LBC AIRCARGO, INC., PETITIONERS, VS. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COM­MISSION, TRINA APUNGAN, ELSIE JAMILI, JUDITH JOCAME, EMMA SIGLOS AND WILFREDO DUMARAN, RESPONDENTS.

An Arbiter’s carelessly drafted decision and the respondent
Commission’s undiscriminating acceptance and affirmance
thereof despite its self-contradictory terms, have unnecessarily given rise to
the certiorari proceedings at bar.

On July 15, 1980,
Assistant Regional Director Dante Ardivilla approved
the application of LBC Aircargo, Inc. dated March 7, 1980 to terminate the
services of five employees in its Bacolod Branch to
prevent further financial losses already being incurred.  The approval was based on a Summary
Investigative Report submitted on July
10, 1980 by a member of the MOLE Special Task Force, who received
evidence on the application.

The five employees (private respondents herein) moved for
reconsideration of Ardivilla’s Order, contending that
there were serious errors in its findings of fact; that the financial
statements submitted by the applicant employer were inaccurate; and that as
employees, they were at a disadvantage in the proceedings since they had no
access to LBC’s records and lacked financial means to
retain counsel.  Ardivilla
referred the case to the Office of the Minister of Labor in Manila.

On September 26, 1984, Deputy Minister Vicente Leogardo, Jr. issued an order: (1) setting aside Ardivilla’s approval of LBC’s
application for termination of the services of its five employees, there being,
in his view, factual and legal issues which had not been fully threshed out in
the original proceedings; and (2) remanding the case to the Arbitration Unit of
the Bacolod District Office for compulsory
arbitration (as RAB-IV Case No. 0484-84).

The case was assigned to Labor Arbiter Jose Aguirre, Jr.  Nothing eventful transpired in the case over
the next two years, however; hearings appeared to have simply been reset, more
often than not at the instance of counsel for the employees.

In December, 1986, the case was re-assigned to Labor Arbiter Calixto A. Valaquio.  At the hearing on February 6, 1987, the employees’ counsel moved
that the case be deemed submitted for decision on the basis of the pleadings
already filed.  Arbiter Valaquio then rendered a decision on February 27, 1987.

The decision inter alia adverted
to the no little delay evidently caused by the employees’ counsel, which had
elicited a warning from the Arbiter that he would dismiss the case if the
employees failed to appear in June, 1985. 
The decision pertinently reads as follows (italics, and parenthetical
insertions supplied):

” * * *.  The first
scheduled hearing was set February 22, 1985, however, counsel for oppositors (employees) moved for resetting alleging among
others that he had not met some of the oppositors
since their whereabouts are unknown considering that this is a 1980 case.  On May 1985, this office issued an order
warning oppositors (employees) to appear on June 1985
otherwise the instant case will be dismissed.

“As things stand, the case is back to square one.  If ever the case was indorsed, it was because
of the need of compulsory arbitration regarding some vital aspect of the
case.  In moving for resolution based on
the pleadings, one thing is clear, oppositors
(employees) do not wish to present additional evidence.  Under these circumstances, we have no other
alternative but to dismiss the case.

“WHEREFORE, for failure to prosecute and/or lack of interest,
the instant case is hereby ordered dismissed. 
* * .”

The decision is regrettably imprecise; its meaning is not,
however, entirely undiscoverable.

It says, clearly enough, that (a) the employees had the burden of
presenting “additional evidence” to refute the facts found to exist
in the Ardivilla decision — which facts had been
declared as adequate to authorize termination of the employees’ services on the
ground of retrenchment — but (b) their counsel had procrastinated, and
finally, by moving to submit the case “for resolution based on the
pleadings,” had made clear that the oppositors
(employees) did “not wish to present (such) additional evidence.” The
logical conclusions from these premises are (a) the employees’ forfeiture of
their right to so present additional evidence, and (b) the resulting failure to
establish any ground to modify the Ardivilla decision
(declaring that facts had been established justifying the employees’ separation
from the service).

These were not the conclusions drawn, however.  Instead, Arbiter Valaquio
opted “to dismiss the case.” Valaquio thus
uttered a paradox.  While his decision
states that the oppositors (employees) had failed to
present evidence to prove erroneous the grant of their employer’s application
to dismiss them, it orders the dismissal of the latter’s application! In
other words, the Valaquio decision penalizes the
applicant (employer) for the oppositors’ (employees’)
failure to disprove the former’s proofs, which had
been accepted and accorded due credit in the original decision of Assistant
Regional Director Ardivilla.

Not unexpectedly, the employees soon tried to take advantage of
the ambiguity in the Valaquio decision.  About a month after its promulgation, or on
March 27, 1987, the employees filed a motion opining that since the Valaquio directive “to dismiss the case” imported
the dismissal, not of their opposition to their employer’s application to
terminate their services on the ground of financial losses, but of the
application itself; and since this, in turn, was an implicit pronouncement of
the lack of merit in the employer’s claim, their reinstatement and the payment
to them of back wages should be decreed.

The matter was elevated to the NLRC which promulgated a decision
on September 30, 1987
commanding the reinstatement of the employees with back wages.  It said, “With the dismissal of the applicaton to terminate the oppositors,
it necessarily follows that the ground relied upon by the applicant, which is retrenchment to prevent further losses, was not
justified.  This, in effect, will entitle
the oppositors to reinstatement with backwages.” The ruling was explained further by the
NLRC in a Resolution denying the employer’s motion for reconsideration, viz.:

” ** (T)he
Labor Arbiter having dismissed the case for failure to prosecute or lack of
interest, he failed to thresh out the factual and legal issues ordained by
Deputy Minister Leogardo.  Failing in this, how can we resurrect the
grant of clearance already set aside by Leogardo.  There being no
legal and factual basis for the grant of clearance, the consequence would be to
dismiss the case and reinstate the workers, as we have directed in our previous
decision.”

It ordered, however, that the separation
pay already accepted by the employees should be deducted from the back wages
due to them from their employer.

This decision of September 30, 1987, and the resolution dated
December 29, 1987 denying reconsideration thereof, are now subject of special
civil action of certiorari at bar.

The error in the decision is palpable and the prejudice to the
petitioner, undeniable, as a review of the material facts at once discloses.

The petitioner had applied for leave to terminate the employment
of the five respondents, avowing it was constrained to do so by financial
losses.  It presented evidence in
substantiation of its application.  The
evidence was found sufficient by the Regional Director who accordingly granted
the application.  The employees
questioned the Director’s findings, claiming they had been prevented by reasons
beyond their control from presenting evidence to refute the facts established
by their employer’s proofs.  The Deputy
Labor Minister found merit in their plea and referred the case to a Labor
Arbiter for reception of the employees’ evidence on certain factual issues
which had not been fully threshed out in the original proceedings.  That the purpose of this second hearing was
chiefly to accord the employees an opportunity to adduce evidence to overthrow
the factual foundations of the employer’s application to dismiss them, which,
as aforestated, had been pronounced meritorious by
the Regional Director, seems evident; and it was apparently so understood by
the Labor Arbiter and the parties. 
However, in the proceedings before the Labor Arbiter, the employees’
lawyer failed to present evidence notwithstanding more than sufficient time and
opportunity granted to him by the Labor Arbiters.  The lawyer was in fact warned by the
Arbiter.  The warning went unheeded.  Eventually, the lawyer submitted the case for
resolution without having presented any additional evidence.

Given these undisputed facts, demonstrating the employees’
unwillingness or inability, and ultimate omission, to present evidence, as they
were expected to, to controvert the claim of financial losses of their employer
(justifying their separation from employment), the indicated disposition could
not be more obvious:  NOT the dismissal
of the employer’s application for termination of employment of the oppositors (employees), but the dismissal or overruling of
the latter’s opposition and the waiver of their invoked right to ventilate the
factual and legal issues which, according to them, they had failed to deal with
in the original proceedings.  It is in
this sense that the Arbiter’s carelessly drafted decision dismissing “the
case” should therefore have been construed and considered by the
respondent Commission.  It could not and
should not have been read as overthrowing the original Ardivilla
grant of the application to terminate employment, since no proof or argument
whatever had been presented to support such an overthrow, or to justify a
conclusion that the employer’s evidence accepted in said Ardivilla
decision had somehow lost cogency.

The lesson here, of course, is that judges and arbiters should
draw up their decisions and resolutions with due care, and make certain that
they truly and accurately reflect their conclusions and equally as importantly,
their final dispositions.  As pointed out
in the opening paragraph of this opinion, the controversy could have been
resolved more quickly had there been more attention to the drafting of the
resolution following, and resulting from, the inability of the oppositors (employees) to present additional evidence of
their contentions.  As it is, the controversy
has been unnecessarily prolonged.

Wherefore, the Court Resolved to NULLIFY AND SET ASIDE the
respondent Commission’s Decision dated September 30, 1987, declaring said
Commission’s interpretation of the Valaquio decision
and its reading of the relevant facts to be so seriously in error as to amount
to grave abuse of discretion, and to REAFFIRM AND UPHOLD the Ardivilla Decision dated July 15, 1980 which has not been
shown to be erroneous by evidence duly presented for the purpose.

SO ORDERED.

Cruz, Gancayco, Griño-Aquino, and Medialdea, JJ., concur.