RESPONDENT HSY Marketing Ltd., which includes three corporations, one partnership and three sole proprietorships, are engaged in manufacturing and selling goods under the brand Novo Jeans & Shirt & General Merchandise.
Sometime in May 2010 and June 2010, several Novo Jeans employees went to Raffy Tulfo’s radio program to air their grievances against their employers for alleged labor violations. They claimed that on June 7, 2010, they were not allowed to enter the Novo Jeans branches they were employed in. They further averred that while Novo Jeans sent them a show cause letter the next day, they were in truth already dismissed from employment.
On the other hand, respondents alleged that there was no dismissal since they sent petitioners a first notice of termination of employment, asking them to show cause why they should not be dismissed for their continued absence from work. However, petitioners argue that this evidence should not be given weight since there is no proof that they received this notice.
Which contention finds merit: petitioners’ or respondents’?
Ruling: Petitioners’
Indeed, no evidence was presented proving that each and every petitioner received a copy of the first notice of termination of employment. There are no receiving copies or acknowledgement receipts. What respondents presented were “sample letters of respondents” and not the actual notices that were allegedly sent out.
While petitioners admitted that the notices may have been sent, they have never actually admitted to receiving any of them. x x x.
Where both parties in a labor case have not presented substantial evidence to prove their allegations, the evidence is considered to be in equipoise. In such a case, the scales of justice are tilted in favor of labor. Thus, petitioners are hereby considered to have been illegally dismissed.
This Court notes that had petitioners been able to substantially prove their dismissal, it would have been rendered invalid not only for having been made without just cause but also for being in violation of their constitutional rights.
A laborer does not lose his or her right to freedom of expression upon employment. This is “a political right essential to man’s enjoyment of his or her life, to his or her happiness, and to his or her full and complete fulfillment.” While the Constitution and the courts recognize that employers have property rights that must also be protected, the human rights of laborers are given primacy over these rights. Property rights may prescribe. Human rights do not.
When laborers air out their grievances regarding their employment in a public forum, they do so in the exercise of their right to free expression. They are “fighting for their very survival, utilizing only the weapons afforded them by the Constitution--the untrammeled enjoyment of their basic human rights.”
Freedom and social justice afford them these rights and it is the courts’ duty to uphold and protect their free exercise. Thus, dismissing employees merely on the basis that they complained about their employer in a radio show is not only invalid, it is unconstitutional.
However, there not being sufficient proof that the dismissal was meant to suppress petitioners’ constitutional rights, this Court is constrained to limit its conclusions to that of illegal dismissal under the Labor Code.
Petitioners were not dismissed under any of the causes mentioned in Article 279 [282] of the Labor Code. They were not validly informed of the causes of their dismissal. Thus, their dismissal was illegal. (Charlie Hubilla vs. HSY Marketing Ltd., G.R. No. 207354, Jan 10, 2018).