At the time of her indefinite suspension from employment in 2006, the employee was the Human Resource Officer of Brent Hospital and Colleges, Inc. (Brent), an educational and medical institution of the Episcopal Church of the Philippines.
The cause of suspension was the employee’s Unprofessionalism and Unethical Behavior Resulting to Unwed Pregnancy.
It appears that the employee became pregnant out of wedlock, and Brent imposed the suspension until such time that she marries her boyfriend in accordance with law.
The employee then filed a complaint for unfair labor practice, constructive dismissal, non-payment of wages and damages with a prayer for reinstatement.
The labor tribunals upheld the employee’s dismissal as one attended with just cause.
The just cause consisted in her engaging in premarital sexual relations with her boyfriend, resulting in her becoming pregnant out of wedlock. The labor tribunals deemed said act to be immoral, which was punishable by dismissal under Brent’s rules and which likewise constituted serious misconduct under Article 297 (a) of the Labor Code of the Philippines.1ARTICLE 297. [Formerly Article 282] Termination by Employer. — An employer may terminate an employment for any of the following causes:
(a) Serious misconduct or willful disobedience by the employee of the lawful orders of his employer or representative in connection with his work; x x x For the labor tribunals, since the employee was Brent’s Human Resource Officer in charge of implementing its rules against immoral conduct, she should have been the epitome of proper conduct.
The Supreme Court declared that the dismissal of the employee here was illegal.
Immorality as a Just Cause for Termination of Employment
The Supreme Court ruled that the employee’s premarital relations with her boyfriend and the resulting pregnancy out of wedlock did not constitute immorality, and thus could not be a just cause for termination of her employment.
The Court noted that immorality was punishable under Brent’s policies by dismissal for the first offense.
However, the Court also clarified that the determination of whether a conduct is disgraceful or immoral involves a two-step process:
First, a consideration of the totality of the circumstances surrounding the conduct; and
Second, an assessment of the said circumstances vis-à-vis the prevailing norms of conduct, i.e., what the society generally considers moral and respectable.
1)
In this case, the Court found that the surrounding facts leading to the employee’s dismissal were as follows:
- she was employed as a human resources officer in an educational and medical institution of the Episcopal Church of the Philippines;
- she and her boyfriend at that time were both single; and
- they engaged in premarital sexual relations, which resulted into pregnancy.
2)
The labor tribunals characterized these as constituting disgraceful or immoral conduct and sweepingly concluded that as Human Resource Officer, the employee should have been the epitome of proper conduct and her indiscretion “surely scandalized the Brent community.”
According to the Court, the foregoing circumstances, however, did not readily equate to disgraceful and immoral conduct:
2a)
Brent’s Policy Manual and Employee’s Manual of Policies did not define what constitutes immorality; it simply stated immorality as a ground for disciplinary action.
Instead, Brent erroneously relied on the standard dictionary definition of fornication as a form of illicit relation and proceeded to conclude that the employee’s acts fell under such classification, thus constituting immorality.
2b)
Jurisprudence has already set the standard of morality with which an act should be gauged — it is public and secular, not religious.
Whether a conduct is considered disgraceful or immoral should be made in accordance with the prevailing norms of conduct, which, refer to proscribed conduct because they are detrimental to conditions upon which depend the existence and progress of human society.
The fact that a particular act does not conform to the traditional moral views of a certain sectarian institution is not sufficient reason to qualify such act as immoral unless it, likewise, does not conform to public and secular standards.
2c)
More importantly, there must be substantial evidence to establish that premarital sexual relations and pregnancy out of wedlock is considered disgraceful or immoral.
The employee and her boyfriend were both single and had no legal impediment to marry at the time she committed the alleged immoral conduct. In fact, they eventually married on April 15, 2008.
The labor tribunals’ respective conclusion that the employee’s indiscretion scandalized the Brent community was speculative, at most, and there was no proof adduced by Brent to support such sweeping conclusion.
Even Brent admitted that it came to know of the employee’s “situation” only when her pregnancy became manifest.
