GR 139135; (January, 2004) (Digest)
G.R. No. 139135 ; January 29, 2004
Bolinao Security and Investigation Service, Inc., Petitioner, vs. Arsenio M. Toston, Respondent.
FACTS
Arsenio M. Toston was employed as a security guard by Bolinao Security and Investigation Service, Inc. On August 17, 1995, while reporting for duty, he was shot by a fellow guard during an altercation. Toston filed for a one-month leave, which was approved, but his claim for medical benefits was denied. Upon applying directly with the SSS, he discovered his employer had failed to remit contributions. After reporting this to the SSS, he was scolded by the company’s Lucy Caasi on September 15, 1995, who told him not to report for work and that his name was being “dropped from the rolls.”
Toston filed a complaint for illegal dismissal. The Labor Arbiter ruled in his favor, a decision affirmed by the NLRC and the Court of Appeals. The employer argued that Toston had abandoned his job, citing his failure to report after his leave and the pendency of his complaint. The company later sent a letter declaring him AWOL and claimed his dismissal was due to a client’s recommendation for his relief following an investigation into the shooting incident.
ISSUE
Whether or not respondent Arsenio M. Toston was illegally dismissed from employment.
RULING
Yes, the dismissal was illegal. The burden of proving the validity of dismissal rests on the employer. Petitioner failed to discharge this burden. First, the act of telling an employee not to report for work and dropping him from the rolls constitutes a dismissal, not abandonment. Abandonment requires a clear, deliberate, and unjustified refusal to resume employment, which was absent here as Toston’s non-reporting was a consequence of the employer’s own directive. Second, the dismissal was effected without the requisite due process—no written notice specifying charges, no hearing, and no written notice of termination. The subsequent claim of abandonment and the client’s recommendation, raised only later, do not validate the earlier unauthorized termination. The employer’s failure to observe substantive and procedural due process renders the dismissal illegal, entitling the employee to reinstatement and backwages.