No demotion

What is the meaning of demotion? Does it always involve a reduction in salary? These are the issues answered in this case of Matilda, Sergio, Rissa and Sito, all employees of the Commission on Audit (COA) at the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR).

Matilda and Rissa held the positions of State Auditor III while Sergio was State Auditor II and Sito, State Auditor I in the CAR. As such Auditors, they were also designated to an Audit Team with fixed, commutable Representation and Transportation Allowance (RATA). An Audit Team conducts audits of offices in the region and may be composed of two or more members. Whenever practicable an Audit Supervisor takes charge of at least three audit teams. The composition of an audit team is not permanent. Hence Matilda, Sergio, Rissa and Sito were sometimes designated as Unit Head, Team Supervisor or Team Leader.

When the COA initiated an Organizational Restructuring Plan (ORP) under Resolution 2002-05, Matilda, Rissa, Sergio and Sito were divested of their previous designations as Unit Head, Team Supervisor or Team Leader because only State Auditor IV shall be assigned as Unit Heads or Team Leaders with fixed RATA. Alleging that the ORP has unceremoniously divested them of their previous designations and RATA, and that they were relegated to being mere team members entitled only to a reimbursable RATA, the four State Auditors sued COA allegedly because they were demoted without due process. Were they correct?

No. Actually, they were not demoted. A demotion is the movement from one position to another involving the issuance of an appointment with diminution in duties, responsibilities, status, or rank, which may or may not involve reduction in salary. A demotion by assigning an employee to a lower position in the same service which has a lower rate of compensation is tantamount to removal if no cause is shown for it.

Here, there have been no new appointments issued to Matilda, Rissa, Sergio and Sito under the COA Organizational Restructuring Plan. Thus their contention that they have been demoted is baseless.

The change in their status as COA auditors receiving monthly RATA to COA Auditors receiving only reimbursable RATA is due to the Audit Team Approach where the composition of the audit team is not perma-nent. Hence an Audit Team Member may be designated as Audit Team Leader for one assignment and subse-quently as Team Member in another engagement. The designation depends upon the position of the one who is assigned as Team Leader. Thus a State Auditor III who may have been assigned as Audit Team Leader in one engagement may find himself relegated to being a team member in another engagement, if a State Auditor IV or V is designated as Audit Team Leader. Under the ORP, Matilda, Rissa, Sergio and Sito are no longer qualified to be team leaders or to receive fixed monthly RATA since none of them holds the position of State Auditor IV. But this does not mean that they are no longer entitled to receive the RATA if they are still designated as Team Leaders (Domingo vs. Carague, G.R. 161065, April 15, 2005. 456 SCRA 450).

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