Source: http://lawlibrary.chanrobles.com/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=45871:148256&amp;catid=1459&amp;Itemid=566
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 18:46:14+00:00

Document:
G.R. No. 148256 - ADELINO FELIX v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION, ET AL.
ADELINO FELIX, Petitioner, v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION (NLRC) 3RD DIVISION and REPUBLIC ASAHI GLASS CORPORATION, Respondents.
From the Court of Appeals Decision1 of May 21, 2001 affirming that of the National Labor Relations Commission which dismissed petitioner Adelino Felix's complaint for illegal dismissal against Republic Asahi Glass Corporation (the company), petitioner comes to this Court on a Petition for Review on Certiorari .
I am writing in behalf of my client, MR. ADELINO L. FELIX, your Marketing Officer, Fabricated Glass Division.
It appears that you have been unlawfully compelling him to voluntarily resign with a separation package otherwise you will terminate him due to alleged loss of trust and confidence.
I have also been informed that no formal charges have been officially furnished him which constitute[s] your alleged grounds for termination. My client is also being subjected to undue mental torture because you deliberately refuse to assign any tasks to him these past few weeks despite his being always present at work.
At the outset, you are reminded that you held a position of trust and confidence as a Marketing Officer of the Fabricated Glass Division.
1. Absence Without Leave (AWOL) for six (6) working days from May 29 to June 5, 1992.
2. Lingering unnecessarily or killing time at the place of customers. Worse, engaging employees and officers of [the] customers in argument[s] and quarrel[s] to the extent that you were interfering in their functions and antagonizing them.
3. Going to or visiting UMC (Mandaluyong) only when called upon to do so.
4. Always not attending the regular morning meetings at FGD Production Office.
The over-all assessment of customers you have dealt with is that you are an irresponsible and ineffective representative of the Company. As a customary management functions (sic), and considering that you are an officer, your case has been discussed, and necessarily your transfer or even your voluntary resignation and other probabilities were mentioned unofficially and informally. In other words, by your own acts, you constrained Management to evaluate you at this stage.
Management then expected you to act as an officer. Instead you wrote that letter dated 12 August 1994 and followed by the letter of your lawyer dated 16 August 1994. These letters are both premature and designed to pre-empt Management prerogative. This merely confirms your irresponsibility. Your action is unworthy of being a trusted officer of the company.
Management has come to the conclusion that you can no longer be vested with functions that are central to the effective operations of the Company. In short, it has lost its confidence in you.
We received on 29 September your letter explanation dated 28 September 1994.
A perusal of your letter-explanation shows that you have not actually clarified much less satisfied management why it should not lose its trust and confidence reposed in you as an officer of the company. You did not even respond to the finding of Management that you were "irresponsible and ineffective representative of the Company" which is disappointing to say the least.
It is amusing but also disappointing that you, like an ordinary rank and filer (sic), is now trying to hide under the skirt of "unionism" to cover your shortcomings. We are not aware of the formation of any such supervisory union. The stand of the Company in unionism is clear. Unionism has nothing to do with your case and you know that.
We regret to advise you therefore that the Company is terminating your services for loss of trust and confidence and therefore for cause effective upon receipt hereof. You are further directed to turn over all papers, documents and other property of the Company to your department head.
To substantiate its claim that petitioner was dismissed for cause, the company submitted the following documentary evidence.
On appeal, the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC), quoting extensively from the Decision of the Labor Arbiter, dismissed petitioner's complaint for lack of merit by Decision40 of March 20, 1998. Petitioner moved for reconsideration of the decision, but it was denied in a resolution41 of May 7, 1998.
By Decision of May 21, 2001, the Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of petitioner's complaint, it holding that petitioner performed the function of a salesman and in the position he was holding, loss of trust and confidence is a valid cause for dismissal.
It is noted that petitioner's appeal to the NLRC raised serious errors in the findings of fact of the Labor Arbiter. The NLRC failed, however, to address them, it rendering an 8-page decision 7 pages of which quoted in full the decision of the Labor Arbiter.
In the case at bar, the company failed to discharge this burden.
The records do not disclose that petitioner incurred any further absences without leave. More importantly, except for that incident in 1992, the company failed to show that there were instances during the 14 years that petitioner had been employed that he incurred absences without leave.
The propriety of petitioner's 6 days of absence having priorly been threshed out by the parties, the company may no longer ask petitioner to, more than two years later by letter of September 27, 1994, re-explain his absence and use the same to justify his dismissal.
As for the charge that petitioner had not been attending the daily 3 minutes meeting of the FGD Marketing, the inter-office correspondence dated March 11, 1994 shows that "the deliberate failure of [petitioner] in attending the meeting could be attributed to that argument between [him and] AAN (A.A. Naval) . . . that occurred last January 28, 1994 over the present system of PAMCOR in handling local development of glass components."51 It bears noting, however, that the company took no action on the matter, nor warned petitioner that his attendance in the meetings was mandatory. It was several months later or on September 27, 1994 when the company first called his attention to it and used it as a basis for dismissing him. It is thus deemed to have overlooked his absence in the daily meetings.
A company is expected to call the attention of an employee to any undesirable act or omission within a reasonable time. In the case at bar, the failure of the company to timely take any disciplinary action against petitioner undermines its claim that petitioner's continued absence in the meetings rendered him unfit for continued employment with it.
