[ G.R. No. 85840. June 05, 1991 ] 275 Phil. 176
EN BANC
[ G.R. No. 85840. June 05, 1991 ]
SERVANDO’S INCORPORATED, PETITIONER, VS. THE SECRETARY OF LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT AND THE REGIONAL DIRECTOR, REGION VI, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT, RESPONDENTS. R E S O L U T I O N
PADILLA, J.:
This is a motion filed by the respondents seeking reconsideration of the 26 April 1990 decision of the Court, which ordered the referral to the appropriate Labor Arbiter of the case earlier decided by the respondents, as said case was declared to be within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Labor Arbiter, since the aggregate claims of each of the fifty four (54) employees involved exceed the amount of P5,000.00.
Respondents invoke the visitorial and enforcement power of the Secretary of Labor under Art. 128(b) of the Labor Code* which, according to them, is entirely separate and distinct from the Regional Director’s power to adjudicate simple money claims under Art. 129 of the same Code; and that Art. 217 (a) (6) of the Labor Code granting original and exclusive jurisdiction to Labor Arbiters over all money claims arising from employer-employee relations involving an amount exceeding P5,000.00, whether or not accompanied with a claim for reinstatement, should not be interpreted as an amendment to Art. 128 (b), i.e. as providing an additional exception to the visitorial and enforcement power of the Secretary of Labor.
There are actually three (3) provisions of the Labor Code that are determinative of the instant issue of jurisdiction. They are:
1. Article 217 (a) (6) which provides:
“Art. 217. Jurisdiction of Labor Arbiters and the Commission.-(a) Except as otherwise provided under this Code, the Labor Arbiters shall have original and exclusive jurisdiction to hear and decide, within thirty (30) calendar days after the submission of the case by the parties for decision without extension, even in the absence of stenographic notes, the following cases involving all workers, whether agricultural or non-agricultural:
x x x x x x x x x
(6) Except claims for employees compensation, social security, medicare and maternity benefits, all other claims arising from employer-employee relations, including those of persons in domestic or household service, involving an amount exceeding Five thousand pesos (P5,000.00), whether or not accompanied with a claim for reinstatement.
x x x x xx x x x” (emphasis supplied)
2. Article 129 which provides:
“Art. 129. Recovery of wages, simple money claims and other benefits. - Upon complaint of any interested party, the Regional Director of the Department of Labor and Employment or any of the duly authorized hearing officers of the Department is empowered, through summary proceeding and after due notice, to hear and decide any matter involving the recovery of wages and other monetary claims and benefits, including legal interest, owing to an employee or person employed in domestic or household service or househelper under this Code, arising from employer-employee relations: Provided, That such complaint does not include a claim for reinstatement: Provided, further, That the aggregate money claims of each employee or househelper do not exceed Five thousand pesos (P5,000.00). x x x.” (emphasis supplied)
3. Article 128(b) which provides:
Art. 128(b) The provisions of Article 217 of this Code to the contrary notwithstanding and in cases where the relationship of employer-employee still exists, the Minister of Labor and Employment or his duly authorized representatives shall have the power to order and administer, after due notice and hearing, compliance with the labor standards provisions of this Code and other labor legislation based on the findings of labor regulation officers or industrial safety engineers made in the course of inspection, and to issue writs of execution to the appropriate authority for the enforcement of their orders, except in cases where the employer contests the findings of the labor regulation officer and raises issues which cannot be resolved without considering evidentiary matters that are not verifiable in the normal course of inspection.” (Emphasis supplied)
A careful consideration of the above-quoted three (3) provisions of the Labor Code leads the Court to reiterate its ruling that the exclusive jurisdiction to hear and decide employees’ claims arising from employer-employee relations, exceeding the aggregate amount of P5,000.00 for each employee, is vested in the Labor Arbiter (Article 217 (a) (6)). This exclusive jurisdiction of the Labor Arbiter is confirmed by the provisions of Article 129 which excludes from the jurisdiction of the Regional Director or any hearing officer of the Department of Labor the power to hear and decide claims of employees arising from employer-employee relations exceeding the amount of P5,000.00 for each employee.
To construe the visitorial power of the Secretary of Labor to order and enforce compliance with labor laws as including the power to hear and decide cases involving employees’ claims for wages, arising from employer-employee relations, even if the amount of said claims exceed P5,000.00 for each employee, would, in our considered opinion, emasculate and render meaningless, if not useless, the provisions of Article 217 (a) (6) and Article 129 of the Labor Code which, as above-pointed out, confer exclusive jurisdiction on the Labor Arbiter to hear and decide such employees’ claims (exceeding P5,000.00 for each employee). To sustain the respondents’ position would, in effect, sanction a situation where all employees’ claims, regardless of amount, can be heard and determined by the Secretary of Labor under his visitorial power. This does not, however, appear to be the legislative intent.
