Almirante: Medical certificate

Dominador A. Almirante
Labor case digest

ON Jan. 26, 2000, petitioner, while on errand for her employer, the respondents, stepped on a rusted half-inch nail which injured her foot and took long to heal as she was diabetic.

Consequently, she was absent from work for months. She was able to secure from the SSS a sickness notification signed by a doctor certifying that she is fit to resume work by April 20, 2000.

Respondents invoked the defense that they required petitioner to submit a certification issued by a government physician but failed, and no longer reported back to work. Instead, she demanded for separation pay citing health condition. Did the defense prosper?

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Ruling: No.

Mere absence of petitioner is not sufficient to establish the allegation of abandonment. The prolonged absence of petitioner was not without justifiable reason because it was established that her failure to report for work was due to the injury she suffered in the course of her employment and with sufficient notice to respondents.

Petitioner also presented herself for work on the date stated in the medical certificate which stated that she is fit to resume work.

Above all, the intention to sever the employer-employee relationship was not duly established by respondents.

The prior submission of a medical certificate that petitioner is fit to resume’ work negates the claim of respondents that the former demanded for separation pay on account of her failing health.

Certainly, petitioner cannot demand for separation benefits on the ground of illness while at the same time presenting a certification that she is fit to work.

Respondents could have denied petitioners demand at that instance and ordered her to return to work had it not been their intention to sever petitioner from their employ.

Hence, we find the allegation that petitioner presented herself for work but was refused by respondents more credible.

(Concepcion Faeldonia vs. Tong Yak Groceries, Jayme Go and Merlita Go, G.R. No. 182499, October 2, 2009).

(Almirante is a former labor arbiter.)