G.R. No. 75510. October 27, 1987
RUFINA SORIANO, PETITIONER, VS. THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION AND KINGLY COMMODITIES TRADERS AND MULTI-RESOURCES, INC., RESPONDENTS.
FELICIANO, J.:
Petitioner started working
with respondent commodities trading Corporation in November 1977 as Investment
Counselor and eventually became Vice-President, Marketing. On 18 September 1984, petitioner was charged
with allowing or failing to supervise and monitor certain activities of
investment counselors in her department, which included the signing of a contract opening an account for a client by an
investment counselor without authority from the client, transfers of funds from
one account to another without the knowledge and authority of the clients
involved, unauthorized transactions in foreign currency with clients of the
respondent Corporation, unauthorized approval of leave for members of her
department, and resulting in loss of confidence in petitioner. Petitioner was preventively suspended and
required to explain her acts or failure to act.
Two (2) days later, petitioner submitted her detailed answer or
explanation. On 27
September 1984, the
Executive Vice-President and General Manager of respondent
Corporation found petitioner’s written explanation unsatisfactory and notified
petitioner that the Corporation had lost confidence in her ability to discharge
the functions of her office and accordingly terminated her services.
Petitioner filed a
complaint for illegal suspension and dismissal against respondent Corporation
and Mr. Guil Rivera, Senior Vice-President,
and Mr. Richard Tan, Executive
Vice-President and General Manager. She
asked for reinstatement with backwages, as well as moral and exemplary damages, medical expenses, attorney’s fees
and other litigation expenses.
On 8 July 1985, Labor
Arbiter A.L. Sevilla rendered a Decision requiring
the respondent Corporation to pay petitioner: (1) separation pay in the amount of P10,500.00; (2) six
(6) months backwages in the amount of P120,000.00; (3) moral damages in the amount of P500,000.00; (4) exemplary damages in
the amount of P100,000.00; and (5) attorney’s
fees equivalent to 10% of the award.
On appeal by the private respondents, public respondent NLRC, in a Decision dated 10
March 1986, modified the Labor Arbiter’s award by deleting the award of moral
and exemplary damages and requiring respondent Corporation to pay: (1) separation pay amounting
to P21,000.00; (2) three (3) months backwages without qualification and deduction amounting to
P9,000.00; and (3) 10% of the award as attorney’s fees.
Both the Labor Arbiter
and respondent NLRC found that because of the strained relations between
petitioner and respondent Corporation, reinstatement
of petitioner was not feasible.
Respondent Corporation had alleged that petitioner had immediately found
employment with Onapal Philippines Commodities, which
had not been denied or refuted by petitioner.
Because respondent Corporation had failed to
specify the definite date of her employment, respondent NLRC granted petitioner
three (3) months backwages without qualification and
deduction.
In the present Petition
for Certiorari, petitioner seeks the annulment of the Decision of
respondent NLRC dated 10 March 1986 and the revival or reinstatement of the
Decision of Labor Arbiter Sevilla dated 8 July
1985.
Petitioner claims that respondent Corporation acted in bad faith in suspending and
terminating her services. Petitioner
asserts that:
1.
respondent Corporation
had violated her right to due process by suspending her immediately without the
benefit of hearing. She argues that the
notice of preventive suspension served her on 18 September 1986 was “living proof” that the
corporation had already concluded she was guilty of the charges levelled against her even before she could submit her
written explanation.
2. the “true reason” for her “illegal
dismissal” was the “personal grudge which Rivera harbored against
her”.
3. respondent Corporation’s bad faith was also demonstrated in
discrimination against her in relation to other employees of the Corporation
who had been in the past similarly charged with alleged infractions of the
corporation’s rules. More specifically,
petitioner asserts discrimination against herself consisting of the failure of
the respondent Corporation to dismiss the two (2) immediate supervisors of the
investment counselor who had carried out the unauthorized manipulations of clients’ accounts in petitioner’s
department.
4. petitioner also charges respondent Corporation with having
misrepresented the extent of her participation in or the scope of her duties in respect of unauthorized acts and
transactions of her subordinates in the marketing department of respondent
company.
The Court considers that
petitioner has failed to show a grave abuse of discretion, or an act performed
without or in excess of jurisdiction, on the part of the respondent NLRC.
