G.R. No. 95011 ; April 22, 1991
M.Y. SAN BISCUITS, INC., petitioner, vs. ACTING SECRETARY BIENVENIDO E. LAGUESMA and PHILIPPINE TRANSPORT AND GENERAL WORKERS ORGANIZATIONS, respondents.

FACTS

The private respondent Philippine Transport and General Workers Organization (PTGWO) filed a petition for certification election for delivery drivers and helpers of petitioner M.Y. San Biscuits, Inc. The med-arbiter dismissed the petition, ruling that no employer-employee relationship existed between the company and the drivers/helpers. PTGWO appealed to the Secretary of Labor. Separately, the same drivers/helpers filed a complaint for monetary claims before a labor arbiter, who also dismissed it on the identical ground of lack of an employer-employee relationship.
On appeal in the certification election case, then Secretary of Labor Franklin Drilon reversed the med-arbiter, finding that an employer-employee relationship did exist and ordering an election. Petitioner moved for reconsideration and filed a manifestation requesting the Secretary to hold the case in abeyance pending the resolution of the parallel monetary claims case by the NLRC. The Acting Secretary, Bienvenido E. Laguesma, denied the motion and the manifestation.

ISSUE

Whether the med-arbiter or the Secretary of Labor has the authority to determine the existence of an employer-employee relationship in a petition for certification election.

RULING

Yes. The petition is dismissed. The Court upheld the authority of the med-arbiter and the Secretary of Labor to determine the existence of an employer-employee relationship in certification election proceedings. The legal logic is grounded on the jurisdictional grant under Article 226 of the Labor Code, which confers upon the Bureau of Labor Relations (BLR), through its med-arbiters, original and exclusive authority over all disputes arising from or affecting labor-management relations. A certification election is fundamentally a labor-management dispute concerning representation.
Necessarily, to resolve a petition for certification election properly, the med-arbiter must first ascertain whether the petitioning workers are employees of the employer sought to be organized. This determination is an indispensable incident to the med-arbiter’s exercise of his exclusive jurisdiction. The Secretary of Labor, exercising appellate jurisdiction over certification election orders under Article 259 of the Labor Code, possesses the concomitant authority to review and reverse the med-arbiter’s finding on this preliminary question.
The Court rejected the petitioner’s argument that such determination is vested solely in the NLRC or that a prejudicial question existed requiring the Secretary to await the NLRC’s ruling in the separate monetary case. It would be absurd to require the med-arbiter or Secretary to defer to a separate proceeding, as this would paralyze the certification election machinery whenever a related monetary claim is filed. Each forum can make its own independent finding based on the evidence before it. The Secretary’s finding of an employer-employee relationship, based on the established four-fold test, was thus a valid exercise of jurisdiction.