GR 116807; (April, 1997) (Digest)
G.R. No. 116807 April 14, 1997
MARIANO N. TAN doing business under the name CARTER’S GENERAL SALES, petitioner, vs. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION, ROMEO GARRIDO and ANTONIO IBUTNANDI, respondents.
FACTS
Petitioner Mariano Tan, doing business as Carter’s General Sales, employed Romeo Garrido as a delivery helper and Antonio Ibutnandi as a driver. On January 16, 1989, they filed a labor standards complaint against Tan for underpayment and non-payment of benefits. Garrido later suffered a work-related hand injury on January 28, 1989. When he refused an order to continue lifting heavy boxes due to pain, the company’s lawyer served him a notice to explain. After seeking treatment, he returned but was told by the manager, Emma Tan, to “go to hell” and was ostracized. He received a termination letter dated February 7, 1989. Ibutnandi, who had been on sick leave for pulmonary tuberculosis, was dismissed for failing to present a medical certificate from a government doctor certifying his fitness to work.
ISSUE
Whether the National Labor Relations Commission committed grave abuse of discretion in ruling that respondents Garrido and Ibutnandi were illegally dismissed.
RULING
The Supreme Court denied the petition and affirmed the NLRC’s ruling of illegal dismissal. For Garrido, the Court found that petitioner’s claim of abandonment was unsubstantiated. Abandonment requires a clear and deliberate intent to sever the employment relationship. Garrido’s absence was initially due to a work-related injury, and his subsequent inability to work stemmed from the hostile treatment and his actual termination on February 7, 1989, which negated any voluntary abandonment. His filing of the labor complaint was a protected activity and likely the proximate cause of his dismissal, constituting illegal termination.
For Ibutnandi, the Court held that his dismissal was also illegal. While an employer may terminate an employee due to disease under Article 284 of the Labor Code, this requires a certification by a public health authority that the disease is incurable and that continued employment is prohibited by law or prejudicial to health. Petitioner failed to secure this requisite certification. Merely requiring a fitness certificate from a government doctor was insufficient to justify termination under the Code. Consequently, both dismissals were unlawful. The awards of reinstatement with back wages were upheld, with Garrido’s back wages limited to three years due to the pre-R.A. 6715 effectivity of his dismissal, while Ibutnandi was granted full back wages until reinstatement.