In respect of Item 1,
preventive suspension does not in itself prove that the company had prejudged
that petitioner was guilty of the charges she was asked to answer and
explain. Preventive suspension may be
necessary for the protection of the company, its operations and assets, pending
investigation of the alleged malfeasance or misfeasance on the part of officers
or employees of the company and pending a decision on the part of the company
(See Sec. 3 of Rule XIV, Book V, of the Omnibus Rules Implementing the Labor
Code). Considering the very senior and sensitive character of
petitioner’s position as head of a
Department, a line position as distinguished
from a staff or planning position, and considering the unauthorized
transactions, then just discovered by the respondent Corporation, we do not
believe that the preventive suspension was an arbitrary and capricious act
amounting to bad faith on the part of the respondent Corporation.
In respect of Item 2, the
alleged personal motive behind petitioner’s dismissal — personal envy or
feelings of personal insecurity on the part of Guil
Rivera; Senior Vice-President, respondent NLRC found that petitioner had not
sufficiently established her assertion.
Petitioner’s assertion on this point appears no more than a conjecture
or supposition and does not afford an adequate basis for overturning respondent
NLRC’s finding on this point. Further, if petitioner had clearly proven
such personal ill-will on the part of Mr. Rivera, a serious question would
arise as to whether the respondent Corporation (as distinguished from Mr.
Rivera) could be held liable at all for Mr. Rivera’s acts in the absence
of clear authorization for, or approval or adoption of, such act by the
respondent Corporation with
knowledge of the personal malice on the part of Mr. Rivera.
In respect of Item 3, respondent NLRC’s
decision was silent. The Court believes,
however, that respondent Corporation must be accorded
reasonable latitude in determining who among
erring officers or employees should be punished by the company and to what
extent. In the instant case, respondent Corporation presumably found it was not necessary
to terminate the services also of the two (2) section heads in petitioner’s
department, who clearly are much lower in the corporate hierarchy than
petitioner.
With respect to the last
and most important of the above listed items, the scope of petitioner’s responsibility
for the operations of her department and the extent of her supervisory
authority over her subordinates in the marketing department, respondent NLRC
set forth the following discussion and evaluation:
“Appellants stressed the point that complainant, as vice president, marketing, is actually a department head of one of the
company’s sales department (sic). As
such, her basic function is the supervision and monitoring the daily activities
of her department and the employees she supervises (sic). By the nature of the company’s business,
complainant as a department head should see to it that the clients’ trust and
confidence in the company is upheld through above-board transactions, untainted
relations, satisfactory servicing and unquestioned integrity of its officers
and staff, aside from the promotion of cordial employee relations among her
personnel through unbiased and uniform implementation of company policies
affecting employee benefits and welfare.
According to the appellants, the finding of the Labor Arbiter that
‘complainant is not expected to keep an eye or be aware of all day-to-day
transactions of her workers particularly Investment Consultants in her
department’ does not conform to the facts prevailing in this case.
In the Panemanglor case, which is the
crucial point at issue, Panemanglor opened an account
with the respondent corporation on June
28, 1984 by depositing the amount of P50,000.00
through Sofia Nazareno, investment counsellor. Instead
of the client signing the Customers Agreement, it was Nazareno
who signed the agreement and the signature card in the name of the client,
which is highly irregular. Had she
exercised prudence in the supervision of her investment consultants, the
irregularity could have been earlier detected. As a
result, the sum of P25,000.00 from Panemanglor’s account was transferred by Nazareno to the account
of Ramon Lopez, without the knowledge of Panemanglor
on July 9, 1984. On July
13, 1984, the said client withdrew the sum of P25,000.00
through a Payment Instruction Form that was approved by the complainant. On August
6, 1984, the amount of P4,052.59 was
transferred by Nazareno to the account of Panemanglor from the account of Ramon Lopez. This transaction was with the approval of the
complainant. On September 3, 1984, Panemanglor
demanded the payment of the balance of P25,000.00 from
the respondent company to close his account and the letter of Panemanglor was referred to complainant by respondent Guil Rivera for necessary action. In her memorandum to senior vice president Guil Rivera, complainant confirmed the irregularity in
the handling of the account of Panemanglor, but she
failed to take appropriate action against the erring employee which was within
her power to discipline employees under her supervision. Later on February 4, 1985, a complaint was
filed before the Securities and Exchange Commission by Panemanglor
for the recovery of the
P25,000.00 plus damages against the respondent corporation, contrary to her
claim that the client will not file a recovery suit against the corporation
since the obligation was purely personal to Nazareno.
Respondents contend that complainant could have immediately
discovered the unauthorized signature of Sofia Nazareno
that led to the illegal transfers of fund, had she followed the company
procedure and practice for her to be personally acquainted with new clients and
her admission that she was not aware of the complained acts has brought to light that she was remiss in her
supervisory and monitoring function. On
top of this, she failed to institute disciplinary action against the erring
employee.
x x x x x x x x x
As head of one of the
company’s sales department (sic) and a managerial employee at that, complainant
is expected to monitor the daily activities of the investment counsellors and the transactions of clients in her
department. As a matter of practice and procedure, complainant, as
vice-president-marketing, is always informed of new clients for her to be
personally acquainted with the
client. We agree with the appellants
that had the complainant adhered to this procedure, she could
have immediately noticed the unauthorized signature by Sofia Nazareno that enabled
her to transfer funds from one account to another.
Likewise, since the complainant approved the payment instruction for P25,000.00 on July 13, 1984, the transfer of P4,052.59 on August 6,
1984 from the
account of Ramon Lopez to Panemanglor’s account, and
the withdrawal of the transferred amount on August 7, 1984, she could have easily suspected that
something was irregular with the transaction. Yet, it took several months before she
knew of the anomaly and it took her superior, respondent Guil
Rivera, to bring the matter to her attention. Under the circumstances, it cannot be
truthfully said that complainant has not been without any fault
whatsoever. For this reason, the
basis for the award of the moral and exemplary damages has not been
sufficiently or satisfactorily established by the complainant. And besides the
dismissal of the complainant by the respondent was done in good faith. x x x” (Underscoring supplied)
Petitioner’s argument
that, because she was head of the entire marketing (sales) department, she could
not be expected to monitor the detailed or day-to-day acts and behaviour of the staff members of her department, does not
address what appears to be the thrust of the respondent NLRC’s
decision. And that is, that as head of
the department, it was her responsibility to adopt ways and means of keeping
herself sufficiently informed of the activities of her staff members so as to prevent or at least discover at an early stage, e.g., unauthorized
or illegal transactions and manipulation of clients’ accounts. On the one hand, the above position taken by
the respondent NLRC cannot be regarded as so obviously unreasonable and
despotic as to constitute a grave abuse of discretion,
given the character of the business of a commodities
trading company and the fact that very substantial sums of money are handled
daily by petitioner’s department. Upon
the other hand, petitioner’s logic would lead to the conclusion that the
more senior the management position, the slighter the responsibility for
malfeasance or nonfeasance that can be laid upon the position-holder; the chief
executive officer of a corporation
would effectively have, under this logic, little or no responsibility at all.
Turning to the specific award made by respondent NLRC, the salary
base properly used in computing the separation pay and the backwages
due to petitioner should include not just the basic salary but also the regular
allowances that petitioner had been receiving (See Santos v. National Labor
Relations Commission, G.R. No. 76721, 21 September 1987). In petitioner’s case, the base figure
properly includes her: (a) basic salary of P3,000.00 a month; and (b) living allowance of P2,400 a month
(petitioner’s Affidavit, dated 12
April 1985, Exhibit “G”, Rollo,
p. 105). The commissions also claimed
by petitioner (“override commission” plus “net deposit
incentive”) are not properly
includible in such base figure since such commissions must be earned by actual
market transactions attributable to petitioner.
Neither should “travels equivalent” [an unusual and
unexplained term; P10,000.00 a month] and
“commission in trading personal clients” [P3,000.00 a month] be
included in such base figure.
Considering that the charge of bad faith on the part of private
respondents was not proven, the respondent NLRC having, on the contrary, made a
finding that petitioner’s dismissal was made in good faith there appears no
real basis for the award of attorney’s fees (Art. 2208 [5], Civil Code). This award should not exceed a nominal amount
which we set at P1,500.00.
Thus, the appropriate computation would be:
A. Separation pay — P5,400.00/month
x 7 = P37,800.00
(in view of petitioner’s seven (7)
years
of service)
B. Backwages
— P5,400.00/month x 3 mos. = P16,200.00
Sub-Total P54,000.00
plus nominal
attorney’s
fees 1,500.00
TOTAL P55,500.00
========
ACCORDINGLY, the Court Resolved to DISMISS the Petition
for Certiorari for lack of merit.
The Decision of the respondent NLRC dated 10 March 1986 is modified so as to award petitioner the following
items: a) separation pay in the amount
of P37,800.00; b) backwages for three (3) months in
the amount of P16,200.00; and c) attorney’s fees of P1,500.00, making a total
of P55,500.00.
SO ORDERED.
Fernan, (Chairman), Gutierrez, Jr., Bidin, and Cortes, JJ., concur.