SC tells hospital to pay 4 dismissed staff

CEBU, Philippines - The Supreme Court has ordered the Visayas Community  Medical  Center,  formerly Metro Cebu Community Hospital, to pay its former employees separation pay equivalent to one month salary for every year of service.

Associate Justice Martin Villarama, Jr., who penned the decision, said evidence shows midwives Erma Yballe and Eleuteria Cortez, and staff nurses Nelia Angel and Evelyn Ong were illegally dismissed from the service.

The VCMC had appealed the earlier ruling of Court of Appeal to the SC.

The VCMC contested the CA ruling that respondents were illegally dismissed and must be reinstated from the service.

It claimed respondents violated the rule when they took part in the illegal strike conducted by the Nava group in 1996 that caused the hospital great income loss.

Respondents, however, argued that VCMC failed to present evidence that they participated in the rally and committed illegal acts “like blocking the entrance and exit in the hospital premises.”

With the foregoing facts, Villarama ruled in favor of the respondents.

“We stress that the law makes a distinction between union members and union officers. A worker merely participating in an illegal strike may not be terminated from employment. It is only when he commits illegal acts during a strike that he may be declared to have lost employment status,” the decision reads.

It may be noted, Villarama said, that the CA reversed the rulings of the Labor Arbiter and National Labor Relations Commission finding the respondents guilty of “insubordination” for supporting in the illegal strike, citing their participation was limited to the wearing of armband.

Considering reinstatement is no longer “feasible,” Villarama said they found it an appropriate relief to order the VCMC to pay the dismissed employees.

Villarama remanded the case to the Executive Labor Arbiter for the recomputation of separation pay due to each of the respondents.

In 1995, Perla Nava, then president of  Nagkahiusang Mamumuo sa MCCH, wrote the hospital administrator expressing the union’s desire to renew the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).

In 1996, the Nava group reportedly held mass actions against MCCH to reiterate its demand. —/GMR (FREEMAN)