SECOND DIVISION
G.R. No. 229404, January 24, 2018
MARILYN B. ASENTISTA, Petitioner, v. JUPP & COMPANY, INC., AND/OR MR. JOSEPH V. ASCUTIA, Respondents.
D E C I S I O N
REYES, JR., J.:
Before this Court is a Petition for Review on Certiorari1 under Rule 45 filed by Marilyn B. Asentista (Asentista) seeking to set aside the Decision2 dated August 31, 2016 and Resolution3 dated November 17, 2016 of the Court of Appeals (CA), in CA-G.R. SP No. 06747-MIN, which set aside and nullified the Resolutions4 dated November 28, 2014 and February 27, 2015 of the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC), ordering respondents JUPP & Company, Inc. (JUPP) and/or its President Joseph V. Ascutia (Ascutia) to pay Asentista her remaining unpaid sales commissions in the amount of P210,077.95 plus ten percent (10%) total monetary award as attorney's fees.
Asentista was employed by JUPP as sales secretary on April 16, 2007. On March 14, 2008, she became a regular employee of the company as a sales assistant and was later appointed in July 2010 as a sales agent of JUPP for its Northern Mindanao area. As a sales agent, Asentista became entitled to a sales commission of two percent for every attained monthly quota. However, despite reaching her monthly quota, JUPP failed to give Asentista her earned sales commission despite repeated requests.5
Meanwhile in 2011, JUPP, through its Administrative and Finance Officer Malou Ramiro, issued a new Toyota Avanza vehicle to Asentista in view of her sales performance in the Cagayan De Oro area. The ownership of the car, however, remains with the company. Notwithstanding lack of agreement, JUPP deducted car plan participation payment amounting to P113,000.00 and one year rental payment of P68,721.36 from her unpaid sales commission.6
On February 4, 2013, Asentista tendered her resignation effective February 28, 2013 and returned the Avanza vehicle to JUPP through Emmanuel P. Pabon.7 Thereafter, she filed a claim for unpaid commission and refund for car plan deduction based on the computation8 sent by Ascutia, summarized as follows:
2010--------------------------- P 5,361.61 2011--------------------------- P 178,105.06 2012--------------------------- P 143,295.53 Total Amount: P 334,117.20 Less: P85,305.31 (Cash Advances - Asentista's total debts to JUPP) ------------------------------------- Total Amount: P248,811.89 Less: P38,733.94 (deposited commission to Asentista's account) ------------------------------------- Total Sales Commission due: P 210,077.99
WHEREFORE the instant complaint is DISMISSED for lack of merit.
The respondents' counter-claims for exemplary damages and attorney's fees are dismissed for want of jurisdiction and/or lack of merit.13
WHEREFORE, the appeal is GRANTED.
Respondents are hereby ORDERED to pay Complainant her remaining unpaid sales commissions in the amount of P210,077.95 plus ten percent of the total monetary award as attorney's fees.
SO ORDERED.16
"Nowhere could it be read in the contract that private respondent [Asentista] is entitled to the claimed unpaid commission. The Court cannot give credence to the email allegedly sent by petitioner Ascutia to private respondent detailing the computation of her claimed unpaid commission. x x x."
WHEREFORE, the petition is GRANTED. The Resolutions dated November 28, 2014 and February 27, 2015 of the National Labor Relations Commission, Eight Division, Cagayan De Oro City is hereby SET ASIDE and NULLIFIED, having been issued in grave abuse of discretion. The Decision of the Labor Arbiter dated November 28, 2013 is hereby REINSTATED.
SO ORDERED.20
This definition explicitly includes commissions as part of wages. While commissions are, indeed, incentives or forms of encouragement to inspire employees to put a little more industry on the jobs particularly assigned to them, still these commissions are direct remunerations for services rendered. In fact, commissions have been defined as the recompense, compensation or reward of an agent, salesman, executor, trustee, receiver, factor, broker or bailee, when the same is calculated as a percentage on the amount of his transactions or on the profit to the principal. The nature of the work of a salesman and the reason for such type of remuneration for services rendered demonstrate clearly that commissions are part of a salesman's wage or salary.25
It is settled that once the employee has set out with particularity in his complaint, position paper, affidavits and other documents the labor standard benefits he is entitled to, and which he alleged that the employer failed to pay him, it becomes the employer's burden to prove that it has paid these money claims. One who pleads payment has the burden of proving it, and even where the employees must allege non-payment, the general rule is that the burden rests on the defendant to prove payment, rather than on the plaintiff to prove non-payment.28
In the absence of specific terms and conditions governing a car plan agreement between the employer and employee, the former may not retain the installment payments made by the latter on the car plan and treat them as rents for the use of the service vehicle, in the event that the employee ceases his employment and is unable to complete the installment payments on the vehicle. The underlying reason is that the service vehicle was precisely used in the former's business; any personal benefit obtained by the employee from its use is merely incidental.33
In the absence of specific terms and conditions governing the car plan arrangement between the petitioner and Mekeni, a quasi-contractual relation was created between them. Consequently, Mekeni may not enrich itself by charging petitioner for the use of its vehicle which is otherwise absolutely necessary to the full and effective promotion of its business. It may not, under the claim that petitioner's payments constitute rents for the use of the company vehicle, refuse to refund what petitioner had paid, for the reasons that the car plan did not carry such a condition; the subject vehicle is an old car that is substantially, if not fully, depreciated; the car plan arrangement benefited Mekeni for the most part; and any personal benefit obtained by petitioner from using the vehicle was merely incidental.41
Endnotes:
1Rollo, pp. 11-27.
