SAMAHANG MANGGAGAWA NG RIZAL PARK AND DOMINGO ENRIQUEZ, PETITIONERS, VS. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION AND NATIONAL PARK DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE, RESPONDENTS.

Samahang Manggagawa ng Rizal Park versus National Labor Relations Commission

The Case

This is a petition for certiorari filed by a labor union and its individual members against the National Labor Relations Commission and the National Parks Development Committee. The petitioners were dismissed in 1972 on the ground that their continued employment was not compatible with the rules of the New Society. They ask the Supreme Court to reverse the Commission's 1990 decision sustaining those dismissals. The case matters for two reasons: it fixes the rule that the burden of proving a valid dismissal rests on the employer, and it shows the Court correcting, years after the fall of the old regime, a dismissal that carried the unmistakable stamp of martial law arbitrariness.

Procedural History

The petitioners first complained to the Department of Labor. The Labor Arbiter dismissed the case, holding that Presidential Decree Number 21 did not apply because the dismissals were made before its effectivity. The matter was elevated to Malacañang when the private respondent insisted that the Office of the President should resolve it, but it was returned to the labor authorities on the finding that it fell under the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Commission. The Arbiter's decision was appealed to the Commission. Action on the appeal was delayed, and further delayed when the records were among those burned in a fire at the Commission's building in December 1983. In its decision of June 29, 1990, the reorganized Commission affirmed the dismissals, although on a different ground, finding that the charge of unfair labor practice had not been sufficiently proven. The petitioners then came to the Supreme Court by petition for certiorari, challenging the Commission's decision for grave abuse of discretion.

Facts

The petitioners were employees of the National Parks Development Committee, then chaired by Imelda Marcos with Teodoro Valencia as vice chairman. In August 1972 the petitioner union proposed negotiations for a collective bargaining agreement, but the proposal was ignored. On September 6, 1972 the union filed a notice of strike on the grounds of refusal to bargain collectively, refusal to recognize the union, and discrimination against union members. The conference scheduled by the Bureau of Labor Relations for the following day could not be held because the private respondent sent no representative.

On September 16, 1972, petitioner Corazon Alparicio was dismissed. On October 3 and 4, 1972, the other individual petitioners were separated from the service. The uniform reason given was the incompatibility of their continued employment with the rules of the New Society. A sample termination notice informed the employee that his services were terminated effective immediately because his continued employment was not compatible with the rules of the New Society.

The dismissals were eventually sustained by the Labor Arbiter in 1976, while martial law was still in force, and again by the National Labor Relations Commission on June 29, 1990, long after the New Society had been discredited and the Freedom Constitution had called for the eradication of all iniquitous vestiges of the previous regime.

Issues

• Whether or not the dismissals of the petitioners were for just cause and valid.
• Whether or not the employer bears the burden of proving the validity of a dismissal.
• Whether or not the National Labor Relations Commission committed grave abuse of discretion in sustaining the dismissals.

Applicable Provisions

Article 280 of the New Labor Code, as cited in the decision, provides:

The basic principle in termination cases is that the burden of proof rests upon the employer to show that the dismissal is for just cause and failure to do so would necessarily mean that the dismissal is not justified and, therefore the employee is entitled to be reinstated.

This is the rule the Court applies: the employer must establish a just cause, and failure to do so entitles the employee to reinstatement.

Section 2, Article IX of the 1987 Constitution, as quoted in the decision, provides:

Since NPDC is a government agency, its employees are covered by civil service rules and regulations.

This bears on the status of the employees, whose dismissal the Court nonetheless tested against the rule on burden of proof.

Section 14 of Executive Order Number 180, as quoted in the decision, provides:

Its employees are civil service employees.

This confirms that the individual petitioners were civil service employees of a government agency.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the dismissals were not for cause. A mere reading of the termination notice showed that the reason given was prima facie invalid. The general statement that the employment of the petitioners was not consonant with the rules of the New Society was a preposterous justification. There was no indication of the specific rules supposedly violated, nor any showing of how or when they had been breached. Neither was it established that the employees were informed of the charges against them or given an opportunity to be heard. Such cavalier treatment could have been permitted under the New Society, the Court said, but cannot be countenanced under the restored democracy.

On the second issue, the Court rejected the Solicitor General's suggestion that the burden of proof lay on the petitioners as complainants. That office, the Court said, had it backwards. In dismissal cases it is the employer who must prove the validity of the dismissal, not the employee who must prove its invalidity. By simply invoking the rules of the New Society, the private respondent failed to discharge that burden.

On the third issue, the Court held that in sustaining the dismissals despite their undisguised arbitrariness, the National Labor Relations Commission committed grave abuse of discretion correctible by the extraordinary writ of certiorari under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court. Although the Court noted that the National Parks Development Committee is a government agency whose employees are covered by civil service rules, it chose to decide the case directly, considering that it had been pending since 1972, that all the evidence was before it, and that the issue presented no special difficulty.

Doctrine

In every dismissal case, the burden of proof rests on the employer to show that the dismissal is for just cause. Failure to discharge that burden means the dismissal is not justified and the employee is entitled to reinstatement. A termination notice that states only a general, conclusory justification, without identifying the specific rules violated or showing how and when they were breached, and without giving the employee notice and hearing, is prima facie invalid. Where the labor tribunal sustains such a dismissal, it commits grave abuse of discretion correctible by certiorari under Rule 65.

Disposition

The petition was granted, the decision of the National Labor Relations Commission was reversed, and the private respondent was ordered to reinstate all the individual petitioners without loss of seniority rights and to pay them five years of back salaries.

Remember This

Memorize this line: in dismissal cases, it is the employer who must prove the validity of the dismissal, not the employee who must prove its invalidity. Examiners use this case to test the burden of proof in illegal dismissal and the requirement that a termination notice state a specific and valid cause.