2d)
Brent also conceded that at the time the employee and her boyfriend were just carrying on their relationship, there was no knowledge or evidence by Brent that they were engaged also in premarital sex. This only showed that the employee did not flaunt her premarital relations with her boyfriend and it was not carried on under scandalous or disgraceful circumstances.
2e)
Brent, likewise, could not resort to the Manual of Regulations for Private Schools2At that time the 1992 Revised Manual of Regulations for Private Schools, DECS Order No. 092-92, August 10, 1992 because premarital sexual relations between two consenting adults who have no impediment to marry each other, and, consequently, conceiving a child out of wedlock, gauged from a purely public and secular view of morality, did not amount to a disgraceful or immoral conduct under the said manual.
The Court ruled that the totality of the circumstances of this case did not justify the conclusion that the employee committed acts of immorality.
According to the Court there is no law which penalizes an unmarried mother by reason of her sexual conduct or proscribes the consensual sexual activity between two unmarried persons; that neither does such situation contravene any fundamental state policy enshrined in the Constitution.
The fact that Brent is a sectarian institution does not automatically subject the employee to its religious standard of morality absent an express statement in its manual of personnel policy and regulations, prescribing such religious standard as gauge as these regulations create the obligation on both the employee and the employer to abide by the same.
Marriage as a Condition for Reinstatement
The Court noted that Brent imposed on the employee the condition that she subsequently contract marriage with her then boyfriend for her to be reinstated.
According to Brent, this was “in consonance with the policy against encouraging illicit or common-law relations that would subvert the sacrament of marriage.”
The Court did not agree.
The doctrine of management prerogative gives an employer the right to “regulate, according to his own discretion and judgment, all aspects of employment, including hiring, work assignments, working methods, the time, place and manner of work, work supervision, transfer of employees, lay-off of workers, and discipline, dismissal, and recall of employees.”
Statutory law is, however, replete with legislation protecting labor and promoting equal opportunity in employment.
No less than the 1987 Constitution3Article XIII, Section 3 mandates that the “State shall afford full protection to labor, local and overseas, organized and unorganized, and promote full employment and equality of employment opportunities for all.”
The Labor Code of the Philippines, meanwhile, provides:
Art. 136. Stipulation against marriage. It shall be unlawful for an employer to require as a condition of employment or continuation of employment that a woman employee shall not get married, or to stipulate expressly or tacitly that upon getting married, a woman employee shall be deemed resigned or separated, or to actually dismiss, discharge, discriminate or otherwise prejudice a woman employee merely by reason of her marriage.
With particular regard to women, the Magna Carta of Women4Under Section 19 (b) Republic Act No. 9710, Approved on August 14, 2009 which provides: SECTION 19. Equal Rights in All Matters Relating to Marriage and Family Relations. — The State shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in all matters relating to marriage and family relations and shall ensure: x x x
(b) the same rights to choose freely a spouse and to enter into marriage only with their free and full consent. The betrothal and the marriage of a child shall have no legal effect; x x x protects women against discrimination in all matters relating to marriage and family relations, including the right to choose freely a spouse and to enter into marriage only with their free and full consent.
Weighed against these safeguards, the Court found that Brent’s condition was coercive, oppressive and discriminatory.
Said the Court:
There is no rhyme or reason for it. It forces the employee to marry for economic reasons and deprives her of the freedom to choose her status, which is a privilege that inheres in her as an intangible and inalienable right.
The Court acknowledged that while a marriage or no-marriage qualification may be justified as a “bona fide occupational qualification,” Brent must have proven two factors necessitating its imposition, viz.:
- that the employment qualification is reasonably related to the essential operation of the job involved; and
- that there is a factual basis for believing that all or substantially all persons meeting the qualification would be unable to properly perform the duties of the job.
The Court, however, found that Brent had not shown the presence of of these factors. Thus, it did not uphold the validity of said condition.
Further reading:
- Capin-Cadiz v. Brent Hospital and Colleges, Inc., G.R. No. 187417, February 24, 2016.
