SALAW V. NLRC G.R. No. 90786 September 27, 1991
FACTS:
Espero Santos Salaw was a credit investigator-appraiser of herein respondent Associated Bank.
His duties included inspecting, investigating, appraising, and identifying the company's foreclosed assets; giving valuation to its real properties and verifying the genuineness and encumbrances of the titles of properties mortgaged to the respondents.
Salaw and a fellow employee were alleged to have conspired in selling twenty (20) sewing machines and electric generators which had been foreclosed by the respondent bank from Worldwide Garment and L.P. Money Garment, for P60,000.00, and divided the proceeds thereof in equal shares of P30,000.00 between the two of them. The Criminal Investigation Service (CIS) of the Philippine Constabulary extracted Sworn Statement from them without the assistance of a counsel.
Rollie Tuazon, the bank manager, requested petitioner to appear before the bank's Personnel Discipline and Investigation Committee (PDIC) which petitioner attended and 3 months after, his termination became effective for alleged serious misconduct or willful disobedience and fraud or willful breach of the trust reposed on him by the private respondents.
Petitioner filed an illegal dismissal case against respondent and likewise submitted an affidavit recanting his Sworn Statement before the CIS.
The labor arbiter ruled in favor of the petitioner.
Private respondents appealed to the NLRC and reversed the LA’s decision.
Petitioner’s MR was denied.
Hence, this petition.
ISSUE:
WON petitioner’s dismissal was legally justified.
HELD:
NO. Under the Labor Code, as amended, the requirements for the lawful dismissal of an employee by his employer are two-fold: the substantive and the procedural. Not only must the dismissal be for a valid or authorized cause as provided by law (Articles 279, 281, 282-284, New Labor Code), but the rudimentary requirements of due process — notice and hearing — must also be observed before an employee may be dismissed. One does not suffice; without their concurrence, the terminate would, in the eyes of the law, be illegal.
As to the LA’s finding, petitioner was terminated without the benefit of due process of law. The respondents' initial act in convening their Personnel Discipline and Investigation Committee (PDIC) to investigate complainant (after the CIS experience) would have complied with the demands of due process had complainant been given the opportunity to present his own defense and confront the witnesses, if any, and examine the evidence against him. But as the records clearly show, the complainant was denied that constitutional right when his subsequent request refute the allegations against him was granted and a hearing was set "without counsel or representative.
The investigation of petitioner Salaw by the respondent Bank' investigating committee violated his constitutional right to due process, in as much as he was not given a chance to defend himself, as provided in Rule XIV, Book V of the Implementing Rules and Regulations of the Labor Code governing the dismissal of employees. Section 5 of the said Rule requires that "the employer shall afford the worker ample opportunity to be heard and to defend himself with the assistance of his representative if he so desires."11 (Emphasis supplied.) Here petition was perfunctorily denied the assistance of counsel during the investigation to be conducted by the PDIC. No reasons preferred which vitiated the denial with irregularity and unfairness.
As aptly observed by the labor arbiter, the respondents premised their action in dismissing the complainant on his supposed admission of the offense imputed to him by the Criminal Investigation Service (CIS) in its interrogation in November 1984. The said admission was carried in a three-page Sworn Statement signed by the complainant. Aside from this Statement, other evidence was presented by the respondents to establish the culpability of the complainant in the fraudulent sale of respondents' foreclosed properties. Even the minutes of proceeding taken during the investigation conducted by respondents were not presented. ... This is a glaring denial of due process.
Considering further that the admission by the petitioner which was extracted from him by the Criminal Investigate Service of the Philippine Constabulary (National Capital Region) without the assistance of counsel and which was made the sole basis for his dismissal, cannot be admitted in evidence against him, then, the finding of guilt of the PDIC, which was affirmed by the public respondent NLRC; has no more leg stand on. A decision with absolutely nothing to support it is a nullity.
Significantly, the dismissal of the petitioner from his employment was characterized by undue haste. The law is clear that even in the disposition of labor cases, due process must not be subordinated to expediency or dispatch. Otherwise, the dismissal of the employee will be tainted with illegality.