AIM to appeal NLRC ruling on suspended professors

The Asian Institute of Management will appeal a decision of the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) lifting the one-year suspension AIM meted on two of its senior professors and ordering the payment of their withheld salaries.

In a press statement, AIM president Francis Estrada expressed disappointment over the NLRC ruling and its disagreement with the decision of NLRC labor arbiter Napoleon Menese.

“We are obviously disappointed with the decision, as we disagree with the findings and conclusion of the labor arbiter,” Estrada said in a statement.

Menese had recently issued a decision on the labor complaint filed by Dr. Victor Limlingan and Professor Emmanuel Leyco, chairman and president of the AIM Faculty Association (AFA), respectively, for the one-year suspension meted against them by AIM management last July.

“The decision did not comprehensively address the totality of the charges and evidence presented,” Estrada said.

While the one-year suspension was lifted and their withheld salary was ordered paid, the professors’ claim for damages was dismissed.

Lawyer Carlos Luis Fernandez, representing AIM, said the decision was not yet final and executory and that AIM would file an appeal. AIM cited “dysfunctional behavior” and “serious misconduct and willful breach of trust and confidence” in suspending the two professors.

The suspension of Limlingan and Leyco came after the two men had AFA’s lawyers send a demand letter to the AIM board of governors for the rightful share of AIM professors and workers of the tuition increases imposed by the institute for a period of several years. Republic Act 6728 provides that teachers should be given a 70 percent share of tuition increases imposed by an educational institution.

AIM officials claimed that the two allegedly disrupted the institution’s Leadership Week festivities in February 2007 and allegedly made serious and wholly unsubstantiated allegations against the institute.

AIM said the suspension was imposed after a thorough investigation, with the complainants given the opportunity to be heard and rebut the charges.

In his ruling, Menese ruled there was no basis for AIM to suspend the two AFA officials.

“The employees’ right to air their demand… should and must be heard” and whether AFA’s demands are “meritorious or not, expressing the same via a demand letter is far from being a ‘dysfunctional behavior,’” he said.

Menese added that the AFA’s monetary demands are for the labor arbiter or the NLRC, not for AIM management, to decide.

Menese also admonished AIM for failing to hold dialogues with the AFA officials before meting the suspension.