Postscript to the Supreme Court ruling on the PAL stewardesses
While the national attention was focused on the quo warranto petition filed by Solgen Jose Calida against Chief Justice Ma Lourdes Sereno, the Supreme Court en banc (meaning the entire court of 15 justices minus those who did not participate) released the now-controversial decision in the case of Flight Attendants and Stewards Association of the Phil versus PAL (GR 178083) last March 13. It is controversial because FASAP already won, and the decision was supposed to be already final, but allegedly because of a letter sent by PAL's lawyer, Estelito Mendoza, the court reopened the case and reversed the ruling. This time, PAL won, upholding as valid and legal the retrenchment of many flight attendants.
In fairness to the SC, and especially to my neighbor and last year's Bar Examinations Chairman, Justice Lucas Bersamin who penned the majority decision, I am inclined to agree with the Bersamin ruling. I agree that in the higher interest of justice, (per the SC's own rules) a second motion for reconsideration may be entertained, albeit in normal cases it is a prohibited pleading. Justice Caguioa stressed that the previous decisions were not yet executory because the second motion was timely accepted by the court. I fully concur with the judgment on its merits.
In substance, the case was about the validity of the retrenchment of flight attendants. The SC took judicial notice of the strikes staged by pilots (through their union ALPAP) in the late '80s which pushed PAL to financial ruin. Management already implemented massive layoffs of ground personnel, which prompted PALEA (the union of ground personnel) to question it before the DOLE and the SC. PAL won those cases. Now, with regards to the flight attendants, the court en banc also upheld the validity of retrenchment. FASAP won in its case before the division but the ruling was reversed by the SC en banc. This becomes controversial and Justice Leonen used strong language in his dissent.
"This is a miraculous resurrection of the dead,'' he said (this was released proximate to the Holy Week). Leonen bewailed the en banc overruled the unanimous ruling of the division and its unanimous resolution denying the first motion for reconsideration. He pointed out the court en banc is not an appellate court to review the decisions of the court's divisions, and even if it were so, the decision to be reviewed was already final. The problem was he was the only voice crying in the legal wilderness. He may be right, but the majority did not agree with him.
All biases aside, this writer, as a former Labor Arbiter and DOLE Undersecretary, thinks Bersamin's ruling is well-supported by law and jurisprudence.
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