INDUSTRIAL PERSONNEL v. JOSE G. DE VERA GR No. 205703, Mar 07, 2016

FACTS

Petitioner Industrial Personnel & Management Services, Inc. (IPAMS) is a local placement agency duly organized and existing under Philippine laws. Petitioner SNC Lavalin Engineers & Contractors, Inc. (SNC-Lavalin) is the principal of IPAMS, a Canadian company with business interests in several countries.

Respondent Alberto Arriola, a licensed general surgeon in the Philippines, was hired by SNC-Lavalin, through its local manning agency, IPAMS, as a safety officer in its Ambatovy Project site in Madagascar. After three months, Arriola received a notice of pre-termination of employment due to diminishing workload in the area of his expertise and the unavailability of alternative assignments. Consequently, Arriola was repatriated and he filed a complaint against the petitioners for illegal dismissal and non-payment of overtime pay, vacation leave and sick leave pay before the Labor Arbiter (LA).

He claimed that SNC-Lavalin still owed him unpaid salaries equivalent to the three-month unexpired portion of his contract and asserted that the latter never offered any valid reason for his early termination and that he was not given enough notice regarding the same. He also insisted that the petitioners must prove the applicability of Canadian law before the same could be applied to his employment contract.

The petitioner denied the charge of illegal dismissal against them. They relied on a copy of the Employment Standards Act (ESA) of Ontario, which was duly authenticated by the Canadian authorities and certified by the Philippine Embassy. They insisted that all of Arriola's employment documents were processed in Canada, not to mention that SNC Lavalin's office was in Ontario, the principle of lex loci celebrationis was applicable. Hence, they insisted that Canadian laws governed the contract.

The said foreign law did not require any ground for early termination of employment, and the only requirement was the written notice of termination. Even if Philippine laws should apply, Arriola would still be validly dismissed because domestic law recognized retrenchment and redundancy as legal grounds for termination.

The Labor Arbiter (LA) dismissed the complaint of Arriola, while the NLRC reversed the LA's ruling stating the Filipino workers are protected by our labor laws wherever they may be working. The petitioners filed a petition for certiorari before the CA arguing that it should be the ESA, or the Ontario labor law, that should be applied in Arriola's employment contract, but the Court of Appeals affirmed NLRC. Hence, this petition.

ISSUES

ISSUE Whether or not Canadian law shall be applied to this case.

RATIO

No, the foreign law invoked is contrary to the Constitution and the Labor Code. As a rule, Philippine laws apply even to overseas employment contracts. This rule is rooted in the constitutional provision of Section 3, Article XIII that the State shall afford full protection to labor, whether local or overseas. Hence, even if the OFW has his employment abroad, it does not strip him of his rights to security of tenure, humane conditions of work and a living wage under our Constitution. As an exception, the parties may agree that a foreign law shall govern the employment contract. A synthesis of the existing laws and jurisprudence reveals that this exception is subject to the following requisites:

1. That it is expressly stipulated in the overseas employment contract that a specific foreign law shall govern;
2.That the foreign law invoked must be proven before the courts pursuant to the Philippine rules on evidence;
3.That the foreign law stipulated in the overseas employment contract must not be contrary to law, morals, good customs, public order, or public policy of the Philippines; and
4.That the overseas employment contract must be processed through the POEA.

The Court is of the view that these four (4) requisites must be complied with before the employer could invoke the applicability of a foreign law to an overseas employment contract. With these requisites, the State would be able to abide by its constitutional obligation to ensure that the rights and well-being of our OFWs are fully protected. Lacking any one of the four requisites would invalidate the application of the foreign law, and the Philippine law shall govern the overseas employment contract.

In the present case, as correctly held by the CA, even though an authenticated copy of the ESA was submitted, it did not mean that said foreign law could be automatically applied to this case. The petitioners miserably failed to adhere to the two other requisites. The petitioners failed to comply with the first requisite because no foreign law was expressly stipulated in the overseas employment contract with Arriola. The petitioners did not directly cite any specific provision or stipulation in the said labor contract which indicated the applicability of the Canadian labor laws or the ESA. They failed to show on the face of the contract that a foreign law was agreed upon by the parties. Rather, they simply asserted that the terms and conditions of Arriola’s employment were embodied in the Expatriate Policy, Ambatovy Project - Site, Long Term.

The provisions of the ESA are patently inconsistent with the right to security of tenure.Both the Constitution and the Labor Code provide that this right is available to any employee. In a host of cases, the Court has upheld the employee's right to security of tenure in the face of oppressive management behavior and management prerogative. Security of tenure is a right which cannot be denied on mere speculation of any unclear and nebulous basis. Furthermore, not only do these provisions collide with the right to security of tenure, but they also deprive the employee of his constitutional right to due process by denying him of any notice of termination and the opportunity to be heard.

In fine, as the petitioners failed to meet all the four (4) requisites on the applicability of a foreign law, then the Philippine labor laws must govern the overseas employment contract of Arriola.

FALLO

WHEREFORE, the petition is DENIED. The January 24, 2013 Decision of the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. SP No. 118869 is AFFIRMED in toto.