on Sundays and
holidays.^[8]
But where, in agreeing to the monthly or yearly stipend, the parties knew, or
had reason to know, that the work would be continuous, without inter­ruption on
Sundays and holidays, then the wage earner would only be entitled to the 25%
supplement (or extra pay) provided by section 4 of the Eight-Hour Labor law, as
the regular monthly or yearly wage already covered the work done on Sundays and
holidays.

Whether or not the petitioners’ salaries were intended to cover
work on ordinary days only, or also included labor on Sundays and holidays, is
a question of fact for the Court of Industrial Relations to decide.  Since no finding has been made on the
essential point, the records should be referred back to the labor court.

WHEREFORE, the order under appeal is set aside and the
case ordered remanded to the Court of Industrial Relations, for further
proceedings conformably to this opinion. 
No costs.

Concepcion, C.J., Makalintal,
Zaldivar, Sanchez, Fernando, Capistrano, Teehankee, and Barredo, JJ., concur.

Dizon and
Castro, JJ., did not
take part.

^[1] Case No. 45-V-PANG.

^[2]
Petitioners Daniel Manalo, Aurelio Dimson, and Joaquin Arceo were
employed as water tenders; Santiago Villafuerte as
electrician; Joaquin Viray as telephone switchboard
operator; Pedro Liñgat as the electrical department
switchboard tender; Pastor Sioco and Pedro David as
diesel tenders; and Urbano Mercado as security guard.

^[3] “Sec. 6.  Any
agreement or contract between the employer and the la­borer or employee
contrary to the provisions of this Act shall be null and void ab initio.”

^[4]
See proviso of section 4, Commonwealth Act No. 444, previously quoted.

^[5] Atok-Big Wedge
Mutual Benefit Assn. vs. Atok Big Wedge Mining
Co., Inc., 97 Phil. 294.

^[6] 4324.05, Department of Labor Manual; See Montemayor,
Labor, Agrarian and Social Legislation, 1967 Ed., Vol. 1, pages 203-204.

^[7]
There are 52 Sundays and 10 legal holidays in a year.  The legal holidays are New Year (1 January), Bataan Day (9 April), Maundy Thursday and Good Friday
(first week of April), Labor Day (1 May), Independence Day (12 June), Bonifacio Day (30 November), Christmas Day (25 December),
and Rizal Day (30 December).

^[8]
Cf. 4325.05 Department of Labor Manual; Montemayor,
op. cit. pp. 212­-213, NAWASA Consolidated Unions, G. R. No. L-18938, 31 August 1964.