Justice delayed at SC?
Here is another glaring example of justice delayed, justice denied. And it is timely to discuss it now that the Supreme Court is under intense scrutiny and a new chief justice, who is supposed to see to it that justice is meted out to every citizen fairly, is being chosen.
It concerns the illegal dismissal case of Leo A. Gonzales, an employee of Solid Cement Corp. The case has been dragging in the Supreme Court for the last 13 years. The irony is that Gonzales has already won his case in the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) and the only issue is how much Solid Cement should pay him in back wages and other benefits. It is the Supreme Court itself, the highest court of the land, that is delaying the case.
Gonzales’ calvary started in 1999 when his employer, Solid Cement Corp. of the Cemex Group of Companies, a multinational corporation, illegally dismissed him from his job. The dismissal letter did not even state why he was dismissed. Gonzales filed an illegal dismissal complaint before the NLRC.
The arbiter and the NLRC decided that Gonzales was illegally dismissed and they ordered his reinstatement and payment of full back wages and other benefits and allowances. Solid Cement appealed the decision to the Court of Appeals which affirmed the NLRC decisions. You think Gonzales’ calvary was over? Not by a long shot. Solid Cement appealed to the Supreme Court which also affirmed, on March 9, 2005, the decisions of the arbiter, the NLRC and the Court of Appeals. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court resolution did not specify the components of Gonzales’ back wages, allowances and other benefits. Neither did it compute the exact amount that should be paid to Gonzales.
Thus, when the case was remanded to the arbiter, the latter computed the back wages, allowances and other benefits due Gonzales in the amount of P965,014.16. The NLRC subsequently modified this by increasing the monetary award to P2,805,698.04. Solid Cement and Gonzales filed separate petitions for certiorari in the Court of Appeals and these were subsequently consolidated.
On May 31, 2011, the Court of Appeals issued a decision denying Gonzales’ petition on the sole ground that the Supreme Court resolution issued on March 9, 2005 was already final and executory. It ordered the reinstatement of the arbiter’s order.
Gonzales filed a petition for certiorari with the Supreme Court, but the Second Division, through a minute resolution, hastily and without basis denied the petition. Gonzales filed a motion for reconsideration and at the same time wrote a letter to then Chief Justice Renato Corona, explaining that the Second Division erred in denying his petition. However, nothing happened because the motion for reconsideration was also denied by the Second Division. Gonzales filed a motion for leave to file and admit a second motion for reconsideration and a motion to refer the case to the Supreme Court en banc. This is at present pending in the high court.
Indisputably, the Supreme Court resolution of March 9, 2005 did not specify the components of Gonzales’ back wages, allowances and benefits. Neither did it mention the specific amounts due Gonzales. Thus, in accordance with NLRC Rules of Procedure and prevailing jurisprudence, the arbiter and NLRC threshed out during the execution proceedings the back wages, allowances and benefits or their money equivalents due Gonzales.
During these proceedings, Solid Cement actively participated and even admitted that Gonzales is entitled to some benefits and allowances. So when it filed its petition for certiorari and other pleadings before the Court of Appeals, it never raised as an issue the immutability of judgment.
Since it was the Court that issued the resolution, couldn’t it have easily and correctly interpreted this according to its expressed terms and meaning? However, the Court blindly misinterpreted the resolution. Thus, from 2000 to 2008, it sustained the Court of Appeals decision that Gonzales is entitled to back wages of only P72,575. This is contrary to Article 279 of the Labor Code, which provides that an illegally dismissed employee shall be entitled to full reinstatement with full back wages, benefits and allowances or their monetary equivalent to be computed from the time he was illegally dismissed until the time of actual reinstatement.
Gonzales suspects that his case was railroaded. The case had been assigned to Associate Justice Arturo Brion. The same justice, in a recent and similar case (Session Delights Ice Cream and Fast Foods vs. CA, NLRC et al.; GR 172149, Feb. 8, 2010, 612 SCRA 10) of which he was also the ponente, ruled that the computation of back wages of an illegally dismissed employee shall not violate the immutability of judgment.
Does the Second Division of the Supreme Court know how to correctly interpret a simple resolution? If the Supreme Court cannot interpret its own simple resolution, how can we expect it to interpret complicated laws? How can it appropriately and impartially dispense justice?
