PETER PAUL PHILIPPINES CORPORATION, PETITIONER, VS. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION, NORBERTO VILLADIEGO, ROMULO GARCIA, ROLANDO CARINGAL, RESTITUTO CONCHELA, FELICIANO AQUI…

The issue before us is the correct interpretation of a collective
bargaining agreement. This is a legal
question. There is no dispute about the
facts.

The private respondents were employed by the petitioner as
company guards. On April 28, 1984, PD
1919 was issued providing inter alia that no license shall be
issued to any company guard force with less than thirty members. Consequently, the petitioner’s guard force,
being less than the required number, was disbanded. On March 11, 1985, the services of the private respondents were
terminated. All of them were granted
separation pay, which they accepted without protest.

On June 15, 1989, the private respondents filed a complaint
against the petitioner for not giving them the right to recommend their
substitutes in accordance with Article IV of their collective bargaining
agreement. The pertinent provisions
follow:

VACANCIES

With the exception of those employees
terminated for cause pursuant to the attached retirement plan, any vacancy
occurring due to the death, disability or retirement of an eligible, regular
employee under said Retirement Plan shall be filled on a trial basis by a
recommendee of the heir of the deceased, disabled, or retired employee if
found to be 18 years of age or over for males, 21 years of age or over for
females, but not exceeding 45 years of age, provided that they are suitable for
the job, physically and medically, except if already employed on regular
status.

In case no substitute has been nominated
within the period of 30 days from the date of the vacancy, the COMPANY shall
have the exclusive right and discretion to appoint a substitute of its choice
to said vacancy. In case a
substitute is in fact nominated but said nominee failed to qualify for the
vacancy, a replacement nominee must be named within seven (7) days from the
date of disqualification of the original nominee. If this privilege is not availed of, Union may nominate a
qualified substitute and management upon its discretion, may place the said
nominee on trial.

The trial period shall extend up to 3
months, after which time the nominee or recommendee may be appointed
“Regular” if found satisfactory or removed from said position.

In the event of reduction of personnel due
to technological changes, those employees affected by such reduction may be
offered any suitable available permanent vacancy. (Emphasis supplied)

On February 22, 1991, Labor Arbiter Ambrosio R. Sison rendered
judgment in favor of the private respondents^[1]
and required the petitioner to allow them to recommend their substitute in line
with the retirement plan. He also
awarded them attorney’s fees. The
decision relied heavily on an earlier NLRC case entitled Macasaet v. Peter
Paul,^[2]
where it was held in part:

The argument, therefore, that the position of security guard from
which complainant-appellant was retired was already abolished by virtue of PD
1919 is therefore of no moment in the light of the fact that Nenita Montierro,
a substitute of another retired security guard was admitted not as a guard but
to the company’s hospital. Besides, we
have taken note of the fact that nothing in the provisions of substitution, in
question provides that the substitute should fill exclusively the position
vacated by the retiree. The said
provision, in the light of past experience with the company may safely be
construed as a substitution as an employee of the company and not exclusively
as a substitution to the position vacated within the company.

In fine, we find and so hold that complainant herein cannot be
divested in part of his right and privileges provided under the company’s
retirement plan. Clearly, he has a
vested right to it. To divest him of it
is an outright discrimination which we cannot in conscience countenance.

On appeal, the NLRC affirmed,^[3]
also laying emphasis on the Macasaet case. The petitioner then came to this Court, complaining that the public
respondent committed grave abuse of discretion in sustaining the labor
arbiter. Specifically, it argues that
the private respondents are not covered by the collective bargaining agreement;
that they are not entitled to the claimed right of substitution; and that their
claim is barred by the CBA, as well as by laches and prescription.

Required to comment, the Solicitor General expressed support for
the petition and suggested that the NLRC be given a chance to submit its own
comment. It did so but rather
half-spiritedly, five of its six-page comment being devoted to the narration of
the facts. The single page of
justification maintained that the private respondents should be considered
regular employees rather than company guards. The private respondents had a different view. They said that the question of whether or not they were covered
by the collective bargaining agreement was basically factual and that the right
of substitution was based on a company policy to which they had acquired a
vested right.

