EMPLOYEES ASSOCIATION OF THE PHILIPPINE AMERICAN LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY (EMAPALICO) AND NAPOLEON CAPARAS, PETITIONERS, VS. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION AND THE PHILIPPINE…

Several issues were
raised in the proceedings below, but we are concerned here only with the case
of Napoleon Caparas.  The main question
we must resolve is whether he is entitled to reinstatement, assuming this is
possible, or only to back wages and separation pay from the private respondent.

In her remarkably
well-written decision dated December 10, 1986, Labor Arbiter Ceferina J. Diosana ordered
the Philippine American Life Insurance Co. to reinstate Caparas to his
original position “as an Accounting
Clerk A or to any equivalent position with back wages from the date of
termination to actual reinstatement.”^[1]

On appeal by both parties, the decision was affirmed by the NLRC
but with the modification that the private respondent should pay Caparas
P9,650.00 as actual damages.^[2]
On February 8, 1988,
however, acting on the motion for reconsideration filed by Philamlife, the NLRC
disposed as follows:

WHEREFORE, the questioned resolution is hereby modified in that in
lieu of reinstatement, respondent is ordered to pay complainant Caparas
backwages from the date his salary was
withheld from him until the execution hereof plus separation pay
computed at one month’s salary for every year of service, a fraction of at
least six (6) months shall be considered one (1) whole year.  In all other respects, the questioned
resolution is hereby affirmed.^[3]

Their own motion for reconsideration of the above resolution
having been denied, the petitioners have come to this Court for relief on certiorari.  Their
claim is that the public
respondent acted with grave abuse of discretion when it reversed the original
order for Caparas reinstatement, granting him instead back wages and separation
pay.

The illegal dismissal of Caparas is not in issue here.  While Philamlife has not admitted that he was
invalidly separated, it nevertheless says that “it will accept the payment
of separation pay, if only to conclude this case.”^[4]
What it objects to now is the reinstatement of Caparas as originally ordered by
the Labor Arbiter.  It points out in its
memorandum that “the NLRC resolution of February 8, 1988, modifying its decision of December 9, 1987, by ordering the
payment of separation pay in lieu of reinstatement, is entirely in accordance
with established jurisprudence, particularly when such reinstatement is no
longer feasible.”

In justifying its resolution on the motion for reconsideration,
the NLRC declared:

The record of the case amply demonstrates the palpable antagonism
and irretrievably estranged relations between the complainant Caparas and the
respondent.  Parenthetically, respondent
has emphatically established that reinstatement is no longer possible due to the
unavailability of the position of Accounting Clerk A.  There is no showing that an equivalent
position is available to Mr. Caparas. 
All of these militate against the propriety of reinstating complainant
Caparas.  We, therefore, affirm the award
of backwages with modifications as an alternative
to reinstating complainant Caparas.^[5]

The Solicitor General bolsters this finding by citing the
specific circumstances that led to the “irretrievable estrangement”
between Caparas and Philamlife, to wit, the abolition of his position, his
objection to the requirement of Philamlife that all separated employees
actively apply for vacancies that might arise, the imposition of conditions on
his probationary appointment, and his insistence on his own terms for his
re-employment.  Added to these are the
eventual recall by Philamlife of Caparas’s probationary (unsigned) appointment
and the withdrawal of his subsidy in the
purchase of a lot from
Philamlife’s affiliate company, the Kapatiran Realty Corporation, on the ground
that he was no longer an employee.

The Solicitor General’s conclusion is that “while it may be
conceded that Caparas was found
to have been illegally dismissed, his reinstatement
is not warranted, as it would generate antipathy or antagonism, which is not
favorable to any harmonious or workable employer-employee relationship.”
He cites several cases in support
of this contention.  He also stresses that there are no available
positions to which Caparas could be reinstated, as found by the NLRC,
whose conclusions on this factual matter should be respected.  The private respondent echoes these
arguments.

The Court does not agree.

While there is no denying that relations have been strained
between Caparas and Philamlife, their differences are not of such a nature or degree as to preclude the
petitioner’s reinstatement.  The fact
that Caparas was the President of the Employees Association of the Philippine
American Life Insurance Company (EMAPALICO) at the time he was dismissed could
be another reason why he should be reinstated rather than simply given
separation pay and back wages.

In the several cases cited by the parties, it was clear that the
retention of the employee was not advisable because of the irreconcilable
enmity between the employee and management.

In Century Textile Mills v. NLRC,^[6]
the reinstatement of the employee was not allowed because he had tried to
poison some of his co-workers
and would have continued, if retained, to pose a threat to their lives.  In Flores v. Nuestro,^[7]
there was a previous
altercation between the parties that led to the filing of a complaint for slight physical
injuries by the employee against the employer, and we felt that any possible
confrontation between them should be avoided. 
While a similar physical
hostility was not demonstrated in Divine
Word High School
v. NLRC,^[8]
the teacher’s separation was nevertheless sustained by this Court because we
felt that her retention in the high school faculty would prejudice the
educational and moral objectives of the Catholic school.

It is readily noticeable in the case at bar that the differences
of Caparas with Philamlife are neither personal nor physical nor are they of so
serious a nature as to preclude
his reinstatement.  The unsigned
probationary appointment to a lower position that was offered him was an
irritant that any employee similarly prejudiced had reason to question.  It bears emphasis that not only was Caparas
reacting merely as an individual employee to the conditions laid down by Philamlife; he was expressing the official position and opposition of the EMAPALICO, of which
he was the President.  In this capacity, he had a right and a duty as well to protest the acts of
Philamlife insofar as they
affected not only him but also his co-workers.

Caparas was only acting as any responsible union president would
when he protested the abolition of the Computer Operations Department, the
requirement of Philamlife that
the separated employees file applications for vacancies that might be created,
his unsigned probationary appointment to a lower position, and the demand that
he sign his unconditional acceptance thereof. 
No disrespect was intended when he reserved his right to question the
validity of his removal and demotion, nor was this done on a personal
basis only
but on behalf of the entire
union membership.

If by doing all these, a
union president should be considered to have irremediably strained his
relations with management, he can then, following the respondent’s theory, be
separated for this reason by management, subject only to the grant to him of
separation pay.  This is a dangerous doctrine that would seriously imperil the cause of unionism.

As Labor Arbiter Diosana correctly observed:

The conditions proposed by Caparas were not unreasonable.  He had the union and its members to
protect.  He had the obligation and the
right too to object to
management’s actions which were detrimental to the union and its members.  He just
did what an ordinary president of the union would have done under the
same circumstances.

The respondents argue that Caparas’s reinstatement is no longer
possible because his former position has been abolished and there is no
comparable position to which he can now be appointed.  Curiously, Philamlife submitted its
certification to this effect only on March
3, 1988,^[9]
after the issuance of the questioned resolution of February 8, 1988, where the same pronouncement was
made.  The certification is not
convincing, in any case, being at best self-serving and at worst an evasive
inaccuracy.

It is not lost on the Court that Caparas was occupying an
ordinary clerical position, not a top executive post for which an equivalent
office may indeed be difficult to find.  Considering the size of Philamlife, it is not
believable that not a single
position similar to Caparas’s abolished position was available, let alone the
fact that he was the President of the EMAPALICO and as such perhaps deserved a little extra accommodation.  The Court cannot help wondering if it was
precisely because of his status as union head that he was denied such accommodation.

We have held in earlier cases as follows:

As pointed out by the Office of the Solicitor General, assuming
that private respondent’s position was abolished, she can be reinstated to a
substantially equivalent position without loss of seniority rights, but herein
petitioner insists that there exists no substantially equivalent position for
private respondent.  The assertion is
unmeritorious considering that petitioner is one of the country’s top
corporations.^[10]

If the respondent had been a laborer, clerk, or other rank and file
employee, there would be no problem in ordering
her reinstatement with facility.  But she
was Vice President for Marketing of Asiaworld. 
An officer in such a key position can work effectively only if she
enjoys the full trust and confidence of top management.^[11]

The factual findings of administrative bodies are as a rule
binding on this Court, but this is true only when they do not come under the
established exceptions.  In the case at
bar, we find that the evidence of record does not support the conclusion of the
NLRC that the relations of the employee and management have been so seriously
strained as to
prevent the former’s reinstatement.  We
also reject the plea that there is absolutely no other position in the whole
organization of Philamlife to which Caparas can be appointed to restore to him
his original compensation and seniority.

We do agree that the hiring and firing of personnel is a management
prerogative, but this is not without limitation.  The limitation is embodied in the
constitutional requirement for the protection of labor and the promotion of
social justice, which tilts the scales of justice, whenever there is doubt, in
favor of the worker.

WHEREFORE, the resolution of the NLRC dated February
8, 1988, is SET
ASIDE and its original decision dated December 9, 1987, is REINSTATED.  It is so ordered.

Narvasa, (Chairman), Gancayco, Griño-Aquino, and Medialdea, JJ., concur.

^[1]
Rollo, p. 31.

^[2]
Ibid., p. 45.

^[3]
Id., pp. 46-47.

^[4]
Original Records, p. 408.

^[5]
Rollo, p. 46.

^[6]
161 SCRA 528.

^[7]
160 SCRA 568.

^[8]
143 SCRA 346.

^[9]
Original Records, pp. 411-416.

^[10]
Marcopper Mining Corporation v. Briones, 165 SCRA 464.

^[11]
Asiaworld Publishing House v. Ople, 152 SCRA 219.