G.R. No. 128425 ; March 11, 2004
CBL TRANSIT, INC., petitioner, vs. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION, HON. LABOR ARBITER MANUEL R. CADAY, BERNARDO BERNALES, et al., respondents.

FACTS

Private respondents, regular drivers and conductors of petitioner CBL Transit, Inc., were not given work assignments starting December 1990. They filed a complaint for illegal dismissal. The Labor Arbiter and the NLRC ruled in their favor, a decision ultimately affirmed by the Supreme Court in a 1994 Resolution which ordered their reinstatement with backwages or, if not feasible, separation pay of one month for every year of service. For enforcement, the Labor Arbiter directed the NLRC’s Research and Information Unit, through Acting Chief Ricardo Atienza, to compute the monetary awards.
During computation conferences, both parties agreed to use the private respondents’ SSS contribution data for 1988-1990 as the basis, since the payrolls were unavailable. However, they disagreed on the averaging method. Petitioner’s method would divide total earnings by 36 months, including months with no service, thereby lowering the average. Atienza’s method excluded months without service from the divisor, yielding a higher average monthly rate. After petitioner’s accountant failed to appear at a final conference, Labor Arbiter Caday approved Atienza’s computation totaling P782,107.30 and ordered its deposit.

ISSUE

Whether the NLRC committed grave abuse of discretion in affirming the Labor Arbiter’s order adopting the computation of the monetary award by the NLRC’s Research and Information Unit.

RULING

The Supreme Court dismissed the petition and affirmed the NLRC resolutions. The legal logic rests on the principles of estoppel and the finality of the agreed-upon computation parameters. Petitioner voluntarily submitted to the jurisdiction and authority of the NLRC’s Research and Information Unit for the computation. It expressly agreed that the SSS data would serve as the basis. Having participated in the proceedings and agreed on this fundamental premise, petitioner cannot subsequently assail the Unit’s authority or jurisdiction simply because it disagrees with the outcome of the computation.
The Court emphasized that the government accountant, as a neutral third party, computed the award following official guidelines. The chosen averaging method—excluding months without service—was correct and equitable. To include zero-earning months in the divisor would unjustly diminish the average monthly rate, effectively penalizing employees for the period they were illegally deprived of work. Petitioner’s failure to appear at the crucial conference to finalize the computation further precluded it from challenging the result. Thus, no grave abuse of discretion attended the NLRC’s affirmance of the properly computed award.