On 7 November 2010, Hazel entered into a 2-year employment contract with Kuwait by Al-Masiya, through its agent, Saad Mutlaq Al Asmi Domestic Staff Recruitment Office (Saad Mutlaq)/Al Dakhan Manpower where she to work as a domestic helper with a monthly salary of US$400.00.
Hazel arrived in Kuwait on 8 November 2010. Due to disagreement in the working conditions, Hazel’s employment with her first and second employers did not succeed. Her employment with her third employer also did not succeed as the latter could not obtain a working visa for her.
On 16 December 2010, Hazel went to the Philippine Embassy where she related her employment problems to a Labor Attaché in Kuwait who offered to help them.
On 5 January 2011, Hazel left the Philippine Embassy after a certain Mr. Mutlaq offered to give her a job at a chocolate factory. However, this chocolate factory turned out to be inexistent.
Then, the employees of Al Rekabi, an employment agency, told her that they would be bringing her to Hawally at night. She refused to take the trip as it was cold and drizzling. She then attempted to report the matter to the Labor Attaché using her cellular phone, but the employees of Al Rekabi confiscated it. Mr. Hassan, the Manager of Al Rekabi, did not accede to her request to postpone the trip to the following day. It came to a point where Mr. Hassan scolded Hazel and forced her to make a written admission that her employers treated her well.
Sometime after 6 January 2011, Hazel was brought to the office of Al Rekabi at Salmiya. On an unspecified date thereafter, at around 7:00 p.m., two men offered her a job at a restaurant in front of the main office of the agency. She accepted the offer. However, instead of being brought to a restaurant in Hawally, where she was supposed to work, Hazel was taken to a flat where she was told to apply makeup and wear attractive and sexy clothes. Another man joined them. Hazel was then told that she would be brought to her place of work. However, she was instead taken to an unlighted area which had buildings but no restaurant or coffee shop signboards. At the area, she saw another man walking. After recognizing that the man was an employee of Al Rekabi, she asked him to bring her to the main office of the agency. She was able to leave at around 11:00 p.m. when the three other men agreed to release her.
On 7 February 2011, Hazel was asked to affix her signature on a letter that she copied purportedly showing that she admitted having preterminated her contract of employment and that she no longer had any demandable claim as she was treated well. Hazel’s execution of this letter of resignation was made as a precondition to the release of her passport and plane ticket which were in the possession of petitioners.
Hazel arrived in the Philippines on 12 February 2011 and thereafter filed a complaint for constructive dismissal against her employer.
In response to Hazel’s complaint, the employers filed a motion to dismiss on 11 May 2011, alleging that on 7 February 2011, Hazel executed an Affidavit of Quitclaim and Desistance, Sworn Statement, and Receipt and Quitclaim before the Assistant Labor Attaché in Kuwait, where she allegedly stated that she voluntarily agreed to release her employers from all her claims arising from her employment abroad. They also presented her handwritten statement where she expressed that her cause for terminating her employment was her own personal reasons.
Was Hazel constructively dismissed from employment?
The Supreme Court stated that in cases of constructive dismissal, the impossibility, unreasonableness, or unlikelihood of continued employment leaves an employee with no other viable recourse but to terminate his or her employment. “An employee is considered to be constructively dismissed from service if an act of clear discrimination, insensibility or disdain by an employer has become so unbea[r]able to the employee as to leave him or her with no option but to forego his or her continued employment.” From this definition, it can be inferred that various situations, whereby the employer intentionally places the employee in a situation which will result in the latter’s being coerced into severing his ties with the former, can result in constructive dismissal.1Torreda v. Investment and Capital Corporation of the Philippines, G.R. No. 229881, September 5, 2018 and Agcolicol, Jr. v. Casiño, G.R. No. 217732, June 15, 2016.
The Court found that the circumstances of the present case strongly indicated that Hazel was constructively dismissed.
First, Hazel’s foreign employer never secured a working visa for her, in violation of the categorical requirement for an employer’s accreditation with the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency.
Second, Hazel was not properly paid in accordance with the terms of her employment contract. During her 3-month stay, she was only paid US$227.75 instead of the stipulated pay of US$400 per month.
Third, Hazel was not assigned to a permanent employer abroad for the entire contractual period of 2 years. Upon her arrival in Kuwait, she was consistently promised job placements which were found to be inexistent. The Court found it clear that the foreign employer intended to use Hazel as an entertainer of some sort in places of ill repute; and she would have fallen victim to human trafficking “[w]ere it not for some favorable providence.”
Finally, Hazel was made to copy and sign a prepared resignation letter and this was made as a condition for the release of her passport and plane ticket.
For the Court, it was logical for Hazel to consider herself constructively dismissed. since the impossibility, unreasonableness, or unlikelihood of continued employment has left her with no other viable recourse but to terminate her employment. The Court further stated:
Our overseas workers belong to a disadvantaged class. Most of them come from the poorest sector of our society. Their profile shows they live in suffocating slums, trapped in an environment of crimes. Hardly literate and in ill health, their only hope lies in jobs they find with difficulty in our country. Their unfortunate circumstance makes them easy prey to avaricious employers. They will climb mountains, cross the seas, endure slave treatment in foreign lands just to survive. Out of despondence, they will work under sub-human conditions and accept salaries below the minimum. The least we can do is to protect them with our laws.
On that note, the Court reminds petitioners to observe common decency and good faith in their dealings with their unsuspecting employees, particularly in undertakings that ultimately lead to waiver of workers’ rights. The Court will not renege on its duty to protect the weak against the strong, and the gullible against the wicked, be it for labor or for capital. The Court scorns petitioners’ reprehensible conduct. As employers, petitioners are bound to observe candor and fairness in their relations with their hapless employees.
Further reading:
- Al-Masiya Overseas Placement Agency, Inc. v. Viernes, G.R. No. 216132, January 22, 2020.
