Jaka Food Processing Corp v. Pacot : 151378 : March 28, 2005 : J. Tinga : En Banc : Separate Opinion
EN BANC
[G.R. NO. 151378. March 28, 2005]
JAKA FOOD PROCESSING CORPORATION, Petitioners, v. DARWIN PACOT, ROBERT PAROHINOG, DAVID BISNAR, MARLON DOMINGO, RHOEL LESCANO and JONATHAN CAGABCAB, Respondents.
SEPARATE OPINION
TINGA, J.:
I have reservations in declaring as valid, dismissals for authorized cause wherein the employer failed to render the appropriate notices as required under Article 283 of the Labor Code. It cannot be discounted that Article 283 explicitly provides that the dismissal for authorized cause shall be effected by serving the notices to the employees and to the Department of Labor and Employment thirty days before the effective date of termination. There is no such unequivocal language used in the Labor Code provisions governing dismissals for just cause, particularly Articles 282 and 277(b). Thus, in my Separate Opinion in Agabon v. NLRC, I wrote that the same rule should not obtain given the obvious difference between the failure to comply with the notice requirement in dismissals for just cause, on one hand, and the similar failure for dismissals for authorized cause, on the other.1 ςrνll
Nonetheless, the present petition does not submit as an issue the validity of a dismissal for authorized cause in the absence of such notices. Instead, the petition seeks modification of the Serrano doctrine insofar as it required the payment of backwages starting from the date of termination up to finality of judgment. Given the importance of the issue of whether such dismissals are valid in the first place, I would prefer to confront the issue in a more appropriate case, one wherein the question is squarely raised and fully ventilated in the pleadings. In the meantime, I find the ruling of the majority acceptable as an interim solution, until the time when the issue is properly raised and thoroughly litigated before this Court.
Hence, I concur only in the result.
Endnotes:
1 Before I proceed with my discussion on dismissals for just causes, a brief comment regarding dismissals for authorized cause under Article 283 of the Labor Code. While the justiciable question in Serrano pertained to a dismissal for unauthorized cause, the ruling therein was crafted as definitive to dismissals for just cause. Happily, the Decision today does not adopt the same unwise tack. It should be recognized that dismissals for just cause and dismissals for authorized cause are governed by different provisions, entail divergent requisites, and animated by distinct rationales. The language of Article 283 expressly effects the termination for authorized cause to the service of written notice on the workers and the Ministry of Labor at least one (1) month before the intended date of termination. This constitutes an eminent difference than dismissals for just cause, wherein the causal relation between the notice and the dismissal is not expressly stipulated. The circumstances distinguishing just and authorized causes are too markedly different to be subjected to the same rules and reasoning in interpretation. J. Tinga, Separate Opinion, Agabon v. NLRC, G.R. No. 158693.
