MAMERTO B. ASIS, PETITIONER, VS. MINISTER OF LABOR AND EMPLOY­MENT, CENTRAL AZUCARERA DE PILAR, AND EMMANUEL JAVELLANA, RESPONDENTS.

The facts of this case depict a picture that is hardly edifying:
avidity trying to wear the mantle of right. The facts raise a twofold issue: whether a company which has been haled
to court by its own in-house counsel is obliged to continue his employment and
entrust its legal affairs to him, specially when his cause of action has been
shown to be devoid of merit; and whether a firm is bound to retain in its
service a personnel manager who has incited the very employees under his
supervision and control to file complaints against it. Asserting a right to sue
his employer for a legitimate grievance without meriting retaliatory action,
the petitioner claims that his dismissal for such conduct or on the ground,
essentially, of loss of confidence, was illegal; and he asks this Court to
annul the judgment of the respondent Commission, which upheld the termination
of his services in respondent company. Said claim finds no support in either the law or the established facts
and must, therefore, be rejected.

The petitioner was appointed Legal Counsel of the Central
Azucarera de Pilar.^[1] Later,
concurrently with his position as Legal Counsel, he was named Head of its
Manpower and Services Department.

In addition to his basic salaries and other fringe benefits, his
employer granted him, and a few other officials of the company, a monthly
ration of 200 liters of gasoline and a small tank of liquefied petroleum gas
(LPG).1 This monthly ration was temporarily revoked some
five (5) years later as a cost reduction measure of the Central.2 The petitioner and the other officials adversely
affected moved for reconsideration. Their plea was denied.

The petitioner then commenced an action against the Central with
the Regional Office of the Ministry of Labor and Employment, seeking
restoration of his monthly ration of gasoline and LPG which, as aforesaid,
had been temporarily suspended. The
case was docketed as LRD Case No. 1632.

Shortly afterwards, he filed another action against his employer,
docketed as LRD Case No. 1685, this time complaining against the Central’s
memorandum ordaining his relief (by being placed on leave of absence) as the
Central’s Legal Counsel and Head of the Manpower Services Department. Impleaded by the petitioner as co-respondent
was Emmanuel Q. Javellana, the Finance Manager and Comptroller of the Central,
who had signed the memorandum for his relief.3 The petitioner
theorized that he had in effect been dismissed, illegally.4

The two cases were jointly heard and decided by the Regional
Director. The latter’s judgment5 was for the petitioner’s reinstatement to his
former positions without loss of seniority, benefits and other privileges, the
payment to him of back wages from date of his relief up to time of
reinstatement, and the delivery to him of the monthly benefits from the time of
their temporary revocation up to actual restoration or, at his option, the
money equivalent thereof.6

The Deputy Minister of Labor however reversed this decision of
the Regional Director, on appeal taken by the Central; the Deputy Minister
ordered the dismissal of the petitioner’s complaint.7 The
Deputy Minister found that the evidence satisfactorily established that the
Central’s suspension of the petitioner’s and others’ monthly ration of gasoline
and LPG, had been caused by unavoidable financial constraints; that such a
suspension, in line with its conservation and cost-saving policy, did not in
truth effect any significant diminution of said benefits, since the petitioner
was nevertheless entitled to reimbursement of the actual amount of gas
consumed; that petitioner had encouraged his co-employees to file complaints
against the Central over the rations issue, and this, as well as his
institution of his own actions, had created an atmosphere of enmity in the
Central, and caused the loss by the Central of that trust and confidence in him
so essential in a lawyer-client relationship as that theretofore existing between
them; and that under the circumstances, petitioner’s discharge as the Central’s
Legal Counsel and Head of the Manpower & Services Department was
justified. The Deputy Minister’s order
of dismissal was however subsequently modified, at the petitioner’s instance,
by decreeing the payment to the latter of separation pay equivalent to one
month’s salary for every year of service rendered.1

The petitioner theorizes that apart from the fact that the Deputy
Minister lacked jurisdiction to entertain the Central’s appeal from the
decision of the Regional Director, he had gravely abused his discretion in
reaching his factual conclusions, pejoratively described as guesswork and
speculation.

The petitioner’s theory of the Deputy Minister’s lack of
jurisdiction, founded on the tardy payment by the Central of the appeal fee of
P25.00, is quickly disposed of by simply adverting to our holding in Del Rosario &Sons Logging Enterprises, Inc. v. NLRC,2 to wit:

It may be that, as held in Acda vs. M0LE, 119 SCRA
306 [1982], payment of the appeal
fee is by no means a mere technicality but is an essential requirement in the
perfection of an appeal. However, where
as in this case, the fee had been paid, unlike in the Acda case, although payment was
delayed, the broader interest of justice and the desired objective of resolving
controversies on the merits demanded that the appeal be given course as, in
fact, it was so given by the NLRC. Besides, it was within the inherent power of the NLRC to have allowed
the late payment of the appeal fee.

As regards the temporary revocation of the petitioner’s monthly
ration of fuel, suffice it to point out that, as the Solicitor General
stresses, this had been occasioned by force of circumstances affecting the
Central’s business. The monthly ration
was not a part of his basic salary, and is not indeed found in any of the
management payroll vouchers pertinent to the petitioner.3 Moreover, the adverse consequences of the
suspension of the monthly rations had been largely if not entirely negated by
the Central’s undertaking to reimburse the petitioner for his actual
consumption of fuel during the period of suspension. These facts are entirely distinct from those obtaining in the
case of States Marine Corporation and Royal Line, Inc. v. Cebu Seamen’s
Association, Inc.,1 invoked by petitioner and thus preclude application of the
ruling therein laid down to the case at bar.

A review of the record demonstrates that there is substantial
evidence supporting the factual findings of the respondent Deputy Minister. Said findings, as well as the legal
conclusions derived therefrom, cannot be said to have been rendered with grave
abuse of discretion, and will thus be affirmed. In fine, and as petitioner could not but have realized from the
outset, neither he nor any other employee similarly situated had any legitimate
grievance against the Central.

WHEREFORE, the petition is DISMISSED for lack of merit,
with costs against petitioner.

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

^[1]
After a 6-year stint as
Assistant Legal Counsel dating from April, 1967; at the same time he was
assigned to take charge of the Personnel and Labor Relations Section: Rollo,
p.129.

1 Rollo, p.134

2 By memorandum dtd. June 19, 1978
of the Central’s General Manager; Rollo, pp. 52-53

3 Rollo, p. 53

4 Javellana afterwards
acknowledged, at the hearing of LRD Case No. 1632 that the Central was indeed
terminating the petitioner’s services.

5 Rendered on May 9, 1979

6 Rollo, p. 59

7 Id., p.63

1 Id., p.67

2 Decision promulgated on May 31,1985, 136 SCRA
669,672

3 Exh. F, Rollo,
p.134

1 7 SCRA 294 (1963), in
which it was held that the daily subsistence rations given to the crew of
sea-going vessels while on a voyage and during the duration of their contract,
could not be withdrawn after the effectivity of the Minimum Wage Law, these
being given “not as part of their wages but as a necessary matter in the
maintenance of the health and efficiency of the crew personnel during the
voyage,” the seamen being expected to serve regardless of the “stress and
strain concomitant to bad weather, unmindful of the dangers that luck ahead in
the midst of the high seas”.