ABS-CBN ordered to rehire workers

CEBU, Philippines - The Supreme Court has ordered ABS-CBN Cebu to reinstate four of its former employees who were illegally dismissed 10 years ago and to pay the workers back wages.

In a decision penned by Justice Arturo Brion, a former labor secretary, the Supreme Court said that the TV network has committed an injustice when it dismissed Farley Fulache, Manolo Jabonero, David Castillo and Jeffrey Lagunzad in 1999. The decision was promulgated last January 21.

Fulache and Castillo worked as cameramen while Jabonero and Lagunzad worked as drivers.

The high court ordered the TV network to immediately reinstate the four employees into their former positions without loss of seniority rights and with full back wages and all other monetary benefits from the time they were dismissed from service up to the date of their actual reinstatement.

The Supreme Court likewise ordered ABS-CBN Cebu to pay each of the four dismissed employees P100,000 in moral damages and an amount equivalent to 10 percent of the total monetary award, based on the order.

The decision was concurred to by other members of the Supreme Court’s second division chaired by Justice Antonio Carpio.

The case stemmed from two separate complaints filed by the four workers together with fellow ABS-CBN employees Magdalena Malig-on Bigno; Francisco Cabas, Jr.; Harvey Ponce, Alan Almendras and Cresente Atinen before the Department of Labor and Employment for regularization, unfair labor practice and several monetary claims.

Atinen, Ponce, Almendras, Bigno, and Cabas, were not dismissed from service, but only questioned their status as employees. Atinen was also a driver of the network while Ponce and Almendras worked as cameramen/editors, Bigno as production assistant, and Cabas a VTR man/editor at that time.

The petitioners claimed they had rendered more than a year of service to the company and, therefore, should have been recognized as regular employees entitled to security of tenure and to the privileges and benefits enjoyed by regular employees. However, ABS-CBN allegedly considered them only as talents and not as regular employees.

The complaints were later consolidated and were assigned to Labor Arbiter Julie Rendoque.

ABS-CBN, for its part, claimed the petitioners’ services were contracted on various dates by its Cebu station as independent contractors/off camera talents and, owing to this arrangement, they reportedly were not entitled to regularization.

But the Supreme Court ruled that because the four dismissed workers were all considered regular employees as provided for in the Collective Bargaining Agreement entered into by the TV network and the workers’ labor union, they are entitled to full benefits enjoyed by regular employees.

“The bad faith in ABS-CBN’s move toward its illegitimate goal was not even hidden; it dismissed the petitioners – already recognized as regular employees – for refusing to sign up with its service contractor. Thus, from every perspective, the petitioners were illegally dismissed,” the Supreme Court said.

ABS-CBN still has the right to file a motion for reconsideration on the high court’s ruling. — Rene U. Borromeo/JMO (THE FREEMAN)