Firm ordered to compensate dismissed worker

The Supreme Court has ordered a Cebu-based company that sells construction materials to pay P30,000 damages to one of its former workers it dismissed seven years ago.

The High Court’s third divisionordered the company to compensate Eduardo Bughaw Jr. for violating his right to procedural due process.

But the SC ruled that even if the procedural due process was not observed, the dismissal of Bughaw from his job in Treasure Island Industrial Corporation should be upheld, meaning the company could not be held liable to pay backwages and other benefits.

Records of the case showed that there was a valid ground for the dismissal of Bughaw, but his employer failed to observe the procedural requirements for termination as mandated by the law.

The company had conducted investigation into the allegations that Bughaw and his fellow worker, Erlito Loberanes, were into illegal drugs. Loberanes made the revelation when he was arrested by the police in possession of some illegal drugs.

The labor arbiter and the National Labor Relations Commission described the dismissal as illegal and ordered the company to pay Bughaw the amount of P106,590 as backwages, but the Court of Appeals reversed the findings.

The Supreme Court upheld the ruling of the CA that the company should not be made to pay damages and considered the dismissal as legal because Bughaw chose not to answer the allegations hurled against him.

The company’s mistake was its failure to document that Bughaw has been served with summons for him to answer the charges.

Treasure Island Industrial Corporation, which was founded in the ‘50s, deals with paints, thinners, epoxy primers and other construction materials. — Rene U. Borromeo/LPM