We rule for the petitioner.

It is quite obvious that the private respondents, as company
guards, are outside the scope of the collective bargaining agreement, which
provides in its Article I (A) as follows:

The COMPANY recognizes the UNION as the sole and exclusive agent
for all regular non-supervisory employees excluding supervisory, Security
Guards, and the Monthly Employees. (Emphasis supplied)

The contention that the private respondents are regular employees
because their services are “very necessary” to the security of the
company cannot prevail against the unmistakable intent of the provision. To allow the private respondents’
interpretation would open the same right     of
substitution to the other employees therein excluded, to wit, supervisory
employees and monthly employees, whose services are also “very
necessary” to the petitioner.

Even on the assumption that the private respondents are covered
by the collective bargaining agreement, their claim of substitution would still
have to be denied.

There is, to begin with, no vacancy to be filled by the private
respondents’ recommended substitutes. The reason is that the private respondents were not removed or otherwise
separated from their positions; it was the positions themselves that were
abolished. It is elementary that
abolition does not create a vacancy. Vacancy presupposes an existing position without an incumbent.

There are four kinds of vacancies, to wit, the original, the
constructive, the accidental, and the absolute; and in every case there is a
position to be filled.^[4]
In the case at bar, the company security force was disbanded because it could
not secure a license and as a consequence all the positions therein ceased to
exist. The substitution of the private
respondents was no longer possible because there were no more positions to be
filled.

Furthermore, the CBA clearly specifies the different causes of
vacancy that will give rise to the right of substitution. The vacancy must occur “due to the
death, disability or retirement” of the employee. The provision does not include the abolition
of the position, which is a separate mode of terminating employment and was the
cause of the private respondents’ separation.

Reliance on the Macasaet case is misplaced because it is not on
all fours with the present petition. The cause of the separation in that case was retirement of the security
guard, not abolition of his position. Moreover, contrary to the respondents’ suggestion, the appointee in that
case was not really a substitute because she was appointed to a different
position, i.e., in the petitioner’s hospital, and on the strength of her
own qualifications. She was not
employed merely because of the retired guard’s recommendation and neither was
she appointed as his substitute.

The other equally formidable obstacle to the private respondent’s
claim is their delay in asserting it. The provisions they themselves invoke clearly required them to nominate
their substitutes within thirty days from the date the vacancy occurred. Even if it were conceded that the abolition
of their positions did result in the corresponding vacancies, the same occurred
on the date of their separation, to wit, March 11, 1985. That was when their cause of action
accrued. Yet, they invoked it only on
June 15, 1989, or more than four years later.

In fact, their complaint was tardy even under Article 290 of the
Labor Code, which provides that all complaints for unfair labor practices under
Book V should be filed within one year and shall thereafter be barred. The same article states that offenses
penalized under the Code shall prescribe within three years from their
commission.

Even if there were really a company policy allowing a separated
employee to recommend his substitute, such policy cannot be the basis or source
of a demandable legal right. As a mere
gesture of goodwill on the part of the petitioner, it cannot be insisted upon
by the private respondents, who are clearly not allowed this accommodation
under the CBA.

The Court finds that the public respondent did commit grave abuse
of discretion in awarding the private respondents a right to which they were
not entitled. While it is the policy of
the Court to resolve doubts in favor of labor whenever it conflicts with
management, that policy applies only when there are indeed doubts to be
resolved.

We find none here. The
provisions of the CBA are clear. It is
the private respondents’ claim that is ambiguous, and we must therefore reject
it.

ACCORDINGLY, the petition is GRANTED. The challenged decision of the NLRC is SET
ASIDE. The temporary restraining order
dated March 30, 1992, is made PERMANENT. It is so ordered.

Griño-Aquino, Bellosillo, and
Quiason, JJ., concur.

^[1]
Rollo, p. 58.

^[2]
RB-IV-2-1547-85.

^[3]
Rollo, pp. 69-75.

^[4]
Mechem, Law of Public Officers, Sec. 127.