2 Penned by Associate Justice Oscar V. Badelles, with Associate Justices Romulo V. Borja and Ronaldo B. Martin, concurring; id. at 129-135.
3 Id. at 144-145.
4See CA Decision dated August 31, 2016, id. at 129.
5 Id. at 32.
6 Id. at 32-33.
7 Id. at 33.
8 Id. at 37-40.
9See Complaint, id. at 28.
10 Id. at 47-50.
11 Id.
12 Id. at 70-74.
13 Id. at 73-74.
14 Id. at 81-88.
15 Id. at 86.
16 Id. at 87.
17See CA Decision dated August 31, 2016, id. at 129.
18 Id. at 132.
19 Id. at 129-134.
20 Id. at 134.
21See Position Paper, id. at 47.
22 As cited in Toyota Pasig, Inc. v. De Peralta, G.R. No. 213488, November 7, 2016, and Iran v. NLRC, 352 Phil. 261 (1998). (Underscoring Ours)
23 G.R. No. 213488, November 7, 2016.
24 352 Phil. 261 (1998).
25Toyota Pasig, Inc. v. De Peralta, supra note 23; and Iran v. NLRC, id.
26Grandteq Industrial Steel Products, Inc. and Abelardo M Gonzales v. Edna Margallo, 611 Phil. 612, 629 (2009).
27 564 Phil. 600 (2007). See also Toyota Pasig, Inc. v. De Peralta, supra note 23 and Grandteq Industrial Steel Products, Inc. and Abelardo M. Gonzales v. Edna Margallo, id.
28De Guzman v. NLRC, et al., id. at 614-615.
29Heirs of Manuel H. Ridad, et al. v. Gregorio Araneta Foundation, 703 Phil. 531, 538 (2013). See also Toyota Pasig, Inc. v. De Peralta, supra note 23.
30 Supra note 23.
31 Id.
32Locsin v. Mekeni Food Corp., 722 Phil. 886 (2013).
33 Id. at 890.
34 NLRC Resolution, rollo, p. 85.
35 Id. at 50.
36 Id. at 47.
37Locsin v. Mekeni Food Corporation, supra note 32, at 900.
38Grandteq Industrial Steel Products, Inc. and Abelardo M. Gonzales v. Edna Margallo, supra note 26.
39 Id. at 627.
40 Supra note 32.
41 Id. at 890.
42 I. When an obligation, regardless of its source, i.e., law, contracts, quasi contracts, delicts or quasi-delicts is breached, the contravenor can be held liable for damages. The provisions under Title XVIII on "Damages" of the Civil Code govern in determining the measure of recoverable damages.
II. With regard particularly to an award of interest in the concept of actual and compensatory damages, the rate of interest, as well as the actual thereof, is imposed, as follows:
- When the obligation is breached, and it consists in the payment of a sum of money, i.e., a loan or forbearance of money, the interest due should be that which may have been stipulated in writing. Furthermore, the interest due shall itself earn legal interest from the time it is judicially demanded. In the absence of stipulation, the rate of interest shall be 6% per annum to be computed from default, i.e., from judicial or extra judicial demand under and subject to the provisions of Article 1169 of the Civil Code.
- When an obligation, not constituting a loan or forbearance of money, is breached, an interest on the amount of damages awarded may be imposed at the discretion of the court at the rate of 6% per annum. No interest, however, shall be adjudged on unliquidated claims or damages, except when or until the demand can be established with reasonable certainty. Accordingly, where the demand is established with reasonable certainty, the interest shall begin to run from the time the claim is made judicially or extrajudicially (Art. 1169, Civil Code), but when such certainty cannot be so reasonably established at the time the demand is made, the interest shall begin to run only from the date the judgment of the court is made (at which time the quantification of damages may be deemed to have been reasonably ascertained). The actual base for the computation of legal interest shall, in any case, be on the amount finally adjudged.
- When the judgment of the court awarding a sum of money becomes final and executor, the rate of legal interest, whether the case falls under paragraph 1 or paragraph 2, above, shall be 6% per annum from such finality until its satisfaction, this interim period being deemed to be by then an equivalent to a forbearance of credit. And, in addition to the above, judgments that have become final and executor prior to July 1, 2013, shall not be disturbed and shall continue to be implemented applying the rate of interest fixed therein.
43 716 Phil. 267 (2013).
44 750 Phil. 663 (2015).