Flora was hired in November 1992 by PLDT as accounting clerk in the Cost Accounting Department (CAD). In January 1994, she was transferred to the Revenue Auditing Department but was brought back to the CAD on July 3, 1995 to perform the same accounting duties after she was asked to sign a project employment contract up to Oct. 2, 1995. On Oct. 2, 1995 she was asked to sign another such contract up to Jan. 2, 1996. After Jan. 2, 1996, Flora continued to work until May 2, 1996, when PLDT refused to renew her employment unless she signed up with an employment agency known as Corporate Executive Search Inc. (CESI). In order to keep her job, Flora signed said contract with CESI. But on Feb. 3, 1997, PLDT no longer allowed Flora to report or work because her employment contract with CESI had already expired.
Claiming that she was terminated illegally, Flora filed a complaint with the NLRC praying for reinstatement with full back wages and all the benefits due a regular employee from the start of her employment in November 1992 until her dismissal, plus damages and attorney’s fees.
PLDT however, maintained that Flora was hired as a project employee to the Employment Payroll System Project from the onset of her employment, which allegedly started on Sept. 21, 1992 and completed in March 1997. Hence, PLDT claimed that Flora was not dismissed from work; her employment contract merely expired as of Jan. 2, 1996. Was PLDT correct?
No. Various indicators show that Flora was not a project employee but a regular employee who was illegally dismissed.
First, Flora worked continuously for PLDT from November 1992 to July 1995 without any mention of a "project" to which she was specifically assigned. She was hired to perform accounting duties, which were not shown as distinct, separate and identifiable from the usual undertakings of the company which maintains its own accounting department to which Flora was assigned.
Second, aside from its allegation that Flora was hired as project employee for the Employment Payroll System Project which supposedly began in September 1992, PLDT did not provide evidence of the said contracts covering the period she was hired (November 1992) to July 1995. PLDT mentioned only two contracts from July 1995 to January 1996.
Third, despite the supposed expiration of Flora’s alleged project employment contract on Jan. 2, 1996, she continued working with PLDT until May 2, 1996, when she was required to sign up with CESI but still continued to work with PLDT until Feb. 3, 1997 when she was no longer allowed to report for work because the project was already done. But the project was only completed in March 1997.
Most important of all, PLDT did not report the termination of Flora’s supposed project employment contract to the DOLE due to the completion of the project as required by Department Order 19. Such failure was an indication that Flora was not a project but a regular employee especially because she has been performing her job continuously for more than one year.
Even assuming that Flora was hired as a project employee from the onset, once she has been continuously, as opposed to intermittently, rehired by the same employer for the same tasks and these tasks are vital, necessary and indispensable to the usual business or trade of the employer, then she must be deemed a regular employee. In this case, Flora’s job pertaining to effective payroll system is part and parcel of the usual business of PLDT. There won’t be any business without any workforce. Employees render services for compensation. So it is absurd to argue that Flora’s work as accounting clerk of PLDT in relation to its payroll system is not necessary or desirable to the company’s business (PLDT vs Ylagan G.R. 155645, Nov. 24, 2006).
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