Criteria for retrenchment

Respondent Virginia Pascua was a school physician of petitioner La Consolacion College of Manila. In a meeting on Sept. 30, 2011, Pascua was handed a termination of employment letter. She was informed that due to the current financial situation of petitioner caused by the decrease in enrollment, it has decided to downsize the health services staff. Accordingly, it was forced to eliminate Pascua’s position.

Pascua wrote to petitioner, pointing out that part-time school physician, Dr. Venus Dimagmaliw, should have been considered for dismissal first. She also noted that rather than dismissing her outright, petitioner could have asked her to revert to part-time status instead.

Was the dismissal of Pascua justified?

Ruling: No.

There is no dispute here about respondent’s seniority and preferred status. Petitioners acknowledge that she had been employed by La Consolacion since January 2000, initially as a part-time physician, then serving full-time beginning 2008. It is also not disputed that while respondent was a full-time physician, La Consolacion had another physician, Dr. Dimagmaliw, who served part-time.

Precisely, respondent’s preeminence is a necessary implication of the very criteria used by La Consolacion in retrenching her, i.e., that she was the highest paid employee in the health services division.

La Consolacion’s disregard for respondent’s seniority and preferred status relative to a parttime employee indicates its resort to an unfair and unreasonable criterion for retrenchment.

Indeed, it may have made mathematical sense to dismiss the highest paid employee first.

However, appraising the propriety of retrenchment is not merely a matter of enabling an employer to augment financial prospects. It is as much a matter of giving employees their just due.

Employees who have earned their keep by demonstrating exemplary performance and securing roles in their respective organizations cannot be summarily disregarded by nakedly pecuniary considerations.

The Labor Code’s permissiveness towards retrenchments aims to strike a balance between legitimate management prerogatives and the demands of social justice. Concern for the employer cannot mean a disregard for employees who have shown not only their capacity, but even loyalty. La Consolacion’s pressing financial condition may invite commiseration, but its flawed standard for retrenchment constrains this Court to maintain that respondent was illegally dismissed.

Besides, La Consolacion could have also modified respondent’s status from full-time to parttime. When retrenchment becomes necessary, the employer may, in the exercise of its business judgment, implement cost-saving measures, but at the same time, should respect labor rights. (La Consolacion College of Manila, et.al. vs.

Virginia Pascua, M.D., G.R. No. 214744, March 14, 2018).