Section 7.7. For teaching employees in college who fail the yearly evaluation, the following provisions shall apply:
(a) Teaching employees who are retained for three (3) cumulative years in five (5) years, shall be on forced leave for one (1) regular semester during which period all benefits due them shall be suspended;
(b) Teaching employees who obtain evaluation ratings below 80 for three (3) cumulative years in five (5) years shall be terminated.3 (italics and underscoring supplied)
School Year Over-all Rating Required Minimum Evaluation Remarks Faculty Rank 1998-99 85.50 86 Retained Asst. Professor III+ 1999-2000 85 86 Retained Asst. Professor III+ 2000-2001 87 86 Passed but maximum rank obtained Asst. Professor III+ 2001-2002 90.50 86 Passed but maximum rank obtained Asst. Professor III+ and was later adjusted to Associate Professor I-1* owing to the passing of the BAR exam 2002-2003 85 87 Retained Associate Professor I-2**
* Faculty rank effective 1 April 2002 until 31 May 2002
** Faculty rank for SY 2002-2003 due [for] having passed the evaluation of SY 2002-2002.6 (underscoring supplied)
x x x x
Despite all these efforts, you failed to report for work. We urge you to come. We shall give you up till Nov. 10, 2003. Otherwise we will be constrained to assign your load to other teachers.
Since your forced leave is finished, we ask you to come and continue your teaching function this Second Semester.
x x x x12 (underscoring supplied)
1. The legality of dismissal of complainant due to abandonment;
2. The validity of forced leave imposed upon complainant for one semester; and
3. . . . [Whether] due process [was] observed by Respondent.16
It is elementary that a contract that contravenes a policy, which confers a juridical relation to which it refers shall be void. The CBA may not interpret or expand the provisions of the Evaluation Manual that will make it prejudicial to the interests of the persons referred to in the evaluation manual...18 (underscoring supplied)
x x x x
The Evaluation Manual manifests the will of the University in its educational policy in the ranking and promoting members of its faculty. The CBA as a labor contract may not contravene the policy of the University where it does not impose a penalty other than what the University manifests in that the failure of a faculty member in his performance within a five year period of which he has failed to meet the minimum rating for three (3) cumulative years will not be promoted but retained in rank only. The CBA states otherwise as it adds a penal provision that said faculty member shall be on forced leave, for one regular semester and all his benefits suspended. Such penalty constitutes undue and unreasonable restraint in the occupation of the faculty member and works hardship in his economic life as he will be deprived of his only livelihood for one regular semester including any benefit owing to him during that period.19 (emphasis and underscoring supplied)
WHEREFORE, in the light of the foregoing, the clause in the CBA, Article 7, Section 7, Par. (a), imposing forced leave for one regular semester during which period all benefits due the, will be suspended is declared void, and Respondent is ordered to reinstate Complainant to her former position without loss of seniority rights and other privileges; to pay her backwages from the time it was withheld from her to the time of her actual reinstatement; to pay moral damages of P50,000.00; exemplary damages ay P25,000.00 and attorney's fees pf 10% of the total sum awarded to Complainant.23 (emphasis and underscoring supplied)
ART. 261. Jurisdiction of Voluntary Arbitrator or panel of Voluntary Arbitrators. - The Voluntary Arbitrator or panel of Voluntary Arbitrators shall have original and exclusive jurisdiction to hear and decide all unresolved grievances arising from the interpretation or implementation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement and those arising from the interpretation or enforcement of company personnel policies...
. . . We are of the impression that the matter of forced leave for teachers who failed thrice in the evaluation within a five year span should be co-terminous with, and anchored on the particular CBA from which it draws its breathing force. Emphasis should be placed on the fact that the provision for the six month forced leave is exclusively of contractual origin as the same is found nowhere else but in the parties' Collective Bargaining Agreement, having been introduced for the first time in the 1996-2001 CBA and reiterated in the 2001-2006 CBA. Indeed, although some provisions may have been reproduced from the old bargaining agreement, still, every bargaining agreement remains a separate pact between the employer and its employees. Hence, one should be construed independently of the other.
Again, it is because there are doubts engendered by the CBA as regards the reckoning period of five years mentioned under Sec. 7.7 thereof that we are inclined to declare the suspension of the respondent as illegal.
. . . [J]udicial partiality to workers on occasions of doubt in labor agreements is not a dictate of whim, but of a need to safeguard the interest of an underprivileged sector. The legal tie that binds labor and capital are not merely contractual in character. It is because the morally disadvantaged employee very seldom has the upper hand in the bargaining table that gray areas in labor contracts are customarily interpreted to his benefit.31 (citation omitted; italics in the original; emphasis and underscoring supplied)
There should be no question that where it comes to such valid but not iniquitous causes as failure to comply with work standards, the grant of separation pay to the dismissed employee maybe both just and compassionate, particularly if he has worked for some time with the company.35
WHEREFORE, in the light of the foregoing premises, the instant petition is GRANTED. The decision rendered by the Voluntary Arbitrator dated July 11, 205 is hereby declared null and void, and a new one is entered declaring the respondent to have been illegally suspended, but nonetheless validly dismissed. Accordingly, the petitioner is ordered to pay the respondent all salaries and benefits that are due her for the duration of her six month forced leave. Solely to satisfy the demands of equity, the petitioner is likewise ordered to pay the respondent an amount equivalent to one (1) month salary for every year of service as separation pay.
SO ORDERED.36 (emphasis and italics in the original)
A. . . . IN HOLDING PETITIONER TO HAVE ABANDONED HER WORK EVEN AND DESPITE THE PENDENCY OF THE ILLEGAL DISMISSAL CASE PETITIONER FILED AGAINST THE RESPONDENT.
B. . . . [IN HOLDING] THAT [PETITIONER] IS NOT ENTITLED TO THE DAMAGES AWARDED BY THE VOLUNTARY ARBITRATOR[.]39
. . . Thus we cannot conceive how private respondent could abandon her job and give up the benefits she has earned from years of hard work. Finally, her filing of an illegal dismissal case contradicts petitioner's allegations that she abandoned her job.41
Endnotes:
1 NLRC records, p. 427. The records are paginated from 472-1.
2 Id. at 52-51.
3 Id. at 75.
4 Id. at 59-57.
5 Id. at 63-60.
6 Id. at 69.
7 Id. at 363-362.
8 CA rollo, pp. 167-171.
9 Records, p. 27.
10 CA rollo, p. 132.
11 Records, pp. 22-21.
12 Id. at 22-21.
13 Id. at 19.
14 Id. at 17.
15 Id. at 16-15.
16 Id. at 1.
17 Id. at 182-174.
18 Id. at 178.
19 Id. at 177.
20 Vide ibid.
21 459 Phil. 506 (2003).
22 Records, p. 176.
23 Id. at 174.
24 CA rollo, pp. 2-43.
25 Id. at 265-277. Penned by Justice Bienvenido L. Reyes with the concurrence of Justices Amelita G. Tolentino and Mariflor Punzalan Castillo.
26 Id. at 270.
27 Ibid.
28 327 Phil. 673 (1996).
29 Id. at 676.
30 CA rollo, p. 271.
31 Id. at 274-275.
32 Citing Zamboanga City Electric Cooperative v. Buat, G.R. No. 100514, March 29, 1995, 243 SCRA 47, 52.
33 CA rollo, p. 270.
34 G.R. No. L-80609, August 23, 1988, 164 SCRA 671.
35 Id. at 681.
36 CA rollo, p. 276.
37 Id. at 278-289.
38 CA rollo, pp. 324-329.
39 Rollo, pp. 17-18.
40 G.R. No. 126688, March 5, 1998, 287 SCRA 71.
41 Id. at 77-78.
42 Vide Pentagon Steel Corporation v. Court of Appeals, et al., G.R. No. 174141, June 26, 2009 citing Big AA Manufacturer v. Antonio, et al., G.R. No. 160854, March 3, 2006, 484 SCRA 33.