SC affirms CA ruling on illegal dismissal of four ABS-CBN cameramen in 2003

THE Supreme Court has affirmed the ruling issued by the Court of Appeals (CA), which declared as illegal the dismissal of four cameramen employed by ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation since 2003.

In a 22-page decision released to the public on Monday, the SC’S First Division denied the petition for review filed by ABS-CBN seeking the reversal of the CA’S decision which set aside the resolutions issued by the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) in 2011 junking the complaints for illegal dismissal, unfair labor practice and monetary claims filed by Kessler Tajanlangit, Vladimir Martin, Herbie Medina and Juan Paulo.

In the same ruling, the CA ordered ABS-CBN to immediately reinstate the respondents to their former positions without loss of seniority rights with payment of full backwages and all other statutory monetary benefits to which they are entitled from the time they were dismissed up to the date of their actual reinstatement.

The Court did not give weight to the claim of ABS-CBN that the respondents were independent contractors since they were engaged to render service for specific programs by their respective producers, considering that respondents have already acquired talents and skills in performing the tasks of a cameraman.

The petitioner added that the terms of engagement of respondents are co-terminus with the programs for which they were engaged.

However, the Court held that the broadcasting company failed to present proof of any contract between the cameramen and the company from the time they were engaged in 2003 to 2005, up to the filing of the complaint against them in 2010, other than the unsigned draft of employment contracts presented to respondents in 2011, which respondents refused to sign due to the already impending labor dispute.

Aside from these unsigned drafts, the Court noted that ABSCBN presented only its Article of Incorporation, legislative franchise, payslips, and belatedly, affidavits executed by other workers, which the CA declared insufficient to establish the status of respondents as independent contractors nor rebut the evidence submitted by respondents to prove their employment.

The SC said the CA correctly considered the evidence presented by the cameramen before the NLRC such as identification cards, income tax returns, payslips, memoranda issued to discipline similarly situated employees, work schedules issued by petitioner, and documents from Social Security Service, Philhealth and PAGIBIG to prove the existence of an employer-employee relationship with petitioner.

In light of the overwhelming evidence of the respondents, the CA found the NLRC to have committed grave abuse of discretion in ruling that no employer-employee relationship exists, totally disregarding substantial evidence presented to indubitably show that respondents are truly employees of the company.

“Based on the foregoing, this Court cannot fault the CA, which in the hopes of preventing a substantial wrong and doing substantial justice, found grave abuse of discretion when the findings and conclusions reached by the NLRC are not supported by substantial evidence and are in total disregard of evidence material to and even decisive of the controversy. Thus, to arrive at a just decision of the case, the CA correctly granted the respondents’ Petition for Certiorari,” the SC declared.

“Hence, the CA committed no error to warrant the reversal of its ruling that respondents are regular employees of petitioner and are entitled to reinstatement and the payment of backwages, other statutory monetary benefits and attorney’s fees, by virtue of their illegal dismissal from the latter,” it added.