In denying that they have deprived the right of Villareal to due process, the petitioners pointed out that he was informed of the charges against him and he was given the opportunity to explain his side. Citing Associated Citizen's Bank v. Ople [103 SCRA 130 (1981)], the petitioners attempted to substantiate their argument by mentioning that this Court had previously done away with the holding of a hearing in order to comply with the constitutional requirement of due process.
As for the other two charges - that petitioner as a field officer unnecessarily lingered or killed time at the place of clients and engaged them in arguments and quarrels, and that he visited UMC (Mandaluyong) only when called upon to do so - the company failed to substantiate the same.
Except for the mere allegation of petitioner's manager55 that its clients have been complaining of petitioner's work attitude and performance, there is no concrete evidence to show the same.
The inter-office memoranda relied upon by the Labor Arbiter were accomplished only after petitioner's counsel sent the August 16, 1994 cautioning the company that petitioner could not be legally compelled to voluntarily resign and accept a separation package.
The report57 of Ms. Encinares dated August 18, 1994, citing a report58 of Elmer Tacata, that FMC had been complaining about lack of visiting company representative and delayed deliveries for the month of August cannot be attributed to petitioner.
Tacata's statement that "Arnel Deunida [Supply Superintendent of FMC] requested that our customer service and QA Staffs resume their regular visits to FMC to inspect and evaluate glass rejects"62 in fact gives credence to the allegation of petitioner that he regularly visited his client and it was only in late July 1994 that he could no longer do so, Tacata having taken over his position.
Nowhere, however, in the report64 submitted by N.B. Galpa on his trip to the companies whose accounts were formerly handled by petitioner (Nissan Motors, FMC, Universal Motors, PAMCOR and Honda Cars) is it shown that petitioner was directly responsible for the rejected or rejected other glasses and items. The report shows that the alleged defects in the returned items, like those returned to PAMCOR, consisted of scratches - 12 pcs., distortion - 2, chipping - 1, and no hole - 1; for Honda Cars, deep scratch (WS) - 1 pc., no bolt (SR3 FD) - 1 pc., broken (SR4 FD) - 1pc.65 These defects are not, however, uncommon in a business dealing in glasses.
To attribute these product returns to petitioner and conclude that he is inefficient and irresponsible is unfounded. For as of September 19, 1994, when N.B. Galpa submitted his report, petitioner had long been divested of responsibility over these accounts. In any event, even if the returned items were part of those previously delivered during the period when petitioner was still handling those accounts, the complaints pertain to the quality of the goods delivered or defects caused by mishandling. These complaints should then have been properly directed to the Production Planning and Control Department or the Logistics Department which were tasked to manage product quality and delivery. As admitted by the company, petitioner's function at the FGD Marketing was confined to sales.
That the N.B. Galpa report66 which was accomplished a month after petitioner was officially transferred from the FGD Marketing to the Technical Services Division, still contained a complaint by FMC that the company "has not been in constant contact with FMC, and in fact [was] ignoring [its] request to settle the issue about F-1300 RQ (deep double curve, but within Specs). . ."67 indicates that it was directed against the company. Such notwithstanding, the Labor Arbiter regarded all the complaints contained in the report as proof of petitioner's inefficiency and irresponsibility.
Absent any standard of performance upon which petitioner was rated on the job, loss of confidence has no basis.
There being no basis in law or in fact justifying petitioner's dismissal on the basis of loss of trust and confidence, his dismissal was illegal.
(2) ORDERING the company to pay petitioner full back wages from the time he was dismissed from the service until the finality of this decision; and separation pay, equivalent to one month salary for every year of service, computed from the time petitioner was first employed and until the finality of this decision, reinstatement being no longer possible due to strained relations of the parties.
41 CA Rollo at 42.
42 295 SCRA 494 (1998).
44 Austria v. National Labor Relations Commission, 310 SCRA 293, 300 (1999).
45 Marcelo v. National Labor Relations Commission, 240 SCRA 782, 785 (1995).
46 Pilipinas Bank v. National Labor Relations Commission, 215 SCRA 750, 756 (1992).
47 Quezon Electric Cooperative v. National Labor Relations Commission, 172 SCRA 88, 97 (1989).
48 Pilipinas Bank v. National Labor Relations Commission, supra at 757.
53 178 SCRA 386 (1989).
54 Roche (Philippines) v. National Labor Relations Commission, 178 SCRA 386, 393-394 (1989).
56 Dosch v. National Labor Relations Commission, 123 SCRA 296, 317 (1983), citing De Leon v. National Labor Relations Commission, 100 SCRA 691, 700 (1980).
68 Austria v. National Labor Relations Commission, 310 SCRA 293, 303 (1999).
69 Dela Cruz v. National Labor Relations Commission, 268 SCRA 458, 471 (1997); Associated Labor Unions-TUCP v. NLRC, 302 SCRA 708, 715-716 (1999); Gelmart Industries Phils., Inc. v. NLRC, 176 SCRA 295, 303 (1989); Bustillos v., Inciong, 120 SCRA 262, 267 (1983); Marcelo v. National Labor Relations Commission, 240 SCRA 782, 785 (1995).
70 Cebu Filveneer Corp. v. NLRC (Fourth Division), 286 SCRA 556, 562-563 (1998).
71 Mabeza v. National Labor Relations Commission, 271 SCRA 670, 682 (1997).
73 Dela Cruz v. National Labor Relations Commission, supra at 470.

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