DIOSDADO TINGSON, JR., GODOFREDO OBLEFIAS, CARMELO MOLINO, AND GEORGE DRAPER, PETITIONERS, VS. THE HONORABLE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION, FIRST DIVISION, THENMARIS (SHIP…

Tingson versus National Labor Relations Commission

The Case

This is a petition for certiorari brought by four Filipino seafarers, Diosdado Tingson, Junior, Godofredo Oblefias, Carmeno Molino, and George Draper, against the National Labor Relations Commission, its First Division, and their foreign and local employers, Sea Proud Shipping of Greece and Intermare Maritime Agencies, Incorporated. The petitioners were repatriated from a foreign port and later dismissed, and they came to the Supreme Court after both the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration and the National Labor Relations Commission ruled against them. The case matters because it fixes, in plain terms, the procedure an employer must observe before dismissing a worker, and it teaches that a hearing held after the worker has already been sent home cannot cure the defect.

Procedural History

The petitioners filed a complaint with the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration for illegal dismissal, recovery of unpaid salaries, and non-payment of overtime and other benefits. The private respondents answered, alleging insubordination, incompetence, inefficiency, disrespect toward a superior officer, and abandonment of post. The overseas employment office rendered a decision sustaining the private respondents, and on appeal the National Labor Relations Commission affirmed that decision. The petitioners then seasonably came to the Supreme Court, assailing both rulings on the grounds that no competent evidence showed insubordination and that they had been deprived of due process of law. The petitioner George Draper subsequently withdrew his complaint, and the Court decided the case without him.

Facts

In April 1983, the four petitioners were hired by Sea Proud Shipping, represented in the Philippines by Intermare Maritime Agencies, Incorporated, as Chief Mate, Second Engineer, Fourth Engineer, and Carpenter, for a contract period of twelve months. On the sixteenth of August 1983, while the vessel was docked at the port of Rosario, Argentina, the ship master informed them that a telegram had been received from the general manager of the local agency ordering that the four complainants be sent home. They were ordered to disembark for repatriation to Manila within ten minutes from that order.

On the fifth of December 1983, the petitioners filed their complaint with the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration. The private respondents answered that the petitioners had been repatriated because they had committed acts of insubordination, incompetence, and inefficiency, disrespect toward a superior officer, and abandonment of post of duty without having been properly relieved.

On the twenty-eighth of January 1988, the overseas employment office rendered a decision sustaining the private respondents, and the National Labor Relations Commission affirmed it on appeal. Before the Supreme Court, the Solicitor General upheld the validity of the dismissal of Diosdado Tingson for insubordination, but conceded that the proofs presented against Godofredo Oblefias and Carmeno Molino were hearsay in character.

Issues

• Whether or not the petitioners were denied due process of law before they were dismissed from employment.
• Whether or not the petitioners were unlawfully terminated from work.
• Whether or not the proceedings before the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration may be relied upon to justify the dismissal.

Applicable Provisions

Section 13 of Batas Pambansa Bilang 130, quoted by the Court, provides:

Subject to the constitutional right of workers to security of tenure and their right to be protected against dismissal except for a just or authorized cause and without prejudice to the requirement of notice under Article 284 of this Code, the clearance to terminate employment shall no longer be necessary.

This is the general rule that clearance to terminate is no longer required, but it is immediately qualified by the next paragraph.

However, the employer shall furnish the worker whose employment is sought to be terminated a written notice containing a statement of the causes for termination and shall afford the latter ample opportunity to be heard and to defend himself with the assistance of his representative if he so desires in accordance with company rules and regulations promulgated pursuant to guidelines set by the Ministry of Labor and Employment. Any decision taken by the employer shall be without prejudice to the right of the worker to contest the validity or legality of his dismissal by filing a complaint with the regional branch of the National Labor Relations Commission. The burden of proving that the termination was for a valid or authorized cause shall rest on the employer. The Ministry may suspend the effects of the termination pending resolution of the case in the event of a prima facie finding by the Ministry that the termination may cause a serious labor dispute or is in implementation of a mass lay-off.

This paragraph supplies the twin requirements the Court enforces: a written notice of the causes, and an ample opportunity to be heard and to defend oneself, all before dismissal. The Court also cites Article 284 of the Labor Code in passing, on the requirement of notice.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the petitioners had been denied due process of law. It rejected the Solicitor General's submission that there had been substantial compliance because Diosdado Tingson had been granted an audience with the ship captain and with the general manager of the ship agent upon arriving in Manila. The Court held that such an audience is not the due process contemplated by law, and that prior to dismissal the employer is obliged to observe the procedure laid down by the Labor Code. The Court stressed that the employer is bound to furnish the employee two notices, the written charge and the notice of dismissal if after hearing dismissal is indeed warranted, and that this procedure is mandatory, in the absence of which any judgment reached by management is void and inexistent.

On the second issue, the Court held that the petitioners had been unlawfully terminated from work, because failure to comply with the required procedure taints the dismissal with illegality. It added that the existence of evidence to justify termination is of no moment. For one thing, the Solicitor General himself said that the proofs against Godofredo Oblefias and Carmeno Molino were hearsay. For another, even if there had been sufficient evidence, that would not justify the private respondents in unceremoniously dumping the petitioners on strange shores without hearing them.

On the third issue, the Court held that the private respondents cannot rely on the proceedings before the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, because that hearing was conducted on the petitioners' own complaint for illegal dismissal, and by that time the petitioners had already been terminated. What the law requires is the procedure prior to dismissal.

Doctrine

Before an employer may dismiss a worker, it must furnish a written notice stating the causes for termination and afford the worker an ample opportunity to be heard and to defend himself, with the assistance of his representative if he so desires. The employer must issue two notices: the written charge, and the notice of dismissal if dismissal is warranted after hearing. This procedure is mandatory; non-compliance renders the dismissal illegal, and any judgment reached by management is void and inexistent. The burden of proving that the termination was for a valid or authorized cause rests on the employer. A hearing conducted only after the worker has already been dismissed, as in a complaint for illegal dismissal, does not cure the defect, and the existence of evidence against the worker does not excuse the omission.

Disposition

The petition was granted; the private respondents were ordered to pay Diosdado Tingson, Junior, Godofredo Oblefias, and Carmeno Molino their wages from the sixteenth of August 1983 until the twenty-eighth of April 1984, the expiration of the crew agreement, in their equivalent in Philippine pesos with legal interest at six percent per annum from the sixteenth of August 1983 until fully paid, plus overtime pay and other benefits allowed by law, with the case remanded to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration for computation, and with costs against the private respondents.

Remember This

The one line to memorize is that the employer must give two notices and a genuine opportunity to be heard before dismissal, and a hearing held after the worker has been sent home is no due process at all. Examiners use this case to test the twin notice rule, the mandatory character of the pre-dismissal procedure, and the rule that the employer bears the burden of proving a valid cause for termination.