FILIPINAS BROADCASTING NETWORK, INC., PETITIONER VS. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISION AND SIMEON MAPA JR., RESPONDENTS.

Filipinas Broadcasting Network versus National Labor Relations Commission

The Case

This is a petition for certiorari brought by Filipinas Broadcasting Network, the owner of radio station DZRC, against the National Labor Relations Commission and Simeon Mapa Junior. The station asks the Supreme Court to annul the Commission's ruling that Mapa was its employee from March 1990 to January 1992 and was therefore entitled to unpaid salaries and benefits for that period. The case matters because it is the Court's cleanest teaching on the four elements of an employer-employee relationship and on the primacy of the control test — and because it shows that when the labor arbiter and the Commission reach contradictory factual findings, the Court will step in and review the facts.

Procedural History

Mapa filed a complaint before the labor arbiter claiming salaries, premium pay for holiday and rest day, holiday pay, and thirteenth month pay for the period from March 1990 to January 1992. The labor arbiter dismissed the complaint, finding that no employer-employee relationship existed between Mapa and DZRC during that period and that Mapa was merely a volunteer reporter. Mapa appealed to the National Labor Relations Commission, which reversed the labor arbiter, set aside the dismissal, and entered a new judgment declaring Mapa an employee entitled to payment for his services from March 1990 to January 1992. The Commission denied the station's motion for reconsideration. The station then came to the Supreme Court on a petition for certiorari, alleging grave abuse of discretion.

Facts

Mapa had been dismissed from his previous employer, DZGB, and had a pending illegal dismissal case against it. In May 1990 he sought work as a radio reporter at DZRC, but the station required a clearance from his former employer before it would act on his application. Because the clearance was not forthcoming, the station manager took pity on him and allowed him to be accommodated as a volunteer reporter on a part-time basis. As a volunteer, he was to receive no wages from the station; instead, he was permitted to find his own sponsors whose businesses he would mention after his reports, and the sponsors paid him directly.

Mapa was not obliged to render reports at any particular time or in any particular program. He had no assigned program and no fixed schedule, and the station exercised no editorial control over the substance of his reports. He was on and off the air, so to speak. In September 1991 he stopped reporting, telling the office supervisor that he was quitting because his sponsors were no longer paying him. In October 1991 he wrote the general manager asking that his 1990 application be reconsidered, stating that he had worked for free and hoping to be recognized as a regular reporter. The station favorably acted on that letter and accepted him as a radio reporter effective January 1992. He resigned in February 1992 to run for public office, and was paid all his salaries and benefits for that short period. He then filed the complaint for the earlier period.

Issues

• Whether or not the National Labor Relations Commission committed grave abuse of discretion in declaring Simeon Mapa Junior an employee of the station before January 1992, misapplying the test for an employer-employee relationship.
• Whether or not Mapa was in fact an employee of the station during the period from March 1990 to January 1992, entitling him to unpaid wages and other employment benefits.

Applicable Provisions

The decision does not quote a statute; it applies the settled four-element test for an employer-employee relationship, which the Court states as follows:

The following are generally considered in the determination of the existence of an employer-employee relationship: (1) the manner of selection and engagement, (2) the payment of wages, (3) the presence or absence of the power of dismissal, and (4) the presence or absence of the power of control; of these four, the last one is the most important.

This test is the measure against which Mapa's engagement is weighed, and it is the control element that decides the case.

On the scope of review, the Court restates its rule in this wise:

As a rule, this Court does not review supposed errors in the decision of the NLRC which raise factual issues, because factual finding of agencies exercising quasi-judicial functions are accorded not only respect but even finality, aside from the consideration that the Court is essentially not a trier of facts. However, in the case at bar, a review of the records thereof with an assessment of the facts is necessary since the factual findings of the NLRC and the labor arbiter are at odds with each other.

This is the doorway through which the Court reviews the facts despite the general rule of finality.

Ruling

The petition is meritorious. On the first issue, the Court holds that review is proper because the findings of the Commission and the labor arbiter are contradictory, and worse, the facts relied upon by the Commission do not prove an employer-employee relationship. On the second issue, applying the four elements, the Court finds none of them present during the period in question.

On selection and engagement, the station never acted on Mapa's application because he failed to submit his clearance; he volunteered his services knowing he would receive no wages and would rely only on his own sponsors. His own bio-data described his DZRC stint as "for free not recognized due to no appointment," and his October 1991 letter admitted he had worked "for free." On payment of wages, the sponsors paid him directly, not the station. On the power of dismissal, he stopped reporting in September 1991 not because he was fired but because his sponsors had stopped paying him. On the power of control, the Court holds:

The most crucial test – the control test – demonstrates all too clearly the absence of an employee-employee relationship. No one at the DZRC had the power to regulate or control private respondents' activities or inputs.

Unlike regular reporters, who followed a program schedule and whose reports were screened before airing, Mapa had no schedule, no assigned program, and no editorial supervision; whether he reported at all depended on his own convenience.

Doctrine

First, the existence of an employer-employee relationship is determined by four elements — selection and engagement, payment of wages, power of dismissal, and power of control — and the control test is the most important. Second, a person who renders services as a volunteer, without wages from the establishment and dependent on his own sponsors, and who is not subject to the establishment's control over the manner and time of his work, is not an employee; his claims for unpaid wages, thirteenth month pay, holiday and rest pay, and other employment benefits must necessarily fail. Third, although the factual findings of the Commission are generally accorded respect and even finality, the Court will review them when they contradict those of the labor arbiter.

Disposition

The station won: the Court granted the petition, set aside the Commission's decision and resolution, and reinstated the labor arbiter's dismissal of Mapa's complaint for lack of merit.

Remember This

Memorize the line that where the evidence clearly shows the absence of an employer-employee relationship, a claim for unpaid wages, thirteenth month pay, holiday and rest pay and other employment benefits must necessarily fail. Examiners use this case to test the four-element test and the primacy of the control test, and to ask when the Supreme Court may review the factual findings of the labor tribunals.