We further hold that to harmonize the above-quoted three (3) provisions of the Labor Code, the Secretary of Labor should be held as possessed of his plenary visitorial powers to order the inspection of all establishments where labor is employed, to look into all possible violations of labor laws and regulations but the power to hear and decide employees’ claims exceeding P5,000.00 for each employee should be left to the Labor Arbiter as the exclusive repository of the power to hear and decide such claims. In other words, the inspection conducted by the Secretary of Labor, through labor regulation officers or industrial safety engineers, may yield findings of violations of labor standards under labor laws; the Secretary of Labor may order compliance with said labor standards, if necessary, through appropriate writs of execution but when the findings disclose an employee claim of over P5,000.00, the matter should be referred to the Labor Arbiter in recognition of his exclusive jurisdiction over such claims.
Nor is this position devoid of sound reason or purpose, because -
- The proceedings before the Secretary of Labor (or his agents) exercising his visitorial powers is summary in nature. On the other hand, proceedings before the Labor Arbiters are more formal and in accord with rules of evidence. When the employee’s claim is less than P5,000.00, a summary procedure for its settlement can be justified, but not when a claim is more or less substantial, from the standpoint of both employee and management, for which reason, an employee’s claim exceeding P5,000.00 is placed within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Labor Arbiter to hear and decide.
2. Article 129 of the Labor Code expressly provides that “upon complaint of any interested party,” the Regional Director (and, consequently, the Secretary of Labor to whom appeals from the Regional Director are taken) is empowered to hear and decide simple money claims, i.e. those that do not exceed P5,000.00 for each employee, employing for this purpose a summary procedure. If Article 128(b) of the Labor Code were to be construed as empowering the Secretary of Labor, under his visitorial power, to hear and decide all types of employee’s claims, including those exceeding P5,000.00 for each employee, employing for this purpose a summary procedure, then, Article 129 (limiting the Regional Director’s jurisdiction to a claim not exceeding P5,000.00) becomes a useless surplusage in the Labor Code.
3. Besides, it would seem that as the law (Article 129) limits the jurisdiction of the Regional Director (and, therefore, the Secretary of Labor on appeal from the Regional Director) to “complaints of any interested party” seeking an amount of not more than P5,000.00, for each employee, it cannot be that, because of the absence of any complaint from any interested party, the Secretary of Labor under his visitorial power, is motu proprio empowered to hear and decide employee’s claim of more than P5,000.00 for each employee.
In addition to all the foregoing, the Court cannot overlook the fact that petitioner contests the findings of the labor regulation officer, upon which, the respondents based their questioned orders. Nor can it be argued with persuasion that the issues raised by petitioner are not evidentiary in nature and unverifiable in the course of inspection. Moreover, the total amount of the respondents’ award against petitioner, is P964,952.50 (with the award for each of the fifty four (54) employees involved not being less than P5,000.00). The total award of P964,952.50 is a tidy sum sufficient to knock-off any viable enterprise. What is worse is that all this is done through summary proceedings.
The elementary demands of due process upon which the express exception to the visitorial powers of the Secretary of Labor[1] is obviously anchored, would require something more than a summary disposition. As petitioner states in his comment on respondents’ motion for reconsideration of the Court’s decision:
“x x x, the petitioner filed its Motion for Reconsideration on July 8, 1987, asking for an opportunity to present its payrolls and records, considering that the computation arrived at by the Regional Director is a straight computation that did not take into account the actual number of days worked, the status of the employees, the absences incurred, the advances obtained, the allowances given, among other factors.
The very fact that the petitioner has come before the Supreme Court in the instant petition for certiorari clearly shows that it contests the findings of the Regional Director. Otherwise, everything would have been, if the stand of the Public Respondents were to be believed, an exercise in futility.
Lastly, it is undeniable that the issues involved here are matters that (are) evidentiary in nature, involving as it does matters that cannot be resolved and are not verifiable in the normal course of inspection. Indeed, it is only through a proper hearing before the Labor Arbiter where it may be discovered which workers are entitled to the alleged wage differentials, if any, and for how much. Without this, the petitioner would not be able to prove the correctness of the amounts given to the workers concerned after taking into account extraneous factors such as absences, attendance, advances and so on.”
ACCORDINGLY, the motion for reconsideration is DENIED. This denial is final.
SO ORDERED. Melencio-Herrera, Gutierrez, Jr., Paras, Bidin, Sarmiento, Griño-Aquino, Regalado, and Davide, Jr., JJ., concur. Fernan, C.J., Cruz, Feliciano, Gancayco, and Medialdea, JJ., joins J. Narvasa, in his dissenting opinion.