LEONCITO PACAÑA, PETITIONER, VS. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION AND PHILIPPINE PACKING CORPORATION, RESPONDENTS.

We affirm once again the rule
that the decisions of the National Labor Relations Commission are reviewable only in a petition for certiorari under
Rule 65 of the Rules of Court and may be reversed only upon a clear showing of
a grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack of jurisdiction.  Applying this
rule, we shall dismiss this petition and uphold the challenged judgment of the
public respondent as a proper exercise of
the powers conferred upon it by the labor laws.

The petitioner had been
in the employ of the Philippine Packing Corporation as a security guard for all
of eighteen years when he was implicated on 24 July 1986 in the theft of gramoxone
chemicals from the company plant by Bernie Legaspi, a
14-year, old boy who was caught in flagrante
on 22 July 1986.  This boy said it was the petitioner who had
asked him to take the chemicals out of the company compound.^[1]
One other person, Security Guard Felizardo Adalin, Jr., executed an affidavit to the effect that he
had seen the petitioner actually carrying the chemicals two days earlier in a
plastic bag.^[2]
Investigated in the office of the security department of the
private respondent, the petitioner admitted his guilt, saying that “my act
of giving Belen (the boy’s mother) the gramoxone
chemicals was committed by me because of pity for her and I was also beguiled
by her caresses.”^[3]
He begged forgiveness from the company
and asked that he be transferred to another unit away from Belen.  A complaint for qualified theft was filed
against him in the municipal circuit trial court of Jasaan-Claveria
in Misamis Oriental, but this was later dismissed^[4]
when the petitioner wrote the plantation manager of the PPC and requested that,
as he had already admitted the theft, he be allowed to resign without pay and
the criminal charge against him be dropped.^[5]
The prosecution was revived, however, when the petitioner’s lawyer wrote the PPC and demanded his client’s
reinstatement in view of the lapse of the 30-day period of his suspension.^[6] He also asked for payment of backpay and other benefits to the petitioner.  The information was re-filed on 26
November 1986, in
the regional trial court of Cagayan de Oro City.^[7]

On this same day, the
petitioner filed a complaint for illegal dismissal against the private
respondent.  As required, the parties
submitted their respective position papers. 
On 22 June 1987, the labor arbiter rendered a decision in
favor of the complainant.  The respondent
was required to reinstate him with full back wages or, if this was no longer
possible, to grant him separation pay plus attorney’s fees.^[8]

Copies of this decision
were served on the petitioner on 7 July 1987, and on the respondent on 8 July
1987.  The latter appealed to the National Labor
Relations Commission on 20 July 1987, the same date on which the
complainant moved for a writ of execution on the ground that the decision had
become final and executory.^[9] In view of the conflicting views on the timeliness of the appeal, the labor arbiter forwarded all
the records of the case to the NLRC for resolution.

The NLRC accepted the appeal. 
On 12 January 1988,
it reversed the decision of the labor arbiter and held that the petitioner had
been legally dismissed and so was not entitled to reinstatement and the payment
of back wages or separation pay and the other awards.^[10]
Disagreeing, the petitioner is now before us and faults the public respondent
with grave abuse of discretion for sustaining the PPC.

On the question of whether or not the appeal had been seasonably
made, we hold in favor of the respondents. 
It is true that in Vir-Jen Shipping and Marine
Services v. NLRC,^[11]
we interpreted
the 10-day reglementary period prescribed by Article
223 of the Labor Code for appealing to the NLRC as referring to calendar and
not working days.  It is also true that
the private respondent filed the appeal on the twelfth calendar day following
its receipt of a copy of the appealed decision. 
It appears, however, that the appeal could not have been filed on 18 July 1987, the tenth calendar day,
because this was a Saturday and the offices of the NLRC in Cagayan
de Oro City were closed; and neither could it have
been sent by registered mail because the post office was also closed.  The following day was a Sunday.  The appeal
was therefore seasonably filed on Monday,
20 July 1987, the earliest day this could have been done after the
lapse of the 10-day period.

As for the dismissal, it does
not appear that the NLRC erred
in holding that there was sufficient evidence to sustain the finding that the
petitioner was guilty of stealing the gramoxone
chemicals from the company.  Indeed there
was.  The petitioner himself had admitted
the offense not once but twice and in writing. 
He even gave the reason for committing the offense, to wit, he was
beguiled by Belen’s caresses.  He cannot
turn back on his own statements now and claim he was unaware of its contents
and had been deceived into making them. 
Even the sequence of events supports the conclusion that he had really
admitted his guilt.

The original complaint was withdrawn by the PPC after he had
acknowledged the theft and asked for separation without pay but this was
revived when his counsel demanded his client’s reinstatement and back
wages.  The original complaint would not
have been withdrawn in the first place had he not confessed his offense and
asked that the charge be dropped. 
Apparently, the petitioner had a change of heart after he had consulted
a lawyer who advised him to insist instead on his reinstatement.

The petitioner claims that “he was intimidated, coerced,
pressured, influenced and threatened to sign” papers prepared in advance
by the PPC and “naive, gullible and innocent as he was, petitioner was
compelled against his will to sign those papers.”  It takes more than tautology to prove one’s
point.  The fact is that short of his redundant self-serving statements, the petitioner offers no hard
evidence of the compulsion exerted on him and has not even identified any of
the persons who allegedly forced him to sign his admissions.  Given this infirmity in the petition, the Court has no alternative but
to sustain the findings of the respondent NLRC that there was indeed valid
reason for separating the petitioner from his employment.

The Court also notes that
the offense for which the petitioner was validly separated involves his
integrity, which is especially required for the position of
security guard.  The company had relied
on his honesty in the protection of its property but it has turned out that he
was not deserving of its confidence. 
Neither is he worthy of compassion as to deserve at least separation pay
for his length of service for as we said in the case of Philippine Long
Distance Telephone Co. v. NLRC:^[12]

We hold that henceforth separation pay shall be allowed as a
measure of social justice only in those instances where the employee is
validly dismissed for causes other than serious misconduct or those reflecting
on his moral character.  Where the reason
for the valid dismissal is, for example, habitual intoxication or an offense
involving moral turpitude, like theft or illicit sexual relations with a fellow
worker, the employer may not be required to give the dismissed employee
separation pay, or financial assistance, or whatever other name it is called on
the ground of social justice.

A contrary rule would, as the petitioner correctly argues, have the
effect of rewarding rather than punishing the erring employee for his
offense.  And we do not agree that the
punishment is his dismissal only and that the separation pay has nothing to do
with the wrong he has committed.  Of course it has.  Indeed, if the employee who steals from the
company is granted separation pay even as he is validly dismissed, it is not
unlikely that he will commit a similar offense in his next employment because he thinks he can
expect a little leniency if he is again found out.  This kind of misplaced compassion is not
going to do labor in general any good as it will encourage the infiltration of
its ranks by those who do not deserve the protection and concern of the
Constitution.

The policy of social justice is not intended to countenance
wrongdoing simply because it is committed by the underprivileged.  At best it may mitigate the penalty but it
certainly will not condone the offense. 
Compassion for the poor is an imperative of every humane society but
only when the recipient is not a rascal
claiming an undeserved privilege. 
Social justice cannot be permitted to be the refuge of scoundrels any
more than can equity be an impediment to the punishment of the guilty.  Those who invoke social justice may do so
only if their hands are clean and their motives blameless and not simply
because they happen to be poor.  This
great policy of our Constitution is not meant for the protection of those who
have proved they are not worthy of it, like the workers who have tainted the
cause of labor with the blemishes
of their own character.

WHEREFORE, the petition is DISMISSED, with costs
against the petitioner.  It is so
ordered.

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

^[1]
Rollo, p. 26.

^[2]
Ibid., p. 32, p. 25.

^[3]
Id., p. 163.

^[4]
Id., p. 45.

^[5]
Id., p. 29.

^[6]
Id., pp. 40-42.

^[7]
Id., p. 6.

^[8]
Id., pp. 53-66.  Penned
by Executive Labor Arbiter Zosimo T. Vasallo.

^[9]
Id., p. 67; p. 70.

^[10]
Id., pp. 77-82. Penned by
Commissioner Domingo H. Zapanta with Commissioners
Lucas, D.M. and Abella, O.N., concurring.

^[11]
115 SCRA 347.

^[12]
G.R. No. 80609, August
